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Hi all!   Well it has been a few months since I last sent out a group email… Things here are really great!  I moved into my house at the beginning of July and am living with another volunteer, Molly.  We get along great and I couldn’t ask for a better friend or roommate.      I spent the first three months in site getting to know the community and practice my Spanish…..but now things are really taking off work wise.  Me and Kate (business volunteer) have been giving HIV charlas to the colegio (high school students) and have trained all of the 7th and 9th graders at one high school….Also, something big with Peace Corps is the idea of sustainability so our project manager really encourages doing TOT’s (Training of Trainers) which is basically a 3 days workshop, where the 1st day you do all the HIV activities with them (4 hours), then the 2nd day they get into groups and make all of the materials, and the 3rd day the groups replicate the 4 hour training to another group.  So…I organized a big HIV TOT with half the nursing students here (37) and I had two other volunteers come in to help me with it.  Somehow it all came together and the nursing students did such a great job teaching high school students!  It reaffirmed my belief in sustainability and my work here because I was able to see HIV trained nurses who would later be able to teach HIV prevention classes in their communities!  It was actually really exciting!  I have planned another one for the end of this month with the other half of nursing students so I hope that one goes well too!  I also just did my first 3 hour nutrition workshop with all the nursing students yesterday...it was my first charla alone in Spanish and it really went great!  The students are so cute...I love teaching them.    I have so many ideas going through my head of projects I want to do here it gets kind of overwhelming.  I am doing a Men’s Health workshop with 28 policemen next week (a more men focused program really emphasizing fidelity and condom use) and then I am teaching nutrition during pregnancy to a group of pregnant teenagers in 2 weeks.  There is a big school for teachers here and what I would really love to do is plan an HIV TOT with them so that they have the training to later teach their students and also do a Men’s Health TOT at the jail…..but I know I need to have patience and do one project at a time.  I am super excited because next week me, Molly, and Kate are starting Encargada de Mi Vida (In Charge of My Life) which is a 16 week program with 5th graders teaching them about morals, values, self esteem, AIDs, sexuality, reproductive health etc.  I am excited to be doing it with Molly and Kate!    So that’s all about my work here…   I have been reading a lot during my down time and have formed a habit that I love…going up to the local restaurant/hotel that overlooks the city and drinking coffee and reading.  Its become quite a priority during my days here =) … Anyway nothing more to report.  Life is great here!  I miss everyone and hope everything is going good there!  I would love to hear from you! Let me know how things are there!

Hugs!

Lauren 

Hi everyone!  Well I have now been in my new home for almost a month.  Things so far have been really great!  I really love it here.....everything...the people, the town, my work.  I have been spending the last few weeks meeting all my counterparts, learning Spanish, and getting to know my way around the community. 

Another volunteer who is in the Protected Areas Management project, Molly, got a site change to my city last week.  She has been here for almost a year now.  She is great and we have become really good friends!  We are going to live together in a month when I move out of my host family´s house.  She is going to work in promoting ecotourism with Celeque National Park, but she wants to go to Med School when she gets home so we are excited to do some health projects together.

Last week Kate (married, business volunteer living in here) and I did our first AIDS workshop together at a colegio (highschool) with 38 students.  It went really great!  The thing with ¨charlas¨here are they have to be super dynamic to keep the students attention and keep it interesting.  Powerpoint presentations just don´t fly here.  So I spent a few days making poster boards and a bunch of activities for the kids to do during the workshop.  We did skits, condom demonstrations (using a plantain, because I forgot my wooden penis), games to resist peer-pressure to have sex etc.  It went over really well and they really learned alot!

This week I helped my counterpart from World Vision run a two day workshop educating religious leaders from Gracias about HIV/AIDS so they can educate the members of their church....pastors, fathers, nuns, etc.  Also, we are fighting to overcome the discrimination and stigmatization people living with HIV/AIDS here often face.  It was such a cool workshop.  We took 26 of these leaders to San Pedro Sula on Tuesday where we went to visit AIDS patients at a major hospital there.  Also, we had a conference with this well-known family here who all are HIV positive (the husband, wife, and 12 year old daughter).  The father had unprotected sex once when he was 18 and a few years later got married and infected his wife without knowing he had HIV.  They later had a daughter and only found out about the disease when the daughter was 6 months old, after it had already been transmited to her.  But this family started a foundation called Llaves where they travel around Honduras, the States, and Latin America providing HIV education and fighting for the rights of HIV infected people.  Also, we went to a home for orphaned kids who are all HIV positive.  That just broke my heart...but they were all so beautiful and sweet and it was so cool to see how happy and hopeful they are.  I spend time with a 14 year old who had just gotten back from the hospital with Tuberculosis, who I could tell was depressed and struggling, but she let me into her heart and it was great getting to see her smile.  Wednesday we were able to participate in an AIDS support group and then go to a Maquila (factory) started by a group of people living with HIV.  So overall it was a really great experience and I feel really lucky that I was a part of it!

So that´s all for now.  I am just doing a lot of work with HIV/AIDS right now.  I have a meeting tomorrow with the director of the nursing school here to plan what my work will be with them so I am looking forward to that! 

Lauren

Hey alll!   I know it has been awhile now since I have written...things have been really busy.  BUT I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!  We went back to our first training site last week for 4 days to get a little more training, get our residency cards etc and then on Thursday was our swearing in ceremony at the US embassy.  After the ceremony we all went to the Ambassador´s house to swim, play tennis, and celebrate!  Well now here come the good part...where I am going to live for 2 years and what I will be doing.....   So my site placement is in the west!  It is actually a site that I have wanted from the beginning.  It is a moderately sized city with about 15,000 people.  It is located in a valley at the foot of Mount Celaque (the highest point in Honduras....some of the best hiking here!)  Also there are suppose to be really beautiful Agua Thermales here...which are natural pools flowing from the mountains so I am excited to go there!  The temperature here is pretty nice...it gets pretty hot here during the day but the mornings and nights are cool.  It is known as a colonial town (colonial churches etc) so it gets a good amount of backpackers and tourists.  There are two biliguel schools here so I met some people my age from Spain and the States living here teaching at the school so that is really cool!  There is also a married couple from my PC group that is living here with me.  Kate is working in the business project and Brody is working in water and sanitation.   I have four counterparts here (people from the community who I am going to work with)....   -World Vision, an NGO working in both HIV prevention and women & child health.  -An adolescent health clinic, which is really rare here..my city has one of the only 2 in Honduras so thats really cool.  Teen pregnancy and STDs are a BIG problem here. It is common here for a girl to get pregnant ages (14-16) and you here on the news fairly often of a 10 or 11 year old getting pregnant in the aldeas. -A nursing school, which is very cool because I have heard here that the nurses are not really taught the caring and compassionate aspect of nursing here and also confidentiality is nonexistent (which really effects people wanting to come get HIV testing) so I hope to incorporate these things when I teach them about HIV/AIDS and mother/child health. -CAE, is goverment hospital that is focused only on providing care for people living with HIV or AIDS.  I think I am going to run support groups here but we´ll see.   So there is a ton of work to be done here and I am going to be kept very busy but I am really excited about what I can potentially do here!  I am now a member of La Red, which is a group of the leaders in the city promoting AIDS awareness and prevention and promoting human rights for people living with HIV....so I have already met the people in the city who are going into the schools, nursing schools, jails, and hospitals fighting against HIV/AIDS so that is really cool.   I am living with a family here for the next 2 months and then I get to find my own apartment or house to live in so that will be nice.  I am excited to be here and start working but I am stressed about my ability to teach in Spanish and am also going to really miss my friends.  I am giving myself the first 2 months to really learn Spanish and get confident with it and to get to know the community and my counterparts....   Hugs! Lauren 

Hey all,

So earlier I didn't get a chance to send my email with my pictures.  This last week in Honduras was Semana Santa.  It is the one week during the year where everyone takes vacation from work and relaxes.  We had classes up until Wednesday afternoon and then we had the rest of the week off.  We weren't allowed to travel outside our site but just having the time to relax was much needed.  Being in training and classes 8 hours a day really wears us out...so Semana Santa came at the perfect time during training! 

    My friend Raphael lives with an amazing family (its the house I had Spanish classes in the first 3 weeks, the mom who gives me eggplant, and I am good friends with the four sons)....well this family has an uncle who lives 10 minutes outside our site...he owns 80% of the land that the US military base is on here so he is doing pretty well..he has a beautiful house with a pool that he invited all of us volunteers to on Wednesday and we went again Sunday for swimming and a barbecue...it was so fun to just lay in hammocks, talk and relax!  Thursday I went with my family to a big park a little outside of Tegucigalpa, called Parque Aurora.  We brought hammocks and food and just relaxed again.  They had a zoo, pool, lake, and playgrounds there for kids.  I met my host mom's niece and nephew, Daniela (15) and Alfredo (19) who live in Tegucigalpa.  We became really good friends this week and I am excited because now I have a place to stay wh en I need to travel to Tegucigalpa..especially considering my $2.00 a day salary won't be able to pay for a hotel!  They both speak English so it was good practice for me to be able to learn new words I don't know.  On Good Friday in our site and in Comayagua they do this amazing thing called Alfombras (rugs in english)...they make these beautiful paintings of Jesus in the streets using sand, salt, and dyed sawdust...they start making them at 10pm and work all night until Friday morning...they are absolutely beautiful.  Then on Friday there is a procession, where people carry Maryand Jesus and reenact the stages of carrying the cross and a crowd follows the procession...in the end they walk over the rugs and ruin them.  In Comayagua, people from all over Honduras come, because there are dozens of rugs made all the way down the streets and the procession is bigger...you should definitely look at my pictures of this because it is really amazing!  Overa ll, it was a very tranquila (relaxing) week! 

The week before we had a lot of activities...including learning how to make mud stoves/ovens and gardens.  One of the leading causes of death for children in Honduras is pneumonia and resp. illnesses...primarily caused by people having really bad stoves in their houses with no/poor ventilation...the smoke builds up in the house and the children breath it in all day...so alot of volunteers write grants at their sites to get funding to make stoves for the people in their villages.  So we learned how to do that which was really interesting! 

This week we are focusing on HIV/AIDS support groups and midwives.  We have been learning how to lead support groups in our communities for people living with HIV/AIDS and then on Thursday and Friday we are going to be teaching a group of midwives from local aldeas (usually villages in the mountains that are hard to access and far away from hospitals) on how to deal with emergencies during births....we will be focusing on teaching them how to stop hemorrhaging, which is the leading cause of death here related to births.  Saturday they are teaching us how to resuscitate newborns....  

Tomorrow or Thursday I have my last interview about my site placement.  They had us fill out a form with our preferences..whether we want another volunteer at our site, what we need at our site (internet, elect, etc etc), if we would prefer to work with the ministry of health or an NGO....so our last interview is about what kind of things we want in our site...but to be honest with you, we find out our site in a week and half so I'm pretty sure they pretty much already have our sites picked out for us.  Helmith, our site placement director, pretty much already told me that I will be a first generation health volunteer at my site...which means their may be other volunteers there now (water & sanitation, business, muncipal dev., or youth dev.) but I will be the first health volunteer ever in this community....he wants me to represent Peace Corps well and make a good impression.  So we are really anxious to find out our sites....but mostly I am excited...I am ready for training to be over but at the same time I have some of the best friends here I have ever had so I am going to really miss them.  Well thats all for now...I'll let you know where I am going to live for 2 years when I find out! 

I have posted many pictures on my website so you can look at them there!

laurengreenwald.spaces.live.com

Pura Vida

Lauren

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been awhile since I have written….they keep us pretty busy during training. We just finished four weeks of training in the town outside of Teguc. They have taught us about HIV/AIDS, STIs, nutrition/malnutrition, latrines, breast feeding, and diarrhea/respiratory diseases in children. A lot was a repeat from nursing school…but it’s always good to have refresher classes….especially considering causes and treatments differ so much in other countries. We also had our second language interview last week…I moved up past the level needed in order to be sworn in as a PCV! So at least that pressure is off….but I still have a long way to go. Language is definitely the most frustrating part about being here. The language classes we have are really good but it’s been really hard for me to stay focused in a classroom setting from 7:30-4:30 everyday…actually more like impossible. I feel like I have ADD =). But…only seven more weeks of training. Part of me can’t wait until training is over, but then I know I am really going to miss my friends when we get moved to our individual sites. Two weekends ago we all went on volunteer visits to spend 3 days with current PCVs. I went to a town in the East to visit a Youth Development Volunteer, who has been in Honduras since June. She was really sweet and we had a lot in common, so we had a great time together. I went with her to give charlas (basically interactive lectures) to students at a primary school. She teaches business classes, English classes, art classes, and has a health club. It was a really great opportunity to hear what it is like to be a PCV and what to expect! Another interesting thing that happened was Friday I started to break out in an allergic rash and when I woke up on Saturday it was all over my arms and legs, even after taking Benydrl the night before. So the doctors had me go to the hospital in Tegucigalpa…where they gave me an IV with Solumedrol (steroid)…which helped the rash a little, but I still have it on my arms and left hand. So we’re not really sure what it is from…if it does not go away in the next few days the PC Dr. is going to send me to a dermatologist in Teguc. Well Sunday we had to say goodbye to our amazing families because we left for field-based training. This is when the 51 of us split into our three projects (health, business, and water and sanitation) and go to different cities where we get more field-specific, hands-on training. The 20 of us on the health team are in a bigger city now, sort of in the valley of some mountains. I was really nervous about my new family; because my family was so great before…this new one had a lot to live up to! But my family here is wonderful too! Our city is pretty nice….4 internet cafes, hiking, hot springs for swimming, even a gym. And my family has a really nice house. My parents have four grown children, who all have children. They live in a compound with 3 houses so I am constantly surrounded by my little friends! Ruth and Victor are 6, Roberto is 7, Daniel and David are 8, Sara is 11, and Fernanda is 12. Ruth is my best friend here! She helped me unpack and we play doctor, take pictures, and dance to Shakira! I have a big room with a TV with 70 channels (including HBO & Showtime!) and my own bathroom…which feels so bizarre considering I was expecting no TV for 2 years. My family has a washing machine too! The only thing is they don’t have an electroducha (warm shower) so you have to boil water and then pour it into a bucket and take a bucket shower…but I actually really like it. My family has cows, horses, and a coffee fica (farm) in the mountains. This is funny…my sister Melissa’s (29) boyfriend’s family owns an….EGGPLANT farm!! How bizarre is that considering my obsession =) It is typically all exported to the US but they are going to get some for me! My mom has been amazing too about the vegan stuff. So far I have been really lucky. Well tomorrow we start language classes and we are having a charla about "In Charge of My life"…which will teach us how to run Youth support/leadership groups in our communities so that should be interesting. Sorry I don’t have much more interesting to say considering we spend all day in classes but hopefully after training my emails will get better =) Miss you all and I hope everyone is doing well! Con Amor Lorena

Hi Everyone!   Well I have been in Honduras now for almost two weeks.  We got snowed in while at pre-staging training in DC and ended up there for a week instead of two days.  It was actually really nice to be there for that long because we all got to know each other pretty well during that time and we had time to hangout in Georgetown and DC.  There are 51 of us volunteers.  I would say 95% are under 30…most being 22-26.  We have one 40 year old volunteer and 4 married couples in their 20s.  It’s about 60% girls-40% guys.  Everyone is really nice and I already have some great friends in my group.   Well we flew into San Pedro Sula a week ago Sunday…that is the first and last time that we will be there since San Pedro Sula is a banned city in Honduras for Peace Corps volunteers (PCV) since it is as dangerous as Colombia.  We took a four hour bus ride to  a beautiful little town outside the capital, Tegucigalpa.    I am living with the best family!  We live in a cute house, with rooms open to an outside patio.  I have my own room.  I am lucky because they have a washing machine, while the other volunteers have to hand wash their clothes using a “pila” and we have an Electroducha, which is a shower with hot water…which is REALLY nice because we are in the mountains so it gets really chilly here at night and in the mornings.  Our town is basically a beautiful resort town outside of Teguc so it is probably nothing like where we will be placed after the first 3 months of training…but we are loving it here for now.  I have gotten no mosquito bites yet and the weather is perfect.  The locals are used to having Gringas here so it feels very safe.   My family has three children…Marcio is 20, Iris is 17, and Jairo is 16....and a bird named Polly.  The mom, Sandra is wonderful.  She is so sweet and works so hard around the house...her job title is Ama de la Casa..which is like Heart of the House =)   She cooks me all vegan food which is absolutely amazing!.......By the way Mom and Vida...she got eggplant in Tegus last weekend and made it for me today!!!!!  I was so excited!   I get up at 5:00 in the mornings to go running with a few other volunteers.  We have classes at our training center from 7:30-4:30 Monday-Friday.  We have been placed in Spanish classes based on our language level.  I am at Intermedio bajo so I need to go up one more level before I can be sworn in as a PCV in 2 months.  I have forgotten pretty much all of my Spanish from my four years off so I am behind most of the volunteers (who studied or lived abroad)…but I’m hoping it will come back pretty quick.  We are put in classes of 3-5 PCV per Spanish teacher so we have a lot of support. We have language classes all morning, then our “moms” walk our lunches to the center everyday….which is so nice.  In the afternoons we have other classes about safey & security, honduran culture or specific to our projects.  The 51 of us are in 3 different projects…business, water & sanitation, and health.  There are 20 of us in the health project.  Three of my closest friends are in the health project with me so that’s really nice.  We are getting really great training on STIs, AIDS, etc.  We had a doctor from USAID come talk to us last week which was really interesting.   After classes and during the weekend we have been exploring the town, hiking to see the sunrise, sunset, playing futbol (soccer), hiking, going out, studying, hanging out with our families…(Iris, Jairo and I watched the Notebook with Spanish subtitles on my laptop the other night so that was fun!)  This weekend I am going with my good friends Kyle, Chris, Regina, and Leah to hike at a National Park.  On Sunday my mom is taking Kyle and I to the market and mall in Tegucigalpa.  We are all getting cell phones…and it is FREE (no minutes used) to receive calls so I can receive calls from the US easily!  I will email my number when I get it!!  Well that’s all for now…I could write all day but I don’t want to bore anyone too much.    Please keep in touch! En Paz Lauren    By the way my new name here is Lorena =)

Hey All,    Well we were suppose to be in Honduras last Wednesday...but when we got to the airport our flight was canceled because of the ice.  Usually it takes 6 months for Peace Corps to get 51 people on one flight, so they thought the soonest they could get us all on a flight would be Tuesday.  But they ended up getting half of us out today and the rest of us (including me) are leaving tomorrow, Sunday.  I have really enjoyed my time here in DC.  We have had alot of time to get to know each other.  Our group is really great and I know I will end up good friends with alot of them.  On Thursday, a group of us went to the National History Museum and the Holocaust Museum and spent time in Georgetown.  Today, the 25 of us that are still here are going to lunch with some returned Peace Corps Volunteers who lived in Honduras..so that should be fun and informative.  It sounds like it is going to be really busy our first 3 months so I'm not sure how often I'll be able to get to the internet, but I will try to update this blog as often as I can.  Hugs, Lauren

For as long as I can remember I have longed to travel the world, help where I am needed, and experience other cultures. International volunteer work is my passion. I graduated from nursing school last May. I have been working on a pediatric floor at a hospital in Georgia since then. I went to Ghana, West Africa from September - November this past fall with Cross Cultural Solutions. There, I volunteered in a children’s ward and ran free blood pressure clinics in twelve villages.

My experience there was very fulfilling because I was able to focus on my favorite aspect of medicine, public health. I believe everyone is capable of improving his or her own health when empowered through health education. For instance, most people I met in Ghana with extreme hypertension had no idea that diet and lifestyle play a major role in determining blood pressure. After learning to decrease their salt and palm oil intake, we saw improvements in there blood pressure, which really validated our clinics.

In the U.S., we often take for granted internet access, books, and our many sources of education. We are lucky that we live in a country where this information is so readily available. Also, I believe that healthcare is a basic human right; sadly, I have seen how few people in developing countries actually have access to health care. In countries where there is insufficient money to fund basic healthcare, the next best thing is to provide them with education on basic health promotion and disease prevention. My trip to Ghana was life-changing in that it changed my perspective and showed me how loving and generous people can be, even when stripped of their health, security, and worldly possessions.

In one week I will be embarking on a new journey. I will be serving in the Peace Corps in Honduras for 27 months. I am part of the Health Program and have been nominated for HIV/AIDS education and child survival. I am hoping to pursue my passion for public health by educating Hondurans on how to improve their own health when access to healthcare is limited. I will be writing articles for Positive Pelham as often as I am able to get on the internet. I look forward to sharing about my life in Honduras, and I hope you enjoy experiencing Honduran culture along with me!

In Peace,

Lauren

I have been asked to write articles for an online news website while I am in Honduras.  This website focuses only on the positive things that happen in the world.  Considering all the negative, sad, hate-filled news stories we are constantly bombarded with each time we turn on the TV, I find this website to be very refreshing.     www.positivepelham.com   I am going to post my articles on this website, along with my journals, but I encourage you to visit Positive Pelham to read about some of the inspirational and uplifting things occuring throughout the world.  There is also a free newsletter you can sign up for to be notified when the website is updated with new stories.    You can sign my guestbook and post comments through  https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7600742&postID=8036042794277898761   Thanks! Lauren    

I leave February 12th for the Peace Corps in Honduras!!!!!!

Hey all..  my sweet Uncle and Aunt made a little slide show out of some of my pictures so I thought I would post them if anyone wanted to watch.  http://www.photoshow.net/watch/cQ7hG2nS   I received the kindest email from a friend I made in Ghana and my grandma suggested I post it on here just so people can read how kind and loving Ghanians are, and how deeply spiritual most people are in the country, regardless of religion.   With much Love My dear Lauren, u are rather the most sweetest person i have ever seen among your friends and i like that about u.Once again thank u very much of those lovely words and your human kindness as a very good friend will always be to a dear friend at heart. I hope things are moving on well as i expect them becouse in life everything that u do u will one day account for it, so please never stop been nice to people becouse God Almighty will richly bless u one day.By His Grace things are moving on well with us too and moreover we can't stop enjoying ourself as u are also doing over there.We missed u very much and we can not stop thinking about u bcos u are a real human being who deserve all the things that humans deserve in life, babygirl stay bless for me and all  your love once. IS SAID THAT, U WILL NOT KNOW THE VALUE OF A THING UNTILL IT IS NO MORE. SO GIRLFRIEND ONCE AGAIN STAY BLESS FOR UR FAMILY. we love u very much and we will always wish u the best in life, take good care of yourself and tell Mr right to do that for me,              we missed u as u do too, c'yea is bye for now i love u my dear.  WE LOVE U WITH ALL OUR HEART AND WE REALLY MISSED U IN GHANA.

Hi everyone....well I am back in the States trying to readjust to life here.  I really miss Ghana and the friends I made there.  I am in Tennessee visiting my family now and have finally found time to upload all of my pictures.  I have separated them into categories so that they are easier to look at.   Go to:   www.ofoto.com then under sign-in:   email address: lauren4714@aol.com password: lauren4714   Hope you enjoy them!  Thanks for all the kind emails when I was there and for all the people who emailed about wanting to send supplies and money.  I really appreciate it.  In peace, Lauren

Today is my last day at the internet cafe... I am so sad to be leaving on Friday. I had such a good day yesterday. I went with a few other volunteers in the morning to paint a classroom at Tegbi school and then I had my clinic with Sam in Woe near our house. I had like 25 kids around me the whole time at my clinic and the sweetest two baby girls named Love and Rose who kept sitting on my lap the whole time. Sam was really sad that I am leaving..we have become really good friends. But I may return here one day...we'll see. Last night the African dancers came (for the new volunteers) and they are such amazing dancers...its unreal. The way they can move their bodies is just amazing. Anyway I need to head back for lunch and then another day of clinics. I love you much much. Me, Erin, Conner, and Mariah all leave on Friday so we are leaving for Accra at 1:00 on fri afternoon (our flights at 10 pm) and going to a sushi restaurant in Accra to all eat. Some of the other volunteers who are staying longer are coming in too to eat with us as a goodbye...Sam wants to come but I had to ask Ben (main guy) permission to let him off work so he can come into Accra with us..I don't know if they will let him but I hope so. Ok I love you guys....SEE YOU VERY SOON LAuren

Hi everyone....well I promised I would send an email with just general things about Ghanian life and culture so here it is!   Everyone here has two names.  One is a Ghanian named based on the day of the week that you were born and then an English name.  Since I was born on a Sunday my Ghanian name is Esi.  I made a list of some common great names of children I have met over here: Wonder, Believe, Constance, Comfort, Patience, Peace, Wisdom, Mercy, Fortune, Perfect, Precious, Rejoice, God's Way, Gifty, Clever, Brilliant, Bright, Bless, & Justice.  Great huh?!  Nothing better for a child's self esteem then being named Perfect.   I think I have told you this before but in Ghana the left hand is considered "dirty".  You don't use your left hand to wave, shake hands, eat or anything because it is considered an insult.  So children who are left-handed are pretty much forced to be right handed.  They have a great handshake here.  You shake hands and hold it...then as your pulling your hands away you both use your middle finger to snap.  I love it.  And sometimes they will snap 2 or 3 times.  When you go into someone's house, they always offer you water and to be polite you should accept it.  There is a common Ewe greeting always exchanged between the guest and family when you come into their house.   There culture is very modest so they keep their knees covered and only wear skirts below their knees.  I think the Ghanians have gotten very used to the heat here because most of the men where long pants and even sometimes nice, long sleeved dress shirts in the 90 degree heat.    I learned that when a girl is interested in a boy to date she NEVER tells the boy that.  Ever.  Only after they are a couple does the girl tell him that she likes/loves him.  It is always the guy who makes the first move.  Guys often give their girlfriends promise rings if they want to marry them one day.  When I asked Sam what the biggest problem among teenagers are here, he told me its marrying young.  Alot of teens in the fishing and farming villages don't go to school, but just fish and farm and get married and have kids ages 15-18....I see some girls who look 14 with little babies all the time.  Its interesting because the major problems among American girls is eating disorders but that is non-existant over here.  Sam told me when girls are heavier here they believe it is their nature and they don't even know that diet and exercise can change their bodies so they just accept their bodies.  Great for self-esteem but not so good for health in some ways I guess.  Sam told me men here used to like women with curves (like alot of African Americans do in the US) but that women here would get fat inplanted in their butts so now men like slender women instead.  But he said the most important thing here to be attractive is for a woman's front side and back side to be symmetical.  So either small/small or big/big but not big boobs with a small butt.  Interesting huh?  Most girls begin having sex in junior secondary school (14-16).  They often get pressured by the level 3 guys (16 yr olds).  I was told 70% use condoms, 10% birth control, and 20% "know their cycle".  Somehow luckily AIDS is not a big problem in this area.  I was told maybe a 1/4 of teens wait to have sex until they get married.  Its funny because alot of people here are strong Christians and will justify caning children and many other things because thats what it says in the bible...but when it comes to pre-marital sex they just kind of ignore that part of the bible.  Christians here only have one wife but tradionalist (which is the tradional African religon) can have more than one wife.  Interestingly, I found that most women who came to the well-child clinic had NO IDEA how old their husbands are.  Like NO CLUE...its hard to understand how you could not know your husbands birthday, let alone whether he is 40 or 50 but I guess its just different here.  Divorce is not common but it occurs here.  The main reasons are if the woman cheats on her husband (nice double standard huh) or if the wife can't have children.  I was told that literally EVERYONE wants to have children here.    Babies here get their ears pierced when they are a few days old.  It is common for a baby to wear bracelets and the cutest little chain of beads around their bellies.  Boys usually get circumsized on the eight day (because remember they follow the bible to the T here).  Also, for some reason they believe that babies' wombs get traumatized during birth so they instill warm water into baby girls' vaginas and boys' penis for the first 1-2 months of life using a funnel.  Strange huh?!  Also, I love this one.  If a child has stomach aches/problems they are told here to give the child alcohol.  Isn't that so bizarre.  Sam had stomach aches as a child so his parents had him "take" alcohol everyday from the age of 8 to his teenage years.  Also, if a woman wants to abort a baby they don't go to the hospital but they take herbs instead.  Like I said before people here really do not smoke.  Most that do are men that learned it while "dating" white women who have come here.  It is not important to men here whether you are pretty or not, they really are more interested in personalities.  They are actually really respectful to women and never even tell a women she is pretty and NEVER make lude comments.  People here are extremely private and never talk about their family or problems with friends.  I asked a bunch of boys what is the most important quality for their wife to have and they said being "respectful"....not necessarily talking about just to men but to everyone, elders etc.   Everyone here calls everyone "Afo and Davi" which is brother and sister.  I am called Davi Lauren by Believe.  All the children here call me Lauren Nurse when they see me...and the volunteers call me Dr. Lauren.  One thing I love about here is men are very affectionate towards each other.  You will often see teenage guys walking down the street holding hands.  At first everytime I saw it I did a double turn because in America that usually means you are gay.  But here men are just very affectionate with their friends.  Homosexuality is pretty much unheard of here.  So sadly I guess they are forced to stay in the closet.    When you are walking down the street and someone wants you to come over they make almost a hissing sound as a means to call you over.  Also, among friends each one will have a certain whistle so if one friend hears it they know who is calling them over.  BUT they never do this whistle in the night because they believe that will invite evil forces over.  Last thing I can think of is hugging does not happen here, and you do not call an elder by his name.  Just Afo or Davi (Brother or Sister).   Oh yeah the main food they eat here are akplah and fufu.  Akplah is ground up cassava mixed with corn flower.  I don't like it..its taste very bland, but they usually mix it with something like ground nut soup or tilapia to give it flavor.   So there is just a few random tidbits about life in Ghana!  Things are still going great here...we had 10 new voluteers come in last night.  My friend Alli decided spur of the moment yesterday to put long braids in her hair so I spent 4 hours with her at the hair dresser yesterday...she looks very Rasta now.  I traveled to Ho on Friday and delivered a laptop to the Ho Hospital, and a bunch of books to the Prince of Peace School for my friend Amy, who voluteered here with CCS last January.  It was a lot of fun to deliver, the kids were SO excited...I got mobbed when I started pulling out the pictures and books sent over from a class in America.  It is so strange to me that I do not have much more time in Ghana.  I will really miss this culture and the people here.  In a way it feels like I have been here for so long, and then it also feels like I just got here.  I must admit the only thing in America that I do miss is washing machines....my least favorite time here is when I have to hand wash all my clothes.  But its definitely part of the experience.  Well thats all for now.  My clinic continues on this coming week... Peace and love, Lauren   

 Hey all...sorry it has been so long since I have posted a new journal.  Everytime I have tried to come to the internet cafe over the last week the phones have been down or the power has been out.....I was feeling sick last week but now I feel much better!    My clinic on Friday was great.  We were down at the beach and finally it got properly announced so Sammy & I had a great turnout.  There were a ton of people there and I am very happy to say that the blood pressures were really pretty good.  I guess the hard work of dragging the nets and fishing has kept these people in great physical shape.  I did have one man come up to me (probably in 20's) and proceed to tell me that (with a DEAD SERIOUS face) he sold cocaine to my president Bill Clinton and that I should get the money that Bill owes him and give it to him.  And he thought that I was a queen (which I doubt any queen would be found sitting at the beach in sweaty clothes taking blood pressures) and then was told I look like Bill Clinton...lol.  So I did everything I could not to start laughing during this conversation considering he was totally serious.  It was quite entertaining though.   This weekend was really nice.  I spent alot of time with Sammy, Richard, Comfort and a few of the other local Ghanians that live around our house.  We are all about the same age.  They are really fun to talk to and debate issues with.    Here is something very interesting.  There was a lady at Keta hospital on Friday who supposedly was a bird and turned from a bird into a naked lady after she was caught trying to steal and kill two twin babies in the hospital.  Ok now if this wasn't enough...people saw this happen AND everyone in Woe and Keta are convinced she is a witch.  No joke.  She is being held at the local police station.  They believe in witches and wizards here.  I had a long talk with Sammy who is one of the smartest, most rational people I know and he is completely sure of the existance of witches.  He said that he saw a witch as a child in his village who caused the death of four men in his village. Then he has also seen a tree walk during the nighttime.  I know...and here I am Mrs. Skeptical Westerner like "Are you CRAZY?!?!"...but then I had to take into account that our cultures are so different.  I proceeded to tell them all about acupuncture, and auras, and therpeautic touch and they all looked at me like I was nuts.  Its interesting though because even the Christians here belief in witches, wizards, sorcerers etc...they just believe that Jesus Christ can overcome these evil powers...hummmmmmm....   There are two little boys that live with Charles' family next door that are the saddest case of malnutrition I have ever seen.  The one year old weighs 4.5 kg (like 9lbs) and the two year old weight 7 kg (15lbs)  They both look like they are under 6 months old.  Well the 2 year old has been coming to our house alot lately...he has a huge protruding belly and balding greyish hair (major signs of malnutrion) so Lindsey and I have been feeding him little spoons of peanut butter whenever he is at our house.  He is so sweet and cute, just so sad to see that he is not being fed enough.   Sammy and I hiked out to a farming village today and got there to learn that the clinic was announced for tomorrow afternoon so we just left and are going back tomorrow.  I had the cutest little girl and toddle boy escort me all the way back out to the road so I guess the trip was worth it =)  That is all for now.   In peace, Lauren By the way my brother got engaged!!! CONGRATS MIKEY and KANI!!!!    

The last few days have been a bit of recovery =)...nothing major, but I caught a bug from one of the other volunteers so I decided I needed to stay in Woe this weekend and rest.  I also have had a problem with my eyes.  It is really hard to wear contacts in third-world countries because of sanitation issues...when I was in Nicaragua last year my eyes got so irritated that I had to stay in a dark hotel room at the beach because of their sensitivity to light.  Well this started happening on Friday and because I wasn't smart about taking out my contact and wearing my glasses (because I hate wearing my glasses-so uncomfortable) that my eyes really started bothering me Sunday night...so now I am forcing myself to wear my glasses for the next week.  I really need to get laser surgery if I plan to spend my life in poor countries..but its too expensive for me!...$2000 an eye.  So I guess that will have to wait.     This weekend at the house was very quiet.  There were only 6 of us there and it was really nice.  I read two books.  Its fun because all the volunteers are avid readers so they have given me some GREAT books to read...right now I am reading the Red Tent.  On Friday I layed my foot on my bed to go to sleep and I felt a pain like a blister...I looked at my ankle and saw that I had a MASSIVE egg sac from jiggers in my ankle/heel (which is a very rare place for them to go)...usually you can feel jiggers almost immediately after they burrow but for some reason I had not felt them until it had really gone to town on my foot!  For some reason I was really excited about this...its kinda neat (and gross) to take them out.  I ran to Alli's room (volunteer who LOVES and is really good at taking out jiggers) and we removed them.  There were FIVE in there and massive egg sacs...but I put a blister pack on the wound and now its already mostly healed...so nothing to worry about.  Imagine how many I would have if I didn't wear socks everyday =)     I took up a great hobby over the weekend. A lot of people ride bikes here (cheaper than taking tro tros) so I asked Samuel if I could borrow his bike.  I rode past Keta out across a beautiful rode that separates the sea from the lagoon.  I enjoyed myself so much I have done this each day.  Yesterday I layed on the rocks and watched the fisherman..it was so great.  I kept thinking about how my mom and cousin Saul would love cycling on these roads with the beautiful scenary.  Constance (our cook) and Believe (our Mr. Do It guy) both went to visit their families this weekend and I missed them immensely.  They have both become my very good friends, whom I love very much!  I was so excited to see Believe back after my bike ride yesterday...I engulfed him in a huge hug!  Can't wait for Constance to get back today.  Sometimes it is hard to be around 20 American/Canadian girls (you know how girls can be) so I find myself spending most of my time with our Ghanian staff or locals.    Sadly my clinic again yesterday was a flop because the public announcement didn't inform the village I would be there.  We even paid them this time...I guess thats the world of corruption.  We were set up on the beach under palm trees next to the light house so it was a bit of heaven.  Since we had no patients Samuel and me just laid in the sand under the trees and listened to Bob Marley on my ipod...which was great.  Samuel wasn't feeling good so I guess it was a blessing that my clinic didn't get announced.  We are back at the beach today so hopefully this time it will be announced!....Its so wierd to imagine its becoming winter in the States...I don't want to leave this tropical climate and go back to cold.  Well thats all for now!

Things here this week have been quiet.  The 5 new volunteers who got here a week ago left for Cape Coast on Wednesday.  It has been rainy this week so most of my clinics have been very slow.  Also, they have not been making public announcements to the people about where I would be because the public announcement wanted bribery from CCS, which we wouldn't do.  So sadly because of this corruption, not many people have known about my clinics this week.  Earlier this week we even just decided to travel around to houses to see people.  We ended up walking like 7 miles in the sand which left Sammy & I totally exhausted.  But at least we saw some people.   As of a few days ago, all of the teachers in Ghana have gone on strike.  ALL including all primary, junior & senior secondary, and the university level.  So everyone is out of school.  A group of teachers went on strike awhile back and the goverment promised them more money so they went back to work...but never got the increased salaries.  So this time all of the teachers are forced on strike (and police have been ordered to ARREST any teachers they see teaching)...The government says that they will increase teachers salaries in 2007 so teachers say they won't go back to teach until 2007.  This is REALLy bad for Ghanian education.  One of our volunteers got kicked out of their school by the head master when she tried to teach on Monday.  Some of the volunteers are having the students come to CCS to teach them there.  A guy Richard who is training to work in construction said this is all really bad because when he gets back in April he will still be expected to take and pass his final exams even if he has not been taught in 6 months and if he fails he will be kicked out...how unfair is that!?   I also bought a lot of fabric at the market to be made into skirts and dresses, but so far have not had the time to go to the seamstress to have it made.  But today after I leave here I am going to have skirts made!  Also I found out today that a DSL broadband service is coming to this area of the Voltra Region and Mike (the owner of the internet cafe) is going to get it!  It probably won't be for a few weeks...so I might have a few days of fast internet yay!  You couldn't even imagine what it is like to wait 2 hours for the AOL website to pull up..I guess a great teacher of patience though.   Ok thats all for now.  I am going again this weekend back to Abor to the St. Teresa Center which I am excited about.  I look forward to spending time with the kids again and hearing the music at mass.  Lots of peace and love from Ghana. 

So I left at 9 on wednesday morning...and was just a tiny bit nervous about travelig through Ghana on my own.  Thank goodness I had sweet Believe (our Do-Everything house guy) escort me to the road to catch my tro-tro.  I had been telling everyone that I was going to Accra and was on the side of the street to catch my tro tro to Accra.  I showed Believe the directions I was given and he laughed and said you are not going to Accra but 2 hours the other way towards Aflao...oops.  So thankfully I had Believe to keep me from getting lost.  I took a tro tro to Denu...got off and then took another to Abor junction...then got riped off by a taxi to take me to the St. Teresa center (a whole 1.50 when it should have been $0.50 lol).  I got to the Center around lunchtime and immediately I met with Father Carlos who told me all about the Center.  It is run by a Catholic Italian Father, brother, Spanish brother, and Nigerian Father, who are all part of Servants of Charity.  The Nigerian Father spent the afternoon showing me around the Center.  He was one of the nicest men I have EVER met.  You know that feeling when you are looking into someone's eyes and you feel like you are looking into the eyes of God...thats how it felt to talk to Father Christopher.  I loved his perspective on religion.  I spent all afternoon talking to him.  He wants me to come back to Africa in a few years (either to Nigeria, Ghana, or Congo) when I am done with Peace Corps and work with him traveling through villages helping the sick and poor.  I might take him up on the offer...regardless of his religion he is the kindest person I have ever met.  He knew I was Jewish...but he believes that everyone believes in the same God and is about accepting and loving everyone regardless of their religion.  The purpose of the Center is not about what religion the children are but are about making them feel loved and to know that God loves them and made them perfect.  See in Africa having a physical or mental disability is seen a curse or a punishment so most of the time they are discarded by their families and society and treated like animals.  This Center is absolutely amazing.  It is INCREDIBLY nice compared to everything else I have seen in Ghana.  It is a senior secondary school (15-25 yr olds) who come and get training in either dress making, tailoring, computers, techonology repair, weaving, etc.) so that when they graduate they can get a job when before they were pretty much discarded.  The kids I met here have BEAUTIFUL spirits.  There are 80 with disabilities and 40 that are abled.  It is great seeing the normal kids pushing around the disabled in wheel chairs.  They sleep here during the week but can go home on the weekends.  Polio has just recently been addressed in Ghana so there are tons of kids crippled here from polio.  Alot in wheelchairs or with just one leg.  They were so sweet to me and I made instantaneous friends.  Saturday night there was dance party for their social.  It was great.  I am not kidding when I say the kids in the wheel chairs and two one legged-girls danced better than I could ever dream of dancing with both of my legs.  It was amazing.  I ate dinner with the fathers who spoke in Italian most of the time...which left me a little lost but they were very sweet to me.  I had amazing Italian espresso (all we have in Woe is awful instant coffee) so that was a treat!  The next day I went to mass with the children..and while Catholicism is not for me...the service was really great.  The kids sung beautiful psalms while some of the boys played drums.  And the sermon was about how God wanted men and women to be treated equally with the same amount of respect, abled or disabled...not that abled men should be respected first.  So I enjoyed that.  I had a sweet little girl (because some people from the surrounding village come to the school mass) who sat next to me who was shy for about 10 minutes but i kept smiling at her and then the next thing I knew she was sittting on my lap and holding my hand everytime we stood up!  Such a sweet angel.  After lunch Sunday a group of girls came to Father Carlo house to do a dance for me.  It was great but while I was taking pictures my camera made the sound of a gunshot and I knew my camera was offically toast.  =( But at least I got 200 pictures out of it before it died.  Well I still have 2 disposable cameras so it will be fine.  I went around to say bye to all the children...they asked me to stay...so I said I would come back next weekend.  A volunteer from Italy drove me to Abor junction to catch a tro tro back to Keta.  I made great friends on the ride home.  A man offered me one of those fake soy meat on a skewer I talked about earlier so I tried it.  It was good..then I offered him my water in exchange.  His wife sitting next to me gave me a bag of ground nuts (their peanuts) so I gave her my bracelet =)...They gave me their phone number and wanted to stay friends.  Another 60 yr old man asked me to marry him.  Then a sweet girl in her 20s who was going to Keta adopted me and helped me catch a tro tro in Aflao back to Woe.  So everyone was very kind and helpful.  It was really a great weekend..I cant wait to go back!      

Hello all, Thought I would send out an update since it has been a few weeks since my last group email...  Well my blood pressure clinic this week has been much more uplifting!  I was in one very large village for Mon-Wed.  While there is still alot of hypertension in adults, most of the 15-25 had normal bp.  Thank God! There is a huge football (soccer) field here that most of the kids and teens use. SO....this must be the reason why theirs are lower here....its the only thing I can come up with.  People do not smoke here but alcohol is WIDELY used.  When I teach some of the adults to only take one beer/drink a day alot of them start laughing at the idea of that.  I went to a new village yesterday that is much poorer than the one from earlier this week.  Again I saw 80 people yesterday and only 10 of them had normal blood pressures.  I had to send about 40 of them to the hospital.  In a way this clinic is very upsetting because I see how very uncontrolled blood pressure is over here.  But I guess I need to look at it in a positive light and realize that even if just a few people know they have hypertension, start taking medicine, or adjust their diets, then thats better than if I wasn't here at all.  The head public health nurse of this district wanted to meet with me today about the clinics.  She asked me to tell her what all I was doing and teaching and she seemed very happy with my educational tools and my system for referral either back to me or to the hospital.  She enlightened me with why so many people here are so uncontrolled....she said mostly from the lifestyle, the stress of daily living.  Alot of people are fisherman here, and can you imagine not catching any fish during a day and having to worry about what your family will eat that night.  Also, most people can only afford cassava (which is very starchy) and alcohol is consumed in large quantities here.  But we both agreed that getting out into the communities and reaching out through education, awareness, and prevention are the best ways to reach the most people.  When I left she said "we are so very greatful to you" about 45 times...so that was nice.   Anyways.....  I also started morning placements.  On Monday, Wed., Fri I am going to the children's ward to do crafts with the kids there.  I only have one box of markers and one coloring book but an amazing class in Tenn. is sending more stuff so I can't wait to get more things so that I can do more activities with the kids.  It is interesting here because kids do not really have any imagination or creativity whatsoever.  One girl God's Will (great name, huh?!) that I was drawing with on Monday had to be told by her mother what colors to use for EVERYTHING.  Its really interesting..I think because using creativity, crafts, art etc. is so rare here so they just never do abstract stuff like that to develop their ability. I don't know.  But so far the kids have loved it and it has give them something to do besides stare at the white walls all day.    On Tuesday and Thursday mornings I have been going with the Keta District public nurses to their well-child clinics.  WOW this is really a fascinating thing.  It is great because it is free service and mothers are encouraged to bring their kids every month from birth to age 5.  What we do is weigh the kids and keep track of what percentile they are in based on age and weight.  Now the best part is the moms put them in these cloth diaper like slings and we literally have a scale that we hang from a limb on a tree and then we hook the babies/kids onto the hanging scale so that they are literally weighed hanging from a tree branch like we weigh bananas in the grocery store.  Also if they are underweight we don't really do anything about it...just tell the mom about it.  Formula here is around $20 a week, and moms can't afford that so if their breast milk is not adequate the babies end up being very underweight.  Its interesting because in America, being over 100% is such a growing problem with childhood obesity but here its like SO not an issue considering almost everyone is underweight.  At these clinics the nurse also sells a Tylenol like medication and she gives all the children their immunizations.  She is going to let me start doing the immunizations.  Anyways it is really interesting to be at these clinics and see all the moms with their children.  My favorite part is how all the moms here tie their babies on their back using a cloth.  I think this is a wonderful thing because instead of being in a stroller they are always close to their mothers, touching their skin.  These babies seem very happy being so close to their moms all day.  The kids are UNBELIEVABLY cute...I'm so tempted to put one in my suitcase when I leave =)  It is part of their culture to put a little necklace of beads around the babies bellies.  Also babies wear the cutest bracelets and girls have their ears pierced at only a few days old.  This is actually a really good thing because it is custom for a girl who is in school to keep her hair short (shaved almost) until they graduate from senior secondary school so sometimes its hard to tell girls and boys apart without seeing their ear piercing.  It is believed that long hair in school is too much of a distraction...interesting huh?  Also, unfortunately teachers cane children here.  At one of the other volunteer's school, a teacher asked a question and three children got it wrong, but when the fourth got it right she had that child cane the other three children.  Isn't that awful?  AND they have a "shame" song they encourage the kids to sing when a child gets an answer wrong.  This is one aspect of Ghanian society that I REALLY don't like.  But they believe caning is necessary to keep children disciplined.   Last thing...I am so so excited about....so anyone who knows me knows that Mother Theresa is like my biggest role model.  I would give anything to even make a 1/1000 impact that she did on the world...anyways when we went to Cape Coast I saw Mother Theresa's Sisters of Charity in Accra and CCS helped me track down the number.  I talked to someone who works there and I am going to spend this weekend at the Saint Theresa's Center for disabled and crippled children.  They want me to come spend the weekend at the Center and then come back during the week for a few days because that is when most of the children will be there.  I am so excited about this and cannot wait to go!   Well thats all for now..I go back to the same village today so hopefully we will get a few good pressures today.   My translator Samuel has become one of my closest friends and when it is slow we spend hours talking about Ghana.  So in my next group email I will talk more about Ghanian culture and common practices which he has helped me understand.  I hope all is well in the States! Big hugs, Lauren

Sorry it has taken so long for me to post a new journal.  Ghana government turns off electricity for 12 hours every 3 days and it seems like every time I come to internet cafe there is no power or the internet is down.  About my clinic that I started last week....wow so far I am blown away with the clinics I have done.  My first clinic on Tuesday was national election day so we set up the clinic close to the voting tables under a tree.  I had so many people lined up to have their blood pressure taken that the voting official got angry and made up move the table further away (5 feet) from the voting table because he said we were taking to much attention away from the voting.  Which was really silly since everyone had already voted by that late in the afternoon.  Anways I was going to stay from just 2-4 but there were so many people there and they begged me to do them all so I ended up staying an extra hour.  I saw 63 people that first day.  The second day we had some dilemmas...first we could not find a table to use, then my blood pressure cuff broke and we had to find tape to close the little hole, then after I had taken about 10 bp's...it started POURING..so we ended up leaving.  Thur. and Friday I went to a different village and I saw 100 people from this village.  Now let me tell you how disturbing the blood pressures situation is over here.  So far in 4 days I have seen around 200 people and I would say MAYBE 20 of them had good or normal BP's...less than 130/90.  Not only is that upsetting but the degree of hypertension I have seen so far is astounding.  One woman I saw had a blood pressure 235/135...and another 220/125...I gave them both money to go immediately to the Keta hospital and medications because I was scared they were going to have a stroke at any moment.  In Ghana, medication for people over 50 is suppose to be free...key word SUPPOSED to..but again corruption in the hospital is very common and most of the time they make everyone buy their medications.  I saw probably 15 people on Friday who had blood pressure > 190/110 ...which is unbelievable.  Then the majority of people had 140-180/90-100.  In the US we would rush the first group of people to the ER and the second group either also to the ER or def. have them on medication, but here I have had to change the way I look at it.  Typically if they are >150/90-100 I ask them to please go to the hospital today or tomorrow and get medication but if it is 130-150/80-90 I teach them about diet change and exercise and ask them to come to the Cross Cultural house in a month to see if it has come down.  Here they drink a good amount of alcohol, and use alot of salt and palm oil so those are the major things that I focus on teaching.  I ask the ones who are going to gets medications to come see me in 2 weeks so I can see if the medications are working because typically here they have no one to follow up with so they eventually just stop taking medication because noone is following them or encouraging them.  When I get a bp of 136/82 here I'm like really happy....The other thing that is extremely upsetting to me here is that almost ALL of the 18-26 that I check have high blood pressue (140/170/80-100) which is really not good for people so young.  For them since they are young and I know it is more realistic, I ask them to jog together for 30 minutes a day and then have me check it again in a month.  I have no idea why they are all so high.  It has really left me flabbergasted.  Part of me so badly wishes that I could stay here and help manage these blood pressures.  It is possible to get them under control if they were just consistently followed up with and encouraged.  I think most people can find a way to afford medication if they were just encouraged to keep taking them and had their BP routinely checked to make sure the meds are working correctly.  I was really happy when I left the clinic on Friday to see the 235/135 lady was back from the hospital and waving her bag of medications at me with a big smile on her face!  So I guess thats one success story...one stroke avoided.  Hopefully today I will get a few more decent blood pressures =).  This weekend the director of Cross Cultural Solutions came to visit and it was great talking to him last night and hearing about how he started this NGO.  I spent the weekend cooking with Constance and learning how to make her amazing dishes!  She bought eggplant in Togo and olive oil in Angola and I made everyone eggplant last night which everyone loved!  So that was fun!  Just so everyone knows...I am keeping the mosquitos in Ghana well fed.  I currently have over 50 mosquito bites on my legs...they really like me I guess =)  And I was doing so good staying jigger free for the first 3 weeks and now I have gotten 5 or 6.  Most of the time I see them before they've burrowed in and I scrap them out with my nail.  But I had a really bad one this morning.  My toe started hurting and a little blister was there, but I thought it was just from running.  There was a little black spot but it didn't look like a jigger, more a faint freckle because it was burrowed so deep.  I showed Allie...another volunteer who is great at getting them out and she was like yep thats one.  She got cuticle cutters and started trying to cut it out and it was so deep...it hurt so bad I was screaming....and I still didn't believe it was a jigger but then she finally hit it and started pulling out the egg sac...and finally got the jigger out.  LOL..I've been wearing socks but supposedly sometimes they can get through sock so what can you!  Anyways...I am happy I've only had a few compared to everyone else.  My roommated had 22 taken out at one time.  Unbelievable huh?!  Anyways you gotta take the good with the bad.  Still a beautiful country!  Well I better head out now!