tema harbor

Work was so interesting yesterday! Some of you know I've been lamenting this cushy PR gig and envying my reporter friends for the exciting in-the-field reporting (and, by default, sightseeing) that they get to do daily. Well, I finally left Airport West on Tuesday and headed to Tema to do some field research with one of my coworkers. Tema is not far from Accra, maybe a 20-minute drive; on maps and in guidebooks, it resides in the Greater Accra region. The first marker I saw on the highway said "Tema: 24" (and that's kilometers), in case that gives you a better idea of the geography. In total, we were only out of the office for about two hours.

The lettering on the traffic circle as we entered city limits said "Ghana's Industrial City," which looked to be a fairly accurate description as steel cranes and smokestacks were visible on the horizon. Tema is also well-known for its port, where a large percentage of Ghanaian imports and exports pass through, and that's what motivated our (Naomi's and my) trip to Tema. GSMF runs an HIV/AIDS prevention campaign aimed specifically at harbor workers called "Portshield," which is largely run by peer educators, and we visited Tema Harbor yesterday for a little monitoring visit.

While we paid a short visit to the offices of the Ghana Dock Labor Company (I think that's what they're called), most of our time was spent talking to the workers. We never actually went down to the harbor itself, but instead stayed up the hill at the waiting area where workers congregate to receive their assignments (or, as I learned it's called here, "allocations") for the day. This area looked almost like a train station -- it had no walls, but a pitched roof, and many, many rows of benches, the majority of which were dilapidated and falling apart. Naomi introduced me to one of the more experienced Portshield peer educators, Kafui. A few other men wearing blue polo shirts with "Portshield" emblazoned on the left chest (but, in the logo, the "o" actually looks like a ship's wheel) gathered around, and Naomi sent me to interview them. This was the first really independent and important thing I've done for GSMF, so I was VERY excited, and of course, a little nervous, because I only had about two minutes to come up with some deep and thoughtful questions.

So Kafui, Gideon, Simon and I found a few benches to sit on and I just started asking them about how they do their peer education work. These guys were SO enthusiastic about the program and it was really great to see. Honestly, these were some of the kindest men (with kind faces, to boot) that I've met in Ghana thus far. And they were harbor workers, a group not well-known for being courteous and polite (I will admit that some of the other men around the waiting area were somewhat uncouth, definitely not quite as polished and sometimes a little grabby). These three explained how they bring the message of HIV/AIDS prevention to their colleagues whenever given the opportunity -- while waiting for allocations, if they have leisure time on the ships, in the evenings when back in their communities -- and said that they've received a warm reception from the other harbor workers. They mostly just talk to them in interpersonal, one-on-one settings, though sometimes they find a microphone and talk to larger groups. There's about 40 peer educators in Tema, a harbor with 5,000 workers, but this sub-1% figure is actually a pretty good statistic for the program, and the 40 men who do volunteer have a lot of success in informing and educating this at-risk population and recruiting additional members to join the peer education team. They also told me that many of the harbor workers have never been talked to about HIV/AIDS or condom usage, making the Portshield program all the more important. The only complaint they mentioned was a lack of materials. They requested more leaflets, to distribute to the men; a DVD system, so that they could hold audio-visual programs in the waiting area; and condoms to distribute, because apparently many of the men are too shy to go to the pharmacy and purchase them. It was a great and eye-opening experience to come to the harbor and see a GSMF campaign in action. I also think that it's pretty easy to forget about the AIDS epidemic when you're isolated from it, but going to the port and interacting with people who were so vulnerable to infection helped to shift my mindset and made the concept a little more tangible. Naomi said that we'd be returning soon for more monitoring, and obviously, I'm very eager to go back.

Anyway, we're off to Kumasi and Mole tomorrow, to see craft villages and elephants and maybe a lake ... the WORKS, pretty much. I'm SO excited! And I know that I still owe you all pictures from the last field trip, so I promise to work a little harder at getting photos uploaded when I return. At any rate, there will be plenty of exciting posts to look forward to after I get back to Accra on Monday. Take care until then!