blo me filla now

I’ve gotten bored with learning straight-up Twi, so now I’m cornering the slang. Blo me filla now is actually Ghanaian English slang (I think); I translate it as “blow (tell) me filler (information) now. Basically the same as “s’up?” I’ve also learned some bad words and gestures. The gestures are especially great. In one of them, you put your hand out in the same pose as if you were going to shake someone’s hand, but you spread your fingers far apart and shake the hand up and down and make a mean face. For another, you stick out your fist as if you were going to give a thumbs up, but instead you wave your thumb up and down a bunch and again with the mean face.

**Adult Content Alert **

Things have been busy. I spent the first part of this week at an abortion workshop for the media. The workshop was sponsored by an American organization called the Population Reference Bureau. The thrust of the workshop was pretty much: women are dying horrible deaths from unsafe abortions because they don’t know that abortion is legal in Ghana. Abortion, like premarital sex and children out of marriage, is highly stigmatized here, and so women don’t like to admit they’re pregnant in the first place, and then don’t like to ask for help if they need to terminate the pregnancy. And, while everybody seems to know about contraception, contraceptive use is very low; women who insist upon it are assumed to be promiscuous, and therefore unattractive. Men seem to think that condoms anyway reduce their pleasure. And there seem to be lots of misconceptions about how to use contraception, especially among young people. Myths about reproduction abound; one we heard about a lot was that many people seem to think that a woman can’t get pregnant the first time she has sex. Parents don’t talk to their children about sex, and I think “family life education” isn’t taught until higher education, so children learn only through their peers. The whole society is set up for an epidemic of unsafe abortion deaths; and in fact it is the single largest cause of maternal mortality (15-30%--numbers vary b/c of secrecy).

It was very interesting to watch the participants over the course of the workshop. At the beginning, nearly all of them thought that abortion was wrong and some even thought that women who die because of unsafe abortions deserve it. We didn’t count or anything, but I’m sure that all of them were either Christian or Muslim, and quite serious about it too. But as the presentations and activities continued, they were completely swayed. Part of it was just the getting the facts straight: knowing that abortion is in fact legal, and not just when the mother might die—so there’s the factual legal aspect. Another part was the overwhelmingly gruesome statistics—the practical aspect of women dying unless... They were also called upon to fulfill the journalist’s duty as educatoràunsafe abortion, and abortion at all, might happen much less frequently if the press took an active role in educating people in general about reproductive health, and targeting parents and young people especially. They heard a lot about their unique capacity to hold politicians and policymakers accountable. For instance, we took a tour of the post abortion care facilities of the biggest teaching hospital in Ghana, and it has one nurse, who comes in the afternoons. The gynecological surgery area (they called it the gynae theatre) had been refurbished (it was literally falling down, I think) and the President had a big news conference about opening it up last year—and it is still sitting empty, no tools, no furniture, nothing. So while the President got some political capital, the people actually got nothing. But I think many, or at least some, were also actually swayed from being pro-life to pro-choice. This was incredible to me, coming from the U.S. where, in abortion “debates,” nobody ever actually listens to anybody else or changes their minds about anything. It was also interesting because the pro-choice arguments that were used were sometimes pretty terrible. But (I think) they had not really been previously armed with pro-life arguments; they had only been told that it was wrong by their pastors and mothers and newspapers and everybody else. So when they were presented with actual arguments, even though some were bad, they didn’t have much with which to combat them.

I think they also learned a lot about straight-up journalism: how to tell a story without judging the players, how to research a story, and also how to advocate.

Toward the end of the third day, I was pretty tired of listening to other people have a conference, but on the whole I think it was (from the point of view of the organizers) a very successful conference. It was also, as a whole, quite interesting to me, first because I just learned a lot about abortion in general and abortion in Ghana, and second because I watched that transformation of people’s beliefs.

** End of Adult Content **

Oh, and Ghana lost to #1 Brazil, 3-0. Boo. But the Black Stars are returning home today, and the city is again abuzz.

The hotel we stayed at was quite posh—hot water! and air conditioning! (which we didn’t even use). And a balcony overlooking the sadly dirty and rocky beach, and clean and rock-free swimming pool. The food was great (ostrich! is! good!) although something decided I was having it all too easy and attacked my digestive system. There was also a guy there whose job it was to weave kente cloth, just for tourists to watch, and another couple of dudes who carved gigantic mancala boards in the shape of alligators. Perty sweet.

In other news, I have completed my selections for my clerkship applications. The whole process starts ridiculously early—the clerkship wouldn’t be till after I graduate. But interviews are in September or October, and I guess it takes a long time to assemble the application packets (letters of reference, resume, writing sample, cover letter, for 70 judges). I’ve been getting lots of pretty clothes and other things made with the wacky wax fabric they have here—my seamstress, Auntie Vera, lives right in my driveway in a little blue rectangular prism, and she does great work. I think I’m probably paying her rent right now. I think this weekend Kristin and I will take a day trip or two, hopefully at least one of them to a pristine beach somewheres. We have Monday off for a national holiday—I think maybe an Independence Day sort of thing? but there’s no big celebration or anything, so the beach should be a fine way celebrate. And I hope to go to the U.S. Embassy’s invite-only party on the Fourth; my boss has an invitation.

The overhead light just went out for some reason.

One crazy thing I saw in the hospital on our workshop site visit there was thousands of files marked confidential tied together with twine and sitting in a big heap on the floor of the obstetrics unit lobby. I would have taken a picture but I didn’t want to violate anyone’s privacy.

I want to upload the right video but using this connection it will take 3.5 hours. It will have to wait.

Enough writing for one day.

. . .