Ghana
Katelin Goes to Ghana
This summer, thanks to the financial support of Christina Bascom through the Marion Institute, Kukummi has been able to send Katelin Wilton, a dedicated member of the Hampshire College Kukummi Chapter, to West Africa. She will spend most of her time in Ghana, where she has lived before, working with HIV/AIDS patients at a Community Based Organization called Mathew 25 House before traveling throughout West Africa.
The West African Story Campaign will begin upon Katelin's return as the many stories she brings back are finalized and put into lesson plans and workshops. We will have video, audio, and written stories available in the Fall of 2006/Spring of 2007. Please come back soon for stories and resources. In the mean time enjoy Katelin's emails from Ghana...
Hey!
I made it, i am back home in Koforidua. All is well, it is amazing to see
everyone again, especially my family. but suprisingly the most profound moments are when people who i don't remember and wasn't very close with, recognize me and call out my name. It is those moments when i feel as though I really am coming back to a community which i was a part of, and am a part of again. For example it was so much fun to go back to the market where women would jump up from their blankets where their wares are laid out, palm nuts, tomatoes, or fish, and come and hug me jumping up and down and say "you've done well to came back to Ghana to see us..." and all the other market women around will be yelling my name,"Asabea!" So I am getting aquanited with everthing again and scoping out potential story subjects (everyone is excited about it and willing to help when free), experimenting with the film equipment, getting used to the heat and making the round "greeting" old friends (according to tradition).
lots of love,
Katelin
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Greetings from Ghana,
Here in Koforidua it is market day so the town is bustling with people selling just about everything available here from goats to cabbages to old German newspapers. Today is a big day for us, Ghana will play its first football match ever in the world cup. A huge huge day to witness. I have never cared so much about football but the excitement is contagious... go black stars! The streets get considerably more quiet when there is a match on the tele. australia and japan are playing now, in the internet cafe the commentary is cranked up and while we wait for a page to painstakingly load we are watching the game. I am here mainly to research on the Catholics for choice website. I have found myself in the middle of quite a debate. While the aids org I am trying to work with is doing some very good work there are some very vital pieces of information that are being left out and I fear it could be disastrous. they are not giving people reasonable ways of protecting themselves once they are on ARVs and look and feel fine. my time is running out so there is just a snap shot of what i am trying to tackle and work around in order to do some good. Because of funding there is little hope to change the org. from above but rather there is hope in working from below, as always. any ideas for talking to patriarchal catholic priests whose funded by the Vatican who still holds a ban on condoms? Email me.
Ok I cannot help it I have to tell you more there is just so much. Because of
dowry practices. Typically men have to buy a huge amount of items for the
fiances family and often money changes hands men feel that their women owe them certain wifely duties, like sex, which are non negotiable and everyone you ask will tell you that Ghanaian men do not like condoms.
And what else? A local boys school has an AIDS prevention club (youth alive) and I went to visit them and check in on how their doing, they seemed motivated and active, I was so excited thinking maybe this generation of boys can change. I then learned from another student there that during dorm searches (which are common here and ussualy they seize things like lipstick or cigarettes or whatever) authorities had seized all the boys condoms as unprescribed items. I think they got them from a peace corp volunteer who was recently sacked from my organization.
So there are a few snapshots. I am working with a really sweet Ghanaian
social work student who sees eye to eye with me so I am not alone, we will see what we can do.
love you all, use condoms,
katelin
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Hi All,
Greetings from a country in extreme anticipation. So much rests on one game of chance (practically) this afternoon. It is fairly blasphemous not to support
your own country at the world cup but i am adamant about supporting Ghana and since it is their country the Ghanaians forgive me. I am wearing a Ghana shirt today and at least 20 people stopped me on my way from the taxi station to the internet cafe to ask me if i was supporting Ghana or compliment my shirt or just scream GHANA and pound their fist in the air.
There have also been very success ventures like visiting some who are bedridden to show they are cared for and see what they need. one day we found out that the only thing keeping one woman (who i suspect also had TB) from the hospital was about 2 us dollars to charter a taxi to the hospital since she couldn't walk to the station, Ghana now has a National health insurance plan so it was literaly only transport that she needed and we were able to give her that. i was trying to be positive about that but the rest of the story is that the doctors and nurses are on strike, we thought they would go back to work last week but as of now they are refusing. it is a very complicated situation and i am not sure what to think but from my position, people are dying while their fellow countrymen who have been so priviledged as to have an good education are refusing their services asking formore money than people i interact with on a daily basis could dream of. But i dont know what to suggest since if doctors are now treated well in their own country it is very easy for them to just hop a plane to the US and live a very comfy life.
The stories are going well, i did one yesterday-- a classic story of urban
migration for educational oppurtunity leading to infection.
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Greetings to all,
Things feel pretty normal around here. as far as daily life, home life, I am
pretty used to things here. I took a trip to Togo and Benin and coming back to Ghana felt like going home and ever since things have felt especially regular.
It has been slow at work, we had the program for orphans and vulnerable children where we did some educational programs on HIVAIDS, sexuality, hygiene and took them on a trip to a nearby water fall. And after that, we the staff split up to visit them in their homes and school to do need assessments. So far the NGO has been treating them all basically the same but they are coming to realize that that is not the best course of action (cookie cutters should only be used for food) since some of the children are in pretty desperate situations.
The visit I did, together with my colleague, was to two girls in a nearby market town. We first went to their school and found one of the sisters who seemed to be doing ok, we consulted her headmistress who had a fairly average report of her performance but the younger sister was not in school.
We went to the house to find out why. Someone called the mother from the market, where she sells palm nuts (her only source of income besides our NGO, she is single and the fathers whereabouts are unknown). We asked her why her daughter wasn?t in school and the mother wasn?t aware that she had not gone she had acted as if she was preparing to go the she stayed home. The mother got out a cane and started beating her, we asked her to please stop, that we wanted to discuss the matter. She put the cane away thank goodness. So what we could figure is that the main reason the child wont go to school is that her uniform is really bad quality and she only has one, the school bag is torn. Children are very conscious, of such things its possible that other children bully or tease her, and this is a perfectly viable reason for her not going and it is something our NGO had promised her and been claiming to be providing so hopefully after we give out report we can see to it that things change. I asked her what her favorite subjects was and what she wants to be when she grows up, she said she wants to be a doctor. I told her that if she wants to be a doctor she can, if only she studies very hard and goes to school everyday. I feel like this is not something that parents here do enough. They don?t talk about their childrens? dreams for the future, and if they do, it will be dictating something to them not encouraging them to follow their own passions. Also my own observations in my little case study of the area and people I live with, girls are still primarily trained, prepped, even if it is subconsciously to be good wives first and foremost. So I like talking to these young girls about professions and striving to fulfill their dreams and making decisions that take that into consideration. Especially with talk of AIDS and poverty it is difficult because girls so often take a boyfriend because he will give her money and sex is expected in exchange, it is a very culturally ingrained relationship. Sometimes when parents cant afford to feed their child they will tell them to take a boy friend so he?ll give them chop (food ) money, or just buy them toffees or hair clips. But you have to remind them that boy friends don?t pay school fees and if you want to be a doctor, do your best to study and don?t accept gift that create a dependent relationship. My biggest problem is the cases where a girl is actually starving and the boyfriend really is the only way she can eat, if that?s the case then she cant force him to use a condom. Thus, womens empowerment is primarily economic and until women are in a position of financial independence they are at risk of HIV and any number of ills coming from dependence. Anyway ?.there is another snapshot. The OVCs programs seem to be the best thing we can do, I don?t have a problem until we start excluding information about contraceptives to AIDS patients who are on ARVs and are very fit.
The next and my last program with them is organizing the youth alive clubs to come for their peer educators workshop next weekend which should be interesting. It will be held at a catholic girls school and I dont think I will be allowed much freedom there to have my way about talking about prevention but well see. A lot of them STILL after so much effort think that your can get aids by sharing the same spoon with some one. They just dont want to believe it. But if we have a whole weekend with them I am sure we will get through to them.
Last weekend I visited my friends town, a beautifully mountainous area which
reminded me of Vermont (sort of) and recorded a story of an unemployed
university graduate. He was such a cool guy, very intelligent but he cant find
a job, like so many, he last/only option is to try to get a scholarship to do a
masters degree abroad and even then he may not be able to get a good job in
Ghana so its likely either braindrain or poverty.
So theres something to mull over. I have so so much more to say but I have to go to market and buy something for my mother to make dinner, and shell want to start cooking soon.
Lots of love,
Katelin
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Greetings,
Today was my last day voluneering at Matthew 25 House. I have learned so much hanging around there, there are changes being made that have great potential to overhaul the organizational structure of the org. Today we held elections among the PLs which was made mandatory by some of the primary donors to PLWA associations. they could not
receive funding unless the PLs themselves had more say in the management. this kind of sharing of power is quite foreign here. Most of the PLs are illiterate and they doubt their own ability to think for themselves, they have become used to the director and staff "thinking for them." Personally, from observing them and how they interact with eachother of course natural leaders emerge and i think if they are actually given power and can take resposibility for the organization, with some guidence from staff, it will be extremely beneficial.It is actually quite an exciting prospect if it actually is carried out. so i
feel like i am leaving on a very hopeful note. I have about 2 1/2 weeks left and i am going to put my life stories project as fisrt priority.
i have done a lot of networking that i need to follow up on and conduct the interviews people have agree to. my main hinderance is the different sense of time. tommorow time. but tommorow you say tommorow again. But i am feeling
pretty good about the project. i have recorded 16 life stories so far. From assistant queen mothers who now head beautician associations to street girls who earn their living carrying heavy loads on their heads and told me of the dangerous areas they sleep where men come and rape them and steal their things.
ok my time is almost up. love you all, see you soon,
katelin Afia