Mobilizing in Ghana

Marlee Furman is a member of the Board of Directors. She is currently part of a refugee aid team operating in Ghana.

Hey out there! (and if you were here, we would shake hands, pull each other's middle fingers, and snap…as is the standard greeting)

Amongst the heavy rain and deafening thunder, this week has been full of various activities and accompanying emotions. Everything is still a little jumbled in my head, and I am reaching the stage where things are starting to come together and I am grasping the concept of what it all means. I will tell you some disjointed stories I have come across.

Last week, some of the volunteers took the kids up to the "fee" (i.e. field) to kick around a soccer ball and throw some frisbees. One girl, about 5 years old, carried her little brother, 8 months old, up the hill and asked me to hold him while she played. I thought it was only fair to give her a rest from looking after her brother so she could run around. For about an hour, I held the boy while talking to the rest of the kids and tossing the frisbee. Sure enough, I went to hand the boy back to the girl, and I had one big pee stain all over the front of my shirt! It was funny at the time, but looking back, I realized I have seen very few children with diapers. Obviously little kids cannot control themselves, so it wouldn't be surprising if they often went to the bathroom on or near themselves, therefore spreading disease like wildfire. What we think of as basic hygiene just doesn't exist. The vast majority of establishments on camp do not have a toilet. A dumpster to dispose of any type of waste can be as far away as a 15-20 minute walk to areas that are dangerous at night.

The amount of disease on camp is out of control. Just yesterday I was walking down the road and saw a kid bent over on all fours coughing up mucus. This is a common cough we have been hearing around camp, and we are afraid TB may be floating around. It's hard to diagnose anything with only 5-7 doctors on the entire 42,000 person camp. At night we often sit around reading various travel health books to help identify things that kids approach us with. Ringworm has also had a consistent presence lately. The boy that lives next to us has these awful looking flaky rings on his scalp. And the other day we had a mother bring her little boy by who had a cut on his head (from when she shaved the boy's head to, ironically, keep it clean) that got infected. Keeping in mind that most people use the same bathwater, from free wells on camp, if there is a water-born disease spreading…chances are an epidemic is about to happen. This happened a couple of months ago when a lot of people on camp came up with cholera. It's unfortunate that I have a gut feeling of hesitation when I go to hug the children or pick them up because of the fear that I may catch something. Every time I enter the house, I go to eat, before and after I go to the bathroom, I need to scrub my hands clean. Even after showers, I never feel clean. This is an issue that we deal with every minute of the day, but certain precautions are becoming second nature and you learn how to make your interactions with the kids safe, but simultaneously natural and nurturing.

Sometimes I forget the non-visible horrors that follow people when they flee their home country. People are not only striving day by day to survive, but they also must deal with traumas of their past and attempting to think about their futures. One man came to one of the volunteers asking for help the other night, showing him some sort of police report. The volunteer inquired a little more about the story, and it turns out that the man who approached him is a Liberian who hadhis entire family killed in the war and he fled here for safety. Turns out the rebel who was responsible for killing his family in Liberia also fled here. The rebel recognized the man, chased him with knives, and now the man sleeps with friends out of fear the rebel will find him at night. We are still brainstorming on if and how we can help this man. Unfortunately, sometimes the hardest part is acknowledging the fact that there is nothing you can do.

In general, there has been a constant asking problem lately that the volunteers have been discussing in our meetings. Although I was asked a lot when I first got here, I have not yet faced very difficult asks because I am still forming relationships with people. But most of the volunteers are asked by their colleagues that they work closely with for money for food, rent, medicine, etc. It is incredibly difficult to stay the course and give blanket no's. Often volunteers findthemselves giving, then word gets out that they give, and magically there are more and more asks. It is a vicious cycle and takes a united cold hearted approach to stop it.
Sometimes there are situations that cannot afford to be turned away. Last week, a girl named Beneta, came up to one of the volunteers, Liz, and told her that she had taken blue tablets and wanted to kill herself. Beneta became too weak to walk, and she was eventually wheel barrowed to the top of camp to the UNHCR clinic. Liz stayed with Beneta for hours while the drugs wore off and her family came to the clinic. This is an incredibly long and detailed story, but basicallyBeneta is 15 years old, is not in school, lives with her aunt (the rest of the family is in Liberia), prostitutes to get money, and has been starting to influence some of the other girls around the house.The next night, she came back to Liz saying she had taken three more tablets and still wanted to kill herself. Lucky for me, Beneta requested to speak to me. Through much talking and maneuvering, we got her to give us the tablets and agree that she would make it through the weekend so she could think clearly without the drugs.

That night Erin, our coordinator, found a mental hospital in Accra that would accept Beneta if she was in danger of overdosing and provide her with psychological services. Beneta agreed to go to the hospital and we took the 90 minute taxi ride there. Sure enough, we get to the hospital and the workers had gone on strike that afternoon. Yup, they locked the patients in the ward, and walked off. Exhausted and flustered in this overly exasperated situation, we calmly took the taxi back to camp and decided to seek out services on camp. As of yet, our luck has been minimal, but we are still trying to construct a program of our own to help Beneta turn her life onto the right path.

From under the mosquito net,
Marlee