Poor Laura
on Anthony Lovat in Bolgatanga (Ghana), Unknown, 34 days ago
How quickly things can change. Laura was, despite taking a course of antibiotics, still feeling nauseous, vomiting and running diarrhoea. Without being able to eat regularly, Laura was losing weight worryingly fast. Despite this, we were still looking for signs of improvement, discussing her starting back at the training college and even preparing for a road trip into northern Togo and Benin. Eventually, on Thursday 28th April, she e-mailed the VSO doctor in London asking for advice. The advice was clear: fly straight to Accra for reliable medical checks and then on to London where, crucially, there is no malarial risk. The wheels were set into motion.One product of living here is the expectation of slow movement. Decisions are made one week, tentative plans may be made the next, letters may be sent the following week and then, possibly a month later, the event might actually occur. The pace of events between the decision to leave and the action of leaving surprised us both.We couldn’t book a flight because Amtrak Air, Ghana’s only internal flight company, are worse than useless. Our only hope was to turn up at the airport in Tamale the following morning. We left Bolga at 4am and, although the first flight was booked, Laura and her mum left on the 12 midday flight to land in Accra before 2pm. I said goodbye to Laura, not knowing if I’d see her again until July.After some confusion and a few phone calls to emergency doctors unable to work over the Easter period, Laura checked into North Ridge Clinic in Accra. She was put on a drip, given yet another course of antibiotics, some anti-nausea treatment and a whole load of blood / urine / faecal tests.Laura’s mum flew back to England on Saturday evening but Laura was still too weak to travel. I therefore travelled by bus down to Accra to look after Laura, arriving in the early hours of Sunday morning.Money can’t buy love but it can buy you a good medical service. North Ridge Clinic is an oasis of first-world practice and it was a relief to see Laura so well looked after. The scans were particularly reassuring. The baby was fine, growing healthily and, we discovered, a boy.“It’s a boy,” the doctor told us, without asking if we wanted to know or not (we did!). “Do you see the penis there?” He pointed at the fuzzy splodge on the screen. “Very small!”We booked a flight back to London for Wednesday 27th. Laura was well enough to travel and so, after a few days vegetating in our private ward, she left.I walked back down the ramp to the main road from the departures terminal. It was dark and the lights from the city flickered like stars in the distance, simultaneously obscuring the stars in the sky, so much less clear in Accra than Bolga. I caught a taxi back into the city thinking about how quickly our plans have changed - how easy it is for us to come and go from this country.I have less than three months left. VSO have given me 6000GHc to spend before July. I have no work to do in England until September. The sensible thing to do is to stay and finish what I came here for. Laura is well looked after and will get the best treatment. Modern communication technology means she is only ever a phone call away. Nonetheless, I can’t help thinking that my heart is no longer in Ghana - it’s in East Surrey hospital’s Bletchingly ward.This volunteering lark is not easy, you know.