Adventures

Even though I was in Ghana less than 48 hours ago, it’s already a blur. Ethiopia feels like it was 10 years ago. My family feels even farther away, but we are nearing the end of the trip.

Ghana- or “Africa Light” as Jean Baker put it to me, was a bit of a whirlwind. The flight was 6 hours from Ethiopia and we gained 3 hours time- the equivalent of flying New York to LA. We landed and were met by Ralph from the US Embassy. He cruised us through customs. Unbelievable! We got to the parking lot with all of the luggage and felt like we had gotten away with something.

Everyone in Ghana is talking about Obama’s upcoming trip there. The “Obama Hotel” will be opening soon. Like the “Obama café and Juice Bar”, it seems everyone takes claims to our President.

Our fixer, Eric, was a 23 year old “Ga” and was eager to please. In fact, he finally got a Visa for Kenny which no one else could do! We went to our hotel, The Golden Tulip, and met with our new photographer, Olivier. Olivier is a French-Canadian that lived in Ghana for 4 years. People we meet love that about him and he moves around with such ease.

So now we have a French-Canadian, 2 Americans, a South African, Eric our local young ghanain and Kwami, our driver. Kwami’s driving was terrifying, to say the least. Accra traffic is hideous, and people like Kwami are the reason why.

The first evening there, we headed out to Jamestown Harbor to get some scenic shots of Accra.

Jamestown harbor probably looks the same today as it did a few hundred years ago. Every morning before dawn, fishermen in long boats head out on the Ocean and return at Dusk. There are thousands of boats- quite a scene.

While we were shooting, I remembered why I was uneasy the last time I was there. The Ghanians HATE being filmed. We were yelled at and spit at. But Eric, our fixer, could speak the local language (GA) and told them we were there for a good cause. We had about a dozen “protectors” by the time the light was too dim to shoot any longer.

The following morning, we headed to the Osu Maternity Home to shoot our story about breast feeding. About 10 years ago, Unicef funded a program to educate and encourage women to breastfeed. The Ghanain Government took the reigns and implemented policy . The breast feeding program has had great success. We were surrounded by fat happy babies and yes….boobs. It was a true paradox from Ethiopia.

We witnessed a woman feed her baby right after she gave birth. No epidural, no screaming, no husband telling her to push…. Just simple quiet birth.

I love the Ghanian women I have met. They are strong and funny and support each other in a great way. We were shooting at a support group and one of the women referred to Kenny as “Plenty of hair” and to Keith as “cola nut head”. When I told them I had a one year old son, they all grilled me- “who is breastfeeding your son while you are gone?”.

Slideshow: Mothers in Ghana Learn About Breastfeeding Techniques

In Ghana, the shops have names, like “Psalm 91 Mangoes” or “The Annointed One Drum Shop”. They love the Lord.

We shopped for a minute in the afternoon and I created a video for Alexander. I bought a drum for him from a rasta man at the “Trinity Drum Shop”.

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It’s the rainy season, and Ghana didn’t let us down. It was dreary and we experienced a few torrential downpours. We spent our second and final day in Ghana heading to a mango farm a few hours outside of Accra. The program is excellent- USAID and several other organizations give seed money and education to farmers. It seems like anything can grow in Ghana’s climate, and the farmers have built great business. Not only are the educated re: farming, they also learn things like bookkeeping and CPR. The day we were there, the CPR class was taking place. I peeked in the room to find the teacher demonstrating CPR on a farmer laying flat on the floor. It was odd.

We didn’t have enough time to give the story real justice. And we missed the mango harvest by a week. It turns out NEXT week will be bustling with activity… it would be great to come back and film this agriculture story all over Ghana. I am not well versed on Ghana’s history and politics, but it’s clear that when a steady government takes over aid programs and implements policy, it creates sustainable success for its people.

We visited a rural breast feeding support group – more boobs for Kenny, Keith, and Olivier. As we headed back, we randomly stopped at a rural home to shoot some more b-roll. We had quite an experience there. We met Rebecca, a mother of 8 children with arms that Madonna or Michelle Obama would envy. We spent about an hour with the family as they prepared their evening meal. Rebecca had her children in a hospital b/c she learned in Ante natal classes that it was the best thing to do. She had to travel by boat to the hospital when she was in labor. Tough ride.. She breast fed all but her eldest child (something else she learned in her classes) and noticed a difference. We watched the kids work and play. At one point, one of the daughters was feeding the chickens and the youngest baby was sitting on the ground amongst them- the feed kept bouncing off the baby’s head as the chickens scrambled around him to eat. He looked like he was part of the hen peck. What a trip. I loved this family and I am glad we stumbled upon them on the road. Our hour there brought me a sort of peace I haven’t felt in some time.

We went back to the hotel and sipped pina coladas and listened to the lounge singer as he belched the worse rendition of “unchained melody” I have ever heard. The lounge singers were making up words to songs.. it was hideously delightful.

Then I got the call…..

We were heading to Cote D’Ivoire the following day ( I can’t manage to keep track of the days- I think it was Thursday). The final story we were planning to film was the story of a man named Kevin and his father, a tribal chief. Kevin became incredibly ill, and his father encouraged him to be tested for HIV. When the test was positive, the chief embraced his son, defying the cultural attitude. He set up HIV testing days in his village- went to every single appointment and support group meeting with Kevin. He gathered tribal chiefs together and encouraged them to have the villages get tested. Kevin was now working at a clinic, and his fiancé, also HIV positive, was pregnant- on PCMTCT drugs- which gives the babies a chance to be born HIV negative. It was a wonderful father son story and we were looking forward to filming. It was something we knew the world would relate to- a story that only happens once in a while and is a gem to capture. A story that was worth traveling across the world to witness.

Two nights before we came, Kevin’s Fiance went into early labor. It turns out, she was pregnant with twins.

There is a health workers strike taking place in Cote D’Ivoire right now, so she had no hospital to go to. The nuns at the clinic where Kevin works did everything they could to help Beatrice in labor. The first baby, a girl, died at birth. The second baby was struggling and so was Kevin’s Fiance. The night was going to be touch and go and no one was certain what would happen. The team at EGPAF (The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation) were scrambling to get Beatrice and the second baby into a private hospital- two hours away from the village. Everything was touch and go.

How do you win in Africa? What is winning? If you overcome the fact you have HIV by taking free ARV’s the government supplies and have the medicine to prevent your child from contracting HIV, but you have no incubators to help ensure the baby’s safe entry into the world, how do you move forward? If you take ARV’s, have a small amount of available health care, but no jobs or sanitation, how do you win?

As producers and photographers, we weren’t sure what to do. How do you tell this story? How do we roll in and invade their lives? Was Beatrice going to be alive when our plane landed? I knew the second baby – a boy- wouldn’t survive the night. He just wouldn’t . I wanted to be wrong. How do we tell this story of a man’s love for his son when the son just lost the chance to be a parent?

After several calls and emails back to the States, we figured it best to come to Cote D’voire and see what happens.

We spent the evening night in Nazret at “The German Hotel”. No air conditioning and lots of mosquitos. The rooms were bare, but the dining room had at least 20 of the ugliest chandeliers I’ve ever seen. We came to a consensus that communists built the place- not Germans. Kenny slept on his balcony. By now, we had a new addition to the group- Antonio- an Italian/Ethiopian still photographer we hired to replace Wondy. Wondy, our first hire was a fantastic “Olan Mills” photographer but a terrible field photographer with a very scary wife. It wasn’t working Antonio looks Ethiopian, but speaks with a heavy Italian accent- hands flying and all. He wears lots of jewelry.

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The following day, with the Patriarch’s blessing, we became the first film crew to shoot the holy site in several years. We made the trek down the mountain side (huffing and puffing) with our fixers, Solomon, and 2 hired “sherpas”. As we inched our way down the rocks, I looked through the trees of the Eucalyptus forest, and saw hundreds of people descending upon the holy site. I will add, they were mostly barefoot and MUCH faster than we were. People also sat among the trees deep in prayer- silent, stoic, sick.

 

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The clinic at Entoto also has an MDRTB clinic (drug resistant TB). Drug resistant TB is a death sentence, but this clinic – one of the only in the country- is a chance. I met Tseghe here, a 23 year old beauty, who would peek around corners and through windows watching us. I came to her to take her picture and she told me her story. She traveled over 700 kilometers by bus to the clinic.

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Please read my travel blog regarding my 17 days across Africa: the most phenomenal experience of my life.

The flight over was comfortable. Keith met me a Dulles and we flew together to Addis Ababa. We had a stopover in Rome- my first official visit to Italy- however, we didn’t even disembark from the plane. I will probably say this countless times, but I am so happy to have Keith on this journey!

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I’m incredibly excited to announce that I will be working for Home Front Communications on The Living Proof Project, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I leave for Africa at the beginning of June. I am exhilarated (because this is what I feel I was born to do). It will be incredibly hard to leave Alexander (my son) and Husband, Dave, but I know this is work I am meant to do.

I’ve begun consulting with 30 Point Strategies, under the wise leadership of Noam Neusner. I’ll be in charge of television media strategy for the Lebanese Renaissance Foundation. This is a remarkable group whose leaders pushed the Syrians out of Lebanon peacefully. The elections take place in June and are vital to the stability of Lebanon’s democratic process.

www.lebanonrenaissance.org

I’ll spend the next few months working for The World Science Festival Foundation. It’s their second annual event that takes science and brings it to the mainstream all over New York City. I’m very excited to see what they develop this year!

Learn more: www.worldsciencefestival.com

I had the privilege to cover the Inauguration for NBC News, Specials. I was posted on the capitol steps and around the VIP section. It was an amazing experience… so fun to work again for the Company that gave me the first shot in the television business.

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