The Local Way

Here's a short post since I still have some preparation to do before I leave for Tamale in the morning but I wanted to share a couple of photos. Back in April, a community member Vitus was in a moto accident that broke his leg. Strangely enough, he was actually parked sitting on the machine when someone hit him. His leg was broken in three places and bone was showing. He was in a different village at the time and opted to seek treatment with a local healer rather than go to the hospital for a variety of reasons. He didn't want to cause trouble for the man who hit him (Vitus is very forgiving) and also was afraid if he went to the hospital they would end up amputating his leg. He's known of other people that's happened to from broken legs perhaps because of the lack of advancement in medicine here. He stayed in the village to be treated for more than a month and a cast was fashioned out of sticks and clothe. Now he's back in Gbedema and is doing much better; he can even get around on crutches now. Soon his cast will be taken off so he let me snap a few photos today before that happens. I try to go visit him often since he spends all day sitting/laying on a bench under a tree outside his house and I know he gets bored. Plus his English is very good and he works with an NGO so understands us foreigners and is easy to talk to. He knew that people in America would find the traditional medicine interesting like I do and was happy for me to share these photos with you. I'm going to Tamale then Kumasi for a meeting Saturday for the Ghana AIDS Project (or GhAP). Then next week I'm attending a training in Tamale on Youth Empowerment for the Gender Challenge Project. Hopefully I'll have a chance to post more photos and perhaps a video when I have access to high speed update. I'll write more about my travel later!