I went in to the hospital this morning for my internship and there were lots of children! There is now only 1 pediatrician working as the second one had to go back to the hospital in Korle Bu where she works for half the year.  So, Dr. Kwarteng now has a lot on her plate and when i talked to her about this she said that she has to work every single day, even weekends. She has been working every day for the past 2 weeks.  I feel bad for her, it seems as though her job consumes her life, and its sad that there arent other pediatricians to work in this hospital.  Anyway, there were a couple of children who had otitis media (a type of ear infection)...one child had developed septic arthritis in her hip and when she first came in she did not fully stretch her leg at the hip and knee due to the pain.  I saw something that i have never seen before, her leg was wrapped and she had some sort of foot brace with a rope attached and hanging off the side of the bed with a bag weighed down with something. The doctor explained to me that this stretches out the leg and helps relieve the pain. I thought this was really interesting.  I also saw the little girl who had been severely burned on her face, back and arm and was so happy to see that she was very active and happy. She looked SO much better and was finally discharged.  We went over to the maternity ward and there was only 1 baby that had been born yesterday. The doctor did the newborn baby check and then went to speak to the mother who was laying down in the room for c-section patients. She spoke to her in english so i was able to get the conversation for the most part.  I discovered that this woman had HIV and that was why the doctor wanted to speak to her.  She asked her whether she would choose to breastfeed or formula feed the baby and explained to her that she must choose one or the other and stick only to that.  Its very dangerous to do mixed feeding when the mother has HIV as it increases the baby's chance of getting HIV.  The doctor stressed this to the mother that the second she decides to stop breastfeeding, she must only use formula/other foods.  This really interested me because breastfeeding is one of the main areas i am focusing in on for my internship and my research paper.  I had already done some research about HIV positive women and breastfeeding, so i knew all of this, but it was interesting to see it in the form of a real life situation.  The mother also has Hepatitis B, therefore the baby must get the hep b immunization as well as the immunoglobulin if it were available( which it was).  One thing that really surprised me was that the doctor asked one of the nurses if this baby had been fed at all yet, and the nurse replied "I think so yes, with Nan (formula)." The doctor said "did you ask her first if she decided to breastfeed or use formula since she is HIV positive?" , and she said they had not.  This is such an important thing that should be handled right from the start and yet no one even spoke to the mother about her options!

Tonight, me and some girls from our group went in to Osu and had dinner at Citizen's Kofi where it was Taco Tuesday.  We had eaten here before (burritos and nachos) but were really excited about getting tacos.  Well this excitement turned out to be very much so a dissapointment as these tacos were the TINIEST tacos i have ever seen in my life...and they were 4 cedis...not even cheap!! I ate one, then afterwards bought 2 scoops of gelato and was happy.  We took a tro tro there but to get back to campus we got a taxi and the driver let all 6 of us squeeze in to the cab meant for 4 people.  Things are much different here if you didnt already figure that out!! But its all part of the experience and im loving every moment of it :)