WAAF!

God answers prayers, for sure. This morning I had what I thought was going to be the group interview with WAAF. Turns out all three of us already had the positions and Belinda, the director of WAAF, wanted to just meet with us to tell us about the program and its facilities, and to discuss hours of availability. Victor, the community service coordinator, took me, Leigh and Emma (the three interns vying to work at WAAF) to the facilities around 10:30 this morning. We toured the facilities, which were so nice. Keeping in mind that it is Ghana, and buildings aren’t sprawling outwards and upwards, it was very modest but very, very professional. There is a clinic where anyone can come and get tested, along with several counseling rooms for those who get tested to have their pre and post-test meetings. There is a lab where the tests are read, a doctor’s office and a pharmacy, too. I knew the second I walked in there that it was a perfect fit for me, and when I found out I would be working there too, I was just so thankful and excited. I think once I conceded to God that, nope, I’m not in control, and that I’ll be put where I need to be, that’s when trust turns into reward. Anyway, WAAF is incredible and I am soooo excited to start working on Monday!

There are two “jobs,” I guess you could call them, that interns do, and each intern is assigned to a job for the semester. The first is what Emma is doing, which is called their OVC section. OVC stands for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, and is a group of about 15 kids, ranging from newborns to age 13, who have lost one or both parents to AIDS, and who may have the virus themselves. Because elementary and primary education here is not free, these orphans’ caregivers (sometimes grandparents or aunts or uncles) have a hard time paying for school or anti-retrovirals for these kids. WAAF funds these children’s education and medicinal needs, which I think is just incredible. Emma’s job will be to basically do house visits with a counselor all semester long, going to each child’s home and conducting surveys and collecting information and how WAAF’s help is helping (or not), how the children are coping, etc. She’ll also play with the kids, I’m sure. It’s so worthwhile, and she’s perfect for the job.

Leigh and I are doing the Education part of WAAF, which I am SO excited about! Basically over the course of the next four months, Leigh and I will be going to 5 elementary schools throughout Accra, all of which have after-school HIV/AIDS Awareness clubs. Leigh and I will run a series of workshops which teach kids in each of the following 7 topics: Basic Facts about HIV/AIDS; Basic Facts about STIs/STDs; Stigma and Discrimination; Living Positively; Adolescence: Basic Sexual Health; Assertive Skills in Sexuality; and Peer Education. These children are self-appointed peer educators for their student body, and the goal is to get them to go out and spread the word about AIDS to their fellow students. We’ll start next week with creating an assessment which we will hand out the first time we visit the schools to 10 students in the club and 10 students not in the club, to note how much they know about HIV/AIDS. At the end of the semester we’ll administer the same survey again, and hopefully, as previous years have shown, the numbers will increase dramatically for both groups of students. We will also be responsible for creating a report at the end of the semester about the success of our workshops, and the outreach WAAF is doing as a whole. I am thrilled beyond belief to actually get to go into schools and work with young children, which I love doing, and spread this very important message to them. I am also coming up with new ideas on how to get other kids who aren’t in these clubs involved, and hopefully I can contribute them and help make the program even better.

One last, really cool, thing about WAAF is they have a store right next to it called The Acorn Tree, named after the tree they have in the front of the facility. Here, women who have come through WAAF before, and who have lost their jobs because they are living with HIV and the stigma that comes along with it, sell their handmade batik bags, clothing, and jewelry. These things are beautiful, too. Each item has a unique tag on it describing the premise of the store, and at the bottom, the woman who made the item signs her name, and every cent of that sale goes to that specific woman to help pay for her medicine. It’s an incredible idea. Be expecting gifts from here!

So I guess you could call the first few hours of my morning a great success! After I got back from WAAF, Gillian, Marykate and I went to Ashesi for lunch. They have really cheap lunch there, and it’s always WAY too much and so good! Afterwards we walked over the vegetable stand and I bought some apples and some tomatoes and such. Gillian and I then biked to the post office where I picked up my package from Mom! I had collected the other package earlier this morning, and was so happy to have gotten both today, along with a letter from Nana! Getting stuff from home makes me so happy and makes me feel a little bit closer! Mom, I have already eaten some peanut butter crackers and a slice of banana bread—thank you! Nana, your note was so sweet. Anyway, the bike ride to the post office was definitely better than the walk Gillian and I took a few weeks ago (wow! Can’t believe it’s been that long), but it was still really strenuous, especially because the entire road there is uphill then downhill then uphill, so there’s really no direction, there or back, that’s easier. It was still a good work out, though, and we are putting our bikes to good use. When we got back from the post office a few of us went to Koala, the third big supermarket here, and I got some more jelly (I’m eating toast and jelly like it’s my job), and some stuff to make Red-Red! I don’t remember if I wrote about it in my last blog, but if not, I’ll write more about it when I actually make it. Basically, it’s a delicious bean stewy dish that’s great and I can’t wait to make it.

Marykate and I had our Legon class today—Media and Society—and it was really good. The professor is great, and seems to know what he’s talking about. The students, however, were really immature, it seemed. It was like being in a 9th grade on-level class with all the interruptions and uproarious laughter when the professor said anything that could even in the tiniest way be turned into some sexual comment (Sarah!). It was so unexpected for MK and me, especially because we were told that the Legon classes were very strict and that we should behave even more appropriately than we do at NYU. On the way up there, we talked with our bus driver, Sammy, about how the employee/employer relationship works here. It makes so much sense and is so pain-free, and I don’t know why it’s so hard for Americans to just be nice to each other, to calm down, to take a deep breath and relax and little, and show respect to one another. Sammy told us in the Ghanaian culture, everything is about having one another’s respect and maintaining a solid reputation—it’s the most important thing you have. He said he cleans his van on Saturdays on his day off because Christa, our director, wants it to look nice for us. I asked why he would do that, and he said because he respects Christa and has to show her that, and in return, he has Christa’s respect. Everything is mutual and everyone is happy. It’s such simplistic logic, to do something just because someone else asked you to, and to be kind because he or she is your superior, but it’s lost in translation in America. Everyone’s too busy to be friendly. It’s a real shame. Life would be a lot more joyful if everyone would just be patient with and nice to each other, like they are here.

Essentially, it was a fantastic day. I am truly blessed and am feeling more and more at home here everyday. I’m thankful we are getting into the swing of actually living here. I no longer feel like a strange visitor, which is good. This will be a good semester, I can feel it.

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