Journal #8

With each journal post I find it hard to say exactly what I want to because I feel like a broken record. I am excited to go to Africa, I am overwhelmed with school, my project still needs focus, and I have no idea what I am doing half the time. My sister, an English major, has a magical way with words and can make anything sound amazing. I on the other hand couldn't write an A+ paper to save my life. So you can see why blogging is so difficult for me. Throughout High School I took English classes where maybe 4-5 papers were due each year and in college I purposely take classes where I don't have to write that many papers. I absolutely fear writing papers. However, I realized that these blog posts don't need to have an intro, thesis, body paragraphs, and conclusion. This blog is my thoughts. This blog is where I show my thought process on going to Ghana. That being said, I have been thinking A LOT about the communication between myself and the Ghanaians. In the past couple of prep classes we've discussed what potential problems might arise and what we can do now to fix those. One of my main concerns was my population. I started off this wanting to do strictly Neonatal care. That is an extremely difficult population to focus on because of the ethical issue. I decided to focus on the under-five years of age population in Wiamoase. I will be using their mother's to interview and have group discussions on the health issues they face with their little ones and what is done for that. Why would a mother use a spiritual healer at home when there is a clinic with licensed physicians and medicine to help? There are so many answers to this question. Many families are very traditional and would prefer to use herbs and natural resources to cure the disease. Some families can not afford the treatment and are no where near a facility to even consider it. As I mentioned in a previous post, facilities are not easy to come by in Ghana. Some families are not aware of what a hospital or clinic can do for them. I am not saying which one is the better option but from my own experience in america, most people do prefer a hospital with physicians and people there to care for them 24/7. I am excited to hear the reasons why a mother would choose one option over the other. This is definitely something you can't research in a library.