Back from the Bush

I just spent 4 days at our project site in the Upper East Region (UER) of Ghana, very near the Burkina Faso border. The area is beautiful - a mostly flat, green landscape dotted with huge baobab trees and amazing rock formations. It is also very raw - a large majority live in mud huts without electricity or running water and are in extreme poverty. Every moment was a fascinating adventure that brought back memories of my Peace Corps days. We were doing some very early testing of the basic concept of using mobile phones to disseminate information on prenatal and newborn health. We were interested in whether people had phones, how willing they were to ask questions and what types of questions they needed answered. We had 3 teams going out to various villages over 3 days with phones. Once a group of women (and some men) gathered around, our teams called into a basic "hotline" we had setup with local health workers taking the calls. It was great - people were enthusiastic about using the phones and definitely hungry for knowledge. The day I was out in the field, it had rained all night the night prior. The networks were down & I ended up drawing on my public health/child welfare and being a mom knowledge to answer many of the questions women were asking. It was so amazing to me how the most basic of information was lacking and so sorely needed.

The logistics of getting around the area was also an adventure. I flew an early morning 1-hour flight to Tamale and took a 2-hour taxi ride up to Bolgotanga. The ride was harrowing - bombing down the road at who-knows-what speed (all the dashboard indicators were broken) in a beat-up tin can of a taxi, dodging potholes the size of an entire lane, goats, cows, children, bikes and chickens. Our project driver took us back to Tamale in the project car, but the alternator belt broke just as we were leaving Bolgatanga. It was getting dark and we pulled into a junk yard where, before I knew it, about 10-12 guys had their heads under the hood of the Pajero, a guy on a motorcycle is driving in and out with belt after belt, trying to find the right size, we had to borrow a small lamp from a local restaurant so they could see and about 10 feet away, a guy is going about the business of slaughtering chickens (don't ask me how you do this in the dark). But, the sky was amazing - stars shooting and bright with heat lightening off in the distance. Reminded me of why I love getting out of the city. About 2 hours later, were were finally off for a night in Tamale and our flight back to Accra the next morning. Never a dull moment.