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Oct. 05, 2000 Dear Friends, We are finally finished with our "marathon" summer, which began with the nursing orientation course in Accra in May. September 29th we were able to pass 14 of our 15 Primary Health Care Worker course students. (The remaining student has been offered some remedial work, so he may "graduate" later.) We came "home" to Yendi really tired, but happy. At this point the road from Tamale to Yendi is navigible for us, but not for heavy trucks (there were two lying on their sides in the ditch about halfway along the route to prove this). The rains are coming less and less often, though, so soon the dry season will begin and the road will improve. Meanwhile, preliminary work has been done towards getting our telephone lines! The Yendi lines go to within 1/2 of a km (1/3 of a mile) of our compound, but it appears the requisition is for completely new lines beginning at the microwave tower at the post office. Hopefully that will result in slightly improved reception, but the microwave stations have inherent problems, so it is unlikely that we will ever have web access. In the meantime, we are still using the old system of retrieving email via our notebook computer at a communications center in "downtown" Yendi. Due to the poor lines, a large message will often block our email completely. When one of us is South, that eliminates our ability to communicate with each other until the person at the Yendi end drives in to Tamale. Please send TEXT only UNFORMATTED messages, unless you make prior arrangements with us. If you want to send something special, arrange a time with us (you can send attachments, photos, etc, ONLY when we plan to be in Tamale or South, where the lines are much better). The goal of the Primary Health Care Worker program is to teach Christians, often former Bible College students, basic health skills such as first aid, nutrition, and how to treat common illnesses, so that they can be a greater asset to their community. We place a big emphasis on prevention (sanitation and immunizations, for instance), and on knowing when to refer the patient to a health center. Most Ghanaians know virtually nothing about health. Today I was hanging a colorful poster in the clinic with the simple message, "The mosquito is the cause of malaria." Zacchaeus (the man who cuts the grass saw) it and expressed amazement! That simple message, along with many others, will be spread by our recent graduates. The students, ranging in ages from 20 to 55, worked very hard and were enthusiastic, so they were a joy to teach. They faced many obstacles. We had not anticipated how difficult it would be for them to adapt to using their book (which they will keep) for reference. Often textbooks are in short supply in classrooms, so many had never had free access to a book other than the Bible, even as schoolchildren! All exams were "open book," so by the end of the course they had all mastered the use of the index. They also had trouble understanding when instructors spoke "American English." Some of our Ghanaian instructors were tempted to clarify points by speaking a "local" language, but the students came from different tribes, so there was no common language other than English. We were pleased that we were able to connect by speaking our "Ghanaian English" - if we strayed from it, a hand would shoot up. "Madam, please, you are speaking too high - please, come down." We need to offer more classes for these and prior graduates of the PHCW courses, and we are already scheduled to teach another beginning course in Yendi in the Spring, but we will be able to take a break, first. As the rains come to an end, the incidence of malaria, which is high in Yendi throughout the year, will reach its peak. The government is finally beginning to offer treated mosquito nets (at affordable prices). Please pray that the people buy and use them. Thank you for your prayers for the anti-venin. It has already saved a life. In The service of the King, |
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