World AIDS Day 2009

It's World AIDS Day. Not so long ago celebrities shied away from AIDS awareness and society ignored the problem that was devastating many developing countries. The 1980s saw the change in perception of the disease shift from existing in gay communities to it wiping out a country's populous, infecting famous athletes, singers and women.

Then came Bono and a rampage of celebrity activists willing to raise attention to AIDS. Things changed. In an unexpected reversal, recently I read that AIDs related diseases were overshadowing some of the more curable and treatable illnesses such as diarrhea that kill millions of children every year in Africa. The AIDS problem seems to be at a low ebb from its original toll.

However, before this year's change in leadership in South Africa, the nation with the worst AIDS related death record, South Africa continued to uphold political obstacles to drug treatments for HIV/AIDS infected individuals. Worse, their president outright denied scientific fact like the link between HIV and AIDs. Instead, he suggested sick people take herbs and garlic to cure them.

A couple years ago, at a rally for then presidential candidate Barack Obama, I met a middle aged woman excited about the future and change. She was the matriarch of an interracial family and she had lived with AIDS for the past 20 years. Within her story I realized that AIDS could change, not only can we live in a world where it isn't a death sentence, but we already do live in a world where medicine can prolong lives beyond what we thought capable 20 years ago. What will it take to make it happen worldwide?

"Now that you know, you can't pretend that you don't"

I grew up listening to Lisa Ling talk about the important issues in foreign countries that made me think hard about different ways of life. One of her first assignments overseas was in the heart of Afghanistan during the civil war in 1994. At the time she admits she didn't even know where Afghanistan was on the map. Her selfless and sometimes headless attitude toward getting the story has helped create a priceless dialogue for many of the voiceless around the world. She reminds me that it's OK to ignore the shallow broadcast media channels and shun local, easy stories. From her own life I feel like it's Ok, even important, to search out the hard-hitting journalism that may take a lot of work, or sometimes may require a step outside my comfort zone in order to affect lives.

I had the incredible opportunity and pleasure to hear her speak tonight in Columbia, Missouri. Within her speech, which covered the most influential stories in her life (the lost girls of China, the civil war in Afghanistan, following drug trafficking in Colombia...), she also read a personal poem about a story she covered on child brides while in Ethiopia. In accordance with the subject matter it's appropriately sensitive and graphic. At the end of her speech, she faced an auditorium full of students who were already beginning to think about their busy class schedules and talk about their plans for the weekend and she said to them, "Now that you know, you can't pretend that you don't." It's a statement that has resonated with me for awhile now.

Betrothed by her parents
to a much older man
A child of seven
In a far way land

Her dream was to study
to have a better life
But it was already decided
she would be a wife

Twenty fours years her senior
A man she didn't know
He would soon be her husband
and deep down her foe

In some parts of her country
little girls are kidnapped
and raped
Forced to marry
their abductor
They're no longer chaste

The night of their wedding
She wants to run away and hide
Her heart beats wildly
As she lies by his side

He lays on top of her
Her tiny body he mauls
He cannot get inside of her
Her hole is too small

She finds herself pregnant
He wants a son
She's all of fourteen
Her period had come

She carries the baby through
the nine month count
Her body is too tiny
The baby won't come out

It dies in her womb
A hole is torn underneath
She starts to leak urine
A horror she's been bequeathed

Her husband walked out
He couldn't stand her smell
And there's one more
sad thing
I have left to tell

She finally reached a hospital
After two days on a bus
Doctors were on hand
an operation to discuss

They could fix her problem
This brought her great joy
They had to take
the baby out though,
they found out
it was a boy

A day in the life of a
countryside girl
A gift from heaven
Now a bride at seven

By Lisa Ling

Newsy.com: Africa, Aiding or abetting

Breastfeeding is not dirty.

At the end of Breastfeeding Awareness Week it is sad to know that less than 40 percent of infants worldwide are adequately breastfed. Since breast milk is essential in developing a baby's immune system and giving them the antibodies they need, which are not found in formula, more than 1 million infant mortalities every year could be avoided with breastfeeding.

What's even worse, or disgusting to me, is that people would discourage breastfeeding to suit their own personal comfort. A nursing mother is not worried about your own comfort, she is worried about that of her baby's. As an aunt to a 4 month old, I'm well aware and comfortable with the process of breastfeeding. That means I'm also aware of the social stigma some would attach to publicly breastfeeding and the worldwide misconceptions that WHO is trying to denounce through campaigns.

A mother's milk is full of antibodies that are absent in infant formula. The first few years of life are the most important developmentally, yet, the United States is still a far cry from protecting those influential years. If we want our nation to excel, how can we expect the next generation to succeed when we don't offer paid maternity leave, reassurance that new mothers won't lose their jobs, provide free ambulance rides for mothers in labor, or even just lift public support for nursing mothers? It is a fact that breastfed babies grow into healthy adults.

Support mothers who breastfeed. Reject the type of ignorance and stigma that our society attaches to this life-saving act. You can start here, by joining a petition against Facebook's ban on pictures of women breastfeeding. This is exactly the type of outrageous ignorance that WHO is trying to combat in developing nations, and yet, Facebook shows how ugly and self-concerned Americans can be. Change your own perspective, then that of others and save lives. It's that simple.

From the old to the young

She's staring at me with big, pebble-shaped brown eyes framed by baby lashes. They bounce up, down, up, down, as if she's riding a camel in the desert. Instead she's tucked into the full wrap of the woman in front of me, whose smooth face and strong arms make her appear to be in her early 20's.

Her mother hasn't seen me, so it's only her baby girl who stares at me with a confused expression. Her stern look and pouted face reminds me of my baby niece's furrowed expression when we make silly faces at her and she doesn't get the joke. I guess walking behind her my face is silly without me even trying. I smile at her and she reaches out her hand to try and grab me.

"Hi!" I say.

Her mother turns around.

She points a finger at me over her shoulder so the baby can see, turns to the innocent face and says to her daughter, "Obruni." White person. I give another smile.

Moments in blogging territory

Looking through my pocket travel journal from this summer I'm nostalgic but also frustrated that all the little stories I hoped would fill my blog didn't always come to fruition in print. I find myself wondering where that short story is about the man I met at Reggae night who declared that the U.S. was the best place for a black man. I'm searching in my journal for the passage about my first walk to work through the streets filled with hollowed out vans and shells of homes and the palpable feeling of all eyes on me as I made my way through them.

A part of me mostly worries that if I don't form the words on a page I will let those tiny moments slip passed my memory. So, I'm digging into my journal and bringing forth those moments as best I can.

I'm also changing the layout of my blog once again, for the nth time, due to the incessant headache I get when it loads on my page and I see white letters floating brightly in a deep black backdrop. Doesn't everyone feel like they're falling down the black hole underneath Eugene's passenger seat in Wristcutters? Well I do. And I'm slightly embarrassed that it also resembles a 14-year-old's Myspace page. Since it is my blog and I'm probably the only reader besides my grandmother - I'm doing it for us.

Akwaaba OBAMA-Mania in Ghana

Obama comes to Ghana today. Yet, the Obama-craze that flowed through Accra buoyed by Obama faced cloth, souvenirs and even one attention-grabbing "Hotel Obama" hit Ghana weeks ahead of his 24 hour visit.

The decision to make Ghana his first stop in sub-Saharan Africa since becoming President of America is an obvious nod to Ghana's stable government and a slight to its West African neighbor, the economic powerhouse, Nigeria. With massive oil deposits and a large population, why wouldn't Obama make a house call to Nigeria before Ghana? Well, almost everything besides its oil. For instance: corruption, ethnic violence and a lack of good governance. Not to say Ghana doesn't have its smaller but similar problems and a promising oil reserve to boot, but with a successful turn of power from political parties and reputable elections it encompasses the message of hope.

This small West African country went crazy for Obama. Weeks ago I witnessed a 300-person parade in honor of Obama and it was weeks before he even set foot in Africa. His face graced their T-shirts, hats, skirts and banners, often with Ghanaian President Atta-Mills's face reflecting an almost identical profile beside him. The Ghanaian propaganda wasn't very subtle. Messages such as "Obama: WELCOME HOME" made me grimace as a journalist who hears "birthers" in the U.S. claim he isn't American. No matter how many times you tell a Ghanaian that Obama's father was African, but he's African-American, they still feel an insane pride and connection with this man who resembles them. His connection should make him not only a popular icon of hope for Africa but a figure African presidents will listen to. His message needs to address the corruption and lack of accountability prevalent in Africa, starting with its shining star Ghana. Ghana's lesser violence and stronger elections keep it afloat, but a closer look into the police, journalists and government officials shows its flaws and corruption.

going north for awhile

I'll be away from blogging for about a week because I plan on traveling to the north near Mole national park and the Larabanga mosques and back down the west side of Ghana to the small town of Nzulezo, better known as the stilt village.  Yeah! Elephants, lions, baboons, stilt villages, oh my!

See ya next week!

The Hamburglars.

So my roommate and I got mugged a couple blocks away from home last night. They stole our hamburgers.

We had come home from a fantastic night out at a local Reggae bar that played outdoor live music and it was around 1:30 a.m. when we decided to hit up the 24 hour prostitute hang-out/all night food club a few blocks away from our residence. We even endured the hour long wait with plenty of curious men and women coming up to talk to the two very sleepy white women so that we could go home and eat an overpriced, juicy western-style hamburger with cheese. As we rounded the last corner, we both realized that two men in their 20's had come out of nowhere behind us and were whispering to each other. We tried to calmly walk to a house a few feet away where other volunteers lived. The two men passed us up as we pretended to unlock the gate. Unfortunately for us, the gate was tied securely and we couldn't get in.

We hid behind a broken down van in the dark alley trying to decide whether or not to go on, finally we chose to keep moving (our house was just around the next corner). That's when the two guys stepped out of the shadows and walked directly toward us and grabbed our arms. They got my roommate first and we both didn't try to struggle and gave them the bag we had with food in it very calmly. We were pretty pissed off and told them off angrily after they walked away.

The next morning I realized we had been attacked by "hamburglars," ironically enough.

Ghana is a relatively safe place by African standards for foreigners, but I was being careless and was VERY fortunate that nothing more happened. Overall, it wasn't very frightening, but my roommate and I were both a little unnerved by how completely out of our control a situation can become. We had no choice but to give them what they wanted, and it was that fact that made the whole situation very unsettling. Also, that night in about the same location our two friends were walking home from our house and got attacked and mugged. One got a cut on her face and a bloody nose and

both their purses were stolen so we are all being much more careful around Accra.

A Reggae band plays live at Bywells, one of our last stops before heading home Thursday night.

Health Care

Yesterday, I went to the only children’s hospital in Accra to write a story on a new surgical facility being built there. In a hospital the size of a medium apartment complex, nearly 200 to 300 young patients lined the benches and walls waiting their turn to be seen by one of only ten doctors.

The emergency room is packed with children laying two to a bed severely sick with complications of anemia, malaria and other water-born illnesses. The nurses say they are sometimes treating a dying child on one side of a bed as another sleeps uneasily beside. With the new facility, the hospital will be able to perform surgeries on young patients instead of referring them to Korle-Bu, the largest Accra hospital.

The children’s hospital has two vehicles available to transport children when they need to be taken to the other hospital for operations, and one of those vehicles is being repaired for a leaky roof. The other vehicle was purchased 11 years ago by Italian children who gave up their Christmas presents to raise money for the ambulance and it also is in dire need of attention. Back in the emergency room, the children appear waxy-skinned and deflated looking. I watched a mother cradle a small boy as his eyes rolled up into his head and his eyeballs fluttered to correct it. Keep in mind, this children’s hospital was ranked the no. 1 hospital in Accra last year and it really is a good facility for West African standards.

Kids grow up so fast here

I went exploring along the coast until I hit a small fishing village and stumbled upon this pair of young boys looking for coconuts to sell. They were keen on having their pictures taken so I snapped a couple shots of them and recorded a video showing the incredible precision and accuracy of this little one who can cut open a coconut with a machete ha

lf the size of his body.

I’ve read too many things about child soldiers to not feel a little frightened when these pint-sized kids run toward me with machetes in their hands. They probably have no idea of my reaction because to them machetes are just tools that cut coconuts and meat, and I can’t believe it either when they get closer and I see how young and innocent they

look. But watching them handle sharp tools at such a young age always leaves me a little shocked because I realize how much damage a young boy can do with a weapon – These Ghanaian children, ho

wever, are the farthest thing from dangerous and I’ve found them all very eager to talk to me and willing to to be my personal tour guide whenever there's an opportunity.

It's nice to be nice

OK, I know. I promise to start blogging much more often after this weekend, but I'm heading to Takoradi, which is about a five hour drive and I'll be staying there all weekend with no access to power and minimum cell phone coverage. Green Turtle Beach is located west of Accra and I'm spending the weekend there with about 9 other intern/volunteers. I can't wait - those who have been there before say it is fantastic and very relaxing.

I also promise to post pictures when I get back no matter how many hours I have to sit in an internet cafe and deflect marriage proposals.

One more thought: I'm in the midst of a journalism meltdown. *more on that later.

Last night I went to a Reggae Party right on the beach. I enjoyed watching the Rastafarians swaying to the music and chatting up the locals.

*think corruption, grammar and laziness all rolled up into one.

Mary's Hello

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjedLmI_wmM

Akwaaba Obruni!

Hello! I am living in the colorful, lively city of Accra in Ghana for the next month and so I’ll be taking my blog hostage with photos and videos of my life during this time.  I’ve been here a few days and I’m still struggling with how best to describe this place.  The heat always comes to mind first, but there’s more to Ghana than sweltering heat and buzzing insects.  The people and their culture are arresting at first because everything is so unfamiliar to me. It has been difficult to find the right way to describe something when I haven’t encountered anything like it before.

The only way I can do this so it isn’t an overwhelming amount of my own blabbering in a stream of consciousness is to try a summary of a few topics:

The People: You look around and wonder why everyone is staring at you and calling out things and then you catch a flash of blinding pale skin on your arm and realize that although you know you are white, damn, sometimes you forget how different you look from everyone else. I need a tan, fast. One volunteer had someone tell her: You must drink a lot of milk because you are so white. When I went out by myself yesterday into the city I got a lot of “Obruni!” (white person) and then a hello or a hey sweety, I love you. Etc. There was some touching or pinching of my arms, but for the most part it wasn’t too hard to go about my business without being too hassled. You get used to it. Or you have a nervous breakdown from the pressure of a dozen eyes and catcalls in the middle of a marketplace. I sat next to a girl on the tro-tro and the first words she spoke to me were, “I want to be your friend”.  After we exchanged names, there wasn’t much else to talk about so I left it at that.

 

Accommodations: Well, it’s very basic. No air-conditioning, so everyone sort of accepts that you will never be dry or cool.  Also no running water in our house – some parts of the city get it, but it’s temperamental at best.  That also means the toilet doesn’t work unless you flush it with a bucket of water from a nearby tank. (That only gets done a couple times a day…) We shower from the bucket also…makes cleaning hair kind of difficult.  I realize there are a lot of things I thought were essential that really aren’t that necessary.

 

Tro-Tros:  To paraphrase Nicholas Kristoff here, the most dangerous men in Africa are… the drivers*. Yes, this type of decrepit transport that defies mechanics and runs with only the basic metal shell of what one day must have been a van deserves its own category.  They are death traps of metal and rubber.  They are always crammed with 15 other passengers and a ‘mate’ leaning out the window.  They are cheap and they are hard to avoid.  Whether inside or just in front of their tires, I am always looking for my escape when the inevitable crash occurs. 

*OK, there are a couple instances that are more dangerous…a couple volunteers almost got mugged a couple days ago by a man with an AK-47 and a machete. But that’s more the exception then the rule and the volunteers said they were the “worst robbers” they’d ever encountered and didn’t know what they were doing so they actually didn’t steal any money.

 

 

Two steps back

The Columbia Missourian wasn't the only one to publish a recent "oddities" of the news story about a woman from Ohio who killed her husband by "exercising him to death".  It's a wire story I would argue deserves a place in the Tabloid scraps I hope people only buy at the grocery store for bird nesting or cheap gift wrapping, but instead it played it's absurdity in the pages of our local newspaper and on it's online version.  And the incredulous headline The Missourian originially featured echoed throughout the country in many other publications you could consider respectable to various degrees.

• Fox news
• Chicago Sun-Times

The harrowing aspect was that the original headline in print and online read: Transgender woman pleads guilty to exercising husband to death. (It has since been changed on The Missourian's website) This person's sexual identification has absolutely nothing to do with the story. In a discussion over this with some of my peers we said one of the key responsibilities of journalists that has ruled many of the toughest decisions we make is to do no harm. This headline does harm.  It does harm to a group of people who have experienced so much hate, violence and misunderstanding already, so to draw a link between the facts of this woman's sex change (which happened years before this incident) and the crime is an injustice to these people. This person's race, religion, sexual identification or sexual orientation has nothing to do with this story. I know it's a weird story, but that's why it is so important to separate the unacceptable actions of this woman from being transgender. One argument that I've heard for using this detail in the headline was that it explained how this woman was able to physically dominate the man. 

That thing that happened today.

From the Ragtag Cinema website

It couldn't have just been the chill of Columbia's brisk weather that left shivers down my back as I sat watching the Inauguration of President Barack Obama. It ran up and down the streets as people asked each other if they would be watching the swearing in, it lingered around the journalism school at the university and it reverberated in the theatre seats of the Columbians who sat next to me at Ragtag watching live history on a wide screen. A screen that played scenes from Slumdog Millionaire and Milk the night before. Two movies that displayed the themes of progression and hope that come to fruition with the presidential inauguration today.

To see how far we have come you have to look at the past and also the present. I will view this event as it is, a historical milestone of progress, but the election of the first black president is not a fix for the problems of our past and present. I take comfort from something I learned in a recent class that looked at the media's coverage of politics. Members of the media tend to be more critical of those politicians they like than ones they don't, as if to make up for their personal bias...it's a strange phenomenon, but I hope it is true and the diligent effort of journalism, to watch over the government, prevails throughout this new era over Obama's celebrity during his campaign.

Just add origami

Alysha and Beck at Art Day

Art days have to be among the most stereotypical white, college student things I can plan, albeit dinner parties are up there, or at least worthy of a post on another of my favorite blogs "stuffwhitepeoplelike.com", but I'm a sucker for a good afternoon with nice friends and paint.  And if by calling it what it is "arts and crafts day for young adults" makes it happen, I'll be the one with the Polaroid snapping shots of your paper bag painting like a new mom on the first day of kindergarten. I'm not talented in that way. As Beck said today, "I just mastered the art of writing," hardly cursive. But most everyone can appreciate doodling or sketching or doing whatever you can to let the stress soaked into your brain seep out and allow your fingers to whimsically draw fairies and fold origami stars.  Meanwhile more important things can wait. Rent, the weather, economy, school or work be damned, I have to finish this collage of ice cream cones.

The woes of wayward channel surfing: conservative christian talk radio

A Christianusaurus-Rex of the conservativus talk radio hostus species lurking for prey on the airwaves. *almost extinct*

I was radio surfing. Okay, there was a long list of errors leading up to my final twitch of the digits that left my dial fatefully on FM 90.7 on my way through Missouri. 

Here so you can grasp my mistake medley, a list:

1. Not properly charging my iPod.

2. Failing to fill aforementioned iPod with enough

 This American Life and Radiolab to entertain men, an adult with the equivalent of a small child's attention span on coffee through 800 miles of midwest wasteland.

And, 3. Pulling my neck while dancing to Black Sabbath - of all the bands...

------------------------------------

= station surfing for talk radio in the Bible Belt of the U.S.of A.

More on this here

Resolving to revolve around the sun once more

Photo by Lorenzo D. Comolli

Another orbit and what have we done? New Year's resolutions have done for tedious weight loss programs what Valentine's Day did for Hallmark.  Growing up, January was feared as the month when mom and dad vowed to stick with their cabbage soup diet *insert your own, Atkins, liver detox...etc.* and forced the rest of the clan to suck down cabbage soup by the gallon with them. Sidenote: I have never had an iota of cabbage since that dreaded January. It's become a consumer ploy for capital as thick as VDay's.

Resolutions? Get to Africa before 2010. ...and change certain social behaviors I think need adjusting.

Why I write

Hark back to your basic 10th grade science class (for those fortunate enough to escape an evangelical-lead PTA education), remembering the part about two possible responses to danger: fight or flight, I've recognized from a few split decisions in my life the third option and opted for the more clandestine approach: observe. I like to hover on the outside, in the corner or just on the edge of something large stirring, to be nonspecific. Isn't blogging another arm of that urge to observe? An old African proverb says you don't test the river's depth with two feet, but I have no idea how to test out blogs without sinking both feet in.  Another science class comes to mind, will I sink or swim?

For fear of being left on my rear in the dirt, while my generation passes by at technological warp speeds, this is my first attempt at forcing my old 20 something self to adjust.  Afterall, if I can't get with blogging as a self-loathing member of the digital generation, I'll be outdated before I even start.