After finishing my second year in medicine in the Netherlands, I felt like I wanted to experience more somewhere else in the world. I’m very interested in tropical medicine and Ghana was one of the country’s that offered a medical project in a tropical environment.
A special moment
I always liked the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and after observing a week at the labor ward I got to make my first ultrasound. Seeing the heart and hearing the heartbeat was very special. I got to do a lot of things a long as I asked. You have to show initiative but this gave me the opportunity to do things I had never done before.
Making a change
Next to the hospital, I also visited an orphanage for physically challenged people with one of my friends from Ghana. She had brought two clotheslines for them to hang up their wet clothes. It was great to see that after half an hour, they already started using them. I know it is not a huge thing but for them, having their clothes dry in the air instead of the dirty floor is a good change.
Inspiration for the future
This adventure inspired me to travel even more and even further. Before this adventure I loved the idea of doing my job while traveling the world. Now I know for sure that this is what I would like to do.
Learnings from Ghana
When I’m going to travel to another country and experience something new, I tend to imagine myself already there. I think about what I would like to see, what feelings I will feel and what people I’m going to meet. But in fact, it has ALWAYS turned out completely different from what I expected it to be. My advice to you is: let go of your own ideas about how the whole adventure will turn out. Instead, try to accept the situation you are in, make the best of it, go out of your comfort zone and experience it as fully as possible.
Many times we experienced crazy and unimaginable things, never possible in our home countries. When we tried to explain what just had happened, we would look and say to each other ‘…. only in Ghana ‘.
This post was written by AIESEC in the Netherlands. We offer international voluntary projects and professional internships with the aim of developing leadership in youth.
