some more november

I spent much of this past week wishing I had a larger bum because I discovered that no amount of squirming or shifting can make a wooden bench comfortable for 2 or 3 or 4 hours. Luckily all the sitting payed off because on Friday, Joanna and I finished all of our surveys! It felt great to have finally made it through all 120 surveys after so many delays. While I am glad to have all my data, I am sad that my days will now be filled with data analysis and not clinic visiting--staring at a computer screen just isn't as fun as being surrounded by adorable babies all day. I am hoping my data yields some interesting findings but who knows; a number of the infants were underweight and I am wondering if there will be any correlations between that and the other variables I looked at...

Other than that there is not a whole lot to report. Ashley's boyfriend is coming to visit for the week and I think it will be entertaining to see another American's perspective on Ghana and our lifestyle in general. Our weekend has been pretty slow. Friday night we stayed in and watched a movie which was nice and relaxing. Yesterday morning Ashley left for Ouagadougou to pick up her boyfriend so April and I were left to own devices. It was market day so we went into town and wandered through market buying all fabric and food and all sorts of things. We now have no money...guess we will have to get to Bolga at some point this week to exchange some more cash. After a lunch at Perseverance we came back and spent allllll afternoon being studious and working on our respective projects. We rewarded ourselves with a yummy dinner (tuna and spaghetti followed by a pineapple we bought at market). This morning we were supposed to go to church with Joanna but my stomach apparently had other plans. Well that is all to report for now--not sure what this week will end up being like with a visitor here but we shall see...

november so far...

Here’s a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while...I guess I’ll start with last weekend.

When we first got to Ghana, April, Ashley and I made a list of various things we wanted to do during our time here. One of the biggest priorities on this list was going to Mole National Park—it’s the largest park in Ghana and has a variety of animals, elephants included (but sadly no zebras or lions or giraffes—the rest of Africa is hogging those). Pretty early on we discovered that getting to the park is no easy task because it’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere (and that’s saying a lot since by many standards Navrongo is in the middle of nowhere). Initially we were going to take public transportation to the park, but we soon realized that if we went that way we would need 2 nights at the park because of safari and bus times. We couldn’t afford two nights because that would have meant leaving on a Friday morning which didn’t work in terms of data collection (it was Ashley’s last day doing that). At some point Ashley had mentioned to two of our local friends (one of whom has a car) that we wanted to go to Mole but couldn’t figure out getting there. Well they said that they would drive if we paid for gas which we decided was the best possible solution to getting to the park because it meant a private car and a fun road trip.

Ashley, April, Nat, Tony, and I left bright and early last Saturday morning at 5 am and made it to Tamale (which is where we flew into on our way to Navrongo back in September) before 7. We stopped at the bus station to grab some breakfast and stretch before heading over to Tony’s cousin house. We spent some time at the house socializing with Pascal (the cousin) and Helen his wife before heading out into town with them to exchange money and see the new sports arena being built to host some of the African Cup 2008 games. For some reason the 5 of us drove around in Pascal’s car which was apparently the envy of everyone as it had both a c.d. player and automatic windows/locks. It was really neat to see the stadium which was a really nice complex—I’m sad we are leaving here before the games begin in January. After seeing the stadium we headed to a restaurant where we had some guinea fowl before hitting the road for part 2 of our journey.

Part 2 was the trip from Tamale to Mole which we thought would take 2 hours or so. It ended up being a 3ish hour trip on a terrible dirt road. Despite this it was one of the best car rides of my life because of a game Tony invented. Whoever lost the round had to perform some task which ranged from drinking large amounts of water (not such a bad idea considering the heat) to stopping the car and dancing around the outside. The tasks continued to get more ridiculous the longer we were in the car and needless to say there were plenty of laughs. We made it to the park just in time for the 3:30 safari but, unfortunately, didn’t see any elephants. While we say plenty of cool animals all of us really just wanted to see an elephant. We decided to stay the night at the park (there is a hotel) so that we could go on the 6:30 morning safari. After getting rooms we showered off because we were covered in dust from the car ride (this was a level of dirtiness that I have never experienced) and got a bite to eat before getting some much needed sleep. We were rewarded for staying the night at the park as at sunrise the next morning we saw elephants walking by our part of the hotel and then saw another elephant when we were actually on the safari. Overall it was an amazing experience and if it wasn’t so far away and hard to get to I would love to go back.

After the safari we got back in the car to drive to Kintampo where there are some waterfalls you can swim in. That part of the drive was more than a little exciting but I’ll explain that another day. We made it to Kintampo in about 2.5 hours and had a wonderful swim in the waterfall. And by swim in the waterfall I mean standing right under as the water was pounding down on top of us—we even climbed behind the falls into a little niche in the rock. It was an excellent way to get the dust from the car ride off of us. After our swim we headed into Kintampo to get some food and see the research center there (where some Georgetown students were posted last year) before getting back on the road for our 6 or so hour drive home. When we got back we calculated that we had been gone for 39 hours 13 of which had been on the road—but it was a wonderful weekend and it was nice to escape Navrongo and see other areas of the country.

Over this past week I have been working on collecting data for my project. It’s been difficult because transportation has been an issue—there has been a shortage of drivers at the Centre and getting a truck to take us to the field is not always easy. On Monday when we were supposed to start, there wasn’t a vehicle available to take us until later in the morning and at that point there is no use in going to the clinics as most mothers have left (it’s very important to make it to the clinics at opening time to maximize the number of surveys that can be administered). Tuesday we went to Chiana where Joanna managed to conduct 17 surveys which made me really happy. Wednesday we headed over to a clinic that was going on at the hospital (which is next door to the Centre) but managed to get only 5 surveys. Thursday after much delay (compliments of a truck that kept breaking down) we managed to make it to the Sirigu clinic where we got 7 more surveys. Friday we again went to the hospital but Joanna managed to conduct 18 interviews, which was great. If I can get 15 a day every day this week (which should be doable) then by the end of the week I will be done with data collection which will be a relief.

Yesterday (Saturday) the three of us went to the Tongo hills to go hiking. The hills are about 15 km south of Bolga on a nice dusty road (and I made the poor decision to wear a white shirt). When we got there we were given a tour of the local villages and the shrines that are up in a cave on the side of one of the hills were pointed out. Unfortunately it was a sacred day so we were not allowed to climb up to or enter the shrine but it being a sacred day meant we saw people sacrificing animals all over the place which, while a little disgusting, was also interesting to see. Our tour also led us through the chief’s palace/village where over 300 people live. It was sort of like a pueblo—a bunch of interconnected huts with paths between. It’s kind of hard to describe but I will try to upload some pictures so you can see what I mean. After our hike we headed into Bolga and went to a friend’s cousin’s baby’s naming ceremony party where we felt just a little out of place (seeing as we did not know the baby’s family); still it’s always interesting to see little bits of local life. Once we left the party we wandered around Bolga before heading back here later in the evening.

Well that’s all to report for now—sorry this post is so long but I haven’t posted in a while so I thought I would try to fill you all in on what I’ve been up to. This week will be filled with data collection and who know what next weekend will bring. The one thing we know is that by going to Tongo we managed to visit all the sites we had put on our list!

hello, november

Well yesterday was perhaps one of the most pathetic Halloween's I have ever celebrated. People here do not eat a lot of sweets but even with that in mind, April and I went out in search of some chocolate to celebrate. After a bike around town we discovered zero chocolate; it appears that Ghana is only a cocoa bean producer and not processor which does not make me happy. In the end our Halloween treat consisted of strange plastic-y tasting caramel candies, some malt n' milk biscuits, and a sprite. Such is celebrating a mostly American holiday in a foreign country.

In other news I finally have a set research project and have my questionnaire all finished up. I will be looking at the effects of breastfeeding beliefs, knowledge, and practices on child nutrition. As I said in the last post, we have been given a field worker each to help us carry out data collection since most of it will not be done in English. My worker, Joanna, is 22 and is really nice; she has worked at the Centre before for NDSS so she is familiar with data collection which is great. She also speaks both Kasem and Nankam which means that there are no limits on who we survey. I went over to a clinic that was going on at the hospital on Tuesday to do a pilot run of my survey which went surprisingly well. The moms interviewed understood the questions and there were only a few minor changes that I needed to make which made me really happy. The next big hurdle to overcome before really starting data collection is finding transportation. I am going to EPI (expanded programme on immunization) and child welfare clinics as thats where I will find the greatest concentration of breastfeeding women. April is doing her project on pregnant moms and she needs to go to antenatal clinics. The problem is that the clinics are in different places on different days, and that means all over the district. Both April and I have to figure out how to transport us and our workers to these clinics and while Georgetown will pay for whatever mode of transportation we use, there are all sorts of hurdles within the Centre to secure a truck or bikes or whatever we may need. I also wanted to start data collection this week but Ashley is surveying at EPI/child welfare clinics as well and having too many of us at one location would be problematical. Hopefully on Monday I will be going out for my first full day of data collection. If all goes well I should be able to get my 120 surveys in two weeks and then I will have another two weeks for data entry/analysis before presenting my results to the senior staff here. So it looks as though this month is going to be more than a little bit crazy.

There isn't a whole lot else to report. Last weekend the three of us biked out to the Tono Dam nice and early in the morning which was fun. We managed to navigate our way through town on a market day on our bikes which was slightly terrifying, especially on the way home when, in addition to market traffic, there was a political rally/parade going through town. I am surprised that none of us had an accident (there were many close calls). And despite being back at the Centre before noon, we all managed to get slightly sunburned. Other than that there hasn't been anything interesting to report. I can't believe that we are 2/3 of the way through our internships (we finish up at the beg. of Dec and then are traveling for 2 weeks)...I never thought the time here would go that quickly. In fact one of the girls who was here last year asked me whether Navrongo had bored us to death yet and I can honestly say that I have never once been stir crazy here. Sure there are slow days, but nothing has made me want to get out of here. Well that is all for now--I hope everyone is doing well!