The streets of Accra

relaxing at the hotel before
heading to church

The director of the Grace School is also a pastor at a Baptist Church in Accra.  He invited us to his church on Sunday and to accompany his wife to her youth ministry and feeding program for a community of "street children."                                                                                                                                             Church in Ghana is an event.  It was fun to see the women decked out in their beautiful and colorful dresses. In honor of the occasion I even blow-dried my hair (the only time in Ghana I bothered to do so!)  I have been to Baptist services before and I have been to gospel services before, but this was something different.  The service was both in Twi and translated into English (I'm not sure if it was on our behalf or if they always do it in both languages).  Church was a participatory event - there was no just sitting and listening, people were up, moving around, speaking their faith out loud, singing.  You could tell that the people were really "feeling" it.  While there were some familiar aspects of the service: there was a sermon, the choir sang, offering was collected- it was really different than other services I've been to.  There was no benediction or lord's prayer, and rather than passing around an offering dish, everyone walked up to the front to drop their offerings and there were two rounds of offering.  My favorite thing about the church were the people who were assigned to walk up and down the aisles and make sure no one fell asleep :)  In a hot room made hotter by lots of people (there was no air conditioning), I definitely felt myself getting drowsy just from the heat.

the feeding program

After the (2 hour) service, we drove to a nearby area that is home to some of Accra's poorest of the poor. The pastor's wife goes there every Sunday to teach bible study to the kids and give them with a meal.  We went to provide shoes to the kids - we were lucky to have a huge suitcase filled with donated shoes for this occasion.  The kids were happy to see us.  The bible study took place under a sort of pavilion to keep out of the sun.  Kids sat on cardboard and old blankets while the teachers read them bible stories and quizzed them on what they had learned the previous week.  After the bible study, food was served.  

I have pretty strong views on religion and I respect other people's beliefs, but I've always had a difficult time with proselytizing, which is basically what was going on here.  From what I could tell, the kids attended in order to get food.  I'm not sure they really understood what was being taught to them.  However, the experience was a good reminder for me that my role as an OT is not to impose my views or beliefs on the client.  Client-centered practice is a big thing in the OT world.  It means we assess and intervene within the context of the client, we take their lead on what is important to them and work WITH them, not ON them. So while I may not have agreed with the bible-study part of the feeding program, I understood that it was not my role to change that and that I needed to work within the context of the children's lives...and this was their context.  That being said, I observed the bible-study, even participated a bit in some of their songs.  But what I enjoyed most was being able to interact with the children afterwards.  They loved the attention we gave them, they loved having their pictures take.  Half of our group played with the kids and kept them entertained while the other half worked on fitting them with shoes.  

The kids loved their new shoes - many of the boys even got soccer cleats (soccer is HUGE in Ghana).  We noticed that some of the kids immediately took of their new shoes and put their old shoes back on.  Come to find out, they wanted to keep their new shoes clean so they could wear them to school.  Initially I thought that these were kids living alone on the street, but after speaking with some of them, I realized that they actually lived with their families.  In Ghana, many people come to Accra from rural parts of the country looking for work.  Many families then find themselves essentially homeless and they take shelter in communities like the one we were in.  Despite the circumstances, the kids seemed pretty happy.  It was nice to be able to do something for these kids.