Blog reporting for the week of May 19th-24th, 2007 Completed by Rachelle Blum YCI

Hello everyone.

My name is Rachelle Blum and I am a volunteer in Denu representing Youth Challenge International. Below are my blog postings for the week of May 19th-24th, 2007.

Enjoy!

When I walk down the street I see…

1. Women walking with unbelievably heavy things on their heads (i.e. tables, bundles of merchandise, food, laundry etc…) without hands

2. Women wrapped in cloth with babies on their backs

3. Tribal members from the local fishing communities wearing white face/body paint, shells and traditional attire

4. Women without shirts selling food, carrying various things and traveling to various places.

5. Sand, coconut trees, goats, chickens and children without underwear.

Three words to describe how I’m feeling about our first activity are……..

1. Awesome
2. Pumped
3. Inspired

We gave our first workshop last Friday to a group of 60 girls at a local school. It was the first time since April 27^th that I truly felt I knew why I was here. I felt like there was finally purpose to this trip, to the frustrations and to the challenges. The girls blew me away. They were brave and smart and interesting. They asked questions, engaged, and they filled my heart with promise and hope. I felt we were able to transmit some really important information effectively which felt amazing! There is no feeling in the world that can be compared to the feeling that you may have made a difference. It was pretty awesome.

A traditionally held belief I have a hard time relating to is….

The notion that chiefs and queens are capable and qualified to make decisions and issue consequences regarding law enforcement. The queen mother we are staying with returned from arbitration one day last week and when we asked what case she had resided over that day she seemed hesitant to share it with us. Eventually we learned that a husband had raped his wife outside of their home on the ground and that it was decided as his punishment that he would undergo a cleaning ritual before the wife would return to him. The queen noted that if he were to rape his wife again, then at that time the chiefs would report him to the police. Although rape is formally illegal by law in Ghana and should notably be punished immediately by police, the chieftaincy courts still remain the first destination for criminals like the man above. This creates an inconsistency between Ghana’s formal laws and the laws that are actually practiced within communities. It also means that last week a man who raped a woman was set free, relatively unpunished and his victim was forced to welcome him home.

Since arriving, I’ve been inspired by the following people…

I am truly inspired by our group leader Nicole. She has a quality that I seem to be forever lacking, patience. She is able to transform any situation, no matter how frustrating or jammed, and move through it effectively and efficiently. She has a gift for seeing the big picture as opposed to the small details, and therefore is able to see the positive in every situation and in every human being. As a group their have been days when we have lost our patience with our peers or with the process and yet she has never lost her patience with us. I do not know where her boundless energy and enthusiasm come from but I know that it inspires me to look deeper and work harder. She inspires me to put my best self forward here and do the best job I am able to do. A leader who brings forth this desire and passion from her team can only be termed exceptional. As a child I was repeatedly reminded of a Hebrew quote Hadracha Bedoogma that translated directly means, Leadership by Example. In 26 years I have not witnessed a greater example of this than Nicole. I think we, the Canadian volunteers, as well as the Ketu district are lucky to have her leading the way.

I learned something about myself this week…

I learned how grateful and endlessly blessed I am to live in a country where:

1. I am respected as a young, educated woman with thoughts and opinions that are of value.
2. There are serious laws to protect me from rape, violence and discrimination
3. I have the luxury of goals, dreams and a promising future.
4. I am seen as more than the life, family, and household I was born into it.
5. I have a voice and it is heard.

Blog reporting for the week of May 12th-18th, 2007 Completed by Karine Club 2/3

Blog entry: From May, 12 to May 18 2007

Title: “Setting our Ghanaian work environment”.

Weekly Thought (week 3): “ Finding where we stand, what our role is within our team as part of our Ghana’s integration process”.

The re-opening of the Denu’s YMCA after 6 months…made the peer educators happy as well as the YMCA neighbors! We cleaned the place in order to make some more space for refreshing ideas. Get ready…to see the volunteers in action! Denu’s YMCA is the place where the Ghanaian and the Canadian volunteers gather to exchange ideas for the up-coming workshop delivery. What did we find out during our preparation as a whole team? Different way of living, different perspectives, different ideas..and of course…! Different ways of working! And that, can sometimes lead to some inner frustration. I would say that the Canadian volunteers experienced it someway, somehow! Because of the pace of Ghanaian work, this might be interpreted as a lack of motivation and interest. We call it “Ghanaian time” which basically means “don’t rush”…as it says on the Denu’s beach boat!

Still…our first informal workshop took place in front of the Denu YMCA that Gillian used to call “The Ultimate Frisbee knowledge game” meant to test insidiously all of the peers educators HIV knowledge. Without knowing it, 40 people surrounded us and remained silent…but really interested by the questions asked! On Friday May 18, more than 70 pair of eyes were rivet on us! So exciting!!!! Our first real workshop delivered at the “Victory International School” is a real success! Feverish, that’s how we were! Only girls were allowed to present this HIV workshop to the “Girls Guide” aged from 10 to 16 years old. Unfortunately, we had to let something [very precious to our team] behind…sorry…someone! Shawn, our one and only…guy! From the beginning ‘til the end of “Stella, ella, ola, coike, coike, coike song”, our public stayed engaged! The questions were relevant for a such young audience. They simply feed us…like “OUR Denu beach” does!

Denu beach is “The place” where we enjoy hanging out, working, discussing, picnicking and walking. This comfortable environment is feeding us in the sense that we can refill our low batteries [difficult to recharge…especially when there is no power!!] , we can take some time on our own just by watching the “Guinea Golf” tides swallowing the sea shore…and regurgitate the “fish”…on our plate!!! Delicious for some of us…but infectious for some others since we’re eating it EVERY SINGLE DAY! Vive les Omega 3!

First week in Denu

Friday May 04, the Denu team leaves the big city of Accra. At our arrival, 3 hours later, we are all realy very excited to be there, in our small village. We left the YMCA in Accra to now live with Mama Ayaba, at the Queen’s Mother house. When we get to the house, we are welcome with an official ceremony… where we don’t really know what to do; do we need to stand up, take off our shoes, sit down, respond (but what !!), drink in the traditional bowl??? We are a bite lost and we truly understand why there are making fun of us… we seem just so lost!! But, we are all excited and happy.

The next morning is time to get ready because we are having our Denu welcoming ceremony. We have been told that 300 people will attend the ceremony… we better be on time and well dressed up!! We have the chance to meet again the peer educators with who we will be working, the hairdresser association, the scouts, the girl guides, etc. The whole Ketu district is there! At the end, everyone knows our names and wants to take a picture with us. We are treated as stars everywhere we go from now!!!

The house where we live is beautiful… even if you lost electricity almost every day and we need to shower with salty water! We will certainly not complain, our house is next to the ocean, with a beautiful beach. We can eat fresh fish every meals (ok, we get kind of sick of it, but we still need to appreciate it!!). There is no oven in the house, no television, no telephone, no microwave, no extra… Keep it simple in Africa! The only wrong thing about that house is the fact that you cannot lock a room. Well you can, but if you do, you will be locked for ever in that room!! So far, two of us got stocked in the bathroom… I don’t have to tell you that there is no more handle for that door!!!

Our fist week in Denu is the training week. So we go through “statistics on HIV/AIDS”, “promotion and awareness”, “community mobilization”, “communication”, “exchange of cultural experiences”, “Gender and HIV/AIDS”, etc. With the 25 local peer educators, we learn about HIV, we play games to understand better and we ask a lot of questions and we try to answer all the myths and misconceptions about that virus (and trust us, there are a lot!!). Like what? Good question! If you use lubricant, we cannot get HIV; or you can get infected by kissing an infected person; or if you are a homosexual, you go directly to jail; or when a man rapes a woman, it is because she deserves it… The Canadian team works really hard to make sure people understand the truth. At the end of the week, we have to visit the chiefs in the 3 towns in the district where we will be delivering our workshops. We actually need to ask permission to the different chiefs before stating anything. So in exchange of 2 bottles of gin per town, we got the permission to give our workshops around!

At the end of that week, Mama Ayaba negotiates a day off for us so we can go to the market with her! Every 4 days, it is market day. What can you find there? Pretty much all what a Ghanaian house needs!! Why not going to a supermarket? Simple… it is because it is a futurist thing here in the area a supermarket!!! The closest thing would be the Shell gas station!

The second week of our adventure in the Ketu district is to produce our material, practice the workshops that we will be delivering and start booking the different workshops. We still have lots of work to do!

Wednesday April 25th, 2007

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007
Pre-departure so far has generally been really interesting and very informative. The group is interacting really well and I feel a genuine sense of care and concern growing for one another. It's really amazing how open and loving people can be when they are focused on a common goal. The process is constantly reaffirming to me the good the lies within us and the desire we all have to be engaged and connected. Today in particular we spent the morning with a Ghanaian woman who was kind enough to take on all of our nervous questions. We talked about everything from handshaking to smoking, child-rearing to bargaining in the market place. You could tell from the groups questions that everyone is genuinely concerned about being respectful and courteous especially in regards to dress and gift-giving. In the afternoon we wrapped things up with Raymond as he taught us about the natural process of adaptation when arriving overseas. It seemed to bring a sense of relief to us all whenRaymond explained that it was natural to expect times of emotional turmoil and homesickness while away.
Rachelle Blum