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. 

Girls Club

I met with my girls group on Friday, and I would consider it a success. It appeared as if all the girls from my list were present, but I can’t be sure. The room was definitely jam-packed; some desks even had four girls squished side by side (these desks are meant for two people, but it’s not uncommon to see three students fighting for elbow room during class). This meeting was our first official girls only session. A teacher and I assembled the girls in one of the classrooms and he briefly introduced what I planned on discussing, then he was off. I thought the best way to go about forming and sustaining this group would be to ask the girls what they were interested in and what the wanted to learn. This seems like a better idea than just gallivanting in and teaching what I think is best. It also gave me a chance to see how much the girls already know about health related issues.

As always, I started off by saying “If there is anything I am saying that you don’t understand, please let me know…do you understand?” “Yes, madam” was the response. Except that always seems to be the response to everything, whether they understand or not. English Comprehension will be my next club. Before we started anything, I called Bernice and Emelia to the front of the class to be my note takers and translators. I walked around the class and asked them to suggest potential discussion topics. It was bit rocky at first, a couple awkward silences, but eventually the girls found their groove and began raising their hands. I have to give a shout-out to all the teachers out there, talking in front of a big audience is one thing, but getting a bunch of teenagers to be quite is quite a task. As Ghanaians like to say, “you’ve done well.” As soon as you got one side of the room to be quite, the other side started talking, so I found myself shuffling from one side of the room to the other “shh-ing” the girls. It felt like herding cats.

I was quite impressed with their suggestions, eight in total…

1.     How to dress (although I’m not sure I can be of much help on this topic as any sense of style has gone out the window due to the fact that I’m in peace corps and wear mish mash of clothes and colors every day).

2.     How to wash our hand

3.     How to use pad during menstruation

4.     How to respect our elders

5.     How to avoid our self from sex

6.     How to prevent our self from teenage pregnancy

7.     How to lives a chaste life

8.     How to use our time

I copied these suggestions verbatim, so the grammatical errors are not mine, although I’m sure I’ve committed a fair share of my own throughout this post. Please, hold the judgment.

At the end of our meeting all the girls clapped and for the most part seemed pretty enthused about our next meeting. I did see a few girls who looked like they had better places to be, but hopefully that will change. BCS has given us behavior change materials like flipcharts and trigger sketch manuals, which will help us conduct lessons like I will be doing with this club. I don’t have the full set of materials yet, but I will be going to collect them on Tuesday. What awaits me will be even better than the materials I already have. We were trained on these other materials a few months ago, and from what I remember there is a lot of useful information and activities that will work nicely in the girls club.

We are planning to meet again on Monday morning, and I think I will start with a hand-washing demonstration. It’s “hands” on, pun intended, and it’s definitely something everyone should know. I’ll bring some rubber bowls and soap to the school and set up a washing station in our room. I think it will be a good first activity. It’ll let me see the level of engagement and enthusiasm for when we move into more sensitive topics like abstinence and condom demonstrations. Hopefully a few class leaders will emerge, but I’m not getting my hopes up, something I’ve learned to do during Peace Corps. Not that I’m being pessimistic, it’s just that things work differently, and much slower, here in Africa.

On another note, I’ve been making some headway in the two books I’m reading – Africa, and Guns, Germs, and Steel. Both are very interesting and so hard to put down. I was reading all morning today, but took a break to do some much needed laundry. Luckily my sister, Ama (Saturday born), aka Ruby, was helping me. You don’t turn it down when a Ghanaian offers to help wash your clothes. I’ll probably be the cleanest I’ve ever been.

My brothers, sisters and I are going to watch the France/Spain game this evening, assuming the lights (you say lights instead of electricity here) comes back on. It’s been out for almost 24 hours, the longest outage so far. Here’s another shout out to all my PCV friends who don’t have lights – you guys are troopers!

Take it easy!

Wish List

Help a poor Peace Corps Volunteer out! 


http://amzn.com/w/1TNG9E0XKVN15

The Past Few Days...

I had high hopes for Thursday; Alisa, a fellow PCV, and I were asked to teach a family planning and contraception session at the local clinic in Juaboso. The first and second Thursday of every month is Child Welfare Day. Pregnant women and women with babies up to five years old come to clinic to weigh their children and get them the necessary vaccines. Last Thursday we arrived around 9am along with other mothers and their children. Many more came after we arrived. Yet, and this still astonishes me, we were scolded for being late. Did I mention we are in Africa? In all the meetings and events I have attended, never once has a Ghanaian been on time. I guess everyone but Ghanaians must adhere to “American Time.” So this Thursday, we made sure to arrive on time, at 8am, like the nurses had asked this time. So we arrive…8:30am rolls past and still no nurses…weird. They finally arrive around 8:45-9am. There was no mention of being late or making us wait. Life goes on.

We started off with a story about contraceptives. BCS has given us several materials, including the Trigger Sketch Manual, which has different stories about health and family planning. I read the story, which was in English, and one of the nurses translated. The women seemed to be really interested in what we were saying, but the nurse didn’t always translate back to English, so I’m pretty sure we missed out on a lot of what was being said. After our talk, I sat with the nurse in charge of logging the babies’ weights. Every mother is given a booklet for their baby when they are born. The booklet records the baby’s weight over a period of 5 years, as well as all the vaccines it receives. After the babies were weighed, I was handed the booklet to chart their weight and to verify that their vaccines were up to date. If they needed a vaccine or a Vitamin A booster, I put the booklet to one side. Most children actually needed their Vitamin A supplement, and I got to administer it! There were two types of Vitamin A tablets…a red one and a blue one, kind of like the matrix. Children under 6 months received the blue one, and everyone else was given the red one. The tablets were little squishy things with liquid inside. I was given a small lancet to prick the ends of the tablets, which I then got to squirt into many unhappy mouths. As soon as they saw me coming, most of them started screaming bloody murder. Through a combined effort, the mothers and I held the babies and opened their mouths. I’m sure they loved me. If they weren’t already afraid of white people, I’m sure I pushed half those babies across that line. Luckily we went to market afterwards and were able to feel better about ourselves over a semi-cold beer and meat-on-a-stick.

On Friday I finally got Pineapple vaccinated. You don’t need to worry any longer, Mom. I won’t be getting rabies anytime soon. Apparently Pineapple and I made history in Juaboso; Pineapple is the first cat to be vaccinated against rabies in the Juaboso area. Not really sure how I feel about that, but at least she won’t be getting rabies. Pineapple is a trendsetter I guess. The vets all laughed when I told them Pineapples full name, which is Akosua Abrobe Pineapple. Pineapple came to me on a Sunday and the Sunday name for a Ghanaian girl is Akosua. Pineapple in Twi is abrobe.

This morning, Saturday, I went with some members of BCS and my LNGO (local NGO) to Kwafukaa, Alisa’s town. They are starting a Community Health Committee and wanted to discuss their plans to the chief and elders. Alisa and I were both under the impression that we would be going to a durbar, otherwise known as a community meeting. Instead we went to the chief’s palace and sat through a two and half hour meeting, all in Sefwi. Luckily the man sitting next to me translated every 10^th word, so I’m pretty sure I almost got the gist of the meeting. At least Alisa was sitting across from me so we could make “Is this seriously happening right now?” faces at each other. I did get to ride in a real air-conditioned Ford Explorer though. At the end of the meeting Alisa and I took some pictures of us “teaching” to make it look like we did real work, look for the tagged pictures of me on Facebook. There was a board with health issues labeled so we posed in front of it, pointing at various pictures, pretending like we were talking to a crowd.

This evening I walked around town with one of my JHS teachers, Frimpong. We went to visit several girls in my girls club at their respective houses. Basically we wanted to ask the parents about the girls’ habits and life at home. I think we visited eight girls in total. Most of the conversations were positive, but we found a few girls to be troublesome at home. Some parents were saying that their daughters are disrespectful and won’t do their duties when they are at home. What on earth could they be talking about? I was obviously never like this…just ask my parents! In all seriousness though, I think most of the girls are at the age of teenage rebellion and their parents are just frustrated, but there are definitely some deeper seeded issues in some of the households. Hopefully my girls club will be an outlet for some of them.

Tomorrow a colleague is coming to register the cocoa farmers in my village, so I hope it goes smoothly. We’re also going to show a documentary called “Emmanuel’s Gift.” It’s about a Ghanaian man who is handicapped but bikes from Accra to Kumasi to raise awareness about his disability. It’s in Twi and English so I think my town will enjoy it! It should be a good event…Insha’Allah. 

Let the Good Times Roll

Lately I’ve really been loving my job. This past week I’ve had a lot of great conversations with people in my town, which is refreshing and also quite enlightening. You can only stand hearing, “Obruni, what is your name?” or “Hey, I love you. I will marry you,” so many times a day. It definitely makes you want to pull your hair out sometimes. Another infamous saying is “Ma me sika,” or “give me money.” Depending on the day you can have fun with it but on others you just want to chase those little kids away. But all the great experiences I’ve been having so far definitely make up for the ones that get under you skin. I figure you can complain and be miserable during your two years of service or you can enjoy it and realize you have the best job in the world. I mean who doesn’t get frustrated at work? So take it for what it is and make the best of your situation. You’ll be a better volunteer and you’ll have a lot more fun. It also helps that I have made some really great people in my area. There are a handful of PCVs within 20 minutes to two hours of me, and I get to see them at least once a week for our epic market days. I have to say PCVs are pretty great people. It definitely makes my job and my life much more enjoyable. 

On Friday I met with two girls from my girls group at the JHS. Three of them have volunteered to by translators so I wanted to talk with them about my plan and show them some of my materials. They seemed to understand everything I was saying and looked pretty excited, especially one of the girls, Emelia. I think she is going to be my new favorite student. There is a program through Peace Corps called STARS (Students Taking Action Reaching for Success) and there is an annual conference at the KNUST (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology) in Kumasi. Basically STARS is there to promote and teach leadership skills for SHS students. PCVs from all over Ghana bring two students from their local SHS to the meeting, which lasts for a week. A couple of the PCVs in my area just recently returned and I’ve heard nothing but great things, so I’m really excited to get involved with this. I would really like Emelia to be one of my students but I don’t think she will be in SHS by the time I leave.

Sunday is always one of my favorite days because everyone is at church. It’s so quite in my compound, except for the incessant noises from goats, sheep, and chickens. A neighboring Natural Resources Management (NRM) PCV is working on a project to register cocoa farmers in this area, so after church I held a meeting with my local cocoa farmers. My meeting was scheduled for 2pm, but being that we’re in Africa and all, the first person didn’t show up until 2:30 and the rest came around 3:15 – African punctuality. Ghana’s time zone is West African International Time aka WAIT. So we finally kicked things off around 3:30. My counterpart and I explained the idea behind the project and how it would benefit them. The farmers can sign up to receive text messages each week that will give them cocoa farming tips and techniques. All in effort to help them improve their farms and earn more money. I think this a great idea and I’m glad to help another PCV with his project. Well, after explain all this and reiterating that it’s completely voluntary and FREE, one man in the group decided to give a little speech. Basically he told me he thought it was a terrible idea and would be no benefit to the farmers here. Instead, taking them to America and conducting a cocoa farming class would be better. My counterpart and I both said, again, that this service is not required and is only here to help those interested. So even if only one farmer is interested, that’s still someone we can help. It was a very frustrating meeting. This man succeed in making me feel terrible and at one point I was almost in tears. However, I kept my cool and kept smiling. I ended up getting 30 names, including the man who was against this. So on Sunday my friend will be coming to register the farmers, and hopefully more show up. It feels good to accomplish things!

That evening I met up with one of the teachers from the JHS. We went to one of the local hangouts to relax and watch everyone dancing Azonto. I suggest you YouTube this phenomenon. I like talking with the teachers because they speak English better than most people and are fairly educated. This teacher is involved with the JHS hygiene club and has been helping me with my girls club, so we were talking about both clubs for a while. He seems really interested and wants to stay involved, so that makes things easier for me. We both agree that working with the students is a good way to implement my projects. I’m working with behavior change, so we figure that is easier to instill new thoughts and behaviors in younger people who haven’t developed their lifelong habits. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I plan to change that though! I’m planning on visiting the primary and kindergarten schools to teach them a hand-washing game. Hopefully that will get them thinking about health and hygiene. On Saturday, the teacher and I are planning to do some home visits. Sometimes he’ll walk around town and visit with his students to see how thing are going at home and just do a general check in. I was glad to hear this because it seems like he really cares about his students and is invested in their education. I also want to get to know the students better and make them feel more comfortable around me. Hopefully this helps!

On a completely separate but equally important issue…Euro Cup 2012 has started! I’m a little frustrated that England-France ended in a draw, but it’s better than a loss! Go England! My television doesn’t show the games so I have to go into town to watch them, but it definitely entertaining to watch football with Ghanaians. Today is Denmark vs. Portugal and then Netherlands vs. Germany. Should be some great football happening there! 

I hope all is well in America! I miss you guys...but I'm having a blast so don't worry. Happy early birthday to my wonderful Grandma Gladys Addy on June 14 all the way in England! And of course I didn't forget Rocky! Our little pooper dog turns 12 on June 15! I'm sure my mom will be giving him a right nice dinner. 

Goodlife All Stars

My Project

Here's a link to who I'm working for/with and what we do! Behavior Change Support Project with Johns Hopkins University.

feed://www.jhuccp.org/rss/news

A Little Background on Peace Corps Ghana

http://ghana.peacecorps.gov/

Books and Babies

Well nothing too exciting has happened over that past couple of days. I finished a book that I started several months ago – go me. My friend Gayle recommended a book she is reading called “Africa” by Richard Dowden. I thought it would be appropriate to read this book, since I’m in Africa and all. Dowden is a British journalist that has lived and traveled extensively in Africa and he’s met and interviewed people like Mugabe. Each chapter is about a different country in Africa; the political history, development, foreign aid, etc. I am quite fascinated so far and haven’t been able to stop reading. I can relate to a lot of what he writes because I have actually witnessed and experienced some of the things he discusses. It makes the book even more interesting. One excerpt really resonated with me and is one of my reasons for joining Peace Corps. I’ll share it with the class; “I wanted to do something real about poverty and suffering. I believed that to change the world you had to go there, live with the poorest and change their lives. But after three years of learning about European history, what did I know that could possibly be of use to Africa?” (Dowden, Africa). Ask my mom and she’ll tell you I’ve always wanted to go to Africa and save the world. I completely agree with what Dowden is saying here; I personally feel that the only way I can make a difference, or attempt to make a difference, is if I witness and experience poverty, hunger, sickness etc first hand. I would really like to work in the field of international development or public health, but I can’t imagine doing that without seeing it for myself. How can I presume to know what’s best for a certain group of people or country if I haven’t talked with them or visited that country? How effective can you be behind a desk with no frame of reference? You can only learn so much in a classroom. Feel free to disagree. I have some other quotes from the book that jumped out at me so I’ll include them at the end for everyone’s (mostly for my own) enjoyment.

On Wednesday June 6^th, the first Wednesday of the month it was baby weighing day in Afere! I went to the first one in May and came back for the one today. Three nurses from Juaboso (my market town) came to Afere to conduct a small health talk, weigh babies, and vaccinate. The nurse in charge of vaccines, Jennifer, was telling me that they have added two new vaccines, giving them six in total. They already administer Yellow Fever, Polio, Measles, and I didn’t catch the fourth. The two new vaccines are Rotavirus and another one that began with a “B” but I forget what it was for.

Today I went to the baby weighing in Juaboso, at the local hospital. Alisa and I helped the nurses log baby weights and vaccines. The nurses were really nice and were really enthusiastic about us being there. Immediately they asked us to observe what they were doing and eventually we were able to assist them with their duties. At one point I looked over at Alisa and she was giving children doses of Vitamin A. My nurse even let me give one baby a Rotavirus vaccine. There were no needles involved…it was just a few drops in the mouth. But I did make the baby cry as I tried to get it to open its mouth so I felt a little bad. Still it was pretty fun to actually help. A couple people from a certain organization were actually filming a documentary during the baby weighing. They panned the camera around the room and zoomed in on Alisa and me. We kept hearing theam say “abrofoe” which means white people in Twi, so I’m assuming Alisa and I were guest stars. At one point they even interviewed Alisa to ask her opinion of the day so far. We are going back next Thursday to give a small health talk on Family Planning and Nutrition…things like that. We have some materials, like flipcharts and picture cards, so we can use those to show the mothers at the clinic. I’m hoping it goes well. It was a pretty good day and I look forward to next week!

TOMORROW IS MY 4 MONTH MARK IN AFRICA! 23 months to go! Officially shorter than 2 years. The new group is on their way now. They are Education volunteers. It's nice to know that there is someone who has a longer time to go than we do!

Quotes as promised…from Richard Dowden’s Africa

“Like most outsiders arriving in Africa for the first time I was confused by the way people referred to their families. When a pupil wrote about his mothers and fathers, I corrected him. He promptly corrected me, pointing out that he lived in a house with three fathers and two mothers. ‘Yes, but you have only one father and one mother,’ I told him. ‘No, I have three fathers and two mothers at our house,’ he replied. ‘One of my mothers is my mother’s sister and one of the fathers is her brother.’ In Africa any relative who looks after you as a child is a mother or a father. Even cousins several times removed are called brothers and sisters.”

“Other cultural gulfs tormented me. One was the lack of personal privacy. Like most (Western) people, I like to be on my own some times. In Africa to be on your own means you are sick or upset.” (This is so true!!)

“Another aspect that outsiders find difficult is the responsibility that comes with being a wealthy outsider. I received a constant stream of requests from people coming to my house asking for money and sometimes for work.”

“Instead I found myself loved for the very reasons I despised. I was loved because I was white and rich, and from the rich world. I had come to bring its benefits to Africa, had I not?”