Maria Booker
Readers beware; I have a very different attitude today than I did on Monday. The inefficiencies of Accra are beginning to get to me, and I find myself more than frustrated.
My research is getting off to a slow start. Turns out the information that I need is not as easy to get as some people promised, and I need to go through quite a logistical nightmare in order to get access to it, if it even exists. My host had some business in Kumasi that has taken longer than expected, so I’ve been alone for the best part of my trip, this has meant that I haven’t had a host to accompany me on trips to my research sites. Another entomologist has agreed to accompany me to one research site on Tuesday. Hopefully, my research can start moving forward then.
Additionally, I followed my guidebooks advice and cashed all of my money into traveler’s checks before I left the US, and there is basically nowhere to cash the traveler’s checks in Accra. The local Barclays bank gives me a hard time every day, and will only cash a max of $200 at a time. The hotel doesn’t take credit cards either, so I have to pay as I go, because there is no way that I would have access to that amount of cash. I have to visit the bank every day to cash my checks, and can wait up to an hour a day just to see if they will cash them or not. I spent this morning calling around other locations to see if they cash traveler’s checks, and managed to find a nice hotel that cashed them for me with no issues at all.
Worse than the bank, is internet connectivity. I could scream! The little wifi stick that I have chooses when to find the network, and when I need it most, it either takes 7 minutes to connect, or takes 7 minutes to tell me that the connection was lost. Either way is a nightmare! By the time I get online, I usually forget why I am on there! A big part of the internet issues is probably the weather, it hasn’t let up raining all week – the good news is, I will have plenty of mosquito habitats to study, whenever my research finally gets off the ground.
I know that this was Dr. Tobin’s intention in making us stay for the six-week duration, and I am trying to appreciate that everyone will go through something like this, but that really doesn’t solve my problems or alleviate my frustrations.
I have a scheduled visit to Chorkor on Tuesday. This will be the official beginning of my research. I am going there to pinpoint the locations of solid waste disposal (both official and unofficial) and grey water disposal. I hope to be able to identify rainwater collection around the solid waste disposal areas. I also hope to find a high amount of informal dumping, which will tell me that solid waste disposal is not sufficient. Additionally, I am going to look at grey water practices and hopefully get an idea of the number of people in the area that self-medicate when they have malaria.