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 10th (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!
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