I apologize for not having posted anything in a (long) while, but not a whole lot has been going on here. The past couple of weeks have been taken up by paper writing and research topic finding. In terms of Georgetown and our grades there we have 3 things that we have to do: weekly journals that we have to submit to one of our professors, a health systems paper, and our big research project. We finished the health systems papers last week--they were 20 pagers on an aspect of the health care system here in Ghana. I looked at the introduction of the sector-wide approach to financing in Ghana and the impact it has had on the health system, particularly on a district level. Because we haven't been doing anything heavily academic here (not that we haven't been learning a whole lot), it was hard to get in the paper writing mindset. On top of that I was sick with something or other for 5 or 6 days which made the writing that much more annoying. But the paper is done and I am more than glad to have it out of the way. I also just turned in my proposal for my big research project for the semester. If it is approved than I will be looking to see if there is a relationship between child nutritional status and the nutritional knowledge of mothers, especially as relates to the level of formal education obtained by the mother. I had come up with a number of ideas for projects and the one I really wanted to do couldn't be done because I had no way of finding the proper sample population to survey. So after throwing around a number of other ideas which weren't things I was super happy about doing, I came up with this topic so we shall see how it goes...
Aside from the boring academic side there isn't too much to report. Two weeks ago (at least I think that's when it was) Francis dropped off the clothes that we had made. I have a cute skirt and matching top, so now I can dress like an African. All of us were so pleased with the outcomes that we plan on buying a lot more fabric and having many more clothes made! Francis also introduced to Kate, a student at the university up the road. She seems really fun and is someone I hope we get to hang out with more. Last Saturday we went to Bolga (the "big" town 30 km from here) with Francis to go to the craft center there which was a lot of fun. That same night we went with a different group back to Bolga to attend a hip life concert that was celebrating the end of Ramadan. It was a lot of fun, but a late night which is something we are not used to. This week we participated in a giant dance party in the streets up by the university; its SRC week which is when the other two campuses of the university come to the Navrongo campus for a week of fun. There have been activities all week (we only went to the dance party) but from what I understand there is some sort of parade/carnival today that we might be going to.
Despite all the adventures mentioned above, most of our days are pretty slow. We are in the routine of getting up early-ish (although it is late by Ghana standards) and doing work until lunch time. Then we head to Parliament (the canteen here) and grab some food (usually some form of rice and chicken) before working for the rest of the afternoon. April and I have been the ones to go into market recently (it tends to overwhelm Ashley) which has been fine minus the heat. Monday was a particularly great market day because we bought our first rolls of toilet paper since being here that are white and have individual squares (generally the rolls are gray). Granted it's no where near US standards of TP but hey, I found it exciting. The weather here is getting hotter by the day (upper 90s) and I can't wait for the end of November when the nights will be "cold" at about 75 degrees (the start of flu season here). It's hard to believe that October is almost over--I still can't believe how quickly time is flying here. Well that's all I have time for now, April and I are going with Dr. Williams to his ARV (HIV drugs) clinic in Bolga for the day to see the work he does there. I will try to post some more pictures later on today. Hope everyone is doing well, and once again sorry for not posting sooner!
