Day 13: Accra Adventure

Friday, 8/20/21

We started off Friday with another great breakfast at our hotel - the breakfast pasta was a favorite - before heading to a meeting with Dr. Yemane Yihdego, an entomologist with PMI VectorLink, and our main collaborator, Sylvester. We had a bit of a miscommunication with the hotel regarding our transportation plans, but they quickly and kindly helped us out! We were then able to explain our algorithm and demo our prototype and app to Dr. Yihdego. This prompted a long conversation with him that gave us a ton of insight into the function and goals of “implementing partners” such as PMI VectorLink, and also what other countries in Africa are doing in terms of their surveillance and control. We received helpful feedback in terms of what's truly important for us to focus on, and also some paths to test out that could truly change the face of entomology.

After our insightful meeting, Dr. Acharya took off with Sylvester to take care of some administrative tasks while we decided to do a bit of sightseeing. (We clearly got the better end of that deal). Our shuttle driver, Ishmael, decided to take us around to some really cool spots around Accra!

Our first stop was the National Museum, which was unfortunately closed but had a cool sculpture garden to check out. It also had a garage full of old cars that belonged to the first president of Ghana.

We then were driving around to try to stop at the first president’s mausoleum, but instead ended up at a cultural center market. Immediately upon getting out of the van, a group of men decided we must be taught how to play the drums. They first played us a welcome song themselves, then passed the drums over to us so we could join them. Spencer, kind as always, was keeping an eye on us and our things as we were practicing our new skills.

We then were able to actually find the mausoleum, so we walked around those grounds for a while. It was a beautiful building with the tomb of both the first president and his wife, next to a museum of his life. We were lucky Ishmael was with us all day because he was explaining so much to us everywhere!

We went straight to lunch at the nearby mall after this so that we would be ready to debrief with Dr. Acharya when he returned. We ended up extending lunch a bit because of all of our enjoyable conversations.

We did eventually return to the hotel though, and commandeered a conference room to have a proper debrief with Spencer and Dr. Acharya. We talked through a bunch of what they learned in Uganda, much of which has been reinforced in Ghana so far, and brainstormed a variety of options moving forward. It was a pretty long conversation, but really informative. And since we actually all like each other (at least from my opinion), it was pretty fun too.

We decided to brainstorm some ideas for dinner, and ended up rushing to the plane across the street to eat. Yes, it was an actual plane sitting beside the road right across from the hotel. We walked up the stairs into the cabin to grab our table. It was a very unique place and had great food as well.

(that quality tho)

Overall, it was a pretty fun and productive day!

-Summer