Semper Gumby! (Always Flexible!)

While planning our 2-week Humanitarian experience with our USU students, we realized that we would have to be very flexible, especially working with the Ghanaian idea of "set in stone" and "on time".  We had our son Jonathan design us a crest with the words, Semper Gumby...after the Marine Corps slogan "Semper Fi".  Except in our case it meant "always flexible".  We had no idea how prophetic that idea would become.

(Andy and his friends)

This is the Adjei Kojo State School for the Deaf at Ashaiman, near Tema.  We had arranged with the Headmaster about  month ago to come back after doing some preparation work for fitting hearing aids on his children.  The day before we were to go, the Ghanaian government cut the funding for the last semester to all the Special Education schools in the country, including the schools for the Deaf.  The government does not provide money for education, but only for food.  Interesting....but because we had students who had come so far and hearing aids donated by Starkey, the headmaster kept the school open for the two days to finish what we had started.

We were joined by another group from the US and Andy (above) was with them.  One of our USU students received this letter from a little girl he fit with a hearing aid.  It was so precious.  Virtually all of the students assigned to deaf schools have never had a hearing test, so often we found that the children had some residual hearing that could be amplified by a hearing aid.  They, of course, are very behind in speech, but hearing something is wonderful.

Unfortunately, the Mompong Demonstration School for the Deaf where we were to spend both Friday and Monday went ahead and closed.  So,  "Semper Gumby...we went to

plan "B"!!  

This is Jack and his Dad.  He is a young man who came to Africa with one of John's former students, Tad Bergen.  Jack was screened as a newborn and found to have a hearing loss and given a hearing aid from birth.  He has developed into a bright, active young man who then collected 150 hearing aids in Georgia, where he lives, and wanted to bring them to Africa to help other children.  And...he did!

We even ended up screening our bus and van drivers!  Above is Yaw, who drove our van.  World Joy (who we partnered with in Abomosu) was kind enough to provide the van during these two weeks.

Thursday evening we sent home Amy Porter, Jeff Larsen and Hunter and Kirk Jensen.  They had to return early to the US, so to say goodbye, we hosted a pool party at our apartment with pizza and cake.  These beautiful cakes were made by Floxy who works at the clinic.  She does a beautiful job and it tasted absolutely delicious!  It was good for our students to just relax.  They have been working extremely long, hot hours.

On Friday we executed plan "B" and took the students to the KorleBu Teaching Hospital.  The doctors have ended their strike, so they were overcome with patients.  They fit 27 hearing aids, did an ABR, newborn hearing screening and then went to a nearby school to do screening.  Our student, Ramatu, had been working on her Masters Research project here and had found many children with problems, so we split the crew and worked on both.

T

On Saturday, we went to the Africa West Area Offices and did a community screening at the Stake Center.  It was a long day, but we had lots of patients.  

The students brought lots of things with them besides the 75 soccer balls.  The Mensah family 
(he is the first counselor in the Ghana Temple Presidency) has an orphanage near Takoradi.  Sister Mensah asked if maybe the students could bring some books or clothes for their children, who have nothing.  The students ended up with 5 boxes of books, a huge garbage bag of toys, and 6 large garbage bags of children's clothes and shoes.                                                               Our daughter, Kristina, sent baby blankets too.
 The Mensah's were in shock!

Sunday was a free day and everyone was back at the teaching hospital on Monday for a half day.  Many of the patients seen at the Stake center on Sat. were referred to the Hearing Assessment Center and showed up Monday morning.
Everyone then came to our apartment for a light dinner, some relaxation, a quick view of the videos we took during the two weeks, and then Ramsford Oosu, our bus driver dropped them off at the airport.  They will fly out in about an hour and 1/2, but it is already too quiet here at the apartment.
They were all very "semper gumby" during these two weeks, and we will be forever grateful for them giving unselfishly of their time and talents.
We saw a quote today from Harold B. Lee that said, "There's the secret of your happiness in life, when you analyze it, to learn to live outside yourself in love."
Good job, guys...Team USU and Team UG.