It Takes a Village

Justice balances his little legs off the edge of my lap and giggles, seemingly unwitting of what happened last week -- that his precious life was compromised.

I arrived home one afternoon to find my best friend in my village, Gifty, closing up her shop and preparing to go to the hospital. She told me that her two and half-year-old son, Justice, was brought there by her husband Jackson and she was going to join them.

A little panicked, I asked what his symptoms were -- fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, and she described how his eyes were rolling back into his head, “like this” as she demonstrated. We hurried to find a car, with no luck. Taxis only leave my village intermittently and none were around. After an anxious hour, a man with a motorcycle returned from farm and took Gifty to see her baby.

Everyone here knows Justice is my favorite little guy. I talk about him constantly and adore just about everything he says or does. In fact, I would venture to say that Justice is a lot of people’s favorite. Men returning from farm brush off their exhaustion, put down their machetes, and come to pat his slightly-too-big-for-his-body head, chanting his nickname, “Justo!”  Usually, he’s playing car with a variety of circular objects, running back and forth with his signature boundless energy.

He’s the kind of kid who’s going places. His parents have done everything right, including saving money for future schooling and teaching him early. This little guy can already repeat the English alphabet and count to twenty. Who else did that at two?

Justice and Jackson practice shadow boxing

With the family still at the hospital, I spent the night in worry, and can only imagine how Gifty and Jackson felt.

In the end Justice was fine, but he contracted malaria. Malaria is a disease which kills nearly 650,000 people in Africa every year, most of them children under five. With limited immunities to the disease, young children are more likely to develop cerebral malaria, which can lead to severe developmental issues and even death.

But there are the “strong men” in my community who believe they have little to worry about. While Gifty and her family sleep under a bed net every night to protect against malaria, many people brush off its importance, saying it is too hot and they aren’t worried about malaria. After all, they’ve had it several times before, and they’ve survived.

But this is not always the case for the children. Many Ghanaians do not understand that if they are infected, a mosquito can bite them, and re-infect someone else, including someone vulnerable to malaria’s harsher effects. If every person sleeps under a bed net every night, all year round, we can eventually eradicate this terrible disease.

While my counterpart, Osei Nkuah, and I work to educate our community and promote bed net usage for all people, we must also rely on our fellow community members to help spread the word.

A West African proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child, and in the case of surviving malaria, it is most certainly true.

I have the pleasure of working with Stomp Out Malaria, a forward-thinking and inspired malaria eradication initiave in Peace Corps. For the past couple of years, Stomp has helped train, coordinate and promote volunteer-led malaria prevention and control programs throughout the Peace Corps Africa posts.

For more information about the work volunteers are doing to Stomp Out Malaria, please visit the web site at stompoutmalaria.org.

What I Do

What I Do

I realize I haven’t blogged in a while, and I’ve told you all very little about what I actually do here. Sure, I dance at church, chase adorable children, and laugh with my village friends here, but I also do work. Considering I have been here for more than a year, maybe I should explain what that entails.

I am a community health volunteer working on a Behavioral Change Communication (BCC) project with both a national partner (www.goodlifeghana.com) and a local NGO, though most of my work is separate and done with my awesome counterpart, Osei Nkuah, also known as “Manga” and “Chairman.”

Osei gives a "thumbs up" to the borehole drilling team

Basically, I use the materials provided by the national campaign to educate my community with Osei as my interpreter. I can get around in my local language, Sefwi (and sometimes Twi), but I cannot express the complexity of health issues without his help.

Oftentimes, we go house-to-house and educate people on topics ranging from malaria prevention to condom usage. It always draws a (slightly embarrassed looking) crowd when this white lady pulls out the wooden penis to demonstrate the proper application of a condom. Luckily, most Ghanaians view sex as a funny, rather than taboo, issue and they eventually end up watching and listening quite intently.

I do other educational events in my market town and beyond, but I think the most impactful work is done in the village. I’m their neighbor, their white lady, their Nana Yaa Pomah. They see me every day, so they aren’t as distracted by my pale skin, blue eyes and freckles like the Ghanaians who live outside my village.

About six months ago, I went to my village Junior High School and asked the students if they were interested in joining a health club, where they would learn about health topics from me, then teach them to smaller children. After a few lessons, including hygiene, hand-washing, and interactive decision-making lessons to help these teens make positive decisions about sex and drugs, they told me they were ready to teach.

Eight of the kids divided into four groups and co-taught hand-washing lessons to the primary school kids and seemed to enjoy the work. The younger children learned about how germs spread by shaking hands via baby powder and the older kids were taught a hand-washing clapping / song game created by the fabulous Linda Smittle from my training group.

All-in-all, it was a successful day of school health education and leadership training.

JHS girls practice the song they will teach

I am also working with my community and the local government to build a clinic via concrete donated by the district, community labor provided by the village, and eventually, a nurse and small staff provided by Ghana Health Services. This is a large project to undertake, and my main role is to serve as a liaison between the government and the community. So far, the village has spent a community labor day clearing the bush with their machetes and we are now waiting for the district to bring the bulldozers to level the area. The community is excited about the project and ready to do the work – wish us luck!

I think that’s a nice little snap shot of some of the work I do in my village. Hopefully, I can keep you all posted more often.

Kisses to America, I miss it so!