Long time no post. Sorry to all my dedicated followers, as I'm sure there are many of you! I intended to write a post a while back but due to one thing or another, like my electricity going in and out, I did not. As they say in Ghanaian English, Sorry-o!
I feel like this past month as flown by. Thanksgiving was a great success. The US Ambassador to Ghana graciously opened his house to the PCVs and some other workers in Ghana. Two buffet tables filled with delicious food and lots of beer, wine, and sangria. It was the same as how we do in America, but pretty darn close. The fact that I was even able to have a Thanksgiving dinner was perfect enough. I definitely was not expecting that when I came to Ghana. The dinner was wonderful and I was able to catch up with some friends I have not seen in quite it a bit. Naturally, we all went out into Accra later that night to continue the Thanksgiving celebrations. It was definitely a night to remember. But alas, you cannot escape work forever, so I had to return to the village.
Before I traveled to Accra for Thanksgiving, however, I attended a Nutrition In-Service Training in Kumasi (Ashanti Region). I brought a local counterpart with me; a National Service teacher working at the local JHS. She was a great companion and I believe she truly learned a lot and enjoyed the training events. She and I met yesterday to discuss some projects we would like to start with our newly acquired nutrition knowledge and materials. The leaders of the training are colleagues of mine and at the end of the four days, they were generous enough to provide all the attendees with a nutrition toolkit. My counterpart and I now have several books, CDs, photographs, and posters to use to implement projects in our town. Yesterday we decided that we would like to start going to the churches on Sunday to talk about nutrition and health-related issues. As you may or may not know, religion is a very big part of life in Ghana, so naturally, most Ghanaians go to church on Sundays, or mosque on Friday if you are Muslim. This provides us with a captive audience, so they cannot escape when we come to talk to them. One week from today we will go to the Methodist church and lead a small lesson on food groups and use some photo cards to help us. We have also made arrangements to go to the Mosque in two weeks. I am very pleased with what we have planned and I believe it will go well.
My snail project is coming along nicely, at least it seems that way so far. I've been meeting with the students once a week to discuss our plans and start education on snail farming. At our last meeting I asked the president and vice-president of the club to meet with the other students and locate a place where we can construct our snail pens. It has to be somewhere shaded and in a place that no one will be able to steal from. I am meeting with them tomorrow, so I hope that they have completed their assignment and bring me some good news. One of my other counterparts, who is occasionally helping me with this project, informed me you cannot find snails this time of year, so that might delay our project a bit. Apparently the best time to collect snails from the wild is during the raining season, but now the rainy season is coming to an end and the quantity of snails is decreasing. Hopefully we will still be able to gather some, but we shall see. Fingers crossed. I am actually very intrigued by this snail farm. I never thought I would be that invested, but it is actually very interesting. I've learned quite a lot about snails and they are actually a pretty cool animal (mollusk? whatever they are). The only problem with them is that they taste nasty. At least I think so.
On Wednesday I am meeting with the pregnant women and women with children under five years old. I made an announcement this past Wednesday at the baby weighing informing about the meeting and my project. My counterparts and I are anxious to start the bed net distribution project, so we need to start meeting with the women to gather names and start education. This meeting will give me an initial count of how many women will be involved and about how many nets I will need to order. As soon as I can nail down a solid number I can write and submit my grant so we can fund this project. The goal is to educate the women about malaria and why they are most susceptible to it (when they are pregnant or when they have children under five years old). We will do many different kinds of malaria education such as: clips and videos, flip charts, bed net hanging demonstrations, neem creem demonstrations (a local mosquito repellant made from the Neem tree), question and answer sessions, and lessons using photos and materials provided to us PCVs. My counterparts are very invested and dedicated to this project and have already told me they will take time out their schedule to attend the meeting next week. I'll keep you all informed as to how things turn out, but I have a good feeling about this one.
I have also started an English tutoring club at the JHS to help students practice for their final exams at the end of the year - the BECE (Basic Education Certification Exam? something like that). There are several different subjects on the exam and since I am a native English speaker and you cannot really succeed in this country without learning English, I decided to help some students. Two teachers and the headmaster selected the top 20 students and those are the students we are going to use for the initial group. We did this because we only want to students who are serious and dedicated to their education. If the group is filled with students who do not care and already have a lower level of English, it will affect the group dynamic and it will not be successful. We are starting with these students and then as the group progresses and if it is successful, we will expand to other students. It is hard not being able to include all the students, but this is the best way to start and we will take it from there. The head English teacher gave me a book with all the past BECE English exams so I am looking over them and developing lesson plans. The students really need to improve their English comprehension and critical thinking skills. It is remarkable how bad it is. I have been in school on many different occasions and asked questions and I am just met with blank stares, like I was speaking in an alien language or something. The classes here are mostly taught through repetition and copying. They teacher writes something on the board and the students copy it. That is how they learn. Everything is memorized and they never (usually) seem to think for themselves or even have the ability to do so. It's quite sad, but that is the ugly truth. Hopefully this club will ameliorate these problems.
That is pretty much what I have going as far as projects. I feel like I am forgetting something but I cannot think of it at the moment. Everything is going wonderfully and I hope it all continues that way.
The Ghanaian Presidential election as held on Friday and it looks like the NDC party has won. They are still counting votes but it is all but confirmed that NDC will stay in power. If that is the case, then there will be no run-off in the next few weeks and PCVs will be taken off "Standfast." This is one of our safety protocols. During times that might turn violent or something happens in the country, PCVs are usually put on Stanfast, which means we must stay at our respective sites and pack a bag just in case we have to consolidate to our consolidation points. Thankfully nothing violent happened during the election and I believe we will be back to normal soon enough.
It is hard to believe that it is Christmas time already. It sure does not feel like it over here. No Christmas lights or trees and definitely no snow, although I am grateful for that. It is definitely going to be a tropical Christmas this year. Several of my colleague have already left for America to spend the holidays at home and many are still planning to leave in the next few days. However, there are a few of us staying behind so we will be getting together so we can celebrate amongst ourselves. Then as soon as everyone returns from America I will be heading out to South Africa and Zimbabwe to meet up with my parents. I am VERY excited for this trip. I will be gone for three weeks and it cannot come fast enough! About 43 days to go until my flight leaves Accra!
That is all for now folks!
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
Snails, Bed Nets, Hand-Washing Stations, Moringa, and More!
Let me start off by saying these past few days have been pretty wonderful. One good thing after the other, for the most part. If everything was going perfectly I would be a little bit worried. But so far so good and I'm quite content with that. You never know what you're going to get in Peace Corps, so on the inside I'm jumping with joy. I've got a lot on my plate right now and LOVE it. The sticky note I have on my laptop (not an actual sticky note for all you technology dinosaurs...Mom...a sticky note app for your desktop) is stretched the length of my screen, filled with plans and activities. But first, let's start with the most important topic of discussion...my social life...
As we all know Halloween has just passed, and being in Ghana didn't stop us from celebrating, we just did it Peace Corps style. It was actually refreshing not to see any slutty nurses, slutty cats, slutty this and slutty that. I went to a Halloween party with a decent amount of people, not too big not too small. There were some pretty good costumes, so creativity points well well deserved. We had Wayne, Garth, and Cassandra from Wayne's World, two Rugrats (I'm not familiar with this show), a clapping monkey with cymbals, a Ghanaian man (you'd have to see it to understand why it's funny, but it was), a Ghanaian bread seller (this was a guy dressed as a woman, dress and bread on head, the whole nine yards), and last but definitely not least three bottles of beer - I was one of them. Two of my friends and I dressed as three of the most common beers here in Ghana: Club, Star, and Stone. Club is by far the most popular among PCVs, and that was my costume. I made bottle cap earrings and gently stitched the label to my shirt. The others did the same or something similar. It was actually pretty great. The party location was perfect for Halloween. It was a PCVs site, off the beaten path, down a dirt road, in the middle of a forest, and no electricity. What more could you want? It was really fun though.
So back to why I joined Peace Corps...saving the world and all. Let's talk about that. As of now, I have six activities/events on my sticky note. Most of them are projects I'm getting ready to start or projects I would like to do sometime in the near future. I've done a fair amount of research into each project so it's just a matter or prioritizing and seeing which ones we can start first. Here's what I got...
Bed Net Distribution: As I've mentioned before, malaria is a terrible problem over here, and many people are suffering from it, health and money wise. In the long run, it's just cheaper to prevent malaria than to treat it over and over again. Anyways, in efforts to combat malaria, I want to distribute nets around my town. I can't distribute nets to the 7,000 people in my town, that just seems like a major headache and hassle. Pregnant women and children five years old and younger are most affected by malaria, so my plan is to distribute nets to families with pregnant women and/or children five and under. That will reduce the number of people getting nets to a more reasonable number for grant writing purposes, but at least it is still addressing the problem of malaria. I plan to conduct a survey to see how many pregnant women we have and how many children five and under we have. Once I have that figure, I can submit my grant for nets. In order to receive nets, the community has to contribute something towards the overall budget to prove that they are dedicated to and invested in the project, so I'm still playing around with that to figure out what they can do. I've already been in contact with a net distributor and she has been very helpful, so I'm hoping the rest of the process runs smoothly.
Snail Farm: I think I mentioned this before, but we are going to start snail farm at my JHS. Snails are considered a delicacy in Ghana. I, however, strongly disagree. I tried it once in Eastern Region, and it was probably one of the grossest things I have ever eaten...and I've eaten some pretty weird things before - grubs in Thailand, and zebra in Kenya, for example...there are plenty others but I won't gross you out. Chewing on the snail meat was like chewing on a piece of my own tongue. It doesn't smell that great either. Yet, there is a lot of money to be made in the snail industry, so we are going to get our JHS kids to raise snails at the school. During the dry season snails are pretty rare so the price rises, and our goal is to have the students to sell the snails to the market women in town. This way the students will be able to start a fund that they can use for something in the future (like school supplies or renovations, etc.) It will also, hopefully, teach them responsibility because they will all have to pitch in and help raise the snails. The success of this project will depend on them, and I hope it works. My counterpart and I will be briefing the Form 1s and Form 2s about the project and hope to collect a few interested students. I plan to name one of the snails Gayle in honor of my friend Gayle. We call her Gayle the Snail.
Hand-Washing Stations: Being a Health/WATSAN volunteer I have to have some projects that are related to that sector. As far as I am aware, the JHS does not have a hand-washing station at all, so that's an issue. At one of the primaries there is only one station, which is just a bucket of water that all the students use, so essentially they are just washing their hands in dirty water. Also an issue. Working with an organization called Ghana WASH, we can apply for funds to construct proper hand-washing stations at all of the schools. Depending on how much the station costs, we would like to construct several at each school. The more the better. From what I understand the stations are fairly easy to construct, so I'm in the process of researching that to see what materials we will need. In addition, we will go around to all of the schools and do some sanitation lessons to explain why washing your hands is important, as well as personal hygiene. That way the students understand why we are constructing these stations and so they actually use them. It always amazes me that washing your hands is such an issue here. I rarely see a Ghanaian wash their hands, with soap, before they eat meal, yet they are ALWAYS washing their cars. I was even told I needed to wash my backpack because it was dirty (there was some dust on the bottom, truth). But if they cared about washing their hands as much as they cared about washing their cars and backpacks, I probably wouldn't have a job as a Health/WATSANer...so I guess I'm grateful for that?
Moringa: I don't know if you've heard about the Moringa tree, but it is quite common here and in other parts of the world. I think it originated in India. The Moringa tree is often referred to as the "Miracle Tree" because of its nutritional and medicinal benefits. Here is a nutritional breakdown of the Moringa leaves, gram for gram: seven times the Vitamin C in oranges, four times the Calcium in milk, three times the Potassium in bananas, and two times the Protein in milk. Every 25 grams of dried leaf powder contains 42% protein, 125% Calcium, 61% Magnesium, 41% Potassium, 71% Iron, 272% Vitamin A, and 22% Vitamin C. None of the medicinal remedies are scientifically proven, but many believe that Morgina does have some "healing" or soothing properties. Using the roots and fresh leaves, you can prepare some natural remedies to help alleviate the pains caused by toothaches, sores, and twisted ankles/arthritis. Some other great qualities of Moringa include: nourishes the body's immune system, promotes a healthy heart, promotes a healthy digestion system, increases energy, promotes healthier skin, promotes normal body organ function, and nourishes the eyes and brain. The most common uses of Moringa are cooking (boiling leaves to make teas, adding fresh leaves to soups, drying and grinding the leaves into a powder and adding to food), soap making, income generation projects, and a living fence. It really is quite a spectacular tree, so volunteers try to incorporate Moringa into their projects in one way or another. The Ghana government has a school feeding program that provides primary school children with one meal during the academic day. Our plan is to plant Moringa trees at the for primary schools and educate the "lunch ladies" about the benefits of Moringa and hopefully get them to start incorporating Moringa into the meals they prepare. I don't know much about Moringa, so I might have to call on fellow PCV for some guidance. He has worked extensively with Moringa and has offered to help, so for that I am grateful.
Rumour has it that there is Moringa gin...but don't worry, it fortifies your system. It also doesn't taste that great...or so I'm told ; )
That's all I got for now. It seems like a lot but I am very excited about it. I've been briefing my counterpart on all these projects and it seems like he is also excited...sometimes I can't tell, so I'll just roll with it. The Nutrition IST is coming up next week, and I am looking forward to attending that. I still have some surveys to conduct around town, but it shouldn't be a problem getting them done.
Some other great news, my little sister, M'Abena, used to be terribly afraid of me and would cry every time she saw me. But now she's my bud. This morning when I was preparing some food, she ran out of her house and willingly opened my porch gate (she's only 2 and that gate is tall...for her) and ran up to me with open arms shouting, "Akua, Akua, Akua..." I almost died. It was the cutest thing every. So I scooped her up and she helped me prepare my eggs. I might smuggle her back in my suitcase.
Also yesterday was November 8th, which means I have now been in Ghana for nine months and 1 day! So I'll be expecting lots of packages and letters to congratulate me. Thank you.
As we all know Halloween has just passed, and being in Ghana didn't stop us from celebrating, we just did it Peace Corps style. It was actually refreshing not to see any slutty nurses, slutty cats, slutty this and slutty that. I went to a Halloween party with a decent amount of people, not too big not too small. There were some pretty good costumes, so creativity points well well deserved. We had Wayne, Garth, and Cassandra from Wayne's World, two Rugrats (I'm not familiar with this show), a clapping monkey with cymbals, a Ghanaian man (you'd have to see it to understand why it's funny, but it was), a Ghanaian bread seller (this was a guy dressed as a woman, dress and bread on head, the whole nine yards), and last but definitely not least three bottles of beer - I was one of them. Two of my friends and I dressed as three of the most common beers here in Ghana: Club, Star, and Stone. Club is by far the most popular among PCVs, and that was my costume. I made bottle cap earrings and gently stitched the label to my shirt. The others did the same or something similar. It was actually pretty great. The party location was perfect for Halloween. It was a PCVs site, off the beaten path, down a dirt road, in the middle of a forest, and no electricity. What more could you want? It was really fun though.
So back to why I joined Peace Corps...saving the world and all. Let's talk about that. As of now, I have six activities/events on my sticky note. Most of them are projects I'm getting ready to start or projects I would like to do sometime in the near future. I've done a fair amount of research into each project so it's just a matter or prioritizing and seeing which ones we can start first. Here's what I got...
Bed Net Distribution: As I've mentioned before, malaria is a terrible problem over here, and many people are suffering from it, health and money wise. In the long run, it's just cheaper to prevent malaria than to treat it over and over again. Anyways, in efforts to combat malaria, I want to distribute nets around my town. I can't distribute nets to the 7,000 people in my town, that just seems like a major headache and hassle. Pregnant women and children five years old and younger are most affected by malaria, so my plan is to distribute nets to families with pregnant women and/or children five and under. That will reduce the number of people getting nets to a more reasonable number for grant writing purposes, but at least it is still addressing the problem of malaria. I plan to conduct a survey to see how many pregnant women we have and how many children five and under we have. Once I have that figure, I can submit my grant for nets. In order to receive nets, the community has to contribute something towards the overall budget to prove that they are dedicated to and invested in the project, so I'm still playing around with that to figure out what they can do. I've already been in contact with a net distributor and she has been very helpful, so I'm hoping the rest of the process runs smoothly.
Snail Farm: I think I mentioned this before, but we are going to start snail farm at my JHS. Snails are considered a delicacy in Ghana. I, however, strongly disagree. I tried it once in Eastern Region, and it was probably one of the grossest things I have ever eaten...and I've eaten some pretty weird things before - grubs in Thailand, and zebra in Kenya, for example...there are plenty others but I won't gross you out. Chewing on the snail meat was like chewing on a piece of my own tongue. It doesn't smell that great either. Yet, there is a lot of money to be made in the snail industry, so we are going to get our JHS kids to raise snails at the school. During the dry season snails are pretty rare so the price rises, and our goal is to have the students to sell the snails to the market women in town. This way the students will be able to start a fund that they can use for something in the future (like school supplies or renovations, etc.) It will also, hopefully, teach them responsibility because they will all have to pitch in and help raise the snails. The success of this project will depend on them, and I hope it works. My counterpart and I will be briefing the Form 1s and Form 2s about the project and hope to collect a few interested students. I plan to name one of the snails Gayle in honor of my friend Gayle. We call her Gayle the Snail.
Hand-Washing Stations: Being a Health/WATSAN volunteer I have to have some projects that are related to that sector. As far as I am aware, the JHS does not have a hand-washing station at all, so that's an issue. At one of the primaries there is only one station, which is just a bucket of water that all the students use, so essentially they are just washing their hands in dirty water. Also an issue. Working with an organization called Ghana WASH, we can apply for funds to construct proper hand-washing stations at all of the schools. Depending on how much the station costs, we would like to construct several at each school. The more the better. From what I understand the stations are fairly easy to construct, so I'm in the process of researching that to see what materials we will need. In addition, we will go around to all of the schools and do some sanitation lessons to explain why washing your hands is important, as well as personal hygiene. That way the students understand why we are constructing these stations and so they actually use them. It always amazes me that washing your hands is such an issue here. I rarely see a Ghanaian wash their hands, with soap, before they eat meal, yet they are ALWAYS washing their cars. I was even told I needed to wash my backpack because it was dirty (there was some dust on the bottom, truth). But if they cared about washing their hands as much as they cared about washing their cars and backpacks, I probably wouldn't have a job as a Health/WATSANer...so I guess I'm grateful for that?
Moringa: I don't know if you've heard about the Moringa tree, but it is quite common here and in other parts of the world. I think it originated in India. The Moringa tree is often referred to as the "Miracle Tree" because of its nutritional and medicinal benefits. Here is a nutritional breakdown of the Moringa leaves, gram for gram: seven times the Vitamin C in oranges, four times the Calcium in milk, three times the Potassium in bananas, and two times the Protein in milk. Every 25 grams of dried leaf powder contains 42% protein, 125% Calcium, 61% Magnesium, 41% Potassium, 71% Iron, 272% Vitamin A, and 22% Vitamin C. None of the medicinal remedies are scientifically proven, but many believe that Morgina does have some "healing" or soothing properties. Using the roots and fresh leaves, you can prepare some natural remedies to help alleviate the pains caused by toothaches, sores, and twisted ankles/arthritis. Some other great qualities of Moringa include: nourishes the body's immune system, promotes a healthy heart, promotes a healthy digestion system, increases energy, promotes healthier skin, promotes normal body organ function, and nourishes the eyes and brain. The most common uses of Moringa are cooking (boiling leaves to make teas, adding fresh leaves to soups, drying and grinding the leaves into a powder and adding to food), soap making, income generation projects, and a living fence. It really is quite a spectacular tree, so volunteers try to incorporate Moringa into their projects in one way or another. The Ghana government has a school feeding program that provides primary school children with one meal during the academic day. Our plan is to plant Moringa trees at the for primary schools and educate the "lunch ladies" about the benefits of Moringa and hopefully get them to start incorporating Moringa into the meals they prepare. I don't know much about Moringa, so I might have to call on fellow PCV for some guidance. He has worked extensively with Moringa and has offered to help, so for that I am grateful.
Rumour has it that there is Moringa gin...but don't worry, it fortifies your system. It also doesn't taste that great...or so I'm told ; )
That's all I got for now. It seems like a lot but I am very excited about it. I've been briefing my counterpart on all these projects and it seems like he is also excited...sometimes I can't tell, so I'll just roll with it. The Nutrition IST is coming up next week, and I am looking forward to attending that. I still have some surveys to conduct around town, but it shouldn't be a problem getting them done.
Some other great news, my little sister, M'Abena, used to be terribly afraid of me and would cry every time she saw me. But now she's my bud. This morning when I was preparing some food, she ran out of her house and willingly opened my porch gate (she's only 2 and that gate is tall...for her) and ran up to me with open arms shouting, "Akua, Akua, Akua..." I almost died. It was the cutest thing every. So I scooped her up and she helped me prepare my eggs. I might smuggle her back in my suitcase.
Also yesterday was November 8th, which means I have now been in Ghana for nine months and 1 day! So I'll be expecting lots of packages and letters to congratulate me. Thank you.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Updates All Around...Soakaways, Schools, and Nutrition!
Well it has been a while since my last post. Sorry to everyone who has been biting their nails in anticipation. I've been busy on and off the past month. Some days don't have enough hours in them, but others drag on and seem to never end. The life of a Peace Corps Volunteer.
Alisa's birthday celebration in Accra was a great success. Accra is always a fun place to be, although my bank account disagrees. If you want to enjoy all the "Americanness" of Accra, then you have to be willing to shell out some moolah.
In the beginning of October I had another meeting to discuss my HIV/AIDs project in Juaboso. The first meeting of the week went really well. We discussed our plans in more detail and how we planned to set up the program. Part of the grant proposal asks you to identify how many people you expect to impact with your project, so we guesstimated and it appears we will be educating a decent amount of people if things go according to plan. Like I have probably already mentioned, we plan to make this a month long project. Ideally, we will meet at the Juaboso hospital every Thursday (market day) to host educational seminars and counseling and testing. By hosting this event four times, we hope to impact a great number of people. The repetition will also be good for anyone who attends more than once. We figured out most of the materials that we would need and attempted to get an idea of our budget. I was very stoked coming away from this meeting. We planned to meet the next morning at 9am to discuss our plans with the District Chief Executive of Juaboso District. Naturally, I showed up a few minutes early just in case everyone else was running on American time as well. Obviously, I was the first and only one there. I waited for 45 minutes for my counterparts to show up. I called one of them twice, and both times he said, "Don't worry. I'm coming." After the second call I saw him drive past me on his moto...in the opposite direction. After 45 minutes I had had enough and headed home. If they weren't serious about meeting, I didn't want to waste any more of my time - especially since people in my village were waiting on me to do another program. What I find quite funny about this situation is that one of the men I was supposed to be meeting with said this the day before, "The problem with Sefwis is that the don't respect time." I guess he doesn't either since he never showed up or bothered to call. I actually saw him a few days later and he told me I needed to "try harder." Yes, clearly I'm the one to blame for all of this. All in all you have to take a deep breath and move on...Yes, it is frustrating and makes you want to pull your hair out, but it's all part of the job. You have your successful days and the days when you wonder why you even bother to help. But at least the good days tend to outweigh the bad, and for that I am grateful. I'm going to be really busy these next few weeks, so this HIV/AIDs project will have to hang out on the back burner for a while, but it will eventually happen.
The soakaway education is going really well. My counterpart and I have visited at least 20 households in one area of town. I know at least one household has already constructed theirs, so hopefully they will be an inspiration to others. I've seen a couple soakways that are undergoing construction, but they seem a bit dodgy. The majority of the families seem genuinely interested in constructing the pits, so it's just a matter of actually getting them to do it. If they'd stop messing about and actually build these thins, we'd seem some improvements around town. We are not providing them with any incentive except that the streets will be cleaner, there will hopefully be less mosquitoes, and the community will just look a lot prettier/cleaner in general. So when we tell them they aren't getting "owt," as my mom would say, it makes me nervous because usually people want some sort of monetary incentive or some kind of reward. Reducing cases of malaria and diarrhea related illnesses and improving over household and community hygiene/sanitation seem like pretty great reasons to do this project, but not many others can see that yet. My town is rather large so it is going to take my counterpart and I quite a long time to actually visit every household, even though I doubt we'll actually accomplish that. I have suggested that instead of visiting new households this coming week, we should revisit the first ones and see what their progress is and give them some encouragement should they need it. Everyone claims malaria to be a terrible problem in town, so constructing these pits will hopefully help combat the disease. We just got to make people see the light! Why can't we just douse Ghana in DDT? That would get rid of malaria, no problem.
In mid November I will be attending a nutrition in-service training (IST) in Kumasi. It is being hosted by several other PCVs and it will last four days. From mere observation, my town doesn't seem to have a significant problem with malnutrition. I've seen quite a few kids who could stand to eat less fufu, if you know what I mean. However, I still think attending this workshop will provide me with some great information and program ideas for my town. For example, some of events on the schedule are: Nutrition 101, Food Groups: Focusing on Locally Available and Affordable Foods, Vitamins: Different Types and Benefits of Each, How to Prepare Three Different Nutritious Ghanaian Meals, Green and Nutritious: Adding Moringa and Local Leafs into Foods, etc. The topics look amazing and I am very excited! The more knowledge, the better. I will be attending the IST with a lady from my town. Her name is Lydia and she is a service teacher at the JHS. She is actually from Afere, so she knows the town really well, which will help us when we do events after the training. Previously Lydia had been doing some small health work in Afere...some health education, administering vaccines and distributing vitamins, etc. This is even better because she will already have some background knowledge on the health issues here. Before the training we are supposed to go around our town and conduct a nutrition survey. We are supposed to visit between three and five households and ask them questions regarding nutrition, health, and illnesses. Heather happened to be in my town last week so she came along with us. We visited four households around my house, but I would like to visit a few more in different parts of town to get a better idea of the town as a whole. Staying within my area doesn't seem like it would reflect the overall situation in my town. I want to visit the Muslim neighborhood and the parts of town with no electricity. I think the answers to the questions would be a little different. To give you an idea of what the survey asks, I'll share some questions....
Breastfeeding Habits
1. When is a baby first given breast milk? Is the first liquid that comes from the breast (colostrum) given to the baby?
Some responses received: "Three days after birth. The first three days we don't feed the baby." "The first day of birth. The yellowish liquid is good. It is very nutritious."
My thoughts: We definitely need to have some education in this area. Not feeding your newborn for three days is just crazy. I would like to know how many babies die or become terribly sick due to this practice. The women that said they don't feed their newborns for the first three days said it was because the breast milk has not come yet. This leads me to believe that they think the yellowish liquid (colostrum) is not breast milk so they baby can't take it. I was very impressed with the mothers that knew the colostrum was very nutritious and important for the baby.
Health-Seeking Practices
1. If you can't go to the clinic, what do people do? (Referring to children mostly)
Responses: "Give an enema or go to the chemist. (We asked what the put in the enema) Small water, ginger, herbs, acheampong and nunum (local plants), dried pepe." "Go the chemist for medicine. Give enema, but they are bad for you so we have stopped this."
My thoughts: I'm glad they are going to the chemist, but it doesn't mean that they are getting the proper treatment for whatever is causing the sickness. Oftentimes people are given a bunch of different medicines to treat a bunch of possible illnesses. This is not a good plan. We really stress going to the hospital and getting tested and receiving the appropriate treatments. The enemas make me worried because I know this is a very common practice here. I have seen the enema contraption sitting in my latrine several times and it makes me cringe. And hearing the things they put in enemas is even more troublesome.
There are a lot more questions about illnesses and nutrition, for example: what are the common sicknesses that children suffer from in your community (malaria was mentioned almost every time), what is a common remedy for diarrhea (most people said ORS and handwashing...I was quite happy), what causes a child to be malnourished (eating bad foods, poor nutrition, not taking care of your kids were some responses). You get the idea.
When we asked what were some signs of malnutrition most families were spot on. Some even mentioned kwashiorkor and were able to explain what is is and the signs and symptoms. I was very impressed with the responses we received, but it is clear that we still need to do a lot of work in these areas. And all the families said that vaccinations are good for children because it helps prevent diseases like measles and polio. Way to go people of Afere!
When we come back from this training, Lydia and I will be able to host nutrition sessions and teach the community everything we have learned. After being in my community for about six months, it really seems that the people are genuinely interested in developing their community and bettering their own lives. I'm quite chuffed by this (throwing some British slang at you right there. Represent!) Lydia was very helpful during our interviews. Even though I don't really understand Sefwi, she didn't appear to be leading with her questions and was very courteous with the families. If someone said anything that we both knew was absolutely incorrect or dangerous (ie not feeding your baby for three days) she never guffawed or appeared to judge them in any ways. This is sometimes a rare things here in Ghana. If there is something that another disapproves of or thinks is slightly moronic, they don't hesitate to make their feelings known. Clearly this makes me job easier and more enjoyable.
November is going to be a really busy month for me. Unfortunately I am going to be away from site for the majority of the month, but everything I will be doing is every exciting so I feel less guilty. There is Halloween party coming up in the beginning of November, the nutrition IST, BCS (Behavior Change Support, part of my project) will be having a nutrition training on their new materials so the PCVs involved with BCS (me and some of my neighbors) will be attending that for a few days, then we have Thanksgiving! The new ambassador has thankfully offered to host a Thanksgiving dinner for members of Peace Corps, volunteers and staff alike, I believe. I am terribly excited about this. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. I absolutely love cooking and so Thanksgiving is an amazing time for me. I'm definitely the master when it comes to making the ham (learned from my dad...the student has become the master!) My mom still rocks at making the stuffing and Tom the Turkey. One year she even wrapped bacon in rosemary and put it under the skin while Tom was cooking...oh my goodness. My mom is great. My friend Kylie (who studied at the Culinary Institute of America) also introduced us to a delicious Brussel sprouts dish, not limited to but including bacon and garlic and some other deliciousness. So I still have to learn all these secrets before I can claim to be the best Thanksgiving cook. Sorry for my food tangent...Peace Corps Ghana doesn't give you much variation when it comes to preparing meals, so imagination is how I survive. (Anyone who wants to send me cheese and/or beef jerky...feel free).
And I almost forgot. The most amazing thing that has happened in this past month...my grant for the construction of an additional classroom block for the JHS has been approved! Let me give you some background on what is happening...
Afere has four kindergartens, four primary schools, and only one JHS. Therefore, all the students from these schools must pass through the one JHS. You can imagine the chaos. The current JHS is meant to hold roughly 150 students, however, there are currently well over 200 students. Overcrowding would be putting it lightly. The desks being used are meant for two students but it is quite normal to see four students squished next to each other. The teachers spend half of their time getting the students to quiet down and pay attention. It is not a suitable environment to teach and especially to learn. The current facilities are negatively impacting our teachers, students, and community. To rectify this problem, the community is dedicated to constructing this additional two-classroom block. The community has pledged to donate land, wood, paint, preparing the land and digging the foundation, and paying the artisans fee, which adds up to 30% of our overall budget. For the remaining 70%, we are looking for outside donations. If anyone would like to read more about my project and possible contribute something, even a dollar would help, here is the link: https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=641-338
My community and I are very dedicated to this project and are doing all we can to raise awareness and excite the community. So far everything is going really well and I couldn't be prouder. One of my counterparts, Ambrose, has been a God send. He is making seeing to it that everything moves smoothly and is continuously talking with community members and setting up meetings. I don't even have to ask and pester him - he does it on his own volition, which is simply remarkable. I can't believe how much has done already and he is not even from this community, which is even more impressive. He truly wants to help. I'd be lost without him.
So this past month has been pretty amazing. It's had its ups and downs, but that is to be expected. On the days that I'm missing my friends and family and wanting to be back in America I just have to remind myself of all the amazing things I'm doing (at least trying to do) over here. It is definitely tough and makes you think about the bigger things in life (yes, I wen there). Its true what they say, "This is the hardest job you'll ever love." It really is true. Peace Corps has always been my dream and I remind myself of that on the tougher days. This is what I'm supposed to be doing and everything will work out in the end, even if I can't see/believe it now. This truly is the most amazing experience I've ever had and I'm so thankful for that. October 25th-ish was my six month mark at site, and November 8th will be my nine month mark in Ghana. What everyone keeps saying is absolutely true, Peace Corps is flying by. Two new groups have already come to Ghana - Education in June and Natural Resource Management in October. The new Health/WATSAN group will be coming in February, which will mean that I have already been here for a year. That is just crazy. I worry that I won't be able to accomplish everything I planned. Rumour has it that after one year, time passes even faster. If I can at least get this school built and change the behavior of one family, I will be content. Not over the moon, but content. I'd rather my entire town change their health behavior and adopt better hygiene practices, but I got to save something for the volunteer that replaces me, should that happen. I've met the most amazing people while being here, Ghanaian and American alike. Everyone has such a wonderful story to tell. The friendships grow stronger each and every day. It is things like this that allow me to shake my head and smile when the drunk old man yells, "obruni, I love you ehhhhh" from across the street or when the small children chase me asking for money, or when a little old lady asks me to buy her bread. For the most part, its amusing and culturally interesting, but there are definitely days when I want to yell, "what you're doing is so rude!" Back to being emotional and deep...I haven't done that yet. Well that's a lie. I did it today. I was talking with an Elder and a drunk man came up to us and was interrupting, breathing his apeteshie (local hard alcohol) breath all over me, and just being rude. The Elder and I both said that we were having a conversation and that he was being flat out rude. In his defense, there is a funeral today, which I'm about to go to, so his drunkenness is more understandable.
Anyways, that is my story for the past month. Sorry for the length. I'll try to be better this coming month! Hope you all enjoyed it!
Alisa's birthday celebration in Accra was a great success. Accra is always a fun place to be, although my bank account disagrees. If you want to enjoy all the "Americanness" of Accra, then you have to be willing to shell out some moolah.
In the beginning of October I had another meeting to discuss my HIV/AIDs project in Juaboso. The first meeting of the week went really well. We discussed our plans in more detail and how we planned to set up the program. Part of the grant proposal asks you to identify how many people you expect to impact with your project, so we guesstimated and it appears we will be educating a decent amount of people if things go according to plan. Like I have probably already mentioned, we plan to make this a month long project. Ideally, we will meet at the Juaboso hospital every Thursday (market day) to host educational seminars and counseling and testing. By hosting this event four times, we hope to impact a great number of people. The repetition will also be good for anyone who attends more than once. We figured out most of the materials that we would need and attempted to get an idea of our budget. I was very stoked coming away from this meeting. We planned to meet the next morning at 9am to discuss our plans with the District Chief Executive of Juaboso District. Naturally, I showed up a few minutes early just in case everyone else was running on American time as well. Obviously, I was the first and only one there. I waited for 45 minutes for my counterparts to show up. I called one of them twice, and both times he said, "Don't worry. I'm coming." After the second call I saw him drive past me on his moto...in the opposite direction. After 45 minutes I had had enough and headed home. If they weren't serious about meeting, I didn't want to waste any more of my time - especially since people in my village were waiting on me to do another program. What I find quite funny about this situation is that one of the men I was supposed to be meeting with said this the day before, "The problem with Sefwis is that the don't respect time." I guess he doesn't either since he never showed up or bothered to call. I actually saw him a few days later and he told me I needed to "try harder." Yes, clearly I'm the one to blame for all of this. All in all you have to take a deep breath and move on...Yes, it is frustrating and makes you want to pull your hair out, but it's all part of the job. You have your successful days and the days when you wonder why you even bother to help. But at least the good days tend to outweigh the bad, and for that I am grateful. I'm going to be really busy these next few weeks, so this HIV/AIDs project will have to hang out on the back burner for a while, but it will eventually happen.
The soakaway education is going really well. My counterpart and I have visited at least 20 households in one area of town. I know at least one household has already constructed theirs, so hopefully they will be an inspiration to others. I've seen a couple soakways that are undergoing construction, but they seem a bit dodgy. The majority of the families seem genuinely interested in constructing the pits, so it's just a matter of actually getting them to do it. If they'd stop messing about and actually build these thins, we'd seem some improvements around town. We are not providing them with any incentive except that the streets will be cleaner, there will hopefully be less mosquitoes, and the community will just look a lot prettier/cleaner in general. So when we tell them they aren't getting "owt," as my mom would say, it makes me nervous because usually people want some sort of monetary incentive or some kind of reward. Reducing cases of malaria and diarrhea related illnesses and improving over household and community hygiene/sanitation seem like pretty great reasons to do this project, but not many others can see that yet. My town is rather large so it is going to take my counterpart and I quite a long time to actually visit every household, even though I doubt we'll actually accomplish that. I have suggested that instead of visiting new households this coming week, we should revisit the first ones and see what their progress is and give them some encouragement should they need it. Everyone claims malaria to be a terrible problem in town, so constructing these pits will hopefully help combat the disease. We just got to make people see the light! Why can't we just douse Ghana in DDT? That would get rid of malaria, no problem.
In mid November I will be attending a nutrition in-service training (IST) in Kumasi. It is being hosted by several other PCVs and it will last four days. From mere observation, my town doesn't seem to have a significant problem with malnutrition. I've seen quite a few kids who could stand to eat less fufu, if you know what I mean. However, I still think attending this workshop will provide me with some great information and program ideas for my town. For example, some of events on the schedule are: Nutrition 101, Food Groups: Focusing on Locally Available and Affordable Foods, Vitamins: Different Types and Benefits of Each, How to Prepare Three Different Nutritious Ghanaian Meals, Green and Nutritious: Adding Moringa and Local Leafs into Foods, etc. The topics look amazing and I am very excited! The more knowledge, the better. I will be attending the IST with a lady from my town. Her name is Lydia and she is a service teacher at the JHS. She is actually from Afere, so she knows the town really well, which will help us when we do events after the training. Previously Lydia had been doing some small health work in Afere...some health education, administering vaccines and distributing vitamins, etc. This is even better because she will already have some background knowledge on the health issues here. Before the training we are supposed to go around our town and conduct a nutrition survey. We are supposed to visit between three and five households and ask them questions regarding nutrition, health, and illnesses. Heather happened to be in my town last week so she came along with us. We visited four households around my house, but I would like to visit a few more in different parts of town to get a better idea of the town as a whole. Staying within my area doesn't seem like it would reflect the overall situation in my town. I want to visit the Muslim neighborhood and the parts of town with no electricity. I think the answers to the questions would be a little different. To give you an idea of what the survey asks, I'll share some questions....
Breastfeeding Habits
1. When is a baby first given breast milk? Is the first liquid that comes from the breast (colostrum) given to the baby?
Some responses received: "Three days after birth. The first three days we don't feed the baby." "The first day of birth. The yellowish liquid is good. It is very nutritious."
My thoughts: We definitely need to have some education in this area. Not feeding your newborn for three days is just crazy. I would like to know how many babies die or become terribly sick due to this practice. The women that said they don't feed their newborns for the first three days said it was because the breast milk has not come yet. This leads me to believe that they think the yellowish liquid (colostrum) is not breast milk so they baby can't take it. I was very impressed with the mothers that knew the colostrum was very nutritious and important for the baby.
Health-Seeking Practices
1. If you can't go to the clinic, what do people do? (Referring to children mostly)
Responses: "Give an enema or go to the chemist. (We asked what the put in the enema) Small water, ginger, herbs, acheampong and nunum (local plants), dried pepe." "Go the chemist for medicine. Give enema, but they are bad for you so we have stopped this."
My thoughts: I'm glad they are going to the chemist, but it doesn't mean that they are getting the proper treatment for whatever is causing the sickness. Oftentimes people are given a bunch of different medicines to treat a bunch of possible illnesses. This is not a good plan. We really stress going to the hospital and getting tested and receiving the appropriate treatments. The enemas make me worried because I know this is a very common practice here. I have seen the enema contraption sitting in my latrine several times and it makes me cringe. And hearing the things they put in enemas is even more troublesome.
There are a lot more questions about illnesses and nutrition, for example: what are the common sicknesses that children suffer from in your community (malaria was mentioned almost every time), what is a common remedy for diarrhea (most people said ORS and handwashing...I was quite happy), what causes a child to be malnourished (eating bad foods, poor nutrition, not taking care of your kids were some responses). You get the idea.
When we asked what were some signs of malnutrition most families were spot on. Some even mentioned kwashiorkor and were able to explain what is is and the signs and symptoms. I was very impressed with the responses we received, but it is clear that we still need to do a lot of work in these areas. And all the families said that vaccinations are good for children because it helps prevent diseases like measles and polio. Way to go people of Afere!
When we come back from this training, Lydia and I will be able to host nutrition sessions and teach the community everything we have learned. After being in my community for about six months, it really seems that the people are genuinely interested in developing their community and bettering their own lives. I'm quite chuffed by this (throwing some British slang at you right there. Represent!) Lydia was very helpful during our interviews. Even though I don't really understand Sefwi, she didn't appear to be leading with her questions and was very courteous with the families. If someone said anything that we both knew was absolutely incorrect or dangerous (ie not feeding your baby for three days) she never guffawed or appeared to judge them in any ways. This is sometimes a rare things here in Ghana. If there is something that another disapproves of or thinks is slightly moronic, they don't hesitate to make their feelings known. Clearly this makes me job easier and more enjoyable.
November is going to be a really busy month for me. Unfortunately I am going to be away from site for the majority of the month, but everything I will be doing is every exciting so I feel less guilty. There is Halloween party coming up in the beginning of November, the nutrition IST, BCS (Behavior Change Support, part of my project) will be having a nutrition training on their new materials so the PCVs involved with BCS (me and some of my neighbors) will be attending that for a few days, then we have Thanksgiving! The new ambassador has thankfully offered to host a Thanksgiving dinner for members of Peace Corps, volunteers and staff alike, I believe. I am terribly excited about this. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. I absolutely love cooking and so Thanksgiving is an amazing time for me. I'm definitely the master when it comes to making the ham (learned from my dad...the student has become the master!) My mom still rocks at making the stuffing and Tom the Turkey. One year she even wrapped bacon in rosemary and put it under the skin while Tom was cooking...oh my goodness. My mom is great. My friend Kylie (who studied at the Culinary Institute of America) also introduced us to a delicious Brussel sprouts dish, not limited to but including bacon and garlic and some other deliciousness. So I still have to learn all these secrets before I can claim to be the best Thanksgiving cook. Sorry for my food tangent...Peace Corps Ghana doesn't give you much variation when it comes to preparing meals, so imagination is how I survive. (Anyone who wants to send me cheese and/or beef jerky...feel free).
And I almost forgot. The most amazing thing that has happened in this past month...my grant for the construction of an additional classroom block for the JHS has been approved! Let me give you some background on what is happening...
Afere has four kindergartens, four primary schools, and only one JHS. Therefore, all the students from these schools must pass through the one JHS. You can imagine the chaos. The current JHS is meant to hold roughly 150 students, however, there are currently well over 200 students. Overcrowding would be putting it lightly. The desks being used are meant for two students but it is quite normal to see four students squished next to each other. The teachers spend half of their time getting the students to quiet down and pay attention. It is not a suitable environment to teach and especially to learn. The current facilities are negatively impacting our teachers, students, and community. To rectify this problem, the community is dedicated to constructing this additional two-classroom block. The community has pledged to donate land, wood, paint, preparing the land and digging the foundation, and paying the artisans fee, which adds up to 30% of our overall budget. For the remaining 70%, we are looking for outside donations. If anyone would like to read more about my project and possible contribute something, even a dollar would help, here is the link: https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=641-338
My community and I are very dedicated to this project and are doing all we can to raise awareness and excite the community. So far everything is going really well and I couldn't be prouder. One of my counterparts, Ambrose, has been a God send. He is making seeing to it that everything moves smoothly and is continuously talking with community members and setting up meetings. I don't even have to ask and pester him - he does it on his own volition, which is simply remarkable. I can't believe how much has done already and he is not even from this community, which is even more impressive. He truly wants to help. I'd be lost without him.
So this past month has been pretty amazing. It's had its ups and downs, but that is to be expected. On the days that I'm missing my friends and family and wanting to be back in America I just have to remind myself of all the amazing things I'm doing (at least trying to do) over here. It is definitely tough and makes you think about the bigger things in life (yes, I wen there). Its true what they say, "This is the hardest job you'll ever love." It really is true. Peace Corps has always been my dream and I remind myself of that on the tougher days. This is what I'm supposed to be doing and everything will work out in the end, even if I can't see/believe it now. This truly is the most amazing experience I've ever had and I'm so thankful for that. October 25th-ish was my six month mark at site, and November 8th will be my nine month mark in Ghana. What everyone keeps saying is absolutely true, Peace Corps is flying by. Two new groups have already come to Ghana - Education in June and Natural Resource Management in October. The new Health/WATSAN group will be coming in February, which will mean that I have already been here for a year. That is just crazy. I worry that I won't be able to accomplish everything I planned. Rumour has it that after one year, time passes even faster. If I can at least get this school built and change the behavior of one family, I will be content. Not over the moon, but content. I'd rather my entire town change their health behavior and adopt better hygiene practices, but I got to save something for the volunteer that replaces me, should that happen. I've met the most amazing people while being here, Ghanaian and American alike. Everyone has such a wonderful story to tell. The friendships grow stronger each and every day. It is things like this that allow me to shake my head and smile when the drunk old man yells, "obruni, I love you ehhhhh" from across the street or when the small children chase me asking for money, or when a little old lady asks me to buy her bread. For the most part, its amusing and culturally interesting, but there are definitely days when I want to yell, "what you're doing is so rude!" Back to being emotional and deep...I haven't done that yet. Well that's a lie. I did it today. I was talking with an Elder and a drunk man came up to us and was interrupting, breathing his apeteshie (local hard alcohol) breath all over me, and just being rude. The Elder and I both said that we were having a conversation and that he was being flat out rude. In his defense, there is a funeral today, which I'm about to go to, so his drunkenness is more understandable.
Anyways, that is my story for the past month. Sorry for the length. I'll try to be better this coming month! Hope you all enjoyed it!
Friday, September 21, 2012
Busy Bee
A lot has happened since Monday, aka my last post, but I thought it
was all worthy of a blog update. I have been doing something every day
this week and it feels great! I'm finally getting into the swing of
things and projects/activities are starting to pick up. I hope the rest
of my service continues like this.
After discussing our malaria/soak away pit ideas on Monday, I met Amakye at the JHS on on Tuesday morning to unveil our plans. The JHS is comprised of the Form 1, 2, and 3 classes (6th, 7th, and, 8th grade, respectively), and there are roughly 300 students. We started with the Form 1s and made our way down the hall. I talked in English about malaria...asking them if they knew what it was, how it is transmitted, best ways to prevent it, treatment etc. Amakye had to translate my best Ghanaian English into the Ghanian English they actually understand...I guess mine isn't quite Ghanaian enough. Side note: when talking with Ghanaians in English, we Americans tend to alter our accents so that they can understand us better. I don't really know how to describe it other than that we change our inflections and talk a little slower and are probably more grammatically incorrect. Anyways, it seemed that most of the students were understanding what I was saying, but just be safe Amakye reiterated what I was saying. When I asked the Form 1s how malaria was transmitted, one boy raised his hand and said the female anopheles mosquito. I was very impressed that he knew the correct answer, especially since a few days ago an older women told me dirt caused malaria. After discussing malaria we started talking about soak aways. Amayke drew a picture of one on the chalk board and explained how to dig it and why it was important. The students seemed to be genuinely interested, so that got me really excited. Some of them have already started collecting stones for their households, which is wonderful.
That afternoon, Alisa and I were supposed to meet with our health club at the SHS. Unfortunately, for us, it was a school cleaning day so the majority of the students decided to play hookey. We had to reschedule for next week and hope everyone shows up. I came home and rested for a bit then Amakye and I were back at work! We started walking around the community visiting households to discuss malaria and soak aways. Using the different class registration lists we were able to identify their respective houses throughout Afere. As we visited them, we checked them off and recorded how many people were at each house. In addition to malaria and soak aways, we have been collecting information from cocoa farmers. A fellow PCV is working on a project that registers cocoa farmers through CocoaLink. If you register, each Friday you will receive a text with cocoa farming tips and techniques. It's a great idea as the majority of people in this area are cocoa farmers and that is how they make a living.
On Wednesday I went into Juaboso to have a meeting with a couple hospital staff members and some LNGO members to discuss HIV/AIDS related projects. There were four of us total and we talked for probably two hours. Another two people were supposed to be present, but one we could not find and the other is on leave. I was surprised by how dedicated the people are about combating HIV/AIDS. I was expecting to be pulling teeth during this meeting, but they did most of the talking and were throwing out many great ideas. We discussed the idea of forming a living positive support group, but naturally funding is an issue. Most agreed that if we can't provide the people in the group some sort of monetary incentive, most people won't come. Bummer. Since money tends to be a common problem in every aspect of everything over here we started thinking of other ways to reach people. We came up with an HIV/AIDS educational seminar and testing/counseling day. Basically we would like to host an all-day event at the Juaboso hospital and teach about HIV/AIDS. I have educational games and activities as well as short films that we can use for this event, and if we write a grant we can set aside some money to "refresh" those involved....aka we can give them some coke or fanta or something. If there is something free to be given, people will show. Typical. Either way I am very happy with how this meeting went. This coming week I am going to meet with one of the LNGO members to look at possible grants and decide how we want to write it.
During the meeting on Wednesday, an LNGO member and I decided that we would give a basic HIV/AIDS talk at the hospital the next morning. We were supposed to be teaching to a group of women but due to a miscommunication we ended up talking with patients waiting to receive their medications. We had also planned on showing a short film about basic HIV/AIDS facts but due to a technical error that also fell through. It ended up being an impromptu question and answer session, which surprisingly went very well. No one mentioned any myths about HIV/AIDS, like condoms can cause it or sleeping with a virgin is a cure. When I asked what are some of the best ways to prevent HIV/AIDS transmission, one man raised his hand and said if men stop sleeping with other women and vise versa it would reduce your risk of being infected. Someone else said always use a condom. I was very impressed with what they were saying and how vocal they were in general. I really did not expect that. One lady even asked, in front of everyone, where she could be tested. This surprised me even more because HIV/AIDS is such a taboo subject here and no one really likes to talk about it, let alone announce they want to be tested. It was a very rewarding day.
Yesterday was market day so I got my fill of white people love. It was a girls market this week, which was fine with us. Alisa and I teamed up to cut Heather's hair. I'm surprised she let us do this after a beer - we were responsible enough to wait until we'd finished cutting to start on our second beer. She even let me cut her bangs! But in my defense, I am great side-bang cutter. I used to cut my own and if you've seen any pictures of me, you know how good I looked...HA. Funny right. Market days are always fun. I'm glad I live near a wonderful group of people.
On a cross-cultural integration note....I'm going to kill a chicken. I figure when am I ever going to have the opportunity to kill a chicken again? I don't plan on living on a farm when I go back to America...I plan on buying my pre-killed boneless, skinless chicken breasts from Publix thank you very much. I don't relish the thought of killing the little guy, but I am kind of intrigued and then I can say I killed a chicken. Good story for the grand-kids right? My Ghanaian grandmother came to the house today so we could make her aware of my plans...I guess she is providing the chicken. More importantly though, I believe after this chicken slaying my family will be preparing groundnut (peanut) soup and rice balls...aka the best Ghanaian meal ever. That totally warrants killing a chicken. Don't worry, pictures will come.
Nothing much happening today. It is a holiday because it is Kwame Nkrumah's birthday (the first president of Ghana), so no one is working. There is a funeral happening just up the street so I'm getting my fill of bass thudding and terrible singing.
Next week I am going to Accra to celebrate Alisa's birthday and also to run the 10k. And by run I mean Heather and I are going to walk. We'll run some, but I'd rather not have a heart attack.
So that's what has been going on these past few days. I'll keep you all updated!
After discussing our malaria/soak away pit ideas on Monday, I met Amakye at the JHS on on Tuesday morning to unveil our plans. The JHS is comprised of the Form 1, 2, and 3 classes (6th, 7th, and, 8th grade, respectively), and there are roughly 300 students. We started with the Form 1s and made our way down the hall. I talked in English about malaria...asking them if they knew what it was, how it is transmitted, best ways to prevent it, treatment etc. Amakye had to translate my best Ghanaian English into the Ghanian English they actually understand...I guess mine isn't quite Ghanaian enough. Side note: when talking with Ghanaians in English, we Americans tend to alter our accents so that they can understand us better. I don't really know how to describe it other than that we change our inflections and talk a little slower and are probably more grammatically incorrect. Anyways, it seemed that most of the students were understanding what I was saying, but just be safe Amakye reiterated what I was saying. When I asked the Form 1s how malaria was transmitted, one boy raised his hand and said the female anopheles mosquito. I was very impressed that he knew the correct answer, especially since a few days ago an older women told me dirt caused malaria. After discussing malaria we started talking about soak aways. Amayke drew a picture of one on the chalk board and explained how to dig it and why it was important. The students seemed to be genuinely interested, so that got me really excited. Some of them have already started collecting stones for their households, which is wonderful.
That afternoon, Alisa and I were supposed to meet with our health club at the SHS. Unfortunately, for us, it was a school cleaning day so the majority of the students decided to play hookey. We had to reschedule for next week and hope everyone shows up. I came home and rested for a bit then Amakye and I were back at work! We started walking around the community visiting households to discuss malaria and soak aways. Using the different class registration lists we were able to identify their respective houses throughout Afere. As we visited them, we checked them off and recorded how many people were at each house. In addition to malaria and soak aways, we have been collecting information from cocoa farmers. A fellow PCV is working on a project that registers cocoa farmers through CocoaLink. If you register, each Friday you will receive a text with cocoa farming tips and techniques. It's a great idea as the majority of people in this area are cocoa farmers and that is how they make a living.
On Wednesday I went into Juaboso to have a meeting with a couple hospital staff members and some LNGO members to discuss HIV/AIDS related projects. There were four of us total and we talked for probably two hours. Another two people were supposed to be present, but one we could not find and the other is on leave. I was surprised by how dedicated the people are about combating HIV/AIDS. I was expecting to be pulling teeth during this meeting, but they did most of the talking and were throwing out many great ideas. We discussed the idea of forming a living positive support group, but naturally funding is an issue. Most agreed that if we can't provide the people in the group some sort of monetary incentive, most people won't come. Bummer. Since money tends to be a common problem in every aspect of everything over here we started thinking of other ways to reach people. We came up with an HIV/AIDS educational seminar and testing/counseling day. Basically we would like to host an all-day event at the Juaboso hospital and teach about HIV/AIDS. I have educational games and activities as well as short films that we can use for this event, and if we write a grant we can set aside some money to "refresh" those involved....aka we can give them some coke or fanta or something. If there is something free to be given, people will show. Typical. Either way I am very happy with how this meeting went. This coming week I am going to meet with one of the LNGO members to look at possible grants and decide how we want to write it.
During the meeting on Wednesday, an LNGO member and I decided that we would give a basic HIV/AIDS talk at the hospital the next morning. We were supposed to be teaching to a group of women but due to a miscommunication we ended up talking with patients waiting to receive their medications. We had also planned on showing a short film about basic HIV/AIDS facts but due to a technical error that also fell through. It ended up being an impromptu question and answer session, which surprisingly went very well. No one mentioned any myths about HIV/AIDS, like condoms can cause it or sleeping with a virgin is a cure. When I asked what are some of the best ways to prevent HIV/AIDS transmission, one man raised his hand and said if men stop sleeping with other women and vise versa it would reduce your risk of being infected. Someone else said always use a condom. I was very impressed with what they were saying and how vocal they were in general. I really did not expect that. One lady even asked, in front of everyone, where she could be tested. This surprised me even more because HIV/AIDS is such a taboo subject here and no one really likes to talk about it, let alone announce they want to be tested. It was a very rewarding day.
Yesterday was market day so I got my fill of white people love. It was a girls market this week, which was fine with us. Alisa and I teamed up to cut Heather's hair. I'm surprised she let us do this after a beer - we were responsible enough to wait until we'd finished cutting to start on our second beer. She even let me cut her bangs! But in my defense, I am great side-bang cutter. I used to cut my own and if you've seen any pictures of me, you know how good I looked...HA. Funny right. Market days are always fun. I'm glad I live near a wonderful group of people.
On a cross-cultural integration note....I'm going to kill a chicken. I figure when am I ever going to have the opportunity to kill a chicken again? I don't plan on living on a farm when I go back to America...I plan on buying my pre-killed boneless, skinless chicken breasts from Publix thank you very much. I don't relish the thought of killing the little guy, but I am kind of intrigued and then I can say I killed a chicken. Good story for the grand-kids right? My Ghanaian grandmother came to the house today so we could make her aware of my plans...I guess she is providing the chicken. More importantly though, I believe after this chicken slaying my family will be preparing groundnut (peanut) soup and rice balls...aka the best Ghanaian meal ever. That totally warrants killing a chicken. Don't worry, pictures will come.
Nothing much happening today. It is a holiday because it is Kwame Nkrumah's birthday (the first president of Ghana), so no one is working. There is a funeral happening just up the street so I'm getting my fill of bass thudding and terrible singing.
Next week I am going to Accra to celebrate Alisa's birthday and also to run the 10k. And by run I mean Heather and I are going to walk. We'll run some, but I'd rather not have a heart attack.
So that's what has been going on these past few days. I'll keep you all updated!
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| Amakye demonstrating how to build a soak away pit |
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| Teaching the class about malaria |
Monday, September 17, 2012
Rolling Right Along
My counterpart, Amakye, is finally back from his summer courses, which makes me happy. Since he is a science teacher at the local JHS the only time he is able to go to school is during school breaks, so I'm left on my own for a while, but I manage. I've met a lot of other people from my town that act as unofficial counterparts, so it works. I finally went to the school today since classes have resumed. I sat with the teachers in their room and discussed project ideas and how they spent their vacations. We also talked about the final examinations from last term and this terms entrance examination. I was cringing the whole time. How the teachers can deal with teaching here is beyond me. I would go crazy. All the PCV Education volunteers are tough cookies.
After all this I sat and listened to the teachers argue, for about two hours, about what they think the passing level should be. Wait for it...30% or 40%. When I heard that I actually dropped my jaw a little and the teachers looked at me funny. It is really sad to me that this is what the expect the children to get in order to pass. I can remember being sad about getting a B+ during college, so I can't imagine what a 30% must feel like!
One of the teachers mentioned that he has noticed a lot of his students have trouble reading and writing, especially English. I think I've already mentioned this, but in Ghana all the teaching is done in English, so you if you can't read, write, or speak English you're kind of screwed. I thought it might be a good idea to start some sort of reading or English club that way the students can practice their English skills. I thought either I could read simple stories to them so they can hear what proper English sounds like or meet as a group and go over their homework and whatever kind of help they need. I'll keep pestering the teachers about it, but I personally think it would be a great project, if the students are interested that is.
Amayke and I met at school this morning so I could fill him in on what he missed during our Reconnect IST. I went over grants, primary/secondary project ideas, past PCV projects, and my own ideas for Afere. The soak away pits and household latrines are going to be our biggest projects so I gave him all the information Ambrose and I had gone over and our action plan. I'm really hoping things will start picking up now that everyone is back and ready to start working! If everything goes to plan I am going to be really busy these next two weeks.
Ambrose, Amakye, and I met at school for a couple hours this morning to discuss our action plan for the soak away pits. Lucky for me, Ambrose knows a lot about soak aways already and was drawing different versions of them on some scrap paper. He has already enlisted some students from the JHS to go around town and collect stones to fill the pits with. Ambrose, Amakye, and I all know the benefits of having soak aways...health/hygiene reasons and general community attractiveness...so we decided we need others to realize this too. Since we are using the students of the JHS to collect stones, we are going to start our education with them. Tomorrow we will visit the individual classes of the JHS (Form 1, 2, and 3 - the equivalent of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade) and discuss the benefits of soak aways as well as do some small malaria education. Once we have finished educating the students it is our hope that they will then go home and educate their families, but I'm not getting my hopes up. In order to make sure our message is understood and community wide, we will be taking a list of names of the JHS students and visiting their individual households. Since we will have already taught the students, we are planning to use them to help educate their families on soak aways and malaria. On Wednesday evening we start visiting the households and get this ball rolling.
We have also discussed the possibility of doing a household latrine project. I thought it might be a good idea to do this project in conjunction with the soak aways. Something sort of like, "if you can build your soak away and understand the benefits of it, then we can help you get a household latrine." Ambrose and Amakye seem to like the idea so we are going to tweak it to our needs and hope for the best. I'll have to write a grant for the household latrines because it is a higher cost project than the soak aways. For the soak aways the families will provide the necessary materials, which isn't much.
Tomorrow afternoon Alisa and I will be going to the SHS in Juaboso to meet with our health club. Our plan is hold elections for President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasures and so on and so forth. Last term they gave us a list of topics they would like to discuss, so we will revisit that list and hopefully add to it. I'm really excited about this club and I think the students are too. They also speak English a lot better, which makes things easier.
Hopefully on Thursday Alisa and I will be teaching a health lesson at the Juaboso Hospital. We are still working out the details as far as what we want to do. We need a translator, but usually we can get someone from our LNGO to help us. A couple weeks ago we did an impromptu malaria education session and it went really well.
I called my HIV/AIDS man this morning but I learned that he has traveled and won't be back until next week. I really want to get this project started. Even before I came to Peace Corps I was very interested in HIV/AIDS and hoped I would be able to do a related project, so if this is successful I will be very happy. I'm going to start going to the VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) days and observing how things work and gauge interest in forming the support group. If not, we can still do some HIV/AIDS education, individually or in a group.
My biggest cultural exchange of the day happened in my courtyard this afternoon. It's really hot outside so I thought I could soak up some much needed sun. Pasty doesn't even begin to describe my upper legs (I never wear anything above knee-length). So I put on my tank top and Nike shorts and sat in the sun. After probably three seconds, my Ghanaian mother comes running up to me shouting "Nana Akua, daabi daabi daabi," which I met with a confused look. "Daabi" means no in Twi. She told me I needed to get out of the sun and sit under the tree. I explained that in America, and many places in the world, lighter skinned people sometimes like to make their skin darker. She couldn't believe this. I kept saying I do this all the time in America and its ok. She just laughed and eventually went back to grinding her pepe (spicy pepper, like salsa almost). My legs are still white, but tomorrow is another day and hopefully it doesn't rain!
After all this I sat and listened to the teachers argue, for about two hours, about what they think the passing level should be. Wait for it...30% or 40%. When I heard that I actually dropped my jaw a little and the teachers looked at me funny. It is really sad to me that this is what the expect the children to get in order to pass. I can remember being sad about getting a B+ during college, so I can't imagine what a 30% must feel like!
One of the teachers mentioned that he has noticed a lot of his students have trouble reading and writing, especially English. I think I've already mentioned this, but in Ghana all the teaching is done in English, so you if you can't read, write, or speak English you're kind of screwed. I thought it might be a good idea to start some sort of reading or English club that way the students can practice their English skills. I thought either I could read simple stories to them so they can hear what proper English sounds like or meet as a group and go over their homework and whatever kind of help they need. I'll keep pestering the teachers about it, but I personally think it would be a great project, if the students are interested that is.
Amayke and I met at school this morning so I could fill him in on what he missed during our Reconnect IST. I went over grants, primary/secondary project ideas, past PCV projects, and my own ideas for Afere. The soak away pits and household latrines are going to be our biggest projects so I gave him all the information Ambrose and I had gone over and our action plan. I'm really hoping things will start picking up now that everyone is back and ready to start working! If everything goes to plan I am going to be really busy these next two weeks.
Ambrose, Amakye, and I met at school for a couple hours this morning to discuss our action plan for the soak away pits. Lucky for me, Ambrose knows a lot about soak aways already and was drawing different versions of them on some scrap paper. He has already enlisted some students from the JHS to go around town and collect stones to fill the pits with. Ambrose, Amakye, and I all know the benefits of having soak aways...health/hygiene reasons and general community attractiveness...so we decided we need others to realize this too. Since we are using the students of the JHS to collect stones, we are going to start our education with them. Tomorrow we will visit the individual classes of the JHS (Form 1, 2, and 3 - the equivalent of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade) and discuss the benefits of soak aways as well as do some small malaria education. Once we have finished educating the students it is our hope that they will then go home and educate their families, but I'm not getting my hopes up. In order to make sure our message is understood and community wide, we will be taking a list of names of the JHS students and visiting their individual households. Since we will have already taught the students, we are planning to use them to help educate their families on soak aways and malaria. On Wednesday evening we start visiting the households and get this ball rolling.
We have also discussed the possibility of doing a household latrine project. I thought it might be a good idea to do this project in conjunction with the soak aways. Something sort of like, "if you can build your soak away and understand the benefits of it, then we can help you get a household latrine." Ambrose and Amakye seem to like the idea so we are going to tweak it to our needs and hope for the best. I'll have to write a grant for the household latrines because it is a higher cost project than the soak aways. For the soak aways the families will provide the necessary materials, which isn't much.
Tomorrow afternoon Alisa and I will be going to the SHS in Juaboso to meet with our health club. Our plan is hold elections for President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasures and so on and so forth. Last term they gave us a list of topics they would like to discuss, so we will revisit that list and hopefully add to it. I'm really excited about this club and I think the students are too. They also speak English a lot better, which makes things easier.
Hopefully on Thursday Alisa and I will be teaching a health lesson at the Juaboso Hospital. We are still working out the details as far as what we want to do. We need a translator, but usually we can get someone from our LNGO to help us. A couple weeks ago we did an impromptu malaria education session and it went really well.
I called my HIV/AIDS man this morning but I learned that he has traveled and won't be back until next week. I really want to get this project started. Even before I came to Peace Corps I was very interested in HIV/AIDS and hoped I would be able to do a related project, so if this is successful I will be very happy. I'm going to start going to the VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) days and observing how things work and gauge interest in forming the support group. If not, we can still do some HIV/AIDS education, individually or in a group.
My biggest cultural exchange of the day happened in my courtyard this afternoon. It's really hot outside so I thought I could soak up some much needed sun. Pasty doesn't even begin to describe my upper legs (I never wear anything above knee-length). So I put on my tank top and Nike shorts and sat in the sun. After probably three seconds, my Ghanaian mother comes running up to me shouting "Nana Akua, daabi daabi daabi," which I met with a confused look. "Daabi" means no in Twi. She told me I needed to get out of the sun and sit under the tree. I explained that in America, and many places in the world, lighter skinned people sometimes like to make their skin darker. She couldn't believe this. I kept saying I do this all the time in America and its ok. She just laughed and eventually went back to grinding her pepe (spicy pepper, like salsa almost). My legs are still white, but tomorrow is another day and hopefully it doesn't rain!
Friday, September 7, 2012
What's Been Going On
Well I’d like to say that I accomplished everything I said I
would since my last post, however some things fell through the cracks. As long
as I can get at least one thing crossed off on my to-do list, I am pretty
happy. Timing is usually a reason why things don’t always happen as expected. I
was talking with my dad last night about my frustrations with Ghanaian time and
sticking to schedules. I was always the girl who showed up ten minutes early to
class in college and ditched school once in high school (and it was second
semester senior year…quite the rebel, I know). Meeting starts at 8am? Alright,
I’ll see you there around 9am. And that’s what happens. Every Sunday the Afere
Health Committee meets to discuss health and sanitation issues faced by our community.
The meeting is supposed to start at 4pm, but the first person usually shows up
around 4:45, and the meeting eventually gets going around 5:15, if we’re lucky.
This is usually how things work over here and it drives me crazy. I don’t know
why I keep expecting things to start on time, even though I know they won’t.
All part of the Peace Corps experience.
Moving on. Last week the BCS volunteers and members of Ghana
Health Service traveled down to Takoradi, the Western Region capital, for a
training event on zinc tablets and ORS. We learned about what diarrhea is, what
causes it, and how we can use zinc and ORS to prevent and treat it. There’s
never enough talk about poop for Health/WATSAN PCVs! A lot of the information
was repetitive for us PCVs but it was good for everyone else to hear. Plus we
got to spend a few days in Takoradi, which is on the beach and you can find
American food, even though it costs you an arm and leg, it is worth it.
I met with the HIV/AIDS man, Alfred, at the Juaboso hospital
again. We looked at the different HIV/AIDS educational materials I have, which
is quite a lot thankfully. He was very impressed. Peace Corps has provided us
with a pen drive loaded with goodies. There are a lot of lesson plans on
HIV/AIDS ranging from basic facts, transmission, treatment and prevention, etc.
I also have a book filled with educational games and activities to make
learning more hands-on and interesting for your audience. I’ve read through a
couple of the activities and they are pretty powerful. They definitely provide
you with a strong understanding of the virus and the emotional/physical
challenges you can face. During the VCT days (voluntary counseling and
testing), Alfred is going to pitch the idea of a support group and see how many
people are interested and we’ll go from there. I expect the process to be slow
going but I am hopefully that it will work.
On Wednesday I want to Asafo, a town about 30 minutes from
me, to observe an HIV/AIDS support group meeting – People Living Positively
with HIV/AIDS. I was very impressed with the amount of people that showed up,
which was about 40. In a culture where HIV/AIDS is so taboo, it is hard to
educate and hold meetings regarding this topic. The entire meeting was in Twi
so I didn’t understand anything, but the members were very vocal and asked a
lot of questions. There is a lot of incorrect information flying around about
HIV/AIDS so I really hope I can get this support group started and start
spreading accurate information. For example, many people believe that condoms
cause HIV/AIDS and if you are infected with HIV/AIDS and you have sex with a
virgin you will be cured. This is not just particular to Ghana; I know other
places around the world also believe this (at least the part about the condom…so
I would assume there is a version about sleeping with a virgin somewhere out
there). And people believe these things with all their heart. All the more
reason for PCVs to work hard and educate people about the truth about HIV/AIDS
and hopefully we can succeed at reducing the stigma and improving educational
opportunities for those who want to learn and protect themselves. Everyone keep
your fingers crossed for me!
We have a couple things on the docket for Afere. First, we
are trying to plan a project educating the community about hygiene and
sanitation in conjunction with building soak away pits outside of bathhouses.
Lots of households don’t have a proper place for their bath water to drain, so
it ends up pooling in the streets and running through your neighbor’s yard,
which is pretty disgusting. This dirty water can cause intestinal diseases and
bouts of diarrhea, especially in small children who are more susceptible to
illness. If we can get people to build proper soak aways, then hopefully the
instances of illness will decrease, not to mention the community will look a
lot prettier. I’m looking into writing a grant for some hygiene and sanitation
education to be done in the community before the soak away building. Hopefully
that can adequately educate community members and motivate them to improve
their hygiene/sanitation practices as well as take pride in how clean their
community will be.
Second, we are gauging interest in household latrines around
town. Unfortunately our first option for building latrines with an organization
called Ghana WASH is no longer available, so I am researching alternatives to
see how we can make this happen. Open defecation isn’t a big problem here, in
fact I’ve only seen it happen once in seven months, but not all households have
latrines and they gotta poop somewhere! Like we would do with the soak aways,
we would educate the community on what it is important to poop in a latrine and
not the bush and the health benefits that come with it. I’ll keep everyone
updated on these two projects!
So that is what has been happening over here. I’m going to
sit down with Ambrose this evening at look at some grant applications for
Afere. School has resumed again so the streets are no longer filled with screaming
children. I expect I’ll be paying a visit to the schools around town soon to
see what is going on and what I can help with, if they need/want it.
Seven months in Ghana tomorrow! CRAZY. 20 more months to go….
Monday, August 20, 2012
Busy Busy Busy
Well a lot has happened
since my last post. August is flying by, like every other month. September 8th
will be my seven-month in Ghana mark, if you can believe it! At this rate, two
years seems like nothing, but we’ll see how long I can keep that mindset.
In the beginning of this month, my fellow Health/WATSANers and I had our Reconnect In-Service Training (IST). We stayed in Kumasi for a week, where were learned everything there is to know about being a PCV in Ghana. We learned about different kinds of grants and funding options and how to apply for them, previous PCV projects, HIV/AIDS, malaria, Moringa, and much, much more. Even though we were in session from 8-5 everyday, I truly enjoyed it. After three months of not being able to do much at site, this IST really got me motivated and I am very excited to start work in my community.
As PCVs we are not allowed to write grants during our first three months and last three months at site. If you look at the calendar that means that we only have about a year-and-a-half, which doesn’t seem like enough time, especially since most things move pretty slow over here. During our training I filled a piece of paper, front and back, with ideas I have for my community, but knowing my timetable, I’m trying not to become overzealous. But still, I’ll do what I can with the time that I have and we’ll see what happens.
In the beginning of this month, my fellow Health/WATSANers and I had our Reconnect In-Service Training (IST). We stayed in Kumasi for a week, where were learned everything there is to know about being a PCV in Ghana. We learned about different kinds of grants and funding options and how to apply for them, previous PCV projects, HIV/AIDS, malaria, Moringa, and much, much more. Even though we were in session from 8-5 everyday, I truly enjoyed it. After three months of not being able to do much at site, this IST really got me motivated and I am very excited to start work in my community.
As PCVs we are not allowed to write grants during our first three months and last three months at site. If you look at the calendar that means that we only have about a year-and-a-half, which doesn’t seem like enough time, especially since most things move pretty slow over here. During our training I filled a piece of paper, front and back, with ideas I have for my community, but knowing my timetable, I’m trying not to become overzealous. But still, I’ll do what I can with the time that I have and we’ll see what happens.
Afere has a lot of
mosquitoes; therefore, there is a lot of malaria – real malaria, that is. As
most people know, mosquitoes like to breed in standing water, which Afere also
has a lot of. Most of the standing water, from what I have observed, comes from
bathhouse run off. Households don’t have the proper drainage system outside,
like a soak away pit, so the water just collects in puddles outside. Some households
do have soak away pits, but they have not been constructed properly and just
fill to the brim with water. Even though these families have attempted to stop
bathhouse runoff, the pits aren’t functioning correctly, which just exacerbates
the problem. Due to this problem, I think one of my main projects will be
helping households construct proper soak away pits and educating them on the
prevention and seriousness of malaria. Building soak away pits is a relatively
lost cost project, so I think I can get people motivated to participate, as
long as they understand why they are doing it.
Another project that I am in the process of starting is working with HIV/AIDS patients at my local clinic. One day I was perusing the USAID website and I just happened to stumble upon an article about my local hospital in Juaboso. USAID has implemented a project to sensitize the hospital staff regarding HIV/AIDS. The project aims to stop the stigmatization and discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHIV). In Ghana, HIV/AIDS is a very taboo topic, so most people living with HIV/AIDS do not talk about it or admit it. Many are abandoned by their families and lose their friends. Some don’t even want to be tested because they fear that if they are positive they will lose everything, so they feel it is best not to know. PCVs all over Ghana are working to stop this way of thinking and show that you can still live positively even if you are infected. It’s a long and arduous process but one day it will happen, just like PCVs helped to eradicate Guinea Worm. Juaboso hospital has a HIV/AIDS clinic where they conduct voluntary counseling and testing (VCT). I met with the pharmacist in charge of this clinic and he showed me their facilities. They have a room with couches and a television, and a separate room for counseling and testing. I was very impressed with what they have already and I could tell the man was very dedicated to helping his patients – that made me happy. He mentioned that they were interested in forming a support group, but hasn’t started the process yet. After I went through my “I’m a health volunteer for Peace Corps” spiel, we decided that we are going to collaborate and share our resources to expand the clinic and form a support group, as long as there are interested people. I know other PCVs have done similar things in their respective villages/areas, and it seems to have worked well for them. I have plenty of literature on HIV/AIDS as well as some videos on prevention, anti-stigma, and care. Hopefully sometime this week I can meet with the man and start setting up a program, or at least drawing up a plan. I am very excited!
Another project that I am in the process of starting is working with HIV/AIDS patients at my local clinic. One day I was perusing the USAID website and I just happened to stumble upon an article about my local hospital in Juaboso. USAID has implemented a project to sensitize the hospital staff regarding HIV/AIDS. The project aims to stop the stigmatization and discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHIV). In Ghana, HIV/AIDS is a very taboo topic, so most people living with HIV/AIDS do not talk about it or admit it. Many are abandoned by their families and lose their friends. Some don’t even want to be tested because they fear that if they are positive they will lose everything, so they feel it is best not to know. PCVs all over Ghana are working to stop this way of thinking and show that you can still live positively even if you are infected. It’s a long and arduous process but one day it will happen, just like PCVs helped to eradicate Guinea Worm. Juaboso hospital has a HIV/AIDS clinic where they conduct voluntary counseling and testing (VCT). I met with the pharmacist in charge of this clinic and he showed me their facilities. They have a room with couches and a television, and a separate room for counseling and testing. I was very impressed with what they have already and I could tell the man was very dedicated to helping his patients – that made me happy. He mentioned that they were interested in forming a support group, but hasn’t started the process yet. After I went through my “I’m a health volunteer for Peace Corps” spiel, we decided that we are going to collaborate and share our resources to expand the clinic and form a support group, as long as there are interested people. I know other PCVs have done similar things in their respective villages/areas, and it seems to have worked well for them. I have plenty of literature on HIV/AIDS as well as some videos on prevention, anti-stigma, and care. Hopefully sometime this week I can meet with the man and start setting up a program, or at least drawing up a plan. I am very excited!
Yesterday I met with
Ambrose from my LNGO to discuss projects for Afere, like the aforementioned
soak away pits. We talked for about two hours and devised a work plan to help
us accomplish our goals. I was very happy with how it went and he is very
dedicated to helping, which will make my job a lot easier. We eventually
started talking about the ICT (information and computing technology) center
next to the JHS. The DCE (District Chief Executive) started funding the center
out of his own pocket, but has since stopped, and now the building is left
unfinished. Most of the buildings foundation is finished, now it just needs
doors, windows, paint, theft protection, and some other things. In the
afternoon we went to visit the DCE to discuss his plans for the ICT center. He
said that as soon as he has some extra funds he will continue work, but in the
meantime, I’ll see what I can do to help.
We also discussed setting up a community health committee. Luckily I live with the community chairman so I was able to discuss this idea with him. We went to meet the chief to inform him of our plans and we are now working on forming the committee. The chief and community chairman are going around Afere and selecting people for the committee. Both the chairman and the chief said that the committee must have a member representing the different groups in Afere. For example, the committee must have someone to represent the youth, women, elders, teachers, carpenters, etc. I was glad they mentioned that because I strongly believe that is necessary so that everyone is given a voice and all ideas can be shared. Once we get the health committee formed, we will hold a community meeting to discuss the health and sanitation needs of Afere.
This evening Ambrose and I are going to walk around town and visit households to conduct a household latrine survey. We want to find out how many households have latrines and how many don’t and if people are interested in building one. If Afere shows enough interest in household latrines, we can submit a grant for household latrine building.
We also discussed setting up a community health committee. Luckily I live with the community chairman so I was able to discuss this idea with him. We went to meet the chief to inform him of our plans and we are now working on forming the committee. The chief and community chairman are going around Afere and selecting people for the committee. Both the chairman and the chief said that the committee must have a member representing the different groups in Afere. For example, the committee must have someone to represent the youth, women, elders, teachers, carpenters, etc. I was glad they mentioned that because I strongly believe that is necessary so that everyone is given a voice and all ideas can be shared. Once we get the health committee formed, we will hold a community meeting to discuss the health and sanitation needs of Afere.
This evening Ambrose and I are going to walk around town and visit households to conduct a household latrine survey. We want to find out how many households have latrines and how many don’t and if people are interested in building one. If Afere shows enough interest in household latrines, we can submit a grant for household latrine building.
A fellow PCV in Western Region is in the process of submitting a grant for a borehole mechanic training. Many villages face the problem of broken boreholes and there is no one to fix them. Knowing this, he is trying to organize a training so that at least one person in our respective communities will know how to repair a broken borehole. No one is happy when there is no water, especially with all the red clay dirt flying around. It gets quite dusty...and we need that water to bath! The proposed training will span a few days in a not yet determined place, but it's coming. Luckily Afere has piped water so not everyone relies on boreholes, but still there are some that fetch their water from there. I'm going to meet with our WATSAN committee in the next few days/weeks (hopefully days) and see if there is anyone who already knows how to repair a borehole, and if not, see who is interested in learning.
I feel like I'm going to be quite the busy bee the next few weeks...at least I hope I will be!
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Life Thus Far
Nothing too remarkable has happened since my last post, but I felt like sharing a few stories regardless. This past weekend all the volunteers in Western Region went up to Kumasi (capital of Ashanti Region) for our regional conference. There are a few more than 15 volunteers, I think, in our region. Those of us that were able to attend the meeting stayed at our Kumasi sub-office, aka KSO. It was a blast, actually. Once we had finished the necessary Peace Corps work, we got down to business - food. We made quite the spread and it was delicious. There were fajitas with pork and chicken, queso dip, guacamole, salsa, rice, beans, and jello jigglers (apparently no one else has heard this term besides me...Mom you can back me up on this one). It was a wonderful time spent with great people. I'm so happy I was placed in Western - I've met some amazing people and I'm glad to call them my colleagues!
Ambrose, the account for my LNGO and he also lives in my compound, is back from Cape Coast. He was completing his masters degree in Educational Administration at the University of Cape Coast, so congratulations to him! I am very excited to start working with him and I can tell he is very enthusiastic about his job. This will make my life a lot easier, which is always a nice thing, and I can truly tell that he puts his heart and soul into helping his community. We've already had a few discussions regarding our plans for the future and what we'd like to do in Afere, and needless to say I'm stoked. Technically PCVs aren't allowed to start any official projects during our first three months at site, so it's been a long three months and I'm ready to work! I've mostly been working on forming health clubs and teaching health lessons at the various schools and clinics.
Next week all the Health/WATSAN volunteers that came in February (that's me) have a Reconnect IST (in-service training) in Kumasi. We will learn how to write grants and apply for funding, so when we return to site we can get down to business. I've been making a list of things I'd like to do in the community, so in the next few weeks I'm going to call a community meeting and conduct a needs assessment. We'll see if my ideas line up with what the community would like. I'll keep everyone posted!
The school year has ended so there are more children than usual running around town. However, there are a few who are attending summer school, my younger sister included. I spent the morning at the school with the teachers and students and I'm glad these students are getting extra help, some of them really need it. The teacher asked one class, "Is a human being a living thing?" and the class was silent. I'm really hoping that it was because they didn't understand the English or that fact that they can't think critically, but I was still shocked. Finally one student raised their hand and yes, a human being is a living thing. I really wish the teaching style in Ghana was different. I can't imagine the students are truly learning anything. Everything is repetition, repetition, repetition. When the teachers are teaching, they ask a question, and since none of the students respond, the teacher ends up leading them and eventually just gives them the answer - that's not really learning. The students rely on being told what is what and how to think. It's sad, really.
I opened my younger sister's workbook to look at her school work and was shocked. I guess they don't reach handwriting in school. So I told her each evening we will start practicing handwriting and hopefully she'll improve. If I can at least help one student improve, hopefully they can impart their new found wisdom to others and the cycle will continue. We'll see.
Well that's all for now. This past weekend I borrowed a friends hard drive and now I have over 400 movies and TV shows, and over a 1,000 kindle books so I'm going to see what I can find to entertain me for a little while!
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| Me, M'Adowa, M'Abena |
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| Summer School |
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| M'Abena washing |
Saturday, July 21, 2012
A Day in the Life of Nana Akua Nyarko
I believe I have already mentioned this, but if not
here goes, so as you may or may not know, I have been named after the Queen
Mother of Afere, Nana Akua Nyarko. Akua means you are Wednesday born (which I
am not, I am Tuesday, which is Abena) and I just recently found out that Nyarko
means "dove" in Twi. Not going to lie, it's a pretty sweet name.
Although when I first heard Nyarko, I immediately thought of the word
"nark," however, any anguish I previously felt has been assuaged. Anyways,
that explains the title of this post. Initially I thought I would have a tough
time adjusting to being called something other than Hayley. But now I turn my
head as soon as I hear Akua or Nana Nyarko.
So today was one of those days where I was
constantly thinking, "Wow, this is my job. I literally have the best and
coolest job in the world." It was a great day. The day even started off
with a magnificent breakfast - a spinach, cheese, chicken, delicious seasonings
omelet! The ultimate test, we have decided, and by we I am referring to my
friend Gayle, is that if we would enjoy the food in America, then it's actually
good food. So this morning, the omelet was America good. I would have
definitely ordered that back home, so just going to give myself a pat on the
back for how well I did this morning. I have a lot of free time, so I'm turning
into a master chef. I even made Pad Thai the other night and it was bomb dot
com. But before all this happened, I had to walk into town to get some
ingredients, and all the while doing this, I carried my sister, M'Adowa on my
back - Ghanaian style. If you didn't already know, we don't have Baby Bjorns
over here. Ghanian women (and actually on Tuesday I saw a man doing this, which
is very rare) throw their babies on their backs and strap in with a two-yard
piece of fabric. No belts, buckles, or anything. The babies don't even hold on,
they just bounce around as happy as clam. Me on the other had is just staring
and waiting for a baby to plop on the ground. But anyways, yes, I carried my six-year-old
sister like that for about 15 minutes. I was very proud of myself.
But on to other business...I spent the majority of
my day with the teachers at the JHS. Around 9 am I headed over and mingled. The
students just finished their last day of exams, so everyone was working hard
today. The teachers were busying coming and going throughout the day, so I got
to see and talk with most of them. I even learned a new word,
"invigilate." One of the teachers used it while we were talking and I
must have made a weird face because he said, "I hope you get me..." I
definitely did not. So he explained it to me, after which I said,
"Ohhhhhh. Well in America we usually use a different word, like
'proctor.'" So we had a little cultural exchange there, Peace Corps Goals
2 and 3! BOOM!
Throughout the morning I helped the teachers stamp
and authenticate answer sheets for their exams, all the while talking about
everything under the sun, or is it moon? Either way, it was filled with great
conversations. I've also become rather comfortable and completely used to long
silences. Normally, my eyes would start darting around and I would feel the
need to say something. But I was perfectly comfortable just sitting and
starting out the window or watching the small children run around. I wonder if
that is something that will wear off once I get back into the hustle and bustle
that is America.
As you may or may not know, the national language
of Ghana is English, so everything is taught in English. The problem is,
English is not usually the language spoken at home, so most students struggle
with it. The other day one of the teachers showed me a student's response to an
exam question...the answer didn't even make sense. There was no way you could
even guess what they were trying to say, and that is really sad. Clearly this
student is not learning the subject matter. If you want to succeed in school
here, you have to know English - it is the only way you are going to do well.
I've started thinking about forming an informal English Club for next term. It
would be something very casual, after school, where the students can come and
sit and practice speaking English. I figure talking with a native English
speaker, or at least listening to me speak, might help them. I pitched the idea
to one of the teachers and he thought it was great, so hopefully I can get more
support and get something going for next term.
After the school day finished, all the teachers and
I headed into Juaboso. The Afere teachers and Juaboso teachers played each
other in a football match. They played last Friday as well and the game ended
up 1-1. However, this time, Afere won! One of my teacher friends was not
playing today, so we stood on the sidelines and chatted. In Ghana, once you
complete university you enter the National Service and one of the services is
teaching. The Afere JHS has four service teachers from different areas in
Ghana: Takoradi, Afere, Accra, and Greater Accra. I've become pretty good
friends with them and I'll be sad when they all leave in a few weeks. The other
teachers are cool too though! Hopefully the next round of service teachers are
just as awesome.
Not the most exciting day but it was definitely a
great day nonetheless.
Happy belated birthdays to one of my best friends,
Betsy Black, and Janice Nash! Both lovely ladies had their birthday on July
18th!
An an even more awesome note, I'm sure you've all
seen the news...Uncle Phil, AKA Phil Knight, is building a 68 million dollar
football facility. Oh yeah, it's going to be awesome. Pac-12, what what!
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| The chief and elders bought me a fridge! Two elders here. |
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Senior High School Visit
Yesterday, Alisa and I went to the senior high
school in Juaboso to meet with the students about forming a health club. It was
a rather rewarding experience, I thought, but it definitely brought to light
the drastic teaching differences in Ghana and America. We stood up in front of
probably 100 students, I’m really bad at estimating things like this so who
knows how many were actually there, but the classroom as chocker-block full of
students. We did our little spiel again of how we want this club to be theirs
and we are only here as a resource. After laying out the objectives of our
meeting and it finally came time for some audience participation. Instead of
leading them with ideas, we wanted them to voice their own thoughts and
opinions. We wanted them to tell us what they wanted to learn, or things they
didn’t understand and wanted more information. Well after a few minutes of
silence and blank faces, we looked to the assistant headmaster for some help.
Maybe the just didn’t understand our accents? So the assistant headmaster asks
them if they understand and they do, so why didn’t they respond to us?
Here in Ghana, the students are lectured at and
told what to learn. There is no critical thinking it is all memorization. The
teacher writes something on the board and the students copy it diligently. So
when we asked them to share their thoughts and ideas and to really express
themselves, they were lost. In the end, we ended up giving them examples of
possible health topics like family planning, abortion, nutrition, hygiene, etc.
Eventually they got the idea and started to raise their hands. We ended up with
a list of at least 20 topics they wanted to learn more about. I’ll give you
some examples: body odor, family planning, safe abortion, oral hygiene, toe
warts, vision, and sanitation. The list goes on but you get the idea. Because
the school year is coming to an end we said that over the break if they get an
idea in mind to write it down and we’ll compile an even bigger list at the
start of the new term in September. I think our meeting was successful once we
got over the bumps in the beginning. I was surprised at how many girls
volunteered their ideas; I would have thought they would have been more
reserved, especially in front of the boys.
It was even more rewarding when we were walking out, a
couple girls ran up to us with more questions. It really made me feel like we
actually did some good and the students are interested in learning. One girl
asked us some questions about her birth control pills, so Alisa and I went over
how and when to take them. Look at us saving babies!
An Update, Small Small
Apologies for the delay in between posts - my life
isn't always that exciting. Nothing much has happened since my last post, at
least anything that has really inspired me to write something out. My Peace
Corps life has its exciting weeks and then its so-so/life-moves-slower-in-Africa
weeks.
I've been spending a lot of time with my local
family. One of my sisters, Ama Ruby, is back from university and we get along
really well. All my siblings are great - I really lucked out with this family.
We've started a little game between all the siblings...we are all named a
different animal. Let me give you some background on how this all started...My
youngest sister, M'Adowa, is always yelling "ma ma ma," for her
mother and it closely resembles the bleating of all the baby goats running
around. After making this remarkable discovery, I said to my mother,
"M'Adowa, she sounds like the goats 'ma ma ma.'" Since then I've
always called her "Apɔnkye,"
which is goat in Twi. After a few days of being called Sister "Apɔnkye" M'Adowa decided
to call me Sister "Akokɔ,"
which means chicken. So all the siblings have an animal nickname: Ruby=turtle,
Akos=cat, Kofi=pig, Kwabena=fish, and Kwaku=dog. M'Adowa will usually
come and hang out with my after she has finished with school for the day, and
sometimes I'll make her popcorn or some groundnuts (peanuts). I've been
introducing her to American food, small small (a Ghanaian English phrase that
is commonly used here). Whenever I cook lunch or dinner for myself, I always
give my family a little bowl so they can taste something other than fufu. Don't
get me wrong, fufu is great, but not every night of your life. Although, they
did make banku the other night, a slight change from fufu (you use corn dough
instead of plantain).
In the evenings, I’ll usually sit in the courtyard
with my sisters and brother and talk. There is the occasional Azonto lesson,
which ends up turning into them all laughing at me as I make a sorry attempt to
dance like a Ghanaian. Even the worst Ghanaian dancer is better than us
obrunis. If there is a football match on television, we’ll usually come into my
front room and watch it together. Some nights I’ll go into town at sit at my
fathers store and interact with passersby. I usually have at least one
conversation as to why I am not married and have no children. They are always
shocked when I say, “Oh you know, I want to wait till I’m in my 30s.” Clearly I
am insane. I mean I am 23, practically an old lady over here. I usually talk
about my imaginary boyfriend and that keeps them occupied for a while, until
they ask to meet him to which I say, “Oh, he’s coming.”
I don’t have much planned for the upcoming weeks,
so we’ll just see what happens. Being a site definitely gives real meaning to
“time alone with your thoughts.” Its quite a weird sensation…I’ve never had so
much free time in my life, except when I was baby, but even then I had mandated
nap and feeding times. I do a great deal of daydreaming and “self-reflection,”
I mean what else am I going to do? Hopefully by the end of these two years I
will have my entire life planned out, but I highly doubt it. I’m trying to
adopt a worry-free lifestyle, and whatever happens, happens. Life is too short
to be stressed and worried all the time. Don’t worry Mom and Dad, I haven’t
gone off the deep end…I will come back to America and get a job, I just don’t
want to spend every waking minute of my life worrying about the future. Peace
Corps is weird, and it changes you. It’s hard to explain without making myself
sound like a nut, but it’s definitely an eye-opening, life-changing experience. The 8th of July was our five month mark! It's crazy that we've been here that long already. It is definitely flying by!
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Wash Your Hands Many Times A Day!
I was supposed to go to school and meet with my girls on
Monday, except when I showed up all the doors were locked and no one was there.
I ran into Ambrose on the street and he informed me that the teachers were in
Juaboso registering. Apparently some people have been posing as teachers and
receiving a salary, when in fact they shouldn’t be. Having the teachers
register is the district’s attempt to regulate teachers and the salaries they
receive. It makes sense and is a good idea but it did prevent me from teaching
a lesson on Monday. Oh well, life goes on. I came back to my house and I
skimmed through my books and prepared some more lessons for the future.
Tuesday was more fruitful. Alisa and I had to go into
Juaboso to visit our local NGO. BCS had some more educational materials sent to
all PCVs that work with Rural Water and Sanitation (our NGO). Our NGO led us to
believe that it was a small envelope but when we got to the office it was a
huge package that weighed about 15 pounds. Lucky for me, I got to carry two
packages. On Thursday, the usual group is meeting for market so I told one of
my colleagues that I would bring his materials for him (he lives about
two-three hours away from the office). These Ghanaians definitely know how to
make carrying things a lot easier. You’d be surprised how much easier and
comfortable it is to carry something on your head as opposed to holding it in
your arms. I fully intend to bring this practice to America.
Unfortunately this morning I woke up feeling pretty terrible.
After my shower and breakfast I started feeling better so I figured I would be
able to handle going into school. I brought some books and materials with me so
I could get some reading done during the slower times. Last week my counterpart
and I discussed going to one of the primary schools, Primary A, and teaching a
handwashing game to the students. Primary A is just across the field from the
JHS, so this morning we crossed over and greeted the headmistress. I informed
her that I wanted to teach a song and game to the children in hopes of teaching
them to wash their hands “many times a day.” I’ll explain later. There are six
levels in the primary school: Primary 1, Primary 2, Primary 3 etc and it goes
all the way up to Primary 6. Primary 6 is supposed to be the oldest students
and Primary 1 is the youngest, but here in Ghana age doesn’t necessarily
dictate what year in school you are. When I was in the Primary 2 classroom,
there were a couple boys who looked like they were in their late teens. They
towered over their classmates, but I have give them props for coming to school
regardless of their age difference. I imagine it can’t always be easy.
We started with the Primary 6 class and worked our way down
the classrooms. One of the teachers wrote the words to the song on the
blackboard as my counterpart and I explained why we had come. I gave them “I am
a health volunteer from America” spiel and started explaining the hand-clapping
portion of the game. Whenever I was finished talking, my counterpart would have
to translate my English in Ghanaian English so the students could actually
understand what I was saying. This retranslation became even more imperative as
we moved closer to the P1 class. Eventually my counterpart stopped talking in
English and switched to Twi to explain our mission. Anyways, I taught the
students the song and the clapping component. The song is as follows…
Wash your hands many times a day.
Always use soap to keep the germs away.
Wash your hands after the toilet.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Wash your hands after you sweep.
Wash your hands before you cook.
Wash your hands many times a day.
Always use soap to keep the germs away.
The English is pretty simple so most of the students were
able to catch on. Most of the boys thought punching and slapping each other was
more entertaining than learning the real game. The girls really enjoyed it
though.
Sadly though, after meeting with the P6 class, I started
feeling pretty lousy again, but I decided to power through. My stomach and head
were both paining me (a little Ghanaian English for you right there). By the
time we got to P2, I felt like I had been hit by a bus. I could barely muster
up enough energy to explain why we had come. At one point I had to lean against
the blackboard because I thought I might fall down. I excused myself from the
class and had to walk outside to get some fresh air, that’s when things got
worse. Outside and everything around me started spinning and my heart was
beating pretty fast. I felt pretty clammy and was on the verge of vomiting. I
found my counterpart and told him I needed to use the latrine. One of the girls
found the key and walked me across the field. If it had been any farther I
definitely would not have made it. I have never felt so dizzy in my life. The
ground was spinning in front of me as I walked and if I had shut my eyes for
second I definitely would have fainted. Naturally, when we got to the latrine,
the girl couldn’t get the door open. She had three keys and there were three
different locks. Of course the last key she tried worked on the last lock she
tried. Typical right. I won’t go into any more detail, but my morning sucked.
Don’t worry Mom; I am alive and feeling better.
After that little incident, I thought it best to come home
and try not to die. I took my temperature and luckily I didn’t have a fever. I
came inside my house and fell asleep for about an hour, which helped. When I
woke up, I came outside to see my family and my sister, Ruby, and my mother
told me I had to come sit outside in the courtyard and they were feeding me –
no ifs, ands, or buts. Apparently they don’t like it when I eat Indomie
(Ghanaian Ramen noodles) because its not real food. I won’t argue that but it’s
cheap and easy to make so every now and then I succumb to it. My mother brought
out a huge plate of rice and stew. It was delicious. I definitely ate all
(Ghanaians like to say “eat alllllllll” to us Americans, yet they always give
us too much food). Tonight we are eating banku (another Ghanaian dish, like
fufu, but its made with corn dough and cassava). I wanted to make some tea but
I had no Cowbell (powdered milk), so my brother Kofi went into town to buy
some, and also bread at my mother’s behest. I told them I could walk in myself,
but my sister, and I love her even more now, told me “Akua, you walk too much,
sometimes you just have to let others do things for you.” Well if you insist…
As of now, I am feeling better. I think the tea and the
bread helped. Still feeling kind of dizzy but the ORS is helping. ORS is oral
rehydration solution. You mix the packet with one liter of water and sip on it.
Some of my friends actually like the taste, but I think it tastes like sweet
sweaty salt water.
The Spain Portugal match is on tonight, so I need to be in
tiptop shape to watch that. My brothers and sisters come into my front room and
we all watch the game together. It is nice. My family is pretty awesome. I
definitely lucked out.
One of my sisters, M’Abena (Tuesday born) is two years old
and when I first arrived she was terrified of me, but we are making headway. I
taught her how to say “hi” and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Now,
whenever she sees me, she stops, squats, lifts her left leg up and down and
says “hiii.” Its adorable – definitely putting her in my bag and taking her
with me.
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