the doctor's in...always

Development and progress is so hard to achieve in places like rural Africa for many reasons- one being the incredibly small amount of time that people are physically able to be productive due to external circumstances such as no power, broken transportation and above all personal health. just from what i have seen...the average ghanaian (if he or she is lucky) will be sick/unable to work for at least one day a week due to some kind illness. even if they are able to come to work their productivity significantly decreases. This is not new- it is a very well known fact but it reaches a new level of recognition when you have a staff of 12 in 3 different rural village libraries and each day you expect at least one or two to be sick and even unable to work. This is a way of life for these people and they have designed their culture and economy around adapting to this lifestyle of limited full capacity productivity. here, malaria is more common than the common cold in the US. it is pointless to take a preventative pill everyday if you live here and many do not take the pills to fight the parasite once they have it. It is such a common and frequent disease and few can afford the medication. Even if you can- some would rather live with it than take the pills that would have side effects to stop you from working for 3-4 days. Example- my boss Lucas, who refused to take the pills for malaria because they made him sleep all day. he had had malaria so much that if it is under 3 plus- he would rather just live with it.