Feeling Pretty Good!

Yesterday afternoon was a lot more eventful than I was expecting, which was nice. After making my lists and doing some research, I had a mini intervention with my counterpart. Amakye came over around 2pm and we sat outside and I told him how I was feeling. I showed him my list of people I wanted to meet and told him I really need to start learning about the community’s needs.

After looking over my list, we headed out into the community. We stopped at the house of the chairman of the community water board. After introductions, I explained my mission as a Peace Corps Health Volunteer and told him I wanted to hear about his experiences working with the water board. Apparently, about seven years ago, the water situation in Afere was not so good. People were fetching water primarily from ponds and wells scattered around town. Not only is the water not sanitary, it can also be dangerous fetching from these wells, especially during the rainy season. The chairman’s daughter actually fell into one of the wells and if it had been during the rainy season, she probably wouldn’t have survived. I’ve seen a couple of these wells around town and they are pretty deep, not to mention out in the middle of nowhere. However, about two years back, the district provided Afere with a better water system, so now the majority of the town has piped water. The district said they would bring the money to pay for the water but the community had to provide 5% of the total cost – I don’t remember the exact figure, but the community succeeded in raising the total amount. This is a great achievement for my town. All of the pipes and boreholes are in great condition, as far as I have seen, so I don’t think a big part of my job will be pipe/borehole repairs and maintenance – they seem to be doing just fine for now. One of the main challenges, according to the chairman, is that there are no public latrines. While open defecation isn’t a big concern, it still exists. The water board has discussed the idea of building a public latrine and appointing someone to maintain it. The only problem is that they need help with funding. The community can’t afford to build a latrine so they’ve asked for outside help but still no luck. Hopefully this will be something I can help them with in the future.

After our visit to the chairman’s house, we set out to find the traditional birth attendant (TBA). We actually didn’t have to go that far because she lives right next door. We talked with the TBA for about 30 minutes and I felt really good about our conversation. One of her sons, Jackson, was also there so he helped with translations. Agnes is the name of the TBA and she has been the local midwife for about 30 years. She is also the traditional healer in the village. Jackson and Agnes reiterated the fact that there is a lot of teenage pregnancy here. Being the traditional healer as well, Agnes said she has treated for hernias quite often as well as Gonorrhea and Syphilis. When we had finished talking she took me into the house to show me where women come to deliver. We walked into a dark room and that was it. There are no beds, tables, mats, anything. I think she said the women are supposed to bring their own mats, unless they were just stowed in another room. I can’t imagine having to have a child on a cement floor. From what I hear, childbirth is already a pretty uncomfortable experience and throw in lying on a cement floor…eesh. And lucky for me I have been invited back to witness the next childbirth. Might not want to have children after I witness this. It’ll be an interesting experience though, I suppose.

Today was great. I spent 6 hours at the local junior high school. I really took that psychology of sitting quote to heart. I went to school around 8am and stayed in the teachers lounge (and by lounge I mean a room) until 2pm. Teachers were coming and going between their classes, so there was always someone in there to talk with me. I really like all of the teachers at this school; they are some of the friendliest people I have met thus far. They are all men in their early to late twenties I would say. But they all speak English really well and are pretty intelligent so it’s refreshing when we have real conversations about real things. Don’t count this as one of the intellectually stimulating conversations we’ve had, but one of the teachers said “Oh, you’re name is Hayley, like from the television show ‘One Tree Hill’!” I think he is my new best friend. I can’t believe he actually knows that show! It was pretty funny. So on Wednesday I’m bringing my hard drive to school and we are going to do a movie swap – unfortunately he just deleted all his season of One Tree Hill so I’ll have to find something else to take! After discussing the wonders of the show, I went to one of the classrooms to have a meeting with all the girls. I’m in the process of forming a girls club – NO BOYS ALLOWED. The club is going to be some sort of health club where we can discuss health topics like family planning, HIV/AIDs, STIs, etc. I thought it would be easier to have a club like this that is only girls, as they might feel shy and awkward discussing these topics in front of boys. All the girls seemed really excited while I was discussing my plans so that was a good feeling. Emelia, one of the girls, was put in charge of collecting names of anyone interested in joining the group. About an hour after our first meeting, Emelia brought me the list and there are about 60 names on it! I’m really hoping that these girls really do want to join the club because it interests them as opposed to joining the club that the white lady is in. I guess we’ll see as time goes on, but I have been feeling really good today. I feel like I’m making progress and finally getting to start the things I came here to do. I plan to meet with the girls on Wednesday and lay out a plan for I envision the club to be like. Hopefully everyone on the list stays because that would be amazing, but I imagine a few will drop out. Either way I’m still on my way to forming my first club! Go me. 

For anyone interested...here are some links to websites with development/health statistics on Ghana

• http://www.who.int/countries/gha/en/
• http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/GHANAEXTN/0,,menuPK:351978~pagePK:141132~piPK:141109~theSitePK:351952,00.html