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Published: March 9th 2008
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Skinny Alivia with coworkers
At the Family Planning Unit in Mampong-Ashanti, Ghana. Everyone was very welcoming but most days were void of patients, work, or family planning supplies. It was a learning experience. I frightened a lot of wee babies. My original plan was to chill in Ghana for 2 months because:
(1) it is an English speaking country (more so on paper than when you interact with people on an everyday basis)
and
(2) I'd traveled so far and paid for all the vaccinations and visas, so why stay in West Africa for just 1 month?
As, some of you know, I completed pre-med coursework at Carleton and am thinking about med school, public health, education, and other career paths. I thought I could try out the international public health realm whilst on my trip and see if that's where I might want to steer my future. I was able to arrange a position (via a Ghanaian doctor I met in Minneapolis) in a town called Mampong and a place to stay. I stayed for 1 month and was assigned to the government-funded health services office. I got a tour of the different programs and challenges in the area, then settled into a role with the Family Panning Unit. They serve a huge population, thus must do outreach clinics nearly every day, consisting of a health talk, baby weighing, and giving immunizations. The literature says this program is free
but always on the outreach, fees were demanded. It was interesting to see corruption, albeit on a tiny scale, in live action. The nurses often used the money to buy snacks that same afternoon.
Frustratingly, we often had a low or empty supply of birth control, thus the center was void of patients.
I asked: where can they go now to get birth control? (they buy it month to month).
The nurse (looked like she was 19 years old), said: they can go to any pharmacy.
me: Why do they come here?
She replied: because we sell it cheaper, they are often illiterate and we accommodate them here, we offer other medical services and can answer questions, and they feel more comfortable coming here.
me: When will you be able to get more stock?
nurse: I don't know.
me: Then they will all just get pregnant?
nurse: If they don't buy it elsewhere, yes.
me: ah. where do the drugs come from? Who is responsible for making sure we have enough?
nurse: I don't know
The unit was overstaffed, unmotivated and it appeared condescending to the women it served (I didn't understand the Twi language but just the
Fufu EVERYDAY
This operation goes down twice a day to make a gooey glob out of boiled yam pounded with water. It is eaten with fishy soup. No swallowing allowed. It's difficult like a jello shot, except no delicious fruity taste. tone), the population under-served, and the supplies precarious. It was an interesting and frustrating experience. The nurses were all completing a service year of mandatory rounds in the unit as a part of their training.
In Ghana, I met an obscene amount of European volunteers on gap year and such, who had paid ridiculous amounts of money to get "placed" in a volunteer position. The thing I learned from my time in Guatemala, Mexico and now, Africa and India, is where there is a need for volunteers, it's completely unnecessary to set up a placement before you arrive. The money you end up spending goes towards the salaries of the middlemen. Also, it's nice to be able to see how the organization works and talk to people in the area before committing time to a position or a location. There were 6 other
obrunis (white people) in the town where I was volunteering. They were all working at the babies home where it was an all-hour diaper changing party. They took off on Thurs and came back Mon to travel around the country and didn't seem especially keen on their "placement". Consider this account if you ever consider volunteering abroad.
I stayed in a guesthouse a 30 minute walk from the Family Planning Unit. Everyone asked why i didn't take a taxi to work in the morning and home in the afternoon. I said, I had legs. The staff at the guesthouse was young, fun, treated the one woman in a very strange way, and were all uber-religious. My room was right next to the lounge and when it wasn't "lights out" (ie power rationing...often...everyday...at least once), the gospel programming singing/yelling drifted through the thin walls. I would come out to walk though the lounge to go outside. Come watch, Livi, it's gospel time, they would offer. ahhh, i would think. Ghana is a very religious country. When you meet someone, the line of questioning is as follows:
what country?
how long are you staying?
how do you see Ghana?
where do you worship?
um, yah. I explained the concept of "personal questions" to many curious questioners in Africa and India. Are you married/alone/have a friend?, Where do you worship?, How much money did _____ cost? and the like, are not questions for strangers!
The matriarch of the guesthouse where I stayed called me her daughter and told me all about her travels abroad as a young woman. She went to Denmark in the 1950s and London many times later on. When I told her what a spectacle I cause on my walk to work EVERY day, she started to tell me all about her experiences. Not only did people point, stare, and look surprised, she said they screamed, ran away and the like. She described a time when she was staying in the hospital (in Denmark I think) and a man popped into the room and asked if he could bring his family by to "see" her as they'd never seen a black person before. She agreed. When they came, the children were crying and the wife wouldn't even enter the room! How terrible/horrible/uncomfortable is that scenario! Mama, as she insisted I call her, was very welcoming, intelligent and fun to talk to during my stay in Mampong.
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