The last 24 hours

It's been a crazy last 24 hours. Yesterday I worked in the diabetes ward as usual. After the morning rush I headed over to the maternity ward where I spend most of my free time. Thursday is surgery day so the nurse offered to let me and another volunteer, Elisa, sit in. So we threw on some scrubs and I was able to watch 2 different surgeries. The first was a hysterectomy of a woman about 50 years old who had a problem with excessive bleeding and was past child bearing age. The second the removal of a mass near the uterus which was literally the size of twins. I thought the woman was pregnant! She had been trying to use local herbal medicine for 2 years but it had grown so large she could no longer eat and breathing was difficult. We were standing no more than 5 feet from the table watching the Ghanaian surgeon do his work. It is definitely very different from home (for example they only make a small incision and then with their HANDS rip apart the skin. I got chills watching...). But the doctor was very knowledgeable and explained to us what was going on. He even started singing the Star Spangled Banner in my honor (everyone LOVES Obama and therefore America here). It was probably the coolest thing I've seen since I've been here.
This morning we went to the leprosy village. The people there are cured lepers but they still have wounds and due to the stigma many cannot go home. Beyond that the disease causes toes and fingers to fall off so many  could not work if they were to go home. The wounds are pretty gruesome in some cases, the size of nearly the entire foot while others are not so bad. They live fairly primitively - the government gave them land and an NGO built their houses but there's no running water or electricity and the government only gives them 3C50 a day (which is less than $2). They all have such great spirits and are so happy to talk to us and thankful for our work. It was really incredible to see how they could have so little and yet joke around with us Yavoos. It's something for me to think more about as I head home now, how lucky we all are...