Today is my last day at the internet cafe... I am so sad to be leaving on Friday. I had such a good day yesterday. I went with a few other volunteers in the morning to paint a classroom at Tegbi school and then I had my clinic with Sam in Woe near our house. I had like 25 kids around me the whole time at my clinic and the sweetest two baby girls named Love and Rose who kept sitting on my lap the whole time. Sam was really sad that I am leaving..we have become really good friends. But I may return here one day...we'll see. Last night the African dancers came (for the new volunteers) and they are such amazing dancers...its unreal. The way they can move their bodies is just amazing. Anyway I need to head back for lunch and then another day of clinics. I love you much much. Me, Erin, Conner, and Mariah all leave on Friday so we are leaving for Accra at 1:00 on fri afternoon (our flights at 10 pm) and going to a sushi restaurant in Accra to all eat. Some of the other volunteers who are staying longer are coming in too to eat with us as a goodbye...Sam wants to come but I had to ask Ben (main guy) permission to let him off work so he can come into Accra with us..I don't know if they will let him but I hope so. Ok I love you guys....SEE YOU VERY SOON

LAuren

Hi everyone....well I promised I would send an email with just general things about Ghanian life and culture so here it is!

 

Everyone here has two names.  One is a Ghanian named based on the day of the week that you were born and then an English name.  Since I was born on a Sunday my Ghanian name is Esi.  I made a list of some common great names of children I have met over here: Wonder, Believe, Constance, Comfort, Patience, Peace, Wisdom, Mercy, Fortune, Perfect, Precious, Rejoice, God's Way, Gifty, Clever, Brilliant, Bright, Bless, & Justice.  Great huh?!  Nothing better for a child's self esteem then being named Perfect.

 

I think I have told you this before but in Ghana the left hand is considered "dirty".  You don't use your left hand to wave, shake hands, eat or anything because it is considered an insult.  So children who are left-handed are pretty much forced to be right handed.  They have a great handshake here.  You shake hands and hold it...then as your pulling your hands away you both use your middle finger to snap.  I love it.  And sometimes they will snap 2 or 3 times.  When you go into someone's house, they always offer you water and to be polite you should accept it.  There is a common Ewe greeting always exchanged between the guest and family when you come into their house.

 

There culture is very modest so they keep their knees covered and only wear skirts below their knees.  I think the Ghanians have gotten very used to the heat here because most of the men where long pants and even sometimes nice, long sleeved dress shirts in the 90 degree heat. 

 

I learned that when a girl is interested in a boy to date she NEVER tells the boy that.  Ever.  Only after they are a couple does the girl tell him that she likes/loves him.  It is always the guy who makes the first move.  Guys often give their girlfriends promise rings if they want to marry them one day.  When I asked Sam what the biggest problem among teenagers are here, he told me its marrying young.  Alot of teens in the fishing and farming villages don't go to school, but just fish and farm and get married and have kids ages 15-18....I see some girls who look 14 with little babies all the time.  Its interesting because the major problems among American girls is eating disorders but that is non-existant over here.  Sam told me when girls are heavier here they believe it is their nature and they don't even know that diet and exercise can change their bodies so they just accept their bodies.  Great for self-esteem but not so good for health in some ways I guess.  Sam told me men here used to like women with curves (like alot of African Americans do in the US) but that women here would get fat inplanted in their butts so now men like slender women instead.  But he said the most important thing here to be attractive is for a woman's front side and back side to be symmetical.  So either small/small or big/big but not big boobs with a small butt.  Interesting huh?  Most girls begin having sex in junior secondary school (14-16).  They often get pressured by the level 3 guys (16 yr olds).  I was told 70% use condoms, 10% birth control, and 20% "know their cycle".  Somehow luckily AIDS is not a big problem in this area.  I was told maybe a 1/4 of teens wait to have sex until they get married.  Its funny because alot of people here are strong Christians and will justify caning children and many other things because thats what it says in the bible...but when it comes to pre-marital sex they just kind of ignore that part of the bible.  Christians here only have one wife but tradionalist (which is the tradional African religon) can have more than one wife.  Interestingly, I found that most women who came to the well-child clinic had NO IDEA how old their husbands are.  Like NO CLUE...its hard to understand how you could not know your husbands birthday, let alone whether he is 40 or 50 but I guess its just different here.  Divorce is not common but it occurs here.  The main reasons are if the woman cheats on her husband (nice double standard huh) or if the wife can't have children.  I was told that literally EVERYONE wants to have children here. 

 

Babies here get their ears pierced when they are a few days old.  It is common for a baby to wear bracelets and the cutest little chain of beads around their bellies.  Boys usually get circumsized on the eight day (because remember they follow the bible to the T here).  Also, for some reason they believe that babies' wombs get traumatized during birth so they instill warm water into baby girls' vaginas and boys' penis for the first 1-2 months of life using a funnel.  Strange huh?!  Also, I love this one.  If a child has stomach aches/problems they are told here to give the child alcohol.  Isn't that so bizarre.  Sam had stomach aches as a child so his parents had him "take" alcohol everyday from the age of 8 to his teenage years.  Also, if a woman wants to abort a baby they don't go to the hospital but they take herbs instead.  Like I said before people here really do not smoke.  Most that do are men that learned it while "dating" white women who have come here.  It is not important to men here whether you are pretty or not, they really are more interested in personalities.  They are actually really respectful to women and never even tell a women she is pretty and NEVER make lude comments.  People here are extremely private and never talk about their family or problems with friends.  I asked a bunch of boys what is the most important quality for their wife to have and they said being "respectful"....not necessarily talking about just to men but to everyone, elders etc.

 

Everyone here calls everyone "Afo and Davi" which is brother and sister.  I am called Davi Lauren by Believe.  All the children here call me Lauren Nurse when they see me...and the volunteers call me Dr. Lauren.  One thing I love about here is men are very affectionate towards each other.  You will often see teenage guys walking down the street holding hands.  At first everytime I saw it I did a double turn because in America that usually means you are gay.  But here men are just very affectionate with their friends.  Homosexuality is pretty much unheard of here.  So sadly I guess they are forced to stay in the closet. 

 

When you are walking down the street and someone wants you to come over they make almost a hissing sound as a means to call you over.  Also, among friends each one will have a certain whistle so if one friend hears it they know who is calling them over.  BUT they never do this whistle in the night because they believe that will invite evil forces over.  Last thing I can think of is hugging does not happen here, and you do not call an elder by his name.  Just Afo or Davi (Brother or Sister).

 

Oh yeah the main food they eat here are akplah and fufu.  Akplah is ground up cassava mixed with corn flower.  I don't like it..its taste very bland, but they usually mix it with something like ground nut soup or tilapia to give it flavor.

 

So there is just a few random tidbits about life in Ghana!  Things are still going great here...we had 10 new voluteers come in last night.  My friend Alli decided spur of the moment yesterday to put long braids in her hair so I spent 4 hours with her at the hair dresser yesterday...she looks very Rasta now.  I traveled to Ho on Friday and delivered a laptop to the Ho Hospital, and a bunch of books to the Prince of Peace School for my friend Amy, who voluteered here with CCS last January.  It was a lot of fun to deliver, the kids were SO excited...I got mobbed when I started pulling out the pictures and books sent over from a class in America.  It is so strange to me that I do not have much more time in Ghana.  I will really miss this culture and the people here.  In a way it feels like I have been here for so long, and then it also feels like I just got here.  I must admit the only thing in America that I do miss is washing machines....my least favorite time here is when I have to hand wash all my clothes.  But its definitely part of the experience.  Well thats all for now.  My clinic continues on this coming week...

Peace and love,

Lauren   

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 Hey all...sorry it has been so long since I have posted a new journal.  Everytime I have tried to come to the internet cafe over the last week the phones have been down or the power has been out.....I was feeling sick last week but now I feel much better! 

 

My clinic on Friday was great.  We were down at the beach and finally it got properly announced so Sammy & I had a great turnout.  There were a ton of people there and I am very happy to say that the blood pressures were really pretty good.  I guess the hard work of dragging the nets and fishing has kept these people in great physical shape.  I did have one man come up to me (probably in 20's) and proceed to tell me that (with a DEAD SERIOUS face) he sold cocaine to my president Bill Clinton and that I should get the money that Bill owes him and give it to him.  And he thought that I was a queen (which I doubt any queen would be found sitting at the beach in sweaty clothes taking blood pressures) and then was told I look like Bill Clinton...lol.  So I did everything I could not to start laughing during this conversation considering he was totally serious.  It was quite entertaining though.

 

This weekend was really nice.  I spent alot of time with Sammy, Richard, Comfort and a few of the other local Ghanians that live around our house.  We are all about the same age.  They are really fun to talk to and debate issues with. 

 

Here is something very interesting.  There was a lady at Keta hospital on Friday who supposedly was a bird and turned from a bird into a naked lady after she was caught trying to steal and kill two twin babies in the hospital.  Ok now if this wasn't enough...people saw this happen AND everyone in Woe and Keta are convinced she is a witch.  No joke.  She is being held at the local police station.  They believe in witches and wizards here.  I had a long talk with Sammy who is one of the smartest, most rational people I know and he is completely sure of the existance of witches.  He said that he saw a witch as a child in his village who caused the death of four men in his village. Then he has also seen a tree walk during the nighttime.  I know...and here I am Mrs. Skeptical Westerner like "Are you CRAZY?!?!"...but then I had to take into account that our cultures are so different.  I proceeded to tell them all about acupuncture, and auras, and therpeautic touch and they all looked at me like I was nuts.  Its interesting though because even the Christians here belief in witches, wizards, sorcerers etc...they just believe that Jesus Christ can overcome these evil powers...hummmmmmm....

 

There are two little boys that live with Charles' family next door that are the saddest case of malnutrition I have ever seen.  The one year old weighs 4.5 kg (like 9lbs) and the two year old weight 7 kg (15lbs)  They both look like they are under 6 months old.  Well the 2 year old has been coming to our house alot lately...he has a huge protruding belly and balding greyish hair (major signs of malnutrion) so Lindsey and I have been feeding him little spoons of peanut butter whenever he is at our house.  He is so sweet and cute, just so sad to see that he is not being fed enough.

 

Sammy and I hiked out to a farming village today and got there to learn that the clinic was announced for tomorrow afternoon so we just left and are going back tomorrow.  I had the cutest little girl and toddle boy escort me all the way back out to the road so I guess the trip was worth it =)  That is all for now.   In peace, Lauren

By the way my brother got engaged!!! CONGRATS MIKEY and KANI!!!!

 

 

The last few days have been a bit of recovery =)...nothing major, but I caught a bug from one of the other volunteers so I decided I needed to stay in Woe this weekend and rest.  I also have had a problem with my eyes.  It is really hard to wear contacts in third-world countries because of sanitation issues...when I was in Nicaragua last year my eyes got so irritated that I had to stay in a dark hotel room at the beach because of their sensitivity to light.  Well this started happening on Friday and because I wasn't smart about taking out my contact and wearing my glasses (because I hate wearing my glasses-so uncomfortable) that my eyes really started bothering me Sunday night...so now I am forcing myself to wear my glasses for the next week.  I really need to get laser surgery if I plan to spend my life in poor countries..but its too expensive for me!...$2000 an eye.  So I guess that will have to wait. 

 

 This weekend at the house was very quiet.  There were only 6 of us there and it was really nice.  I read two books.  Its fun because all the volunteers are avid readers so they have given me some GREAT books to read...right now I am reading the Red Tent.  On Friday I layed my foot on my bed to go to sleep and I felt a pain like a blister...I looked at my ankle and saw that I had a MASSIVE egg sac from jiggers in my ankle/heel (which is a very rare place for them to go)...usually you can feel jiggers almost immediately after they burrow but for some reason I had not felt them until it had really gone to town on my foot!  For some reason I was really excited about this...its kinda neat (and gross) to take them out.  I ran to Alli's room (volunteer who LOVES and is really good at taking out jiggers) and we removed them.  There were FIVE in there and massive egg sacs...but I put a blister pack on the wound and now its already mostly healed...so nothing to worry about.  Imagine how many I would have if I didn't wear socks everyday =) 

 

 I took up a great hobby over the weekend. A lot of people ride bikes here (cheaper than taking tro tros) so I asked Samuel if I could borrow his bike.  I rode past Keta out across a beautiful rode that separates the sea from the lagoon.  I enjoyed myself so much I have done this each day.  Yesterday I layed on the rocks and watched the fisherman..it was so great.  I kept thinking about how my mom and cousin Saul would love cycling on these roads with the beautiful scenary.  Constance (our cook) and Believe (our Mr. Do It guy) both went to visit their families this weekend and I missed them immensely.  They have both become my very good friends, whom I love very much!  I was so excited to see Believe back after my bike ride yesterday...I engulfed him in a huge hug!  Can't wait for Constance to get back today.  Sometimes it is hard to be around 20 American/Canadian girls (you know how girls can be) so I find myself spending most of my time with our Ghanian staff or locals. 

 

Sadly my clinic again yesterday was a flop because the public announcement didn't inform the village I would be there.  We even paid them this time...I guess thats the world of corruption.  We were set up on the beach under palm trees next to the light house so it was a bit of heaven.  Since we had no patients Samuel and me just laid in the sand under the trees and listened to Bob Marley on my ipod...which was great.  Samuel wasn't feeling good so I guess it was a blessing that my clinic didn't get announced.  We are back at the beach today so hopefully this time it will be announced!....Its so wierd to imagine its becoming winter in the States...I don't want to leave this tropical climate and go back to cold.  Well thats all for now!

Things here this week have been quiet.  The 5 new volunteers who got here a week ago left for Cape Coast on Wednesday.  It has been rainy this week so most of my clinics have been very slow.  Also, they have not been making public announcements to the people about where I would be because the public announcement wanted bribery from CCS, which we wouldn't do.  So sadly because of this corruption, not many people have known about my clinics this week.  Earlier this week we even just decided to travel around to houses to see people.  We ended up walking like 7 miles in the sand which left Sammy & I totally exhausted.  But at least we saw some people.

 

As of a few days ago, all of the teachers in Ghana have gone on strike.  ALL including all primary, junior & senior secondary, and the university level.  So everyone is out of school.  A group of teachers went on strike awhile back and the goverment promised them more money so they went back to work...but never got the increased salaries.  So this time all of the teachers are forced on strike (and police have been ordered to ARREST any teachers they see teaching)...The government says that they will increase teachers salaries in 2007 so teachers say they won't go back to teach until 2007.  This is REALLy bad for Ghanian education.  One of our volunteers got kicked out of their school by the head master when she tried to teach on Monday.  Some of the volunteers are having the students come to CCS to teach them there.  A guy Richard who is training to work in construction said this is all really bad because when he gets back in April he will still be expected to take and pass his final exams even if he has not been taught in 6 months and if he fails he will be kicked out...how unfair is that!?

 

I also bought a lot of fabric at the market to be made into skirts and dresses, but so far have not had the time to go to the seamstress to have it made.  But today after I leave here I am going to have skirts made!  Also I found out today that a DSL broadband service is coming to this area of the Voltra Region and Mike (the owner of the internet cafe) is going to get it!  It probably won't be for a few weeks...so I might have a few days of fast internet yay!  You couldn't even imagine what it is like to wait 2 hours for the AOL website to pull up..I guess a great teacher of patience though.   Ok thats all for now.  I am going again this weekend back to Abor to the St. Teresa Center which I am excited about.  I look forward to spending time with the kids again and hearing the music at mass.  Lots of peace and love from Ghana. 

So I left at 9 on wednesday morning...and was just a tiny bit nervous about travelig through Ghana on my own.  Thank goodness I had sweet Believe (our Do-Everything house guy) escort me to the road to catch my tro-tro.  I had been telling everyone that I was going to Accra and was on the side of the street to catch my tro tro to Accra.  I showed Believe the directions I was given and he laughed and said you are not going to Accra but 2 hours the other way towards Aflao...oops.  So thankfully I had Believe to keep me from getting lost.  I took a tro tro to Denu...got off and then took another to Abor junction...then got riped off by a taxi to take me to the St. Teresa center (a whole 1.50 when it should have been $0.50 lol).  I got to the Center around lunchtime and immediately I met with Father Carlos who told me all about the Center.  It is run by a Catholic Italian Father, brother, Spanish brother, and Nigerian Father, who are all part of Servants of Charity.  The Nigerian Father spent the afternoon showing me around the Center.  He was one of the nicest men I have EVER met.  You know that feeling when you are looking into someone's eyes and you feel like you are looking into the eyes of God...thats how it felt to talk to Father Christopher.  I loved his perspective on religion.  I spent all afternoon talking to him.  He wants me to come back to Africa in a few years (either to Nigeria, Ghana, or Congo) when I am done with Peace Corps and work with him traveling through villages helping the sick and poor.  I might take him up on the offer...regardless of his religion he is the kindest person I have ever met.  He knew I was Jewish...but he believes that everyone believes in the same God and is about accepting and loving everyone regardless of their religion.  The purpose of the Center is not about what religion the children are but are about making them feel loved and to know that God loves them and made them perfect.  See in Africa having a physical or mental disability is seen a curse or a punishment so most of the time they are discarded by their families and society and treated like animals.  This Center is absolutely amazing.  It is INCREDIBLY nice compared to everything else I have seen in Ghana.  It is a senior secondary school (15-25 yr olds) who come and get training in either dress making, tailoring, computers, techonology repair, weaving, etc.) so that when they graduate they can get a job when before they were pretty much discarded.  The kids I met here have BEAUTIFUL spirits.  There are 80 with disabilities and 40 that are abled.  It is great seeing the normal kids pushing around the disabled in wheel chairs.  They sleep here during the week but can go home on the weekends.  Polio has just recently been addressed in Ghana so there are tons of kids crippled here from polio.  Alot in wheelchairs or with just one leg.  They were so sweet to me and I made instantaneous friends.  Saturday night there was dance party for their social.  It was great.  I am not kidding when I say the kids in the wheel chairs and two one legged-girls danced better than I could ever dream of dancing with both of my legs.  It was amazing.  I ate dinner with the fathers who spoke in Italian most of the time...which left me a little lost but they were very sweet to me.  I had amazing Italian espresso (all we have in Woe is awful instant coffee) so that was a treat!  The next day I went to mass with the children..and while Catholicism is not for me...the service was really great.  The kids sung beautiful psalms while some of the boys played drums.  And the sermon was about how God wanted men and women to be treated equally with the same amount of respect, abled or disabled...not that abled men should be respected first.  So I enjoyed that.  I had a sweet little girl (because some people from the surrounding village come to the school mass) who sat next to me who was shy for about 10 minutes but i kept smiling at her and then the next thing I knew she was sittting on my lap and holding my hand everytime we stood up!  Such a sweet angel.  After lunch Sunday a group of girls came to Father Carlo house to do a dance for me.  It was great but while I was taking pictures my camera made the sound of a gunshot and I knew my camera was offically toast.  =( But at least I got 200 pictures out of it before it died.  Well I still have 2 disposable cameras so it will be fine.  I went around to say bye to all the children...they asked me to stay...so I said I would come back next weekend.  A volunteer from Italy drove me to Abor junction to catch a tro tro back to Keta.  I made great friends on the ride home.  A man offered me one of those fake soy meat on a skewer I talked about earlier so I tried it.  It was good..then I offered him my water in exchange.  His wife sitting next to me gave me a bag of ground nuts (their peanuts) so I gave her my bracelet =)...They gave me their phone number and wanted to stay friends.  Another 60 yr old man asked me to marry him.  Then a sweet girl in her 20s who was going to Keta adopted me and helped me catch a tro tro in Aflao back to Woe.  So everyone was very kind and helpful.  It was really a great weekend..I cant wait to go back!

 

   

Hello all,

Thought I would send out an update since it has been a few weeks since my last group email... 

Sorry it has taken so long for me to post a new journal.  Ghana government turns off electricity for 12 hours every 3 days and it seems like every time I come to internet cafe there is no power or the internet is down.  About my clinic that I started last week....wow so far I am blown away with the clinics I have done.  My first clinic on Tuesday was national election day so we set up the clinic close to the voting tables under a tree.  I had so many people lined up to have their blood pressure taken that the voting official got angry and made up move the table further away (5 feet) from the voting table because he said we were taking to much attention away from the voting.  Which was really silly since everyone had already voted by that late in the afternoon.  Anways I was going to stay from just 2-4 but there were so many people there and they begged me to do them all so I ended up staying an extra hour.  I saw 63 people that first day.  The second day we had some dilemmas...first we could not find a table to use, then my blood pressure cuff broke and we had to find tape to close the little hole, then after I had taken about 10 bp's...it started POURING..so we ended up leaving.  Thur. and Friday I went to a different village and I saw 100 people from this village.  Now let me tell you how disturbing the blood pressures situation is over here.  So far in 4 days I have seen around 200 people and I would say MAYBE 20 of them had good or normal BP's...less than 130/90.  Not only is that upsetting but the degree of hypertension I have seen so far is astounding.  One woman I saw had a blood pressure 235/135...and another 220/125...I gave them both money to go immediately to the Keta hospital and medications because I was scared they were going to have a stroke at any moment.  In Ghana, medication for people over 50 is suppose to be free...key word SUPPOSED to..but again corruption in the hospital is very common and most of the time they make everyone buy their medications.  I saw probably 15 people on Friday who had blood pressure > 190/110 ...which is unbelievable.  Then the majority of people had 140-180/90-100.  In the US we would rush the first group of people to the ER and the second group either also to the ER or def. have them on medication, but here I have had to change the way I look at it.  Typically if they are >150/90-100 I ask them to please go to the hospital today or tomorrow and get medication but if it is 130-150/80-90 I teach them about diet change and exercise and ask them to come to the Cross Cultural house in a month to see if it has come down.  Here they drink a good amount of alcohol, and use alot of salt and palm oil so those are the major things that I focus on teaching.  I ask the ones who are going to gets medications to come see me in 2 weeks so I can see if the medications are working because typically here they have no one to follow up with so they eventually just stop taking medication because noone is following them or encouraging them.  When I get a bp of 136/82 here I'm like really happy....The other thing that is extremely upsetting to me here is that almost ALL of the 18-26 that I check have high blood pressue (140/170/80-100) which is really not good for people so young.  For them since they are young and I know it is more realistic, I ask them to jog together for 30 minutes a day and then have me check it again in a month.  I have no idea why they are all so high.  It has really left me flabbergasted.  Part of me so badly wishes that I could stay here and help manage these blood pressures.  It is possible to get them under control if they were just consistently followed up with and encouraged.  I think most people can find a way to afford medication if they were just encouraged to keep taking them and had their BP routinely checked to make sure the meds are working correctly.  I was really happy when I left the clinic on Friday to see the 235/135 lady was back from the hospital and waving her bag of medications at me with a big smile on her face!  So I guess thats one success story...one stroke avoided.  Hopefully today I will get a few more decent blood pressures =).  This weekend the director of Cross Cultural Solutions came to visit and it was great talking to him last night and hearing about how he started this NGO.  I spent the weekend cooking with Constance and learning how to make her amazing dishes!  She bought eggplant in Togo and olive oil in Angola and I made everyone eggplant last night which everyone loved!  So that was fun!  Just so everyone knows...I am keeping the mosquitos in Ghana well fed.  I currently have over 50 mosquito bites on my legs...they really like me I guess =)  And I was doing so good staying jigger free for the first 3 weeks and now I have gotten 5 or 6.  Most of the time I see them before they've burrowed in and I scrap them out with my nail.  But I had a really bad one this morning.  My toe started hurting and a little blister was there, but I thought it was just from running.  There was a little black spot but it didn't look like a jigger, more a faint freckle because it was burrowed so deep.  I showed Allie...another volunteer who is great at getting them out and she was like yep thats one.  She got cuticle cutters and started trying to cut it out and it was so deep...it hurt so bad I was screaming....and I still didn't believe it was a jigger but then she finally hit it and started pulling out the egg sac...and finally got the jigger out.  LOL..I've been wearing socks but supposedly sometimes they can get through sock so what can you!  Anyways...I am happy I've only had a few compared to everyone else.  My roommated had 22 taken out at one time.  Unbelievable huh?!  Anyways you gotta take the good with the bad.  Still a beautiful country!  Well I better head out now!