Day 6 (July 31)

This morning we met Mr. Emmanuel Chegedwe, the District Chief Executive of the Kassana-Nankana District- a position equivalent to a governor. This position is appointed by the president and approved by the district assembly men (mayors). We were to refer to him formally as the Honorable District Chief Executive or the Honorable DCE for short.

This meeting was arranged as an opportunity for us to describe to him our organization and inform him of our intention to work in Yua. This was a rather formal meeting but we did very well especially since we were guided through it by our local partners: The Ghana Poultry Network and Afrikids. Jared and Trotta both spoke and did very well at portraying our goals and intentions. Hon. DCE identified for us those issues he has found most pressing in the Kassana-Nankana district. These include: the lack of access to clean water, sanitation, irrigation, health, and the increasing problem of desertification. His office and those in power in the district have been working very hard to solve these problems but he described to us that their own lack of resources have prohibited them from extending themselves very far. The Hon. DCE gave us his full blessings for our project and has even offered financial and logistical support to complete our mission.

We will be meeting with him again tomorrow in Yua for our first community meeting .We will also see him later in the week for dinner. He is very supportive of our efforts and it turns out that the Hon. DCE is also a trained engineer!

After this wonderful meeting we headed to lunch at the International Café where we ate lots of goat bits with two dishes: rice and black eyes peas with red sauce and rice with peanut stew: very nice!

The market was next: I got to pose with a giant pig, take photographs, and see some wonderful fabric work…. –Danielle

In the evening we ate dinner at what is essentially an orphanage, although they don’t use that term for it.

It is a house, built by Afrikids, where one woman, Mama Laadi, takes care of 45 children (with some help from the older children). There we had an excellent dinner that was cut a bit short by a scare, a situation that would be a bit embarrassing, if the final outcome was not such a relief.

With 36 hours of plane travel (hectic at that, with switching terminals 3 times, delayed flights, etc.), one day off followed by 17 hours on a bus (with another hectic start as we were initially told a 10:00 AM departure time, only to be abruptly awoke at 7:15 to learn that the bus leaves at 8:00), little sleep, and culture shock, some of us have been feeling a bit fuzzy headed from time to time. It’s difficult to tell fatigue from more serious symptoms. The doxycycline that we are taking to help fight against malaria is most effective on an empty stomach, but this can lead to nausea and dizziness. Ben and Danielle were both feeling very weak when we arrived at Mama Laadi’s. There we met 3 medical students from the UK, who all had reportedly contracted malaria in their one week here so far. They told us that we had the symptoms of malaria, and that we should go to the clinic to be tested. Ben didn’t initially believe that he had malaria, but the students’ stories made him begin to wonder. 2 of the students had essentially no symptoms when they were diagnosed as positive (although a few of us are beginning to doubt the accuracy of that diagnosis).

We left for the 24 hour clinic, where all of us were going to get tested. Due to the other patients however, only Ben and Danielle we tested. As we waited for the slides with our blood samples to dry for microscope analysis, the technician explained that malaria does not generally show up for 10 days past exposure, and that symptoms are present before detection is possible. He seemed very knowledgeable. He showed us the slide of a positive case, a 3 year old child who had phase 3 malaria, very serious. Our final diagnosis: negative! The symptoms were likely fatigue, and possibly low sodium or blood sugar due to the differences in the African diet. Still, malaria is a major concern, although it is treatable should one of us contract it. As the technician was writing the diagnosis, Nich from Afrikids (who was gracious enough to wait through the process with us) said to Ben “this is your ticket to Yua.” The next day we would all find out what a blessing that would be.

-Ben

Day 5 (July 30)

Finally – a chance to sleep for a while. Not quite long enough, but better than we have had in four days. We woke more or less refreshed and prepared to meet the Afrikids staff for an introductory meeting. We met with Nick, Linda, and Joe at the Afrikids office in Bolga. We were then presented to 15 additional staff members and learned of the many wonderful projects sponsored by Afrikids. We listened with admiration as they explained work ranging from rescuing children from working in mines to education and awareness about child trafficking to providing children with greater access to education. Each EWB team member was given the chance to explain our individual roles in EWB and our reasons for working in Ghana. The Afrikids staff was very welcoming and supportive of our project. They even treated us to lunch at a local restaurant – the International Travelers Café in Bolga. There we ate egg sandwiches and rice with goat meat and got to know our new friends from GAPNET and Afrikids.

After lunch, we caravanned in two trucks to visit local Afrikids projects in Sirigu – a village located about 30 km north of Bolga and only 5 km away from Yua. Our first stop after a bumpy and muddy drive was the Health Clinic for the Sirigu-Busongo district. We spoke with the clinic nurse, Norbert, who told us of the severe problem of malaria in the region and his work in the community. A shorter distance away, we were warmly greeted by a women’s group called the Afrikids Daughters of Sirigu-Busongo. We stood enthralled as they danced and sang to welcome us. With Joe and David as our translators, Dani thanked them for the warm welcome and explained our purpose for being in the region. Jaina followed up with questions regarding their water source. We were shocked to learn that in the dry season, it takes over four hours every day to fetch water for their homes! The women must walk a long distance and then wait their turn to pump the water from one borehole that serves over 600 people. We learned that women sometimes fight for access to the water. We were pretty somber after hearing this, but Dani loosened up the mood a bit with her own charades of fighting. The women laughed and performed a theater for us – they all played as if they were fighting for water at the borehole, pushing each other out of the way and sneaking behind one another to pump the water. With everyone feeling a little more comfortable, we expressed our gratitude for their welcome and took some pictures of the children and the women.

Our next stop was at a home a little farther away. There we met a young girl who had suffered from severe burns to her back after her dress caught on fire from a cook stove. Afrikids adopted her and raised money to send her to a hospital in Kumasi, a city in southern Ghana. Because of their help, she was able to receive skin graft treatment and had recently been reunited with her home. It was amazing to see the spirit of this young girl! Despite her burns, she smiled at us the whole time we were there. From her, we truly understood the meaning of the Afrikids slogan – “bringing big smiles to little faces.”

Our final stop in Sirigu was at the Afrikids field office. There, we met another child sponsored by Afrikids - a young, mute girl, no more than nine years old. Believed to be possessed by evil spirits, she had been abused and abandoned in the Sirigu market. Afrikids heard of her and adopted her. She is now living at the field office under the care of their staff – her scars visible, but healing and sharing shy smiles with us.

By this time, evening was closing in. We headed back to our hotel in Bolga for a little freshening up before dinner. Mr. John Apokerah from GAPNET– we call him Pok – picked us up in his truck and drove us to his home where we were treated to traditional Ghana cuisine. We feasted on tuo zafi (a maize-based porridge) with okra and goat stew and a spicy cabbage stew with rice. We learned a great deal about the agricultural problems in the area from Pok, who in addition to work with GAPNET is an extension officer for the Ghana Ministry of Agriculture.

With our bellies full and our heads overflowing with information, we were taken back to our hotel for some much needed rest.

--Jaina

Day 4 (July 29)

This is Ghana! The EWB crew traveled for over seventeen hours by bus today, from the southern coast to Bolgatanga, just south of the northern border and Burkina Faso. We saw lush low growth develop into towering palms and baobabs under the full moon, banana trees became fields of millet and peanuts, concrete blocks and tin became mud and thatch.

Just five stops in eighteen hours proved a challenge in gastro-logistics. We could not eat and drink quantities that might allow discomfort between pit stops. Evidently, the women’s facility adventures were more aromatic than the men’s, but that is a story you may ask them about another time.

Did you know it can rain inside a bus? It managed to—above Jared’s head. It must have been the lowest spot in the bus for whatever reason, and any dozing was sporadically shattered by a splash of dripped condensation on his nose or leg.

Trotta, a brilliant man, learned than two U-shaped travel pillows are better than one, and enveloped his sleepy skull amidst them. No potholes could wake the armored man!

We arrived in Bolga at 2:30 AM, where our friends, Nich Kumah, Director of the Ghana offices of Afrikids, and “Pok” Apokerah from the Ghana Poultry Network and an extension officer for the Ministry of Agriculture, were awaiting us. Can you believe that these busy men would stay up until such an hour to meet us! Not to mention that the bus had run late; they had been waiting at the bus terminal for over three hours when we finally arrived.

--Jared