Bring on the Mosquitoes

First there is the rain. (By the way, I got my room fixed but it hasn’t rained since so I don’t know how well it was fixed. We will see.) Second, everything turns green. It is so nice to see bits of grass filling in the sand and the baobab trees have leaves again! Third, mosquitoes hatch… many, many mosquitoes.

This year, good ol’ president Wade made a President’s Malaria Initiative . USAID funded hundreds of thousands of mosquito nets. The department of Bambey (kinda like a county) received over 34,000 nets. What they do is pair up mosquito net coupons with Vitamin A supplements and Mebendazole distrib. Teams of Senegalese go into the bush and around the city door-to-door giving the vitamins and coupons to kids. Obviously this is hard work! And then pregnant women and people with kids age 0-5yrs come in to the Health Centers with their coupons to get the nets.

I heard about all this and went to a meeting to see if I can help. I paired up with World Vision since I already had a relationship with some people from the office. We became part of the supervision team. Yesterday, I went out with Bruno (world vision dude) to 3 different health centers distributing everything to check on the system. Today, I went with 5 others in an SUV (air conditioned – amazing) to three other sites (a long ways down a horrible road – not amazing). All in all… management of these health centers is HORRIBLE. There are so many people sitting around with screaming kids in the heat waiting in long lines for their nets. There is no easy way to show proof for ages of kids besides seeing the kids themselves. Birth certificates don’t exist, only vaccination cards but only people who want them have them. There are so many problems with all of this. Sometimes rumors exist that meds given cause infertility so moms don’t let their kids receive the vitamins. Nets aren’t hung since it’s hot so people sleep outside. There are so many nets given away for free that they don’t see their importance. Sometimes people really want them so they make the kids go 2 or 3 days in a row to take heavy doses of meds. And then management of it all is also difficult. There may be 2 or 3 health centers but like over 30 villages without transport since all the horses are used in the fields for tolling and planting, getting ready for the rain. We went around to ten houses asking if people had come around. It’s a cultural thing, like a superstition, to mention how many kids you have or if you are pregnant is bad luck; like if you talk about it, it causes a stillborn or a death of a child. So we tried to do a survey of 10 houses but it took over 2 hours to get all the answers! I am exhausted!

I have now decided it is just not possible for me to go back out again tomorrow. I am so tired I can hardly think! The heat of the afternoon and not nearly enough water and food… tomorrow I am going to say it is a day to recuperate. But get this: I have to talk with people at the mayor’s office, send a fax at the post office, eat lunch at my women’s group’s president’s house, call and talk to my fish salesman, go to CDEPS and personally drag my work partner (he’s the kind of guy that is better than us since he’s a man) to a training for another women’s group on porridge.
So next week – I am going on vacation. For the fourth of July there will be a PCV party in Kedougou. It’s a long ways away but should be fun. I’ll fill you all in when I’m back. In the mean time, I’ll be sleeping, inside my net away from all the mosquitoes!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I think I am getting really close to getting some concrete work done here in Senegal. How long has it been? Oh yea, I’ve been here for over 9 months! Geez. Honestly, sometimes it feels like all I do is meet and talk with people about working but never really work, per se. I have a list in my calendar of people that I need to call and schedule meetings or remind them of meetings to come. During these meetings, we first discuss how the family is and how my work is and what we plan on doing together, but really, we haven’t done that much yet. I’ll give some examples:

I have 2 women’s groups that I work with. One has been interested in doing a compost facility. I have met with the president of the group several times and now twice with a small array of the group’s members. We watched a DVD on the compost project that former volunteers did and discussed a bit about how we can change it to make it work here. To tell you the truth, I am so excited to get this going that I have too keep reminding myself to slow down so I don’t get disappointed. I talked to my supervisor about it tonight who immediatly took me to people working in the mayor's office. I just wanted to talk to him, my supervisor, about it and wasn't preparied to meet with officials. I guess it went alright and we should be planning another film watch and discussion soon. I'll keep you posted.

I got a call from a guy named Demba a few weeks ago who got my number from a volunteer down the road. He wants to do a training with me with 2 other women’s groups to make a vitamin rich porridge. I am all about this training and meeting all the women in the groups, but we, again, have been talking about doing this training now for the last 3 weeks. Maybe it will be tomorrow, as scheduled. Maybe.

My other women’s group has been all talk as well, but they are saving up money monthly so hopefully we can do a large tie-dying project in the future. Lamine, my fish salesman, and I planned a day to go out into the bush together. I stopped by his house the day before we were scheduled to leave and said everything was set up. I got picked up the next morning at 5ish and found no Lamine, but the other 3 guys from the last time. Lamine has been pretending to change his accounting system to please me, but he isn’t the one going out into the village and just writes the books up for me when I get there. Good to know I guess. The trip into the bush was worthwhile though: there is a women’s group there that wants funding so I got their contact info and will put them in contact with World Vision here in Bambey. Oh, side story: when I was meeting with the women, they wanted to make it official so introduced me to their religious leader. (Keep in mind, I work directly with the religious marabou in Ndem) The two women brought me over to him. They took off their shoes and knelt down in front of him, never looking him in the eye, to show respect. Naturally, the expected me to do the same. I have officially knelt down in front of a man…ah. What a complex he must have, thank goodness I am working with women! Don’t get me wrong, I do curtsey for elders here, which is something I had trouble with in the beginning, but not getting up from a kneeling position?! Really?!

I have plans to do a bit of work with Pres Wade’s Malaria Initiative. It’s a nation-wide thing and I will go to the meeting on Friday to see what I can do here in Bambey to help and next week I am going to our regional capital to do mosquito net distribution. Also, have plans to work with another volunteer put the Ndem catalogue on a CD to send to American clients…. Want to sell their products? http://www.maamsamba.com/ Let me know! In between all this work, I need to figure out how to repair my roof before the next storm. It rains just about as much in my room as out. Filled 4 bowls of water during the storm and cleaned for 2 hours after that. Not something I want to do until the end of August!

All that else is new is that Gista, the puppy, sat on command today while I was holding a bone from dinner rather than jumping. She’s learning! Oh, and I think I am allergic to ocotpus... long story, but we went to the beach, boiled and grilled octopus and about 5 hours later I broke out in hives. Real attractive in a swim suit! Haha! Happy summer!

Power is Out

Bambey has been out of electricity so much this week, there is no where to find ice. Without a fan, my room acts just as an oven would, metal roof and very small windows with screens. I would love to leave my door open but tend to not wear enough clothes that is socially acceptable. Saw my thermostat at 105. It’s official – Africa is hot.

The other day, during a straight 10 hour power outage, I was at a funeral ceremony for my host mom’s dad’s second wife. Technically (well, not really), since I am my host mom’s mom, the woman who passed away was my co-wife. You get it? At this funeral, they rented 320 chairs, 3 big tents and cooked food for everyone, and we were all served at once! There weren’t enough chairs, nor rice to go around. I have never seen so many people all in one spot. It was a big deal, and felt weird to know everyone knew me (could be the fact that I stick out, with or without my Senegalese garb on), who my namesake was and how I somehow have replaced her in a way. This culture is particular, but interesting. Anyways, it was frickin’ hot with no cold water to be found.

We had a successful artisan expo this weekend. Planning for it was a bit stressful contacting all the volunteers to contact all their artisans. Keep in mind we don’t all have cell phone access and internet connections to make life easier. But as for the expo, we had about 12 artisans selling to all the expats and a few locals at a private club in Dakar. It was incredibly successful since the artisans sold their products very well – everything from clothing, sandals, juices and jewelry. It was great! We hope to have another one in time for Christmas presents.

As for other work, I have been busy meeting people to schedule other meetings. Maybe I am not really getting anything done just yet, but we all plan on it! I have several women’s groups; now I think I am up to 4 who all want to do different projects. I met with someone today that thinks classes to teach Microsoft Office would be nice. I saw my fisher salesman the other day. He wasn’t feeling well so his kids went out without him. I got there around 5 and they hadn’t made it back yet. Lamine called them and come to find out, they ran out of gas! I left Lamine’s at 6 and the boys found gas and were making their way back…. Glad I didn’t choose that day to go along! Who knows when the got back but Lamine said they left at 4 am.

Everything is good! I am getting real good at telling men off, and I really love working with women. Hope you are all enjoying late spring/ early summer while I am already looking forward to the feeling of goosebumps in February!