Startin' Up Work

My brother Cheik and I- best Koto Ke (older brother) in the world

I’m back in the bright bustling of city of Thies, trying to take advantage of the abundance of power and internet access to write a blog post before we head back to Kedougou. We came up here along with all the other new(ish) volunteers from our stage almost two weeks ago for IST- In Service Training. IST consists of a whole bundle of trainings and sessions on actual technical skills, project suggestions and design, and development theory. The days are long- we start sessions at 8 am and usually aren’t done till 6 or so in the evening. But, disreguarding a couple particularly tedious sessions, they have generally been extremely helpful and informative. I find myself now at the end of this IST full of project ideas, perhaps a bit overwhelmed, but most of all ready and excited to return to site and start work.

And, whilst on the subject, I wanted to write about the beginnings of my work back in ol’ Misirah Dantila.  Somewhere around the beginning of July all of us health volunteers organized a Neem Cream tour throughout the Kedougou region. Neem is a miracle tree (though I think it’s actually invasive in Senegal) whose leaves have a myriad of magical anti-bug properties. It is used in gardening as both a prevention and a treatment for all sorts of pests. And, happily, it can be used to make a really effective mosquito repellant lotion! This is, or at least has the potential to be, a godsend in the fight against malaria in Senegal and throughout Africa.

Leah and a wonderful woman from my village stirrin' up a batch of neem lotion

Malaria is particularly endemic in my region of Kedougou, and cases have been sky rocketing now that rainy season and its accompanying mosquitoes have arrived full force. Despite universal bed-net coverage all sorts of people (siblings, villagers, even our nurse) have been falling ill. Tragically a little girl in my compound died a month or so ago from malaria and severe pneumonia. Her name was Sokxna- she was beautiful and cute as could be. One night I was playing music for all my villagers when my brother told us to knock it off cause Sokxna was sick. The very next morning I found out she had passed away in the night. The funeral had already taken place and the period of mourning already passed (grief is expressed by women screaming and crying at the top of their lungs. For little children, though, only a few hours or a night of crying is acceptable- testament to the frequency of infant death in developing societies I suppose).  This event and making sense of it afterwards was extremely upsetting. But I include it here in the hopes of showing a concrete example of the often too abstract nature of our work. We work in big generalities- fight malaria, improve maternal and child health- but it boils down to specifics like preventing this tragic and avoidable death.

Thus in July we organized a big regional Neem tour where we went from village to village teaching folks, especially women, how to make this homemade and quite affordable Neem Lotion.  Leah, a second year health volunteer, and I kicked off the Saraya region part of the tour in a tiny town near mine called Touba Kouta. We bicycled in to Touba Kouta in the morning of the 10^th (I think), finding the friendly village health worker and not a single woman to do the demonstration with. Slowly though they began filtering into our little shade structure and pretty soon we had a big, enthusiastic crowd.

 We began with a petite causerie (not sure the word in English- means a small, informal information sharing session) as to what malaria is, who knows how you get it, why it’s bad, etc.. Then we moved on to the neem making demonstration. We divied out tasks, some women cuttin’ up soap and some stirring the boiling water, Leah and I slowly explaining each simple step in Jaxanke. Pretty soon the women had themselves a huge batch of this frothy, creamy mosquito repellant (it looks kind of like lemon mousse- ah, how delicious would that be!). We doled it out so everybody could get a sample, smearing some of the leftovers on our arms and legs to demonstrate how to put it on.  Everyone clapped afterwards and were so thankful and enthusiastic, all energized about Neem and fighting malaria and so on. Leah and I left with huge smiles and happy hearts, basking in the success of this prototypical Peace Corps causerie.

Some of the women at the Misirah Dantila demo, pre-chaos

This basking turned out to be quite short lived though, cut down by the ridiculous chaotic failure of our next demonstration in my village! Back in my village two more volunteers, Kate and David, showed up and my brother Cheik put out a call over the loudspeaker at the Mosque for all the women of the village to come to my compound for the demonstration. Though there was by no means every woman at the causerie, we probably ended up with 70 women and 100 people in total! Given these numbers, the initial rounds of the talks and demonstrations were surprisingly peaceful. Everyone was very interested, quiet and interactive, all lending a hand and helping out with the triple batch of neem that we were trying to make.

When it came time to dole out little samples (every women who came was supposed to get a little bit) all hell broke loose! Women started shouting and grabbing, clinging at my arms and trying to block out each other in hopes of being first in line for Neem. I looked over and Leah was in similar straits, her bucket of neem held out over her head as a million crazy little ladies surged forward and tried to climb up her. I yelled at her to jump ship and we just dropped our spoons and neem, abandoning the mob to their own devices. This unleashed still more chaos! Some women got whole buckets dumped down their shirts as they played tug of war with others, and one crafty woman even stole a bucket and jumped a fence in hopes of escaping her outraged pursuers. Ha! It was pure craziness! In the end just about nobody got anything, the majority being spilled on the ground or on women themselves. As soon as there was nothing left to fight about, though, everybody calmed down and it was as if there had never been a near riot. Everyone was laughing and thanking us, back to their regular ‘peace only’ greetings and life.

The next day we forged on, on to a bunch of other communities and just as many stories. Over all it was a great, amazing experience. To be sure, I learned things that I will do differently next time, but we reached a lot of people and found a lot of interest. Too, I personally felt so good to have started work, experienced my first round of successes and failures, and to recognize that my language skills are getting to the point where I can comfortably, if still falteringly, do that work in Jaxanke. And now at the end of IST, armed with lots more knowledge and some good ideas, I am ready to head on back and keep on going.  

Ben and I in our Patriotic finest at the Fourth celebration

My favorite picture from IST- Chelsea and a baby kitty who was born here at the center during our PST- it's gotten so big!

Tambourines and Elephants!

This blog I actually wrote a couple weeks ago, so the timing is a bit off. Indeed it is now july 6th, which means I've been at site for about seven weeks. We just had a fantastic fourth of July party. All of the volunteers in Senegal came down to Kedougou to celebrate. We cooked 4 pigs (two of them in banana leaves in the ground), danced all day, and sent fourth great big joyful shouts of love towards ol' Amerique. Twas such a time! Now back to my out of date blog post-

Two cute little girls from my compound, both named Fanta!

June 22nd, 2011: I am back in Kedougou now, celebrating the end of my first five weeks at site. We were challenged to spend these five weeks without coming in to the regional house. Forsaking the big city charms of the house here (a kind of commune-esque series of huts actually) is supposed to make us all better volunteers in the long run, tougher and better equipped to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous village life fortune. For now, though, it seems like the Kedougou house itself is the true arrow slinger. Volunteers are fallin’ ill left and right, besieged by stomache issues and fevers and whathaveyous. I thankfully got my bout of sickness out of the way before coming here- spent four or five days lying around my hut with a high fever. But I maintain that it was not me that brought this plague to everybody else, for I had (mbe Allah tantoula) nary and intestinal problem during fevery days.

Overall things have been very good for me. With each passing week I find myself more and more comfortable in my village. I have been makin’ friends with folks and slowly learning the vocabularly to hold my own in absurd, loving and good natured insult matches: ‘You’re greedy and without manners!’ ‘Yeah? Well you lie and you are a perpetually joking woman’. ‘yeah, well ibe hoohoorin!’  I’m not exactly sure what hoohoorin is, but I think it has something to do with eating a lot (or my villagers just taught me a made up word cause it sounds so funny).  I explained to them Santa Clause, how he’s jolly and eats a whole bunch and says Ho Ho all the time. We concluded he must be hoohoorin as well.

I am slowly beginning to get a sense of the health situation of my village and opportunities for future projects.  Of course, malaria is one of the most immediate, grave problems.  It is particularly prevalent in our region of Kedougou, and will be coming in full force now that the rains are here.  Thanks to the recent volunteers Kedougou pioneered a universal bed-net distribution, so everyone should have a net to sleep under. There is still a lot of work to be done though, as many people use them improperly, claim they never got them, or refuse to use them at all. We also have a big push to teach people how to make and use neem lotion. Neem is a miracle plant that proliferates around here, the leaves of which can be used to make, among other things, a very effective bug repellent. Soon I will help conduct a big neem tourney in or Saraya region where we’ll be going from village to village teaching how to make the stuff.

Aerial view of Misirah Dantila, taken while repairing one of the roofs after a huge storm knocked off all the straw

Maternal and Child health is another huge focus of our work around here. Senegal, while blessed to have some really positive health indicators like a <1% HIV rate, has an extremely high maternal mortality rate. Too there are lots of opportunities and need to do childhood nutrition work. In Misirah Dantila and some of the surrounding villages I have been helping do baby weighing and vaccinations. Some kids are severely malnourished and every single one could use more vitamins and protein in their diets. Apart from that, I have begun to notice an inordinately high prevalence of cataracts in my village. So many old men shuffle around in their crappy flip flops (everyone in Senegal wears those cheap plastic beach flip flops), led around by a kindly child who acts as their eyes. I’ve heard stories of an eye clinic being set up here in Kedougou last year- Doctor’s from the U.S. actually came to work it. So I’ve told them I’ll do some snooping around and figure out if it’d be feasible to set up a traveling clinic in Misirah or another fairly central but way out in the bush town.

I should say that, though I’ve certainly been brainstorming and helpin’ out where I can, for the most part I’ve just been settlin’ in and hanging out these past weeks. At first it could be a source of stress, feelin’ like I’m not doing anything but chattin’ day in and day out when I should be working. But these first couple months are really meant for learning the language and the people and starting any serious projects is discouraged. So I’ve embraced the slow days and hanging out. I get up at 6:30, drink my mono corn porridge and go on my traditional round of greetings. I force myself to pass this one populated block of old, friendly, heckling women whose names are impossible to remember. And slowly I’m mixing up their last names less often,  but I still get a few wrong or have to sidestep my forgetfulness by claiming I’m in a hurry to greet my father.  After I make it to his compound and greet him and all the old, friendly, heckling men I am free. I hang out for a while and then take my leave. I slip back on my shoes (you have to take off your shoes to go into any important person’s house), point them in a direction, and see where the day takes me.

I almost always find some sort of adventure for my day- some folks will beckon me over to help them plant corn or a family will be repairing a hut and I lend my new found palm-rope making skills. This is cool, cause I always end up with new friends afterwards, and usually tea and invitations for lunch. I also spend a lot of time with the kids. We go on big searches through the bush for Saba’s- a green fruit whose yellow seeds taste incredibly like warheads. I also love to ask them about the animals around here. They will tell me a name of something- a Maloo for instance- that I have no idea. Then we will shift and maneuver language till we arrive at an understanding: ‘ it’s a huge, huge animal’ ‘An elephant?’ ‘No No- it lives in the river. It’s terrifying and dangerous’ ‘A crocodile? Does it eat people?’ ‘No it eats plants. And the smallest one is the size of a cow’ ‘Ah!! A Hippo!’. And so all of our conversations go about porcupines and hyenas and all manner of crazy sounding things that live around me.

I have also gone on a couple lovely trips whilst at site. Here is a picture of a trip to the waterfalls of Kafouri. My buddy Ben came off of his fungolimbi mountain and we met a current volunteer Jess there. So beautiful! I also have gone to see Marielle in Nafadji a couple of times. The last time I found a guy who claimed to play the djembe. After much goading he finally agreed to let me go get it, and pretty soon we had a big ol’ dance party going and kids were running in from everywhere. The coolest part, though, was to wake up the next morning and find all the little kids in her village making drums out of rusty coffee cans and scraps of cement bag paper.