Blog 2

Malaria and Katra

Sorry for the delay in posts. I have wanted to write about this for a long time!

Malaria is a scary word. Before I came here, when I heard about it, I associated it with tens of thousands of deaths a year. But when I arrived, it was weird that people would talk about it in passing as though it was like it common cold or sickness in Canada. And essentially, that is what it is (if treated early and properly). Don’t get me wrong, when I got malaria, it sucked. I was out of commission for a day or two (and pretty scared I have to admit!) but I took the $3-4 dollar medicine and I eventually got better.

So why is malaria a huge global killer?

From speaking with people, here a couple of the main reasons:

1) Many of the deaths are from babies, children under 5, and pregnant mothers who get hit with malaria and don’t have the immune system to fight it
2) Simply, people can’t buy the $3-4 medicine needed to stave off malaria. I was lucky – I live near in a town with a health centre and was able to diagnose my symptoms ($3 for a lab test) and get medicine the day I was affected. Others in more remote areas are not as lucky. They may be forced to wait too long before they get tested (malaria becomes severe and dangerous as time passes), not have access to drugs or $3-4 is often more than people can spend so they take their chances and fight it.

I guess the reason why I wanted to write this post was to say that malaria is not AIDS. It is most often curable (I can’t say 100%). But by a Canadian’s standards, it can be most often cured easily if diagnosed and treated early. So what are some possible things we could do to stop malaria from killing so many:

1) Get bed nets (approximately $5) to as many people as possible and have them using it! Mosquitoes (who carry malaria) come out strongest at night so sleeping under a bed net is a huge help in preventing one from getting bitten by mosquitos and getting malaria. Bed nets would be particularly important and helpful for babies and pregnant mothers.
2) Get medicine to as many people as possible. I know this sounds obvious and unrealistic but there must be a way to mass-produce these drugs so they are readily available to those who need it and can’t access them because of costs or distance from health centre.

These are just a couple of thoughts on possible solutions. The situation is definitely harder and more complex than what I made it out to be (and I definitely don’t have extensive knowledge), I just wanted to share a realization I made here that malaria, which is one of the top three killers in the world, is not a death sentence if early, simple, and low-cost treatment is done. I would love to hear your comments, thoughts, feedback, on what you think.

Part 2: Katra

A few people asked why I named the blog “Katra in Ghana”. And the reason originates from an amazing Seinfeld episode (I am trying to think of any that aren’t amazing!). It is the one where Kramer is doing karate and tells the story where he was initially scared but found his “katra”, the “I can” feeling inside of him to face the face fear and tough circumstances (the summary of the rest of the episode is below **). Basically, the reason why I named the blog this way is that “I can” feeling is so prevalent here. It is incredible to see the courage of men, women, mothers, fathers, children to keep going, try and fight every day facing hunger, sickness, poverty, corruption, etc. One shining example is in the morning is to ask someone how they are doing. No matter what has happened or how tough the night was, they will say smile and say “Thank God”…thank God for being alive. Life can be incredibly unfair for many here but very seldom will you ever hear a complaint. I hope one day to carry one tiny portion of their wisdom, resolve and bravery.

Love and best wishes from Ghana,

Shamir

P.S – thank you all for the great feedback. I will do my best to write well about what you would like to know (and will include some pictures / stories from life down here next time). Definitely keep the comments/suggestions/feedback coming. And thank you all so greatly as well for your amazing support. I can’t thank you enough or say it enough so I will be writing (as many times as possible) about how much your support means to me, and how much it boosts me up when times are low. You all are inspirations.

** Continuation of episode: So with this “katra”, Kramer becomes the best in his dojo and is “dominating the class”. It is only later that it is found that he is fighting little kids in his class and he got the “katra” talk from Star Trek: Search for Spock. Haha.

Please tell me they are still showing Seinfeld like 5 times a day on TV!

Oh and a last quote (props to a special friend for this one…)

“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.” – Mother Teresa

Blog 1

Well, this is my first post from Northern Ghana! Saboba District to be exact. The district is like a province, and I live in its main town. My bad on the delay in the writing, but after you see the caliber of my writing, you will probably thank me that I only write once in a while! Lol…..But I am definitely going to try to write a lot more and the best would be if you have any topics or things you want to hear about, I will try on that. For those of you who were in University English with me, you know that its not a very strong subject for me :P….but I think if I write on what people are interested on, that might be more fun to read. Also to that, this post is a little more work-related and if you have questions, or would like to talk about things happening here or the work that is being done, that would be amazing too. I would love to hear your questions, ideas, and thoughts because your perspective is valuable and always helps…and I really love learning, talking and collaborating.

So for this first one, I thought I would write a bit about what I am doing here. I am working with the District Assembly (like district government) to encourage evidence-based decision making. What does that term mean? That’s what I am trying to find out still! J But basically what it boils down to is that the District Assembly is in charge of choosing where boreholes (water sources), schools, health centres, latrines (toilet holes), essentially any infrastructure are built. What we are trying to promote and help with is the planning process in all of these – ensuring that the appropriate amount of data collection, analysis, and strategic thinking goes into making the decisions on what infrastructure is built and where it goes. The planning process is vital because:

a) Funds are limited (only few communities can be assisted at a certain time)

b) There are communities out there that are in dire need: some communities which get all their water (drinking/bathing/cooking) from a river/pond, or those which have 0 children going to school because it is too far or they are blocked by water, or those communities which have to travel 3-4 hours by foot to reach a health facility which may be too expensive.

Our goal (the organization I am with – Engineers Without Borders) is that with an effective planning process, the communities that are in most urgent need will be helped first with the right interventions when there the opportunity exists (funds are available). Now, as you can imagine, it is not as simple as finding out what the communities need and providing them with it. There are many other factors which come into play (let me know if you want me to go in more detail about this). But we figure that if we help the District Assembly provide as much clear evidence and useful analysis on where infrastructure should be placed, then it will give the best chance that people who are in greatest need will be most effectively helped.

Now a little more about my role. What we are trying to do here is build capacity to plan. Essentially, whenever something is being done, we are encouraging the government to go through a planning process! There are two parts to this – building the capacity and skills to collect data, organize, analyze (using the computer), and perhaps more importantly, encouraging the mindset and behaviour to plan, strategize and make decisions based on detailed evidence.

So for me, this involves trying to be a part of any process, however big or small – (whether its being part of the financial budget team for the district, monitoring current projects, preparing strategic plans and community needs to the national & regional governments/donors, typing annual reports, even organizing shelves of old data or collecting and entering data for a district-wide needs survey). And then trying to build the desire and capacity with everyone to consult different officers and departments, collect data, analyze it (primarily using the computer and best friend, Microsoft Excel!), and utilize it to make conclusions or decisions. The eventual dream is that this type of rigorous work will not be included only in planning, but it will become common-place in monitoring & evaluation, or testing out and justifying any initiative that is done by the government, etc.

Ok, I do not want to ramble too much….I am sorry for this long post! And really if it sounds complicated, it’s not! In one line – using data as evidence for decisions! The complicated part is getting this done! Haha.

Anyways, I promise that the next post will be shorter and hopefully I will get a little more interesting everytime or my writing will improve.

Lastly, I also just wanted to say how much I miss you all back home. There isn’t a day I don’t think about you all, and hope that you are all doing really great! Probably the thing that has hit me the hardest is how absolutely grateful I am to have incredible family and friends.

Much love!

P.S – my e-mail is shamir.tanna@gmail.com if you get a chance, shoot me an e-mail on how you are doing – would love to hear about anything. I can’t get on Facebook from here (yeah…it hurts bad! And I am trying every which way to connect somehow.. lol…….So if there are updates on FB, its from my sister)..… And again if there is anything you would want to hear about or you want to talk more about my work above or things happening here in general, that would be really great – let me know by email. Thanks so much.

PPS – I thought every post I would try to include an inspirational quote. These babies get me by a lot of the time (in addition to a little Akon music)! J

“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this think we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down” – Mary Pickford