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Sunday, April 1, 2012
Technical Training
It took us 8 hours on the PC bus to travel from Kumasi to Tamale. It was a VERY long trip but at least we had air conditioning. Everyone in the souther regions had to stay over night at the Kumasi Sub-Office because it takes us more than a day to travel up to Tamale. It was pretty fun to hang out with everyone and not have to do PC stuff for once. The night before we had to leave we all went out for some pizza...I mean real pizza. There was cheese and everything. It was pretty good. A nice little taste of America.
We didn't arrive in Tamale until around 630pm on the 28th (aka my birthday) so by that time we just ate dinner and pretty much went to sleep. We were all tired anyways. The next morning we began our first round of Technical Training. Our first day was spent in a town called Dipale. We went with one of our PCVLs to a Mango Out-growers Association where they were doing HIV/AIDs and Hepatitis testing. We started off the session by talking about the importance of using condoms and how they can help to prevent many STIs and HIV/AIDS. There were about 30 or 40 Ghanaians there and we all mixed together to form a big circle. We demonstrated how to properly put on a male and female condom as part of our training. It was a pretty interesting experience, actually. The northern regions of Ghana are more conservative so things like sex and condoms are a little more taboo than down south. It's not really talked about in public as in America. It's more hush hush. While we were demonstrating how to put condoms on a lot of the Ghanaian women were snickering and making noises in small groups. It was like nervous laughter but also, not to be rude or insensitive, their behavior showed a level of immaturity. And I think that goes back to sex and condoms and all that being more taboo than Americans are used to. They just seemed uncomfortable talking about it, which is ok because we are here to help them understand and learn etc. It was just interesting to observe. After the demonstrations, the men and women divided and went to get tested. The HIV/AIDs testing was free but if they wanted to be tested for Hepatitis they had to pay 7 Ghana Cedis, which is pretty cheap as normally costs around 70 or 80 Ghana Cedis they were saying. Later in the day we came back to where we are staying to debrief the days activities and talk about what we would be doing the next day.
The next day we traveled to Voggu, which is about an hour away from Tamale. All the PCTs were divided into groups of 2 or 3 and we taught SHEP lessons (School Health Education Programs). Depending on the age level you would be teaching the lessons varied in complexity and topic. My group taught primary 1 students, which is about the equivalent of 1st grade in America. Our lesson was about hand-washing. We had translators so they could translate what were saying Dogbani to (the language spoken in the Northern Region). We asked them when they should wash their hands and why, and most knew the correct answers, so we just reinforced everything with them. We also made up a game to go along with the hand-washing theme, which went like...
Wash your hands before you eat, wash your hands after you sweep, wash your hands after you poop, wash your hands!
We made little hand gestures to go with each action so they kids could play along. It went really well, especially because we translated the song to Dogbani...I think they had a better grasp on what we were doing. After everyone had finished their various lessons, the school put on a little cultural fair for us. They showed us some traditional dances for their region and they did put on a small drama about hand-washing, which was nice for us all to see.
That afternoon we traveled to another PCVs site in Nwodua. She talked to us about some of her secondary projects (something we will all have/do). Secondary projects are something PCVs do at their site that doesn't relate to their primary project...so for us, our secondary projects would be something that isn't related to health or WAT/SAN. This particular PCV started up a tree nursery in her village. They planted 3,000 mahogany trees and they will eventually be sold to the forestry department, which will generate income for people in her village. Usually secondary projects income generating projects, like the tree nursery. Another one of her projects was soap making. She assembled a group of vocational students (women) and together they make soap and sell it in the markets. They showed us how soap is made and then we were allowed to buy some from the previous batches. It was actually pretty simple, so I think I could probably start that in my town if people were interested. It smelled really good too.
Yesterday was a really fun, hands-on day. We traveled to Karaga, which is the site of another PCV and we helped paint murals in the town. We were all divided into 4 groups and assigned a different health/watsan related topic. There was hand-washing, Malaria, nutrition, and HIV/AIDs. My group did the Malaria mural on the back of the chicken coop. We painted all morning and finished up everything after lunch. It was a pretty successful day. Pictures to follow...!
Today we are headed into Tamale...we heard there is American food to be found....
We didn't arrive in Tamale until around 630pm on the 28th (aka my birthday) so by that time we just ate dinner and pretty much went to sleep. We were all tired anyways. The next morning we began our first round of Technical Training. Our first day was spent in a town called Dipale. We went with one of our PCVLs to a Mango Out-growers Association where they were doing HIV/AIDs and Hepatitis testing. We started off the session by talking about the importance of using condoms and how they can help to prevent many STIs and HIV/AIDS. There were about 30 or 40 Ghanaians there and we all mixed together to form a big circle. We demonstrated how to properly put on a male and female condom as part of our training. It was a pretty interesting experience, actually. The northern regions of Ghana are more conservative so things like sex and condoms are a little more taboo than down south. It's not really talked about in public as in America. It's more hush hush. While we were demonstrating how to put condoms on a lot of the Ghanaian women were snickering and making noises in small groups. It was like nervous laughter but also, not to be rude or insensitive, their behavior showed a level of immaturity. And I think that goes back to sex and condoms and all that being more taboo than Americans are used to. They just seemed uncomfortable talking about it, which is ok because we are here to help them understand and learn etc. It was just interesting to observe. After the demonstrations, the men and women divided and went to get tested. The HIV/AIDs testing was free but if they wanted to be tested for Hepatitis they had to pay 7 Ghana Cedis, which is pretty cheap as normally costs around 70 or 80 Ghana Cedis they were saying. Later in the day we came back to where we are staying to debrief the days activities and talk about what we would be doing the next day.
The next day we traveled to Voggu, which is about an hour away from Tamale. All the PCTs were divided into groups of 2 or 3 and we taught SHEP lessons (School Health Education Programs). Depending on the age level you would be teaching the lessons varied in complexity and topic. My group taught primary 1 students, which is about the equivalent of 1st grade in America. Our lesson was about hand-washing. We had translators so they could translate what were saying Dogbani to (the language spoken in the Northern Region). We asked them when they should wash their hands and why, and most knew the correct answers, so we just reinforced everything with them. We also made up a game to go along with the hand-washing theme, which went like...
Wash your hands before you eat, wash your hands after you sweep, wash your hands after you poop, wash your hands!
We made little hand gestures to go with each action so they kids could play along. It went really well, especially because we translated the song to Dogbani...I think they had a better grasp on what we were doing. After everyone had finished their various lessons, the school put on a little cultural fair for us. They showed us some traditional dances for their region and they did put on a small drama about hand-washing, which was nice for us all to see.
That afternoon we traveled to another PCVs site in Nwodua. She talked to us about some of her secondary projects (something we will all have/do). Secondary projects are something PCVs do at their site that doesn't relate to their primary project...so for us, our secondary projects would be something that isn't related to health or WAT/SAN. This particular PCV started up a tree nursery in her village. They planted 3,000 mahogany trees and they will eventually be sold to the forestry department, which will generate income for people in her village. Usually secondary projects income generating projects, like the tree nursery. Another one of her projects was soap making. She assembled a group of vocational students (women) and together they make soap and sell it in the markets. They showed us how soap is made and then we were allowed to buy some from the previous batches. It was actually pretty simple, so I think I could probably start that in my town if people were interested. It smelled really good too.
Yesterday was a really fun, hands-on day. We traveled to Karaga, which is the site of another PCV and we helped paint murals in the town. We were all divided into 4 groups and assigned a different health/watsan related topic. There was hand-washing, Malaria, nutrition, and HIV/AIDs. My group did the Malaria mural on the back of the chicken coop. We painted all morning and finished up everything after lunch. It was a pretty successful day. Pictures to follow...!
Today we are headed into Tamale...we heard there is American food to be found....
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