Hey,
Have you missed me??? Well you didn’t say did you.
You know I’ve started this entry many times wondering where to begin in filling you in on my many adventures over the past 7 weeks.
How to tell you all about illicit dates with married men from the Ministry and saying goodbye to dear friends.
About meeting up with the most beautiful (and crazy) people I know, (and no I am not talking about my experience at the hotel with delegates of the nerd convention), and having such a great times with family and friends that it broke my heart to say goodbye again.
And obviously I have much to report on pushing those Pineapples and shaking those trees in Ouagadougou
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| Shaking the Tree |
But then I thought that for a change I’d let you have a peek into the work that I’m overseeing here, and give you a bit of insight into what my staff are trying to do out there in the field.
So here’s an extract of the work one of my project offices did while I was living it up with the Brie and Baguettes……
SENSITISATION MEETINGS:
Expected Outcome: This activity is aimed at raising awareness on the cultural perception towards persons with disabilities in the chiefdoms of Kono District
Methodology: Role plays involving Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) workers and community members as actors and actresses. Questions, answers, Discussions and brainstorming shall proceed after the role play.
ROLE PLAYS ON CULTURAL PERCEPTION AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES (Cultural perception versus realities)
Actors / Actresses required - Town chief, his wife, CBR worker, Town criers and community people ((5) in numbers.
Act 1 Scene 1 - Here the town chief and community people invites a witch doctor to wash the town and to find out the reason(s) responsible for making children physically impaired in the town over the years. The entire population in the township assembled before the chief’s house to allow the witch doctor to perform his ceremonies. During the process, the witch doctor finally attributed the reasons to witch craft and also to the reason of the gods being angry with the community people because according to him, they no longer obey their traditional laws left by their forefathers long years ago. To remedy the situation, he concluded that the following laws must be obeyed and stringent action should be taken on any defaulter regardless to your position. The laws stated;
· That no pregnant women should shut high above her normal voice at night regardless of what may happen. Defaulters should be killed instantly without delay.
· That no pregnant woman should wash at night in the village
· Women should not wash in any of their renowned rivers around their villages because devils are expected to be waiting to get into the stomach of pregnant women.
· That no woman should try to see any of their prominent societal mask devils of any kind because they are believed to cause disabilities.
· That witches and wizards are greatly responsible and as such, no women should ever try to see the white man with her naked eyes because it is believed that the white man resembles a devil that will cause disabilities.
· Finally, he said that any child born disable should be killed and thrown in a river so that it will never return in the village anymore.
After stating the laws, the chief ask the consent of the community and eventually, they all agreed on the traditional laws and confirm that anyone who breaks these laws must face the full penalty of the law and if she is a pregnant woman, she should be killed instantly so that she cannot live and born a disable child in the village.
But after some weeks later, the chief’s wife broke one of the laws by shutting high at night when she was told that all her family members died in a road accident. Because she was pregnant, it means that she would give birth to a disable child. Therefore, by breaking the law, it means that she should be killed at once to prevent her from giving birth to a disable child.
However, the chief, because he loves his wife, he told the woman to hide and go to the neighboring village where she latter gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
While this child was healthily growing in the next village, the news reached the villagers that the woman had given birth but they could not confirm whether the child was disabling or not.
While they were anxiously waiting to see the child and the mother, a CBR worker visited the community to assure them that the child and her mother would be brought back within a short possible time. The villagers were shocked to see the child being accompanied to the village by a CBR worker.
The villagers and the chief were all happy and regretted over the laws when they realized that the child was healthy and non disabled at all.
The CBR worker in turn explains to the villagers that the laws are cultural beliefs towards persons with Disabilities and should not be accepted because they are very deceiving. They all listened to the CBR worker and were convinced at once that the witch doctor was a big liar.
From that moment, they condemned all the laws and charms the witch doctor left in the village. They were all joyful when the CBR worker explains to them the actual causes and consequences of disabilities as opposed to the cultural perception and attitudes towards parsons with disabilities.
And this folks, is for real !!!
So I think there’s a bit of work still to do in Africa then……
I may be some time!
XXX
