Internship hunt

I've been scrambling about searching for a suitable internship for the past few weeks. I'm pretty behind compared to other people who are already 3 weeks into their internships. I guess i just didn't want to deal with the search when I was still figuring out my class schedule, having to crash a billion courses and all.

Internship hunting has interesting. I took my first trotro ride alone in search of an internship last week. Tro tros are the main form of public transportation here. They're minivans that can hold up to 25 passengers. They're also super cheap! It usually ranges from 20 to 40 cents a ride depending on your destination. You gotta learn to be aggressive because people will rush onto a tro tro, pushing their way for a seat. If you're not aggressive enough, too bad so sad, you'll have to wait for the next one. "Don't be a lady," one guy said to me as he scrambled past and claimed the last spot in the tro tro this morning.

Anyway, last week i went to visit Mrs. Dove, a woman who started a special education school for autistic and ADHD kids. She's known for hooking the international students up with internships. What a tro tro adventure! My directions to her place were pretty vague, so i wasn't sure which tro tro to take. I figure i'd just ask for Dimples Junction and find my way there. What basically happened was that all the people i talked to misunderstood me and thought I said Saint Pauls because with a Ghanaian accent, St Pauls sounds a lot like Dimples. I thought they were saying Simples when they said St Pauls, so i hopped right on board the tro tro and wound up in the random city of St. Pauls. hahaha. Anyway, a few phone calls and two tro tro rides later, and finally wound up in the right place. Phew! A two-hour ordeal that shoulda taken only about a half hour.

Mrs. Dove introduced me to a few facilities that weren't quite what I was looking for, but this week she pulled a few strings and took me to a physiotherapy facility. The center opened just last year and is run by a really sweet woman named Anna who got her PT education in Canada. It is a suuuper nice place. Just as nice, if not nicer, than the typical private pt center in America. And since it is so new, Anna and her colleague don't see a whole ton of patients a day, which works to my advantage since the docs would have more time to teach me. On the downside, it's a private institute, so she sees wealthier patients. I was hoping to work with more disadvantaged patients (socio-economically speaking).

I also visited a military hospital last week. When i went, the waiting room was completely full, as was the PT gym (as opposed to Anna's one patient that was there during my visit). If i work there, I'd be helping out with patients in the gym and with the children. While there may be a greater need for assistance at the military hospital, I'm afraid I won't learn as much (and may even pose as a burden) just because the doctors are so busy with all the patients that they won't have much time to direct and teach me. Well, I plan to make a decision by Monday.

I would much rather have a public health internship. It's ok though because I have an acquaintance who is starting up a public health NGO volunteer program called Hope in Africa Foundation. ( This is different from the well known organization with the same name that we see on TV back home, which is based in South Africa). He wants me to be one of the coordinators of the foundation so that they can get an American's perspective of their project set up, since the volunteer program is geared towards Westerners. Seems like a huge responsibility. I haven't agreed to do it yet.

I also want to do some volunteer work. Probably at a woman's refugee camp because some of my friends want to start a woman's health/reproductive education workshop there. So more public health galore. =)

I'll keep you updated.

(Tro tro picture. Doesn't do much justice since it's a far shot of a moving tro tro. You miss the funny driver sidekick who leans out the door, gives a specific hand gesture, and yells out the destination so fast that it just sounds like random crazy noise ("Cra!cra!cra!cra!cra!cra!" = Accra) You're also missing the scrambling crowd of people that usually surround the door when it stops. =P )