Tuesday July 3, 2012  Africa:  Day 23

            We had planned to run a workshop with  one of the women’s vocational schools at Buduburam, but it got cancelled that morning.  Instead we sat in the school’s kitchen for a while watching the women bake, then we walked over to meet the person in charge of the medical clinic and then the man the nutrition center and visited again with the man that helps run the place.  As we were getting ready to go home, a friend of Keith’s came over to the van to introduce himself to all the abruneis (the Twi word for white person).  This man named Patrick is a Liberian refugee and also the most popular mortician in the area.  He is apparently the most wealthy person on the camp because his business is so sought after.  He proceeded to go on and on telling us that Liberians are much better at taking care of bodies than Ghanaians.  He said that Ghanaians still use formaldehyde as the primary embalming technique, and they don’t always pay attention to diseases that can spread even after the person is dead.  He didn’t have a lot of positive things to say about Ghanaians in general, which was a little awkward because the driver, Dixon (another intern that comes with us), and Francisca (a WISE employee that comes with us to the camp, as well) are all Ghanaian.  Patrick then offered to show us what he was talking about.  He explained that he had a body in the back of his hearse that had been initially preserved by the Ghanaians.  He is known in the community for his ability to make the body look good (Keith kept going on about how he can make scars, lacerations, etc. disappear on the person’s face), so this body had been given to him to fix.  We turned around and saw a hearse parked just behind us in with a bunch of guys out working on the engine.  If that scene wasn’t odd enough, it just added to the “is this really happening?” moment when we realized that the body was just sitting in the back while the car was getting repaired.  He walked us over, opened the side door, and let us look at the bloated formaldehyde-filled body of a woman.  All of us stood there for a minute, then we quietly walked back to the bus.  We didn’t say much to each other, but I could tell we were all just trying to process what just happened. 

            That afternoon we had the driver drop us off at the WISE office to meet with our supervisor Odwuwa to talk about our work and answer some questions that we needed for a school assignment.  After that we walked to a little French bakery run by a Lebanese family.  They have delicious food and free internet so we spent a few hours checking email and eating pastries.  We stopped at the Accra Mall on our way home to go grocery shopping and to get ready for another day that’s guaranteed to be filled with the unexpected, just like today.