Skypin'

I have spoken to Audrey face to face twice in the past 24 hours!!!!  It's an amazing thing called Skype.  All you have to do is download it and you need a webcam and microphone on your computer, which if you have a mac is already installed.  Then you can talk to anyone else with Skype for free for as long as you like.  Yesterday we talked for almost an hour!  With Skype you can also call people on their phone but it charges you something like 15 cents/minute.  I'm using Andrea (another volunteer from Missouri)'s MacBook which is so much faster than the regular computer I use here!  The other one is probably from 1990something.

The weekend was interesting.  Saturday Fifi, Emmanuel and I drove the boss's wife and kids around to buy the boys bicycles and groceries.  The boss went to the Western region with the car and driver to play golf and whatever else.  Sunday we went to Harvest International Ministries (HIM) for church.  It is a charismatic church so there was a lot of "Amen...Hallelujah...Praise Jesus...Clap for Jesus...etc"  The music was really well done and the sound system neither squeeked or blasted (if you've been to Ghana you know what I'm talkin bout!).  The sermon was long but not too bad and the whole service was in English which was nice.  After church we picked up the boss's wife and kids again!!  Took them to the mall to buy some more groceries from Shoprite.  Then I went to the Black Stars Football Match against Gabon at the Ohene Djan Stadium in central Accra with Zahida (friend from Howard U) and her friend from work.  We had great seats in VIP!  Only $6 and we were sitting right behind the players in row J near mid field.  The Black Stars won 2-0 and continue to be on the top of their bracket in the run for the World Cup which will be held in South Africa in 2010 (first time on African soil!).  I've heard from a couple people that they saw me on TV...but I haven't seen the footage!  

Yesterday (Monday) I actually did some work!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Fifi and I have two new volunteers from the University of Ghana.  They are social work majors who have to volunteer for the summer for their program.  I am now the team leader.  Irene, Adwoa and I went to Nima to try to set up an educational workshop on HIV, recruit peer educators, and do a little survey of people's knowledge on HIV.  We were looking for the central Mosque (its a largely Muslim neighborhood) and found the Imam's house where we are going back to today to discuss with him.  We talked to some young men about HIV.  One knew a lot, one knew little, and the other two were somewhere in between.  We talked to the headmaster of the large Islamic school in the neighborhood who seemed interested in our project.  Everyone we talked to said that no one had ever come to their neighborhood to educate people on HIV.  We also talked to the leader of the Neighborhood Watch who supported us and we are going back today to recruit peer educators from the young men who hang out at his office.  We also talked to some older men (60s?) about HIV.  They wanted to know about how it can be transmitted and how it can be treated.  We were happy that they knew that stigmatizing HIV-positive people is not acceptable.  

Today we are going to talk to the chief in the neighborhood.  The neighborhood, accurately described as a slum, is largely from the northern regions of Ghana.  The people from the north are culturally different from the people of southern Ghana.  Historically they are Muslim (and largely still are), poor (most still are), and excluded from the benefits of investment.  During the slavery period, the people of Northern Ghana were kidnapped and sold into slavery in large numbers.  During colonialization, the British had a policy of "forced labour out-migration" which means they forced notherners to go to southern "Gold Coast" to work in the plantations, mines, ports, police and military.  They also had a policy of non-investment, so at independence there was no infrastructure in place in the north.  The Ghanaian government has not been much better.  The Nkrumah and Rawlings administration made some investment in the north but today it still is far far behind the south.  The electricity grid was just expanded to the northern regions in the 1990s!  So, because of these reasons, and the continued lack of investment in the north, many northerners live in the southern cities.  They were subjegated into communities with Muslim sounding names like Madina and Nima.  The communities have become slums and these are the communities we are working in to educate people about HIV/AIDS.  

Well, I didn't think I would have much to say today but I guess I did!  I better get to work!

James