work, work, work

My journalism placement ended a couple of weeks ago because my paper was suffering financial difficulties and hadn't managed to publish in the entire time I had been there. I finally decided that I had to leave in order to get the most out of my experience in Africa. Instead, I moved to teaching and medical outreach. Initially I was placed in a private school, where my role was to sharpen pencils and keep the children quiet. But i despised it because I was completely unnecessary: i got blisters from sharpening pencils, and I'm completely ill equipped to keep the children quiet because the little shits knew that I wasn't going to use the cane. My first day a five-year-old little girl nodded at me with a huge cheesy grin and prompted, "beat them". In that moment my heart broke just a little bit. I feel like the purpose of volunteering is being somewhere that needs you rather than simply going somewhere that will accept your presence. So Projects Abroad, let me chnage my placement once again. I only have two more weeks but I still want to make the most of them.

So, I am now at a school that is about two hours away from where i live, I have to leave at 6.30am to get there by 9am. I've only had one day there but I find it infinitely more rewarding than my prior placement. Today, i did one on one tutoring with children who are struggling. The girl I worked with is fourteen-years-old and has great difficulty with the alphabet. If by the time I leave i can help her recite it, and recognise the letters when she sees them, then I'll feel successful.

I also do medical outreach two days a week which has been one of the best working experiences i've had in ghana. We travel to different schools and orphanages and go through the children and treat their cuts, infections, funguses and ringworms. I would make the bold statement to say that ringworm is Ghana's head lice. There is head lice here too, but the children have shaved heads so its not as common as ringworms. But because ringworms is infectious it is a big problem to treat, because its perpetually transmitted between the children even on the odd occasions when it is treated.