Bolga: Day 2

Today I got my first taste of what field work entails. And lemme tell you--it's not easy driving down bumpy roads, going from community to community. I commend everyone who does this, day in, day out. By the end of the day, weak little me was so tired, so hot, and so hungry...

I, along with 2 CRS project officers and the driver, traveled out to Navrongo, which is a town just outside of Bolga. People who have donated the funds that have helped make possible the projects CRS-Ghana is undertaking are visiting from the U.S. on Friday. We went to three of the communities to make sure everything was ready and in place for the visit.

I've never realized just how much I take running water for granted. Clean water at that. We put our dishes in the dishwasher, indulge in long, hot showers, and drink from the tap without a second thought. But here, the water situation couldn't be more different. Even in cities like Accra, water isn't guaranteed to flow out the faucet when you turn it on. And in rural areas, where I visited today, people, mostly women and children, walk miles to a water source that, in many cases, isn't clean, infecting people with diseases such as Guinea worm. (Please don't Google Image this. I beg!)

The first community we visited featured a water pump built by the donations of CRS based in Seattle. Since the water comes from deep down in the ground, it's clean and safe to drink, even cleaner and safer than tap water. I was able to drink some and it did taste good. Here it is in action.



Up until now, I've underestimated the power of witnessing things firsthand. While watching this boy collect water and bring it back home to his family, it really hit me that such a simple mechanism can save the lives of so many. And it makes you wish that every community that needed this had one. But it's so much easier said than done.

After that, we went to the Nokang community. This is the CIMACS scoreboard that tracks the progress the community has made:

The picture on the left shows a woman delivering a baby at a clinic, and the right shows a woman delivering at home. Currently, this community has a 90% success rate, meaning that most women deliver at a clinic. This is no small feat. That the clinic is often miles away from the community and that most deliveries happen at night makes going even more difficult than it already is. As I mentioned in my last post, CIMACS provides motorbikes, raincoats, and rain boots to link providers so that they can quickly get a woman in labor to the clinic.

With the help of CIMACS and its volunteers, this woman


was able to deliver this healthy (and cute!) baby.



I wanted to end this slightly gloomy post on a happy note. With the image of a calm, sleeping newborn in my head, I'm off to bed! I've discovered that so many people say "Yoooooo!" as a farewell. And all this time, I thought it was just something weird my mom said before she said bye on the phone, but it's quite widespread here. So now, I shall say it too.

Yooooo!

Bolga: Day 1

I'm writing from my hotel room in Bolgatanga, with the Brazil v. Cote d'Ivoire match on in the background. It's become a sort of routine for me here, watching soc--I mean, football every day. More on the always interesting World Cup--and the antics it inspires in its loyal aficionados--later. Anyway, I'm here in Bolga, which is in the Upper East Region, to observe firsthand the work Catholic Relief Services (CRS) does in rural communities. I visited the CRS office in Tamale last week where I was able to learn about 2 projects the organization is undertaking in developing rural communities in Ghana: CIMACS and SILC. (CRS really loves its acronyms...)

CIMACS, which stands for Community Initiative on Maternal, Child, and Newborn Survival is a 3-year program begun in 2009 to reduce maternal and child mortality in the Upper East Region of Ghana, where communities are especially susceptible to high mortality rates. CRS works with Ghana Health Services which nominates high-risk communities. A needs assessment is conducted to ascertain the things the communities lack, like roads, water, better farming tools, and money for starting businesses. CRS gathers at least half of the community and takes a vote; if the community decides as a whole that its most pressing need is health, the community is chosen.

I'll highlight just a couple of aspects that I found particularly interesting about CIMACS. CRS employs the "Positive Deviant" strategy, which identifies the few people in the community whose behaviors are seen as deviant by other members, but in reality are positive. In this case, it would be delivering a baby at a clinic instead of in the home--the traditional method. This also includes the concept of breastfeeding. Many locals think that breast milk is bad, and give newborns cow's milk instead, but breast milk is the ideal choice because it provides essential nutrients that help strengthen a baby's immune system, which is crucial. CIMACS promotes "immediate and exclusive breastfeeding" for up to 6 months. Also, traditional birth attendants (TBAs) are given items as incentives for them to give up their job of delivering babies in the home, and become link providers, essentially "linking" expectant mothers to the clinics. CRS gives TBAs items such as motorbikes, raincoats, and rain boots to make it easier for them to transport expectant mothers to the clinic, where it is both cleaner and safer, and ensures a healthy delivery.

The other project is SILC, Savings and Internal Lending Communities, which provides a way for members of the community to pool their money together in a safe place. SILC integrates with CIMACS by financing the items given to the link providers. A group consists of ~25 members that meets weekly. The money is collected and kept in a box that has 3 padlocks. One person keeps the box, and 3 people keep the keys for the 3 different padlocks. These four people are scattered throughout the community. I think this is a pretty cool way to protect against theft and instill a sort of connectedness among the group. Money is set aside for special things, like social and savings funds. There are fines for lateness to the group meetings, which is put in the box. After 10-12 months of saving, the group "graduates" and the money is shared among the group in proportion to their contribution over the months. Some achievements of this program include providing loans to members who want to start up a small-scale business (ex: selling roasted groundnuts), and even encouraging co-existence among different ethnic groups.

Today consisted of training the data collectors, which number around nine. They're mostly graduate students and those who have experience with researching in the field. Their main task is to translate the CIMACS-SILC baseline survey into the local languages. The questionnaire asks basic questions such as marital status, education level, and becomes even more specific, asking respondents to rank their mode of transportation (donkey, bicycle, motorcycle, etc), how much money they have saved, and about maternal care. This serves as a way to gauge how the community as a whole goes about delivering babies.

Filling out a questionnaire seems straightforward enough, I thought, but the translation of the questions from English to the local language is critical. Each survey will be done orally, given to about 40 members of the community, so extra care must be taken. For example, one question asks "How many people live in your household?" Seems easy enough, right? But the choices are: 1) 5 or less, 2) between 6 and 10, 3) between 11 and 15, 4) between 16 and 20, 5) more than 20. The concept of extended family is important in the culture of Ghana and many African countries, but the question means the nuclear family, or how one person put it, "those who eat from the same pot."

I hope I'll have a lot more to report as I go through the week, but for now...

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

I can't stress enough how great it is to be in Ghana during the World Cup. Yesterday, we all gathered to watch the Ghana v. Australia match, specially projected on the wall.


Waiting in anticipation as Asamoah Gyan prepares for his penalty kick and....


GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! (Please note the annoying vuvuzela, the bugle-like instrument that has been the constant backdrop of all the matches, which sounds even worse in real life).

The song sung after every goal:


And the amazing (????) dancing that takes place. This is from the Ghana v. Serbia match.


This was long. Props to you for making it this far!

12 hour travels + World Cup Fever

I left Accra on Saturday with my aunt and a driver. We left at 7am and arrived around 6:30pm. That’s TWELVE HOURS by car. Here’s the visual:

In between naps, I managed to take some shots of the road.



Hawkers stand by the road and bombard your car if you make so much as eye contact. But it’s a convenient way to get your shopping done without ever getting out of your car. By the end of the trip, the backseat was packed with loaves of bread, fruit, etc.


Cattle roaming freely by the roadside. Back in the States, you’d probably get arrested and charged for animal abandonment or abuse or something.


A billboard in Kumasi. Inspired by a certain presidential campaign, I wonder...Plus the drinking age is 18. Take note, America.

Look at the size of those mangoes! We stopped to buy some of course. I've been eating them all week. Life is good.

This is me with my cousins Victor and Annette, all dressed for church on Sunday. Mass was long and hot, but at least it was lively, with all the upbeat songs and dancing.

After church, we all gathered around to watch Ghana v. Serbia soccer match. We won 1-0, but it was more entertaining to watch the guys celebrate. I hear the whole of Ghana was heartily celebrating their first win. It's refreshing be in a country so infected with the fever of the World Cup. And to think, if Ghana went on to win the whole thing...

Finally Here!

Yay! I'm in Ghana! Due to complications with my ticket, I actually flew out on Wednesday instead of Monday. I was pretty bummed, but I finally made it!

I've been staying at my uncle and aunt's house in Achimota, which is just outside of Accra, since I arrived yesterday. I basically slept all day yesterday, and today I went to the mall, so nothing really interesting has happened yet. I'm leaving for Tamale tomorrow, where I'll be spending the majority of my 2 months. One of my internships starts on Monday, and my schedule looks pretty packed, so expect a lot of posts!

Introduction

Instead of packing, I decided to start my blog. Not particularly smart, but I'm a procrastinator, what can I say?

So.

My name is Ruth, I'm a rising sophomore attending Yale University, and I'm leaving for Ghana on Monday, where I'll be working at 2 (or 3) NGOs.

Why Ghana?

My family is originally from there. I was born in Israel, though I've spent nearly all my life in the U.S. I've been back to Ghana twice: in 2001 when I was 9, and 2007, when I was 15. Both times, I traveled with my family, spending 3 weeks visiting countless relatives--aunts, uncles, cousins, 2nd cousins twice removed, etc. They were both whirlwind experiences, filled with so many new and unknown things, yet it all seemed oddly familiar. I came back to the States, both times, changed a little bit.

This time will be different, though.

I'll be spending 2 full months there for the primary purpose of my internships, but I'll visit relatives on the side. Probably the most significant difference (for me, at least) is that this will be my first solo trip. EVER. (Well, I've flown to England without my parents, but it was with a group, so that doesn't count.) This brings with it both excitement and anxiety, but it's one of the things that I feel I must do to "grow up."

At school, I feel there's this need, almost expectation, to do something great with your summers. That, coupled with my intense need to get out of my hometown (I love you New Haven, but you know: distance makes the heart grow fonder...). I started bouncing ideas off my cousin (hey Tony!), and he suggested going back to Ghana. I emailed one of many uncles, and after much back-and-forth, he was able to find me positions with a couple of organizations based in Tamale, not only the city in which I'll be staying with him and his family, but also, the "NGO capital of Ghana."

A little background: I took a class in African history last semester that really sparked my interest in the whole field of economic development. One of the questions the class dealt with was why, on average, African countries are poorer than their counterparts. Learning about colonialism and the politics and economics of nations in the post-independence era provided some pieces to the puzzle, but not all of it. During my 8 weeks in Ghana, I hope to witness firsthand what exactly is being done to lift African countries out of their seemingly persistent poverty.

Yup.

You may (understandably) scratch your head at the title of my blog. To say mangoes are my favorite fruit is an understatement. I could go on about my love for that oh-so-juicy fruit--but I won't. I encountered the biggest mango I'd ever seen in my life when I visited Ghana 3 years ago:



Aaaand for a size comparison:


Here's to hoping there'll be many more huge mangoes in my future.

Next time I write, I'll be in Accra, 5000 miles across the Atlantic!