Village life... (con't)

Many of you are probably wondering what I'm up to these days with my placement. As you know, I have stopped working at the hospital and have opened up a clinic in the village of Woe. The first day was on Monday and thus far (to Thursday) it has been a huge success!!! The CCS staff were really helpful in getting me up and running with the printing of professional looking cards to record patient information, signs in Ewe and the translation and photocopying of a phamphlet for participants. Kofi, one of the CCS staff, had to turn away five or six people at 6am on Monday morning because I wasn't even awake yet! The word has spread through the village quite quickly and I have seen about 90 people so far. I have seen some of the highest blood pressures in my life (210/110) and have been asked some of the most obscure questions as well. I am getting a real sense of what the health issues are in the village and thus, am having the other volunteers madly helping with signs and posters to address such information. The top three priorities are AIDS/STD prevention, family planning, and malaria prevention. The task of educating the people sounds much easier than it truly is, however. Many people in the village do not read/write Ewe or English so the signs must be picture orientated but my idea of a picture poster is much different than theirs. Symbols in North America (such as a smiley face or a red circle with a slash through it) do not communicate the same messages here. As well, certain health issues are viewed differently here than at home. AIDS is a very very stigmatized issue! For example, if a person were to be reading a phamphlet on AIDS, the other participants waiting their turn may suspect that individual of having AIDS and the news may spread throughout the community. Soooo... the AIDS poster, for instance, must be a comical and light hearted poster that everyone can see to avoid stigmatization. Sarah teaches Moral Education at her school and the section in the book on AIDS teaches children that "having AIDS brings incredible shame to the family" and that "one must be foolish to acquire it." As you could imagine, the stigmas are incredibly ruthless here and education is imparative. One group of mothers came to the clinic asking questions about feeding their children. Fortunately I had an interpreter at that moment to help them out but that's another issue all together that I have a tough time communicating on paper. How am I to draw casavva and grass cutter if I have never seen them to begin with? These are only a few of the obstacles that I am running into when attempting to communicate health information to the residents but nonetheless, I'm working with the English speaking CCS staff to make culturally appropriate signs and such. It's an interesting experience!

The volunteers are coming from Ho this weekend to celebrate Easter. There's a massive soccer match at the beach between the CCS staff and the villagers of Woe on Saturday and a picnic at the beach on Monday. I'll hopefully return to blog mid-next week so until then, have a great Easter weekend! Cheers!