Happy weekend everyone! And thank you Veterans for all of your sacrifices that provide us our precious freedoms 🇺🇲

I wanted to use this post to relay some experiences that I’m struggling to understand.

Now as wonderful as the people here have been to the volunteers, as I’ve said before, they are very hard on one another…. and I’m noticing more and more, this includes the children.

There have been countless times in the clinic where a young, sick child comes into the clinic with a parent. Some of these kids are obviously quite nervous or shy, not to mention quite sick and YOUNG. When we start asking questions about symptoms, if a child doesn’t answer immediately/loudly, then the parent (or sometimes the healthcare worker) shakes them by the arm in a really aggressive way and shouts at them to answer. It makes me sad every time, wishing the parent was instead holding the child and emotionally supporting them through this visit.

When we need to draw blood or give the child a shot, the kids are often very stoic. IF they begin to cry (big IF) or try to pull away, they are often aggressively slapped and chastised by those same adults.

I used to wonder why the children in our waiting room waited so patiently, so quietly, for so long without any snacks, books or toys to distract them. I think I understand now. I’m quite sure their submissive behaviour is driven by fear of the above.

One day, when I was out doing wound care on the farms, I was seeing a group of kids to dress their wounds. When I asked one obviously anxious little boy how many wounds he had (so I could take out the right amount of supplies) he shyly said “5” as he pulled up his tattered pants legs. I was so sad for him because his wounds were deep+dirty, clearly painful. There were 2 adults watching this who started laughing and making fun of him for having so many wounds. This made the rest of the kids laugh and tease him too. He looked so embarrassed, so alone. It was heartbreaking to witness… so he got a lot of extra TLC from Me…someone needed to show him and the rest of these kids/adults the option of compassion.

But the most blatant example of children being treated harshly is the practice of caning. It is perfectly acceptable for adults to grab a stick and lash a child. Teachers carry canes in the classroom and strike individual children or sometimes the whole class as they see fit. A cane is part of the supply list for teachers! I don’t work in the schools but many of the volunteers that I live with do. They repeatedly tell me about anxious children, some as young as 3 year olds, who are visibly terrified of the teachers as they walk around the classroom threatening to cane them for various minor infractions. This happens in all grades even though caning was banned 5 years ago!! Why is this still happening? The answer is that there’s also legislation in place that makes it legal for certain adults to physically restrain/reprimand children for “deserved behaviors”. This competing legislation makes it difficult to enforce the caning ban so therefore it is virtually ignored….ignored by this community but I have yet to meet a foreigner here who is comfortable witnessing this practice.

One night recently, there was a caning event in our yard. I was having dinner with 4 other male volunteers from the UK ages 25-62. We knew that there was a meeting out in our yard because one of the local teenage boys had been caught seriously misusing his smartphone that was given to him by a prior volunteer. The boy was there meeting with his Aunt (who is raising him) and 3 other male authority figures from our neighborhood.

Suddenly there was a blood- curdling scream outside. We all ran out on the terrace asking what was going on!?! Our 2 cooks just laughed and said, “Oh Derrick is being punished for what he did with that phone.” We looked up to see Derrick being chased then dragged by one of the men who was clearly in a rage. Then the cane was raised and came down squarely across Derrick’s back producing another blood-curdling scream. All of the other adults adults out there were casually watching this all play out.

One of my dinner mates, 25yo Chris, ran out there to demand that this action stop. He was told by all of the adults out there that this is what they do and what was deserved because this boy was still lying about what he had done.

I went to Chris’ side to also plead for this to stop. We kept telling the adults that although what Derrick did was very very wrong, there were better ways to handle this than a public beating which was clearly out of control.

Thankfully, everyone begrudgingly dispersed. Then later that evening, when cooler heads prevailed, since I know these adults quite well, I sat down to chat with them. I said that although I knew their intention was to correct Derrick’s behavior and make him a better person, options like calmly discussing what he had done wrong/ withholding the phone for a while / having Derrick earn it back, were far more effective than a beating combined with public humiliation. I also reminded one of them that recently we had a conversation where he told me that he was very disappointed that Ghanian adults are too passive and don’t stand up for themselves. I said that sadly it didn’t surprise Me because I had witnessed so many ways here in which that mentality is ingrained into these people, beginning very early in childhood.

Chris and I didn’t get much sleep that night because we were so disturbed on several levels by what had happened. As I was trying to process all of this, I sent an article to all of the adults involved about the physical and emotional damage of caning along with alternative behavioral adjustment techniques. I didn’t hear a single word from any of them about receiving that email nor it’s content. Disappointing for sure but I had to try.

The next day, the man who had been doing most of the caning, thanked me for stopping that and talking with him because he admitted he was out of control. I told him I was not trying to shame him because I too at times had lost control with my own children. But I suggested that we must learn from our mistakess and strive to do better rather than condone behavior like this. He nodded quietly.

Oh, hold on please, there is another issue regarding outdated practices that cause physical and psychological trauma to children…As much as I’ve been chirping about this since Day 1 in the 2 clinics, circumcisions are still done without any local anesthesia!! For God’s Sake, 2 quick shots of  lidocaine create a nice pain block yet it’s not being done even though they do stock that medicine in these clinics. Without lidocaine, these baby boys absolutely screech during+after this surgery as their foreskins are stretched with clamps, then cut off with scissors/surgical blades without ANY pain management!! The midwives here keep casually telling me things like, “babies don’t feel pain, they are too young to remember this, lidocaine increases bleeding and/or it takes too long to do this surgery with lidocaine.” None of this is accurate!! I’ve been sending articles to the 3 midwives which include current Best Practice Guidelines that completely contradict their theories above. I won’t give up on this topic because virtually all baby boys in Ghana are circumcised so I will continue to try to have these delicate discussions in order to try to change this archaic process here. More to come on this. 😓

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about why children are being treated harshly here. I have processed this with a few of you on the phone (🤗) and I do agree that in order for people to emotionally survive in these harsh conditions, they don’t allow themselves nor their children to feel certain emotions -vulnerability being one of them. I also think after what I’ve witnessed, that the adults here feel that one of their jobs as a parent is to “toughen up” their kids to help them survive this difficult life.

Whew, it’s hard to witness and just as hard to understand because our cultures, our realities are so vastly different.

I’ll end  with a beautiful baby pic to lighten the mood. Check out this little sweetie…

And what you can’t see in this photo is a thin black thread around his neck. I asked what that was for. The midwife rolled her eyes and said “some parents believe that will protect the baby from any Black Magic that could cause disease”.

This little guy came into clinic to have his circumcision stitches removed (this is the BEFORE pic of course) and look at his bling. Many of the babies here wear these beads around their wrists and waist to accomplish several things:

1. It’s a way to loosely monitor their weight gain/weight loss based upon how tight or loose the beads are (actually kind of genius eh?)

2. The parents think these beads give shape+definition to the parts of the body where they are placed (🤔??).

3. They are part of the adorning of the babes-most all baby girls have their ears pierced at a few days old too.

That’s a wrap for tonight. It is Saturday after all so I must get back to my weekend duties to maintain some sanity…

Big Love from Me to You. Xoxo Sheila

P.s. And to my loyal bloggers in Maine, way to go Gov. Janet!!! 🥳💗🥳