Life shown through pictures

The Junior High School here in my village received some school supplies from an organization in Canada. The students and teacher are pictured here with Wechiau Naa in the center (Wechiau Chief).

This is a view of a section of my village. It's the main hang out place, where people will gather at the end of the day and just relax under a tree.

These women are on the way to market. The women here carry everything via on top of their head and will walk for miles to the next market. Women walking around with 30 pounds of charcol on top of their head is very normal

A few of the volunteers and I visited another volunteer's site, which is a Monkey Sanctuary. We got to see these monkeys that just roam about in the villages, so they aren't afraid to get up really close to people.

Meet my cat, Gromit. I've grown up with only dogs and never had a cat, so this will be a new experience.

March update

For some time now, I felt like I was adjusting well to the constant heat and thought that I had experienced the worst, but was I in the wrong! It’s been getting hotter by the day and there’s no relief at night. I took a temperature reading at 10AM and it had already reached 98ºF! I look forward to my nightly bucket baths, even though my water barrel sits in the scorching sun all day, the warm water cools me off, even if it’s only for a few minutes. I’ve also resorted to sleeping outside; bringing out a cot and hanging the mosquito net on the clothes line; it’s just me and everything in the night sky. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars or noticed the vast presence of the moon until I’ve come here. Call me selfish but I hope that villages such as mine never get overtaken by big skyscraper buildings, city lights, and cars/trucks/SUVs, or people would never be able to enjoy nature at its best.
March 6th is Ghana’s Independence Day. It’s been 52 years since they acquired their Independence. To mark the occasion, schools hold competitions for the best group march. They are judged based upon uniformity, creativity, and presentation. All the smaller communities around, came and gathered here in Wechiau to participate in the competition. The enthusiasm and discipline of all the students were clearly evident throughout each school’s march and most incredible to witness. On a typical school morning, the students line up outside of their respected classrooms. As soon as the drumming begins, by grade levels, the students form their straight lines and begin their march towards the classroom. Their whole bodies are involved; swinging their arms in perfect parallel with the precise coordination of their feet, it’s really an amazing thing to see. I’ll stand on the roadside of the school some mornings and watch this impeccable precession and be in awe every time. Whenever I see the students, I shower them with compliments and comment about how I love to watch them march, but they just look at me shyly and ask, “Don’t students march in America?” I promise to take a video of it with my camera, but my obstacle lies in finding an internet café that has a connection fast enough to post videos, so far, I’ve been unsuccessful in even trying to post pictures.
Oh, so did I mention that I got malaria? Well, unfortunately, it happened, but I lived to tell about it. The symptoms struck me hard and very sudden. I felt feverish and took my temperature, which read 99, but than 1 hour later, it rose to about 103. My trips to the toilet were hourly and on top of that, I wasn’t able to hold any food down. I started the Coartem treatment and the symptoms faded after a few days. After a day or two of feeling somewhat recovered, I felt feverish again and my stomach was in severe discomfort, so I called the Peace Corps Medical Officer, who than diagnosed me (strictly from the symptoms I told her over the phone) with Amoebas. I was put on medication, but the medication made me feel worse than when I was without them, so I endured the pain, and finished the treatment in four days, only to be told that I have to take another set of medications to kill any remaining cysts that could be left by the Amoebas. So I’m fully recovered now and back to my normal self. You could be asking how I got the malaria in the first place, since that was the very question I ask myself, since I have been taking all the precautions in preventing it, such as taking a prophylaxis every week (which makes my hair fall out, I’ll probably be bald by the end of my 2 years here), sleep under a mosquito net, use bug spray on exposed areas of skin, and try not to stand outside during the time when mosquitoes are active. I guess some things are inevitable and now I realize why malaria is classified as one of the three most prevalent diseases worldwide (HIV/AIDS and TB are the other two) and very endemic in African countries. I have experienced the misery people in my community go through when they’re struck with this illness; so this has motivated me to strive towards greater malaria education and prevention efforts in the communities around me. Even though contracting malaria has furthered me to do something, let’s just hope that my motivation to stress HIV/AIDS and TB education isn’t going to be through contracting them.
Work-wise, we’re gearing up for the second round of the National Immunization Campaign (NID) against Polio. We did the first round in mid-February, but for the vaccination to be complete the children are required for a second dose a month later. We will seek out the children who had their pinky marked with an indelible marker during the first round and after they’ve been vaccinated the second time, they’ll be marked on their index finger.
Life-wise, I’m still trying to form more relationships with people in my community, but one of the major obstacles has been the language barrier, since most of the women never attended school in their younger days, they don’t speak or understand any English at all. Between my small vocabulary of Waale and their small vocabulary of English, it doesn’t make for a good conversation. So LOTS of hand gestures and smiling are required. I’ve also been meeting other foreigners who are working with various NGOs and organizations, they’re all very nice, and most importantly, they’re all doing respectable work here.
I just wanted to thank everyone for their support and encouragement. Of course there are times that I wish I could be home and eating comfort foods such as pizza, ice-cream, anything cold, milk, broccoli, strawberries…. sorry I’m rambling, but my point is that, I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been here and am still continuing to learn about myself, culture, health disparities, and poverty, so I’m really grateful to be here and don’t regret any part of my decision to come. I just wish that I had a private plane (fuel-efficient, of course) that could usher you all here so you could come visit me, but that’s only wishful thinking.
Stay well and all the best,
Sinae