Tuesday, June 16, 2009

God is my strength and thru him I can do all things rehabilitation center

Journal Entry from Day 3: Friday May 22

That would be the name of my rehab center if I opened one in Ghana. The system for naming business and even tro tros here in Ghana is the best. ever. At first I only saw a tro tro named God is Love here or one named Jesus Saves there, but then we left downtown Accra and I was introduced to the God is King Automotive Shop, the Clap for Jesus snack stand, the Amen Driving School, the Psalm 23 Stand and the Love and Peace Beauty Salon. I never imagined faith would be so constantly and openly present here in Ghana! Being Christian I found the constant reminder of faith oddly comforting and as well as amusing, but I wonder what affect if any the constant bombardment of Christian messages has on the country's fairly large non-Christian minory (there is a large Muslim population in Ghana as well, they are not so prolific in naming their businesses and tro tros however!), or are these names, just names that no one gives thought to?

We finally finished painting at the Soveign Global Mission school outside of Madina (one of Accra's northeastern suburbs). The school will be initially for the community children, but SGM hopes to add on to the school and be able to add a boarding school for street children there as well. The property has a classroom complex (the building we painted, inside and out!) and a library/living space building. The books we collected via the book drive will help build up the library that SGM has already started there. The neighborhood the school is in is an "up and coming" neighborhood that has been developed in large part by habitat for humanity ghana. At first I thought we had come to a lower income semi-abandoned neighborhood because of all the partially constructed homes and the complete lack of pavement, but later found that the area is solidly middle class and that the construction issue in Ghana is this. People don't take out loans and mortgages, they buy the land and then save up and slowly build their homes as they can afford to-- which could literally take a decade. Also, I quickly caught on the pavement optional trend in Accra, mostly the downtown area has pavement, but in the suburbs, etc. it's optional, like turning on the traffic lights.

Tomorrow is our big day to work with the community children and to do our screenings of children with disabilities who live in the community. I'm a little nervous, given my limited clinical experience with children and given that we are not entirely sure of what to expect. We know we might see some kids with physical disabilities, but no history is really given so we aren't sure of what the source is. We know we might see some kids with behavioral problems-- they've been kicked out of school because none of the teachers no how to work with them. But that's it. I realize now how spoiled I was in my fieldworks-- I knew who I was seeing, what their dx was, what we would be doing, how long the session would last, etc. Not so much tomorrow. I'm excited to meet the children and hopefully we'll be able to make some useful recommendations to the children and their families-- I've done my homework Stacey-- all ready to do the VMI! So, I am ready to follow my fearless leader into screenings tomorrow and hope I can figure out what I'm doing.

No comments:

Post a Comment