A Great Week: Tuesday

This past week I was in the Eastern Region, where the Girls 1^st project is taking place. The two things that needed to be accomplished were to administer a survey asking about HIV knowledge and familiarity with saving money and managing a business as well as conducting a market feasibility survey. Bernard, Nadia and I headed out to Koforidua again after finalizing the survey with the Boston team on Tuesday afternoon. One thing that complicated this process is that the questionnaire was written in English, but needed to be translated into the local language. Most of the girls are illiterate, so it would have to be read to them, but the local language of Twi is not really a written language either. I suggested that we type it out in Twi, but was told that most people do not know how to read or write in Twi or that it is uncommon and would not be helpful to assuring that the questionnaire would consistently be translated to the girls.

Tuesday night: Mary, Mike’s newest fan and one of the Red Cross staff generously invited us to stay at her home for the duration of our trip. It was a beautiful home surrounded by a high spiked fence and protected by a policeman outside and two little dogs, Bruno and Rocky, on the inside. I was shown to my room with its private bathroom and running water!! There was still no running hot water, but hey, I would finally be able to get all of the shampoo out of my hair. We headed out to eat and I had my first beer since early January. They have two local beers here Star and Club and they are typically served in large bottles with small glasses to pour the beer into. The way recycling works here is that stores and restaurants send the bottles directly to the manufacturer to be used again. I don’t believe they break them down like we do based on the slight flaws in the appearance of the bottles. You are not able to remove glass bottles from stores and must drink them there. The beer was pretty good. It reminded me of a light version of Becks. We returned to the house and I got to shower before hopping onto my very firm mattress. I read Michael Crichton’s Airframe that I had found at a bookstore here during my week in the Eastern Region and am not sure if I feel better about flying or am more nervous now.