Tuesday, April 18, 2006

The clinic goes mobile! (entry #2 for today - read below)

As the title implies, the Woe Blood Pressure Clinic has gone mobile! At the end of last week, we figured that we ought to move around the village to other places, as not everyone has access to our side of town so on Monday, we did just that. Each day I have an interpreter (it varies who) and on Monday it was one of the older compound kids named Comfort. She is an aspiring nursing student and although I may be bit biased (because I think she's awesome) I truly believe that she is one of the smartest and hardest working youth I have met thus far. Comfort and I set off down one of the sand paths leading away from our compound and walked for probably 45 minutes to reach our new clinic spot. Of course we had to carry our supplies with us which was an interesting experience in itself. I was struggling to carry my box and my backpack and as I was leading the way, I wondered how Comfort was doing with her stuff behind me. I look back, assuming she was struggling as much as I was, and saw quite the opposite. She had her box on her head and was drinking out of a waterbottle (having both hands free)! Obviously my way was way inferior so we stopped for a moment and she tied a piece of cloth in a circle, placed it on my head and placed the box on top of the cloth, creating a relatively stable surface for the box to sit. That is how I carried my box for the remainder of the walk to the clinic and for the return walk in the afternoon! It is surprisingly much more comfortable to carry a box on one's head rather than have all the corners and edges dig into the body. As Yao (one of the CCS staff) would say, "there is always a cross..... cultural.... solution" and in this case, it was acquiring the skill of balancing and walking with a box one my head.

We arrived at the new clinic spot which was situated in the middle of school yard under a massive mango tree. One of the villagers had brought a small rickety table and two chairs for us to sit on while the patients sat under the tree awaiting their turn. On Monday there were not many villagers at the clinic (being a holiday and all) but as we came out of the farm fields today, there were already about 15 people waiting for the clinic to open! In total, I saw roughly 60-70 people including my highest record blood pressure (220/115), a very probably case of severe malaria in a young child and an infected umbilical cord of a very young infant. If I have not disclosed some of the myths in rural Africa yet, one of them is that in order for the infants umbilical cord to heal properly, mothers need to put green algae over the belly. Unfortunately, this often results in an infection (as seen today) and even more unfortuantely, the family sometimes does not have the means to attend the hospital so the unthinkable often occurs. Today was a lucky day, as the family had sold a few extra mangos on the weekend at the Easter celebration and could afford to take the young one to the hospital. Overall, it was a busy day at the clinic under the mango tree today! Next week I'll be at another location from Monday to Wednesday and then Thursday through Sunday are a holiday of some sort so Sarah and I are heading up to Mole National Park in hopes to see some elephants and such! Some of you have asked if I am in need of any supplies but as of now, I cannot think of any unless Cadbury's Mini Eggs qualify as a clinic supply!? ;) Just kidding! I am fine for now, but thank you thank you thank you for the offer!

After clinic, I met with one of the members of the Community Based Organization (CBO) for HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. As I explained in my last blog, I am also trying to have posters and materials for participants of the clinic to view/read while they wait. The village CBO heard about this and although they were delighted to hear I was doing such a thing, were a bit confused on my approach to preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. When I initially constructed the materials, I was aware that the perspectives from home may differe from those here, so I obtained an AIDS handbook from the District of Public Health as a guide. Apparently, though, there are conflicting ideas on AIDS prevention even in this region, as evidenced today when the CBO asked me to preach complete abstainance from sex rather than condom use. Now I'm hoping that you can imagine the problem with this approach, as it not only completly refrains from providing support/education to those who won't choose that avenue, but it also provides frightening simplicity to an issue that is as rampant as 1 in 4 in sub-saharan Africa. Needless to say, he and I politely differed on our perspectives and agreed to discuss the issue further at a later date. I walked away from that encounter stunned... almost inexplicably stunned! How can a country with such a problem just provide such a simple and completly unrealistic solution to a deathly problem? The scary thing is, Ghana is the ground-breaking country of West Africa in terms of health care and HIV/AIDS awareness.

Well, I will leave you all with that. I will hopefully get a chance to return on the weekend but if I do not speak with any of you until then, best of luck at playoffs (for squash people), studying/exams (for school people), and best wishes to all the rest!

Miadogo!

2 Comments:

At Tuesday, April 18, 2006 5:15:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's funny that you mention the abstinence method of teaching... Yes, we know that there are serious problems in places like rural Africa and we think they have a backward view of the world but unfortunately, I hate to admit this but most of the U.S. still agrees with that very same philosophy! Now the health educator in me knows much better than to preach abstinence to avoid HIV but my "civilized" country still can't seem to figure it out. How do we expect to convince the people of Africa that their way is wrong when the U.S. can't get their own act together? And what's worse, the aid that we do send over is full of the abstinence-only message! UGhh! So aggravating to be an American. But, in other news, things are great with me. Really great. We REALLY need to catch up quick when you get back. My life has turned upside down in the past few weeks, for the better. :)
xoxo
from your favorite american friend

 
At Thursday, April 20, 2006 11:12:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

WOW what a great Easter party Kelsey! Ours was pretty good but yours sounds even better. Please bring you drums home for our Easter Mass next year-it would be a great additon! I hope you get a photo of you and Comfort with the boxes on your heads- love to see it. Sounds like you don't have to worry about staying in good physical shape now for squash and karate, with all the walking and soccer.
keep blogging Kelsey and hope you see an Elephant on the weekend
Tamara

 

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