sooo ghana! it has been so many things thus far but overall amazing!
to come back to this familiar place and knowing people has been great, also the weather is pretty good too! not as muggy and we can see the sky compared to last year during hamatahn where there was a layer of saharan sands covering the blue sky!
the last three days we have been doing work from morning until night visiting the villages of the women. we saw seven today (it is a feat considering the terrible roads and they all live far apart, also
ghanians pace of work is so much slower comparatively and we are tiring them out)! when we go we are doing research with groups of women, meeting chiefs, talking to townspeople and watching some of the women do teaching for groups of people. most of the women are so incredible.
i cannot believe their hard work and diligence and belief in the program. we are also so impressed with david, our “director” of sorts. they are the only reason the program is such a success. i was sitting today watching one of my favorite women teach and just in awe and thought, they are all so much better than me. their strength of character, personalities, hopes, humor, happiness and how they live their lives amidst continual hardship is simply unfathomable to me.
in the villages one of the research questions is, “what is the biggest health problem here?” and when they answer most villages ask what we are going to do to help them get a clinic, toilets, water, midwife, medicine (those are the main ones always). we say we cannot do anything at this time, our focus is on health prevention and education. that is very hard and sad. but again, it has been overall amazing.
we did find ourselves in one overwhelming situation yesterday where we were essentially surrounded by an entire village and bombarded with questions as to when we were going to help them build a toilet facility. they had already begun work and were passionate that we help them finish. we brainstormed with them about possibilities.
we will be continuing to see the rest of the women in addition to visiting local hospitals and clinics on tuesday and wednesday, helping with an aids clinic thursday, seeing monkeys on saturday and then we are having education and training next sunday and tuesday with the women. next tuesday they will also receive new supplies and the bikes we bought today!
phew, that was a lot! thanks for your support.
from akatsi,
-steph