Practicing patience, church services, and becoming Ghanaian

Unfortunately, I still have not heard anything back from the Yale IRB about my research proposal. At this point, we are stalled. We want to print our posters and keep doing school talks, but I can’t carry out the research part of it until I get approval. Perhaps, like my project in Vietnam, this just needs to go on the back burner for a bit. “All of God’s leaders are prepared on a slow cooker,” stated the visiting pastor at the church I went to last Sunday, with one of my friends from work, so maybe these stalled projects are just part of my leadership development. They have to be prepared on the slow cooker.

I have now attended two church services, each of the last two Sundays. Depending on travel plans, I may or may not have time for more. I also went to a wedding on Saturday, and will likely go to another.

The church services are interesting. Sometimes very confusing, always with powerful messages, and about half of the time I feel a little flummoxed about how to respond to the choruses of “Amen” and “You are blessed” and “Hallelujah”.

I think the people I’ve gone with know that I’m not Christian. I know some of the ladies at work wanted to convert me, so maybe that’s part of the motivation behind inviting me, but I think it’s more that they wanted me to see their communities, the things that are important to them.

The first one I went to was on Father’s Day, and the sermon was about appreciation of fathers. It was difficult to hear, both because the mic was quiet and because the accent was thick, but I remember thinking that what I could hear was well said and an important message. Meghan went with me and we were confused by the number of offerings, and how we all had to proceed one-by-one up to the front… three times! We didn’t have the hymnal or a bible to look at, so we just sat and stood along with everyone else, but otherwise were very uninvolved.

The service I went to this past weekend was much easier to follow. It was also more fun! The first service was at a Methodist church and the more recent one was at a Pentecostal church. I know the basics of Christianity and many of the stories, but I don’t know the distinctions between branches, so it was interesting to compare them.

The Pentecostal service had much more singing and dancing, and the energy generated and shared between the church members was almost palpable. I could see that it was very valuable for generating and strengthening the community connection and the connection they feel to God.

The sermon was on leadership, and the service included a few minutes of bible study with the story of Joseph. I feel like I know the story of Joseph well from hearing the story as a child and from the well known musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The bible study was for the part of the story where Joseph goes from being sold into slavery to elevation within Potiphar’s house and the sermon was about the same. I agreed with a lot of what was said, but every time they said something about needing to have faith in God to be a good leader, I cringed a bit. Serving the people you want to lead, yes, being “prepared on the slow cooker” instead of the “microwave,” yes, but no, I don’t think it’s necessary to be Christian and be blessed by God.  The people were all very nice and welcoming, and asked when I would come back, but I don’t think I’ll have a chance during my remaining three weeks. I promised another Pastor that I would try to go to his church, which is near the house, so if I’m going anywhere other than Eric’s church, it’ll be that other Pastor’s church.

I went to a wedding on Saturday with Eric, who had been invited by a teacher at the school where he’s the headmaster and it was her sister who was getting married. The service was all in Twi, so I didn’t understand much, but fortunately there was a program, and it was in English. We also didn’t stay for the whole thing, because Eric had to get back to his music rehearsal. The part we stayed for was interesting. I’m fairly certain that there were several pictures taken of me just because I’m obruni… and I was the only one there. There were offerings during the service, and while photography from the guests is common in the US, Ghana goes above and beyond, with people getting out of their chairs and getting right in the faces of the bride and groom as they exchange vows and rings and have their first kiss as a married couple. I just hid in the back as much as possible and stood and sat with everyone else. It will be interesting to compare it to the other one that I will likely go to in two weekends’ time, with Adam (my classmate from Yale), who was invited by one of his coworkers.

Exchanging of rings, with all sorts of cameras in their faces.

On Monday, Grace and I went for an outreach clinic to a small community called Ofaakor. They have a tiny one-room clinic where the members of the community can go so that they don’t have to try to get all the way to the Kasoa Health Center, and two of the regular KHC nurses work there (rotating out each month), and the head nurse goes once a week to do check-ups of pregnant women. We learned how to do an exam of a pregnant woman and determine based on where the baby is sitting internally how far along the mother is. We listened to fetal heartbeats through a horn-like apparatus that we placed against the mother’s abdomen and checked for anemia, varicose veins, nipple suitability for suckling, and edema. We felt the craniums of several babies through the mothers’ abdomens and saw one that was breached (but early enough for it to be corrected before delivery).

And then something very unexpected happened.

Mothers in Ghana often (usually?) deliver at home, especially in the community we were in. However, one of the mothers we had examined early in the morning started showing labor signs before she left, so the head nurse (who is also called Grace) said she would deliver the baby at the clinic. Grace the fellow volunteer had said only a few minutes before that she wanted to see a birth, and she didn’t have to wait long. The mother came back in to the exam cubicle and Grace-the-nurse broke her water and told us that she was 5 cm dilated, so they cleaned her up and gave her a makeshift pad/underwear and she walked around for a bit to encourage the labor along. About 30 minutes or an hour later, it was time. She went into the exam cubicle for the last time and nurse Grace set her up with an IV and after a few minutes, volunteer Grace and I were called in. It all seemed to happen so quickly. I was in the room and watched my sister’s birth when I was six years old, but I don’t remember it particularly well. I feel like it did not go that quickly, though. It seemed like the mother pushed once and the head came halfway out, then once more and all of the rest of the baby’s body slipped out, with the actual delivery lasting less than a minute. The umbilical cord was tied off with string because they didn’t have clamps, and we stayed in the room for the delivery of the placenta and while the uterus was massaged to encourage it to contract to prevent profuse bleeding.

We were wondering how long the mother would stay in the room and at the clinic, but while we were still in the exam room with the first mother we heard that another had come in, ready to deliver. From having never delivered any babies at the clinic to two in one day. It was truly an unusual day. Volunteer Grace and I held both of the babies and took pictures with them and with their mothers. I wish I could stay long enough to watch these babies grow, to see them as they progress through the months and years, and then to tell them later that I was there when they first entered the world. It was incredible.

Me with the baby we saw the birth of and Grace holding the baby with the mother (below). 

Tuesday was far less eventful, but we had another school talk, and this time Grace and I were on our own, because Eric was at a conference. Emmanuel, a Ghanaian intern for Cheerful Hearts Foundation, also joined us, but it was basically on me to be the authority in the room, and I think things went very smoothly. Later in the day I got a group of us interns onto two separate trotros and managed to direct our cab driver back to our house when he didn’t know the junction for the general area where we are (we’ve only been in the new house for two weeks), so by the end of the day I was feeling very accomplished and ready to handle anything in Ghana.

I’ve been getting some dresses made by a seamstress that is friends with Douglas, including one with a kente print cloth which is going to be ready first. I’m stoked. Once I have these, I’ll really feel like I belong here… just in time for me to pack up and go home a few weeks later. I can’t believe the time is winding down so soon. I’m excited for the rest of my summer, especially since my dear friends will be getting married, but I’m going to miss Ghana terribly, and I’m seriously thinking about looking for a job out here and coming back after I graduate.