Work and Its Controversies

June 18, 2013

  

After taking time to reflect upon the various tasks that I did last two weeks, I can say that working here is much different than working in the US. For one, it is the rainy season and thus every time it rains, it seems like the world stops—shops close, people don’t go to work, kids stay at home instead of going to school. On several occasions I was advised by my sister and friend to stay home until it stopped raining instead of going to work. Another thing I’ve noticed is that people’s work pace is much slower than that I am used to. My co-workers are effective and get work done, but they also take their time to do it. I’ll be sitting in the office for one hour or two wondering what I should do or playing solitaire on my computer, and my co-workers will simply be looking out the window observing the snake magician or some other thing, and will be asking me to join them. Don’t get me wrong I believe they accomplish many things; it is just a different work environment that I am used to.

As far as the actual type of work that I am doing, I must say I enjoy it (for the most part) even though it is not something I am passionate about. The type of work I have been doing is public health outreach about Tuberculosis (TB) and Teenage Pregnancy.  Two other volunteers work with me, Sarah and Shelbie. We were given two PowerPoints with information about TB and teenage pregnancy such as: prevention, statistics, testing, symptoms, and health risks. We were then asked to make two brochures with the information from the PowerPoints; we would be using these in our talks.

For TB, our outreach consists of going into communities within the KEEA district (these tend to be very rural communities). We have partnered with a women’s public health center, so that every time they go to a community to weigh babies and consult mothers on nutritional recommendations, we would also talk to the mothers about what TB is, how it can be transmitted, what the symptoms are and how and why they should get tested. We read the brochure to them in English, and then we have someone from PEYORG (the NGO I am interning with) translate what we say in Fante, since most people cannot understand English too well. At first I questioned the value of us since we don’t speak Fante, but I was told by the staff at PEYORG (and I have found this to be quite true) that because we are White, they will listen to us more than they would one of them (I will write more about this experience on another post).

Once we conclude the presentation, we either help the health center staff weigh babies or we screen the people there for TB (this depends on whether we actually bring the forms with us). Screening the people basically means following a sheet of questions of symptoms that are attributed to TB, each symptom has a score, and at the end you add up the numbers and the sheet tells you according to the score whether the person is a suspect (and therefore should get tested) or whether they are okay. We collect their information, and we are eventually going to contact the suspects to collect sputum samples to take to the lab.

Another time, we went to a village and screened people door-to-door. There, I got to screen the Chief of the village! (I was also asked for my clothes, and for money and for a recommendation on eye surgery). We also had the opportunity to go to a local radio station and deliver the information about TB to the community, so that anyone who was around and had felt the symptoms we described could be screened.

For teenage pregnancy prevention, we were told that we would be going into schools and teaching about contraceptives. For this, we would be talking to school children who spoke English, so we just had to talk slow. We compiled different methods of contraceptives into our brochure, but once we arrived at the first school, we were told to we could only talk about abstinence (something I don’t think is effective). I felt really uncomfortable about talking to teens on something I didn’t quite believe especially since we had previously been told that people would listen to us more because we were White. Sarah, Shelbie and I decided to take a focus on education how important it was in order to succeed in life, and that having a child at such a young age would make it very difficult for a person to complete their education. I felt confident taking that route because I do value education and agree that having a child while pursuing an education can be extremely difficult; however, our talk was followed by one of our colleagues who told the teens that God hated people who had pre-marital sex and that is why they shouldn’t have it. This made me extremely upset. After that, I talked to my co-worker and told him I did not feel comfortable talking about abstinence in the manner he was emphasizing, and thus I would like to be out of the talks on teenage pregnancy. He wanted me to talk again to another class, but I refused. Instead, we talked about personal hygiene (washing your hands, and brushing your teeth).

The next day at the office, Sarah, Shelbie and I decided to make a lesson plan that would focus on the value of education and the difficulties/health risks that young teenage mothers could encounter if they found themselves to be pregnant. We decided to take my backpack and fill it up with things. We asked two volunteers to perform certain tasks such as drawing/writing or picking up books from the floor while wearing the backpack to simulate carrying a baby. We asked them which was easier to perform with the backpack or without it. They all said without it. We also asked them about things they enjoyed to do such as “playing with their friends, dancing, playing sports” and crossed them out with tasks they would have to do if they had to take care of a baby such as “feeding the baby, changing the diapers, attending a crying baby”. We felt pretty good after that, but at the end when we asked the teens what they had learned several people raised their hand and said they had learned not to have pre-marital sex because God won’t be happy or that sex is bad (neither of which we had said L)  This got me even more frustrated.

Needless to say, we had to make a new brochure for teenage pregnancy in which we focused on the health risks of teenage pregnancy and how to be abstinent. However, when we were done, one of our colleagues asked us to put in “Because God hates it”. I still didn’t understand why there was such a need for this person to push this theme; I didn’t agree with his views, so I asked to be removed from this project. I understand that teaching abstinence is a cultural value of theirs, but personally, I don’t agree with its effectiveness nor do I feel comfortable showing support to someone who says “God hates anyone who has premarital sex” and who wants us and I quote to “scare the teenagers from sex so that they will not even think about having it”. Teens are going to have sex; wouldn't it be better to equip them with the right contraceptives so that they don’t end up pregnant or contracting an STD?

Later that evening, I was invited to accompany two of the staff from PEYORG to a radio station where they would be having a discussion about teenage pregnancy. I was there for two hours, and I could not understand a thing because everything was in Fante. Nonetheless, it was a cool experience. The radio station was really nice; it had A/C (I was frozen by the end!).

Overall, I enjoy the fact that I get to go out and visit different villages or communities each day. I don’t think I’d be too happy if I was stuck in an office all day. However, I am not a health expert (in fact I have not taking any hard science classes in the past 4 years!) therefore I feel inadequate for questions on medical treatments or symptoms. Sometimes people assume I am a doctor and begin telling me their symptoms and ask me what they should do. Needless to say I strongly dislike the teenage pregnancy outreach I did.

I talked to the staff about some of the projects I had seen on their website before I came that had sparked my interest such as a local library for children, and a recycling club. I was told that these projects no longer exist.

Other things I have noticed and have had to adjust to:

*promptness- Time here is not taken as strictly as that in other places I've traveled to. We could have a meeting at 9am, but we will be leaving the office at 9:30am and arrive there by 10:15am and still not beginning our presentation until 11am.

*proximity discrepancies- people will say something is “not far” or “oh it won’t take long” but in reality it is far or it does take minimum 30 minutes instead of 10 like  you said.

*preparation/organization- it seems that every time we go out to do a presentation, something is left behind—the brochures or the screening forms or something! I don’t think we've had a day where we had all or sufficient materials for our talks.  

We shall see what else is in store for me!