The Art of Brushing Teeth

Etisane! It’s pretty crazy to think that we are over halfway done with our trip here to Ghana, and next Thursday we are leaving Abomosu for good. Where has the time gone!? But I have to say the time is pretty well spent. This past week has been really good for the most part. This week we started going into the schools and teaching hand washing and tooth brushing at the primary schools, and simple first aid, and “being healthy” at the junior highs (which is ages 13-16). I’ve taught all of these classes and I’d have to say that my favorite class to teach is definitely teeth brushing (tooth brushing? Where’s Eric and his innate grammar guide when I need him?).

Once we teach the children the basics of brushing their teeth, we sing the song “When you wake up in the morning and it’s quarter to one and you want to have a little fun you brush your teeth ch-ch-ch….”. Remember that annoyingly repetitive song? Well apparently it sticks! The children love to sing it and it’s a lot of fun to see them around the village or the market on other days and the say “Obrunee! Brush your teeth! Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch…” hahaha. Only they can’t say ‘th’ so it’s “Brush your teet.”

Apparently after we taught in the first school, all the littlec hildren went home and begged their parents for a toothbrush. Too bad we couldn’t bring some to donate. Oh well. At least now they are aware!

So Abby asked me what exactly we have been doing here, nursing wise, besides playing with the children . There’s actually a lot that we have been doing! A lot of our nursing interventions are education, like teaching in the schools. We also do health fairs on the weekends (this past weekend we went to Tema, about 45 minutes from Accra and taught a large stake there), and tomorrow we are doing a neonatal resuscitation training course for the midwives in the area.

They are really in need of education, especially since this health district that we are in, the Atiwa district has 100,000 people and one doctor. ONE DOCTOR!! We met him the other day, he’s a great guy who went to Cuba to get his education, but he’s a bit busy…I would be too! In the clinics, most of the diagnosing is done by someone called a medical assistant. They basically have a book and they look up your symptoms and then say what treatment you need, although they often don’t have the mediations necessary. Even I have more training than this medical
assistant. So clearly they welcome the education.

We also do a lot of BP screenings, and malaria testing, HIV testing, and triage (when they come to the clinic, we take their history/vitals etc and determine the order to be seen by the “medical assistant”). Last week, a couple of the girls helped with the delivery of two babies, one healthy and one who ended up dying on the way to the hospital from the clinic. I wasn’t in the clinic that day, because I was in a village called Asunafu where we were special guests at the kick off of Child Health Promotion Week. That included dancing with the children for 2 hours, and even getting to sit next to the Queen Mother and the Village Chief and had to go to the front and introduce ourselves . Yeah, I know. We’re cool.

I feel like that’s a huge part of what we do. Just make an appearance. We even were special guests at a motorcycle ceremony where they taught nurses to ride motorcycles so they can get to the outer parts of the villages. We also make a lot of donations, like backpacks with supplies to the motorcycle nurses, stethoscopes, BP cuffs, speculums, and even YW medallions for the branch here. That’s the gist of what we do. At least that’s all I can think of right now.

We have a student here with Malaria… :( The other girl from NY, Alison. She woke up way sick on Sunday morning. Not fun. She’s starting to get better, but this afternoon she also developed a sty too. Which is an infection that essentially shows up as a zit on the tip of your eyelid, even further infecting your eye. And she just got bit by a spider. She’s having a rough couple of days. I hope that bad luck is not contagious! Of course, none of this was helped by the fact that we have had NO power here since Thursday. That’s why no one has heard from me since what, Wednesday? Sorry fam. I’m still alive!

We finally got the power back on around 7 tonight. And there was much rejoicing. Of course, not surprisingly, around 6 tonight our water shut off. Haha. So the trend continues! Let me paint a picture for you: No water and no electricity/fans= 14 hot, smelly, sweaty girls with no relief from the heat or showers to clean off/cool down, meat that is defrosting and rotting, other rotting fruits and vegetables, dirty clothes unable to be washed lying around the rooms, and a sick girl who is constantly vomiting into a toilet that can’t flush. Can you imagine how wonderful our house smells right now!? ;)

Hope things are going well in the States, mostly I hope you are all enjoying the fresh, cool air around you! Haha.

Love you all lots!
Mel

p.s. We visited the Accra Temple this weekend! What a beautiful temple.