My Time in Nsawam

So we spent the past day and a half in a town called Nsawam at the Catholic Orthopedic Training Center, which is basically like a hospital, or a center, for kids and adults with amputations or deformities that need assistance, either short or long term.  They serve over 6500 patients throughout Ghana, and most are outpatients but they do have inpatients. They make the braces, prosthetics, crutches, corrective shoes, etc, right at the center.  Each patient is measured for their specific needs, and the workers there make them within a few days or weeks. I absolutely loved the time that we spent at the OTC.  I learned so much, met some amazing people, and had a great time.

Children born with disabilities here are basically considered cursed.  This is an ancient view on disabilities that is still present here in Africa.  In Ghana, it is believed that a newborn isn’t a person until he or she has lived for 8 days, so it is not uncommon for parents to kill their newborn babies born with disabilities.  They “send them back to the Gods” by not letting them live.  It’s not necessarily that the parents are bad people, it is just that is what they believe and it is part of their culture.

Where the prosthetics are made

People without arms or legs is more common in Africa, basically because the medicine here isn’t nearly as good as in the United States.  In the US, if someone badly burns their arm, gets in a motor vehicle accident, or gets an infection, doctors can usually save their limbs.  In Ghana, people either put off going to the hospital because they know they can’t afford it so they don’t go until it’s an absolute emergency, or the doctors just aren’t skilled enough so amputating is the best option for survival.  Birth defects are also common because people are poorly educated when it comes to prenatal care.  Sometimes, mothers try to abort their babies by taking medication, and when it doesn’t work, the children are born with disabilities.

While I was at mass, the group met a woman named Louisa who was born without arms.  She has been given many awards for her work in education and for being a role model for people with disabilities in Africa.  She was a baby who was supposed to be sent back to the Gods, but somehow survived.  I didn’t get to hear her whole story because I wasn’t there, but from what I heard, it sounded pretty amazing. She has learned to do everything with her feet.  She eats, cleans, writes, etc using her feet.  You know how people sometimes talk with their hands and make big gestures when explaining things? She does that with her feet. It is rather remarkable.  She invited us to her village on Sunday where we met the village administrators, chiefs, and elders.  It is customary for the village leaders to meet and welcome the guests, so we went around to different places and met the leaders.  We also got to go into her home.  She was extremely welcoming, sweet, intelligent, and definitely inspiring.  She had a documentary made about her and is just overall very successful. It was an honor to meet such an amazing woman.

Louisa showed us how she lights her stove.  She strikes a match with her feet!

After getting back to the OTC (Orthopedic Training Center) that afternoon and eating lunch, Sister Elizabeth, one of the women who run the center, gave us a tour of the factory where the prosthetic legs and stuff are made.  It was Sunday so the workers weren’t there, but she basically told us what each bench made and a quick overview of how they make them.  When I was at the OTC with just Professor Mackelprang, the workers were in the factory room, and a few of them explained to me exactly what they were doing, but it was very hard for me to understand them with their accents.  It’s pretty amazing how resourceful they are when it comes to creating things to assist the people with disabilities.  The patients basically don’t have to pay anything, and the center can fix people in the simplest of ways.  Making prosthetic legs is a big part of what they do, and a lot goes into each and every patient.

That evening after dinner, Dr. Scott Finnie brought out his guitar to the kids classroom and played music and sang songs with the children as well as some of the older kids and people who work there.  It was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.  Scott sang them many American songs, including Jesus Loves Me and Twist & Shout, and they sang us some Ghanaian songs.  The kids would get up and dance around.  There was one boy named Zach who has two prosthetic legs who  was just dancing nonstop.  Seeing all these kids with physical disabilities sing and dance to songs that we played for them was just awesome.  It was definitely a highlight of my trip.

Today, we got to just spend time with the kids in the center.  We played with them outside, colored, played with toys, and played on their new computers.  It was very fun.  The kids love us white people and are always trying to get us to play with them. There was this certain little girl who was extremely quiet who attached to me and she was the cutest thing.  She was born with her feet facing the wrong way & I’m not sure if they were turned in or out, but she was wearing special corrective shoes attached to a metal bar that connects her feet so they are forced to face forward.  Eventually, it will correct her feet permanently.  She has to walk with the bar, so it’s similar to walking with a snowboard.  She has to slide one foot at a time.  I kept asking her name and age, but she would just look at me.  The only time she spoke was when I asked her to name colors, so she did speak English.  She wanted to play and color and have me hold her, but she just wouldn’t talk. I think she was just very shy.  But she was adorable.

Something that stood out to me about the kids was that when it was snack time, almost every single one offered to share with us.  They weren’t good at sharing with each other, but they all offered us a cookie or some juice.  It was very sweet.  Also, one of the only white people they really know is Sister Elizabeth, so they called all of us “Sister”, because that’s what they know.

I really enjoyed the short time we spent at OTC. I only wish that we had gotten to spend more time!

We arrived at the house in Abomosu about an hour and a half ago or so, which was around 10pm.  We will be living here until next Friday, spending time in this rural community.

Adios! I Miss everyone!