Day 19: Walewale to Tamale

Thursday - August 26, 2021

Thursday was the last day of our quick trip up to Walewale, so we started out early to go meet Frank back at the Moonlight Lodge were they had set up their temporary lab bench. When we got to the lodge, Frank had already prepared the samples that were going to be sent to PCR, so we quickly imaged them on our phones with our prototypes. I had 774 pictures of mosquitoes on my phone by the end of the trip! Sylvester met us at the lodge and we decided to leave Walewale once we had finished up with taking the pictures. We said goodbye to Frank and left some prototypes behind with him, then we were on our way back to the rest of the team!

// Frank never sent us the pictures we took :( //

The ride back to Tamale was pretty quiet and really beautiful. I really enjoyed watching the surroundings. The northern region of Ghana is so different than near Accra, so it was fun to compare this drive with our previous drive to Boti falls.

We returned to our hotel in Tamale and started uploading the photos we took before heading back to the PMI office to meet up with the rest of the team. We were able to watch mosquito dissections at this time, in which the techs look for parity. Essentially, our collaborator, Jerry, was pulling the ovaries out of mosquitoes to view under a microscope in order to determine whether these mosquitoes have given birth before. Whether or not mosquitoes have reproduced provides valuable information about the effectiveness of interventions. While this process is certainly complex, Jerry made it look easy!

Since this was our last day in Tamale, we went out to eat a late lunch with all of our new friends! We had a great time talking at our go to restaurant in Tamale, Luxury.

After this great time with our collaborators, we stopped by the cultural market to look for some gifts. It was getting later, so we stopped in a couple shops and looked around. However, we had a final meeting with PMI so we cut the excursion short. We needed to head back to the PMI offices for the final time. We debriefed the trip and talked about best steps in moving forward. Our collaborators kindly answered more of our questions and we were able to wrap up everything we needed to. We learned an incredible amount during this trip, thanks to these amazing people. They devoted so much time to helping us learn, and now we are much better prepared to take this project to the next level. Hopefully we will be returning with a new prototype system soon!

We were sad to say goodbye to everyone, but they were only partway through their collection period and were still very busy. We gave out hugs and fist bumps, then were on our way back to the hotel. Well, at least Spencer, Janis, and I headed back to the hotel. Rebecca, Christina, and Josh went to the ATM to get the cash we would need to pay our drivers with. Apparently, withdrawing $2,000 dollars in Ghanaian currency from an ATM in Tamales isn't the easiest thing to accomplish. Rebecca and Christina were amazing though, and they figured out everything that we needed in order to make sure we were good to leave the next day.

It had been a long couple days of field work, so Janis and I decided some fries and ice cream would be a perfect end to the day. We had started working on writing up some of the blog when there was a knock on the door. We were so excited for the fries and ice cream! Unfortunately... the knock was Josh and Spencer coming to also work on the blog and debrief some notes. I swear we were actually very happy to have them join us! (the food came soon after) And we finished up the night with some fun conversation. We were all sad to be leaving Tamale and begin the journey of coming home, but we knew we had a ton to work on when we get back!

-Summer