We make our way along the main road of Humjibre, greeting local residents as we march uphill. “Yes, here we are,” Mensah declares, double checking his clipboard. I follow Mensah down a short and dusty alley, taking a sharp right, where we meet a mother and her two children sitting on their veranda. The lady smiles at us warmly, greeting us in Sefwi. The children see me and point their tiny fingers in my direction. “Abroni, abroni!” Their mother shushes them. GHEI’s community health workers (CHWs) have recently visited this household to conduct a survey monitoring bednet use in our community. The purpose of our visit is to verify information collected by our CHWs. GHEI’s health team runs regular spot checks of randomly chosen households included in the initial survey to make sure that we’re on the right track and that our surveys are correctly gathering the information we need to support the community in reducing the occurrence of malaria.
Mensah leads me through a few of the questions on his clipboard, translating from Sefwi into English for my benefit as he interviews the mother of this particular household. “You see, we want to know how many rooms there are in the house. And not just how many rooms, but also how many sleeping sites, as one room might have many sleeping sites,” Mensah explains. The lady informs Mensah that her house has two sleeping sites, but that they only have one bednet. Mensah then kindly encourages her to purchase another bednet from GHEI, adding that they are quite cheap since we subsidize the cost. She agrees, saying she had meant to come sooner since her last bednet was torn, but had been too busy around the house recently.
Mensah wraps up the interview, thanking the woman for her cooperation and gently reminding her to get a new bednet for her home. She cordially agrees and, smiling, offers both of us some fruit she had been peeling throughout the interview. “Ah yes, paw-paw,” he clarifies for me. “Very ripe at this time of the year. It’s like mango, but better!” We both take a couple of pieces of the bright orange fruit, savouring the sweet juices with each bite. “Wonderful! You see, when you join the health team, from time to time you get to chop some paw-paw!” Mensah says, laughing heartily.
From there, I split off from Mensah to join Aggie Obeng, our other health program assistant. She leads me across the main road and uphill through various paths to the other end of the village. Along the way people greet us happily. After a short hike, we arrive at the address listed on her clipboard. We stand in the centre of a family's housing compound, looking around for the head of the household. The only people in sight are some small children playing between the houses. Aggie asks the older of the two boys to call on their father. The small boy explains that his father is inside watching television and is not feeling very well, but that he would see if he’s up for talking with us. A few moments later the man emerges from his home looking rather groggy. He’s kind enough to run through the series of questions with us despite feeling under the weather. As he and Aggie carry on in Sefwi, my eyes wander around the family compound, from the grazing sheep between the houses to the boys roughhousing with one another noisily. A small girl appears from around the corner of one building, carrying her baby brother on her hip. She points, showing me to the infant. The baby takes a quick look at me and immediately shrieks in terror, bursting into tears.
“Okay,” says Aggie, “he has given us permission to see one of the sleeping sites to see how they are using the bednets.” We walk up to a small room where we are greeted by a young woman and welcomed into her home. Aggie allows her to explain how she hangs the bednet and tucks it into her mattress, without suggesting whether she is correct or not in her method. We thank her and pause for a moment between the houses for Aggie to jot down some notes.
We visit two more families, each going about their evening routines of peeling cassava and plantain for their families’ evening serving of fufu. It’s encouraging to see how welcoming our interviewees are. No one seems to mind our presence or hesitates to offer a few moments of their time for our interviews. It’s a pleasure to observe our health team in their element out in the community, verifying the information that GHEI needs to continue strengthening our malaria prevention program in Humjibre and the surrounding communities
Next week Aggie and Mensah will accompany our CHWs as they conduct more bednet use surveys around Humjibre. It is these spot checks and accompanied visits that ensure we remain on the right track by confirming the accuracy of the information we collect. GHEI has made great strides in reducing malaria among our communities, and reliable information plays a key role in evaluating our work effectively and making improvements to our malaria prevention program.
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