Megan has a birthday, Chad falls asleep, and we all dance

Sunday in Tamale (July 12) began with sleeping in! Sleeping in for us was about 7:30 a.m. At breakfast that morning we all sang Happy Birthday to Megan, and we practiced our church songs so that we were fresh for the service. The church we attended was the one affiliated with our partner we worked with up north. It was actually in the same compound as the hotel that our partner runs and which we stayed at, so we didn’t have far to walk to church. When we got there we joined in on one of the Bible study meetings, which was discussing angels and demons (somewhat fitting considering the conversations we had as a group on the spiritual world earlier that week). Some of us interns had befriended one of the hotel staff (well, more than one). But one guy in particular we had talked to quite a bit, and we had told him the night before that we were singing at church. He had told us he was excited to hear us, but what he failed to mention was that he was the praise team leader for the church. We were shocked! The music was great—the joy and fervor with which the churches here praise the Lord is really infectious. We (the interns) actually ventured out of our seats that Sunday to join the dancing up front. It was really special to be a part of that.

All dressed up for church!

After church that day we had lunch and then were planning to head to the pool for a while in the afternoon. Before we left for the pool Laura and Andrew arrived! It was awesome to see them. John ended up staying at the hotel instead of going to the pool since he had left his swimsuit in Accra. We were all sad that he didn’t go, but we managed to have some fun anyway! We met up at the pool with the “Great White Chief of the North” (David) and his wife and children. The weather was pretty cloudy and looked like rain so we didn’t know how much time we’d have to swim. After a few hours of splashing around and tossing a beach ball back and forth we noticed some lightning and decided it might be a good idea to head out soon. As we were going to change it started raining a LOT. By the time we were ready to go it was pouring so we ran to the van as fast as we could to avoid getting drenched.

 
That evening we were meeting David and his family at a restaurant called Swad. The menu had so many different choices of food on it and we all had a really hard time making decisions on what to get. They had a lot of Indian cuisine, but also traditional Ghanaian, as well as pizza. And we had heard that all of it was good. So naturally we ended up ordering way too much food. And while we each had a ton of our own food, people who had already had their fill would pass down their leftovers for people to try. It was like a never ending food line! It was really good though.

We had team time that night to talk about some things and spend a little time as a whole group. Andrew and Laura had brought a cake that Eva cooked all the way from Accra for Megan’s birthday! It was super delish, and extra special since it had traveled all the way on a plane. It was heavenly to get a little bit of Eva’s cooking—we all sorely missed it at that point. The interns rounded out the evening by hanging out in Jules and Rachel’s room, where Chad promptly fell asleep. We had another long week of clinic work coming up, so we all went to our own rooms fairly early. Instead of going to sleep early like we should have, Helen, Megan and I stayed up really late talking. It was totally worth getting less sleep, though. When your days with people are numbered you grab onto every opportunity for conversation, regardless of how exhausted you know you’ll feel the next morning.