Several months ago, my friend Lizzy had the idea of doing an HIV/AIDS educational event along the banks of the White Volta river. Waterways mean that fishermen and other people can easily travel. Mobile populations are more at risk for HIV. Some volunteers had done a similar project along different portions of the river before, and they had discovered there was a great need for education. In some places, people had not even heard of HIV/AIDS. The rate of people who tested HIV positive was much higher than what current statistics indicated. Everything indicated that HIV education of riverbank communities via boat was a good project and should be done again.
After several months of looking for a boat, making a budget, buying supplies, going to safety meetings, and coordinating with nurses to bring HIV testing, Lizzy, Liz, Julie, Beth, and myself were ready to go.
Day 1: The Water of Life or All Things Begin in God
The boat trip began at 6 a.m. at a bus station. Julie, Beth, Old Boy, and myself had finished buying supplies and were boarding a tro for Nawuni, our first stop. Liz and Lizzy would meet us there with the boat. Sadiq and Achiri had their own transportation to Nawuni, and would meet us there as well.
Nawuni is the Dagboni word for God. We figured starting a journey in God was a good idea. The name comes from a local deity that lives in the water near the village. They used to throw people accused of witch craft into the water. If you were a witch, the crocodiles would eat you.
We got the community health volunteers together and began the educational activities. Sadly, they weren’t able to bring the whole community, so we only trained the health volunteers. After we finished, they took us to the room we were staying. The room was decorated with two giant posters- one featuring football (soccer) players, and a semi-pornographic one with the caption I will love you lifetime. Underneath it was a book outlining the steps for accepting Christ into your life.
Day 2: The Boat-less Boat Trip
We discovered that the next village on our list was close enough to Nawuni that we would be walking instead of taking the boat. Day 2 of the boat trip, and I still hadn’t been on a boat. I didn’t like this at all.
We packed up our educational materials and headed to Afayilli. On the way, we had to ford a giant mud pit. We put our things in a fishing canoe so they wouldn’t get wet and then crossed. The education went smoother on this day; we were getting the hang of things.
Day 3: 2x2 into the bath or Shoes off my feet
Finally, we got to go on the boat. The boat was a giant canoe shaped motor boat designed to carry livestock. It was named Patience in Gonja. Since my Dagboni name means Patience, I liked this.
We unloaded our supplies and made the short walk up to the village and started the education. They served us Akple and fish heads for lunch. Akple is a dish made from millet. I’ve never had it before, but I want to have it again. Even the fish heads were tasty.
My shoes broke. Sami, one of the health volunteers in the community, traded his shoes for mine. I was grateful, because I didn’t have any extra with me, and there was no place to buy more.
We went to the riverbank and hung out near a little lagoon. A woman was fetching water. We got back just after dark and wanted to bathe. We asked our hostess where the bathing facilities were, and they tried to take us to the facilities two at a time- something we were not comfortable with. “There’s somebody in there,” we protested. “go and bathe,” the hostess answered. Everyone ended up confused. We finally got across that we would prefer to bathe one at a time and set up our sleeping places.
Day 4: Kim Gets Lost in the Bush or Get Me a Hoe
We left Shigbuni fairly early in the morning, and realized that we had accidentally eaten our hostesses bread, thinking it was a gift. We felt bad, because the village was small enough that she wouldn’t be able to buy bread, even if we reimbursed her. Oops.
We docked, and began walking toward the village. It was a long walk. “It’s like hiking,” I told myself in an effort to be positive. Inside my head I immediately started ticking off the differences between this and hiking: It was hotter, I was wearing plastic shower shoes, people had buckets full of 540 condoms and 2 wooden penises on their heads. I guess I needed to work on my positive thinking.
When we got there, the community was ready to go. We put down our things and started the education. For this village, I was working with the community instead of the volunteers. We did our introduction to HIV/AIDS, a risk game, and condom demonstrations. This was the routine in all the villages. When we finished, we asked for a volunteer to do a condom demonstration. To our surprise, a woman volunteered. She got to the end, and she looked at us. “I need a hoe,” she said. “You’re supposed to bury the condom when you’re finished with it.” We gave her our hoe. It was the most serious anyone had taken these demonstrations.
We had the hoe with us in case the communities didn’t have latrines. This was the case in Tampia. Julie had to go, so she asked a woman where the best place was. The woman walked with Julie to a field on the edge of town, carrying the hoe. When they got there, she dug a hole for Julie to use, and then came back and covered it up. A truly full service hostess.
I woke up at about 2 a.m. and realized I needed to use the latrine. The hole-digging hostess was asleep somewhere, so I grabbed my flashlight, the hoe, and the toilet paper and walked until I was a ways out of town. On the way back, I missed the path to our place. There was no moon, and no one to ask directions from because it was late. Then my flashlight battery started to die. I managed to find our house after only 45 minutes of wandering around. My flashlight even held out. What a relief!
Day 5 We break up or Where Everyone Knows My Name or Lizzy Plays Pied Piper
The next day, we had to split into two groups, because the nurses were not going to be around for a few days and we wanted to test as many people as possible. Lizzy, Julie, Sadiq, Achiri and I went to Walemole, and Beth, Lukman, Old Boy and Liz went to Adayilli.
Walemole was bizarre because everyone knew who I was. “Patience! How are you? How’s your house? How’re your hens? Greet Madame Shara for me!” This was repeated at least 5 times. “How does everyone here know you?” Julie asked. I shrugged. Achiri said that this village was close to mine, and that these people went to the same market as me. Trying to get a feel for the distance, I asked how long it took for them to get to market. He said about two hours on a tro. It’s not that close.
Lizzy, Sadiq, Julie and I were waiting for the volunteers to come, and Lizzy started playing her recorder. A group of children gathered around her to see what she was doing. I started videotaping, largely to try to prove that the recorder was annoying. “Sadiq,” I asked, turning the camera to him. “What do you think of the music?” “The music?” he said. “I don’t know about it.”
When we finished, we joined Liz, Beth, and Old Boy in Adayilli. They had been busy- it was one of the biggest communities on the whole trip, and they had to cover it alone. They were finished when we got back, and a woman was braiding Beth’s hair.
Day 6 (Queen) Liz Eats Kola
The next community was Daboya, which was different from the other communities we went to because it’s much bigger. We were ahead of schedule, so I went to see if the nurses were ready while everyone else waited under a tree. They were not ready, so we decided to take the day off so we could rest, restock supplies, and do laundry. Japan, saw us in town buying food, and decided that we needed to go greet the chief. Liz, Lizzy, Julie and I took off. (Beth had wandered off somewhere and our counterparts were sleeping). Daboya was the first Gonja village. Liz’s site is a Gonja village, and they made her a Queen Mother there. A Queen Mother is like a chief, but female.
Queen Mothers have different rules for greeting than the rest of us. For one thing, she’s supposed to wear her fancy queen mother cloth. She didn’t have it, because she was worried about ruining it on the boat and she wasn’t expecting to need it.
She also has to lay on the mats or skins on her right side through the greetings (the rest of us got to sit on a bench). When the chief offered us kola nut, Liz was the one who took it. Kola is a stimulant, and it tastes very bitter. Apparently Liz has grown accustomed to it though, because she ate it rather quickly. Later, she stole another one from our stash. Gross.
Day 7 Julie and the Cat Share a Disease
After our day of shopping, kola munching, and laundry, we were ready for our community event in Daboya. Sadly, Beth had to leave early, so she took the first bus back to Tamale.
When we finished the education, we decided to make lunch for ourselves so we could use up some of the supplies. Julie, Liz, and Lizzy started attempting to light the coal pot (I was happily asleep). After investing a significant amount of time trying to get it lit, someone noticed an electric burner. The coal pot remained unlit.
Julie had picked up an eye infection, and we bought some eye drops the medical officer prescribed. The house cat came in furiously blinking one discolored eye. “Julie, you infected the cat!” we said. We held down the cat and gave it some of Julie’s eye drops. The eye cleared up right away.
Day 8 Beth Makes Salt Cookies
As part of our pre-trip planning, Beth had mixed together some ingredients for no bake cookies. The cookies were for Liz, because her birthday was near the time of our trip.
Beth had left the day before, so we texted her to get the recipe for the cookies. She texted it back and we discovered we were short an ingredient. We made Liz go to buy the ingredient, because we are terrible friends who make people buy things for their own birthday present. When Liz got back, Lizzy offered to cook. She mixed all the ingredients, put them on the electric burner, and started playing cards with Old Boy and Sadiq, forgetting all about the cookies. Julie salvaged them before they got too burnt, and we laid them on some plastic bags to cool.
When we bit into them, we realized they tasted like blocks of salt. I tried a second one, and it was just as bad. How much salt did Beth put in that mix? Everyone wanted to know. “Thanks for the cookies. Do I have a goiter?” Liz texted Beth. We decided they were inedible and dumped the cookies in front of the house for the goats. The next morning, they were still there. They must have been awful. Until then, I thought that goats eat everything.
Day 9 How Do You Spell Tidrope?
We were finally on the move again. We were scheduled to go to a village called Tidrope. We got to the village, unloaded our things, greeted the chief, and got started. I was teaching the health volunteers in this village. They seemed like a well educated group, so I asked them how to spell Tidrope. “Fishcamp,” they said. “No, how do you spell it?” Achiri looked at me funny and said “It’s fish and then camp.” Then it started to dawn on me that we were in the wrong village. I asked a few times, and then felt rude, since they were all ready to learn and I kept repeating that we weren’t there for them anyways. We finished the education and then hiked to Tidrope and did it again. We were exhausted. This is not meant to be done twice in a day. We pushed on to the next village so we could finish early in the morning.
Day 10 Nobody Drowned
We finished the education in Kito early the next morning. The nurses had gone to another village with the same name. We figured that at least we were getting the right number of villages, if not necessarily the right ones. We got to Yapei and unloaded the boat in the early afternoon. We had educated 450 people about HIV basics, given over 20 condom demonstrations for over 400 people, provided HIV testing for over 600 people, and showed a film about kayayo issues to over 700 people. We had also healed a cat, fended off an attack of stink bugs, survived salt cookies that not even goats would eat, and managed not to throw Lizzy or her recorder overboard. Success.
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