World Malaria Day

This past week, on April 25th, people in many countries celebrated World Malaria Day. Malaria, a disease that has been eradicated in the United States for many years (Malaria eradication as told by The Seven Dwarves may be a helpful resource here ), still plagues the poorest countries all over the world and is one of the number one killers of children and pregnant women here in Senegal. While World Malaria Day may have gone unnoticed in the U.S. (I don’t remember every hearing about it back home), Peace Corps volunteers all over Senegal were working to raise awareness in their communities.

To prepare our families, my training group and I did a small activity to underline the importance of sleeping under an insecticide treated net every night (pictured below). Long-Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets (or LLINs) are by far the most cost-effective way to help prevent malaria in communities. The female anopheles mosquito, the only type responsible for transmitting malaria, feeds primarily at night so getting every member of a household to sleep under an LLIN every night has the potential to drastically reduce the number of people getting infected with malaria every year. LLINs are available to families for free or highly subsidized through a campaign called Universal Coverage and in many parts of Senegal, access to an LLIN is not always the biggest barrier.

Peace Corps, one of a few major actors working to eradicate Malaria in Senegal, asked the trainees in the health program to lead a demonstration on the proper way to repair and care for an LLIN. As you can imagine, LLINs are not effective if they have holes, are dirty, or have been poorly maintained and lost potency over the years. Any holes should be sewn immediately, nets should be washed with ordinary soap (not detergent or bleach), and hung in the shade. You should also avoid over-washing your net and try to wash it gently while still removing all dirt.

To convey this message to our families, we translated and rehearsed the necessary dialogue in Pulaar, gathered our supplies (including a very old and damaged mosquito net), and set to work explaining and sewing. While, our families certainly already knew how to wash and sew, I can’t help but feel like we still helped our families by reiterating the message and highlighting that Malaria is still a problem that people around the world are talking about. If nothing else, seeing three Americans sew up an old net removed any stigma they might have about hiding old or damaged nets rather than making them useful again.

This was definitely a highlight of the training process for me so far. More people get sick with Malaria in the South where I will be serving and with the rainy season coming up soon after I arrive in village, I could very quickly be confronted with a harsh reality about Malaria in Senegal. I am looking forward to planning similar programs at my permanent site and seeing where I can best serve my community in the fight against Malaria. For more information, check out http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/worldmalariaday/. Thanks for reading and Happy Trails!

Hello Again From Chilly Thies This Time

That’s actually an alliteration, the city is pronounced Ches. It’s still pretty warm but compared to the 110+ heat in the south, the training center here feels like an oasis. I got back from my site on Monday night (it’s about a 12 hour trip in a Peace Corps bus but that is the shortest it will ever be). Traveling on public transportation between Kolda and Dakar is likely to take two days since it is not always safe to travel after dark. Peace Corps has houses in every region that I can stay in so I won’t have to worry about lodging along the way. Things might change if we are able to go through the Gambia in the next couple of months (right now the Gambia isn’t letting any Senegalese transportation vehicles in) but even then the trip could still take 8-10 hours.

Over the weekend, I got to visit my village and two nearby villages where there are other volunteers placed. I met the health worker at my local health hut, the nurse at the regional health post, and my permanent host-parents. My father is the chief of the village and my mother is the president of the local women’s group. I will be their first volunteer but I think many of their children are older and studying in Kolda and there is also a teacher from the local French school who lives in the compound. The work counterparts that I met (the health workers at the health hut and post) both seem very friendly and easy to work with. I am hoping that working with them as well as living with the Chief will give me some amount of borrowed credibility as soon as I hit village.

Peace Corps recommends that in my first three months in village, I focus on improving my language skills and integrating into the community rather than trying to start health projects right off the bat. Getting to know my counterparts, my family, and my village well when I first get there will help me be a more effective health worker in the long run. I am looking forward to that time to get adjusted and settle in, as well as learn more about the projects that the other local volunteers have started since their time here. While I was visiting, my two site-mates talked to the nurse at the health post about building a Moringa garden (the Moringa tree produces highly nutritious fruit that can be added to almost any recipe without really altering the flavor but greatly increasing the nutritional value of the meal) so that is at least one thing that I can also be involved with when I arrive at site.

My village is only 7 KM away (30ish minute bike ride) from the regional capital where there are three other volunteers stationed and there is a regional house where other Kolda volunteers come to use the electricity, internet, refrigerator, and hand-painted Twister board.

In other news, biking in the sand is really really really really hard. Any momentum that you have built up from dirt or pavement doesn’t mean a thing, when you hit the sand you just stop. Over the weekend, the biking was okay… I only actually fell off once but there was a lot of walking through sandy patches and stopping and restarting. I think I am most glad that I got to practice biking so that I am not so shocked by it when I first have to move in to my village. I will also need to learn a thing or two about bike maintenance. The bike I had over the weekend had a bent chain and shifting gears wasn’t really an option, so it would have been nice to know how to fix that, but baby steps, I guess.

This week’s list of things that I miss from the U.S. include new TV and good coffee. The new season of Game of Thrones started and I am sort of bummed to be missing it but it seems like the volunteers in site have ways of keeping up to date with movies, music, and TV so no spoilers please. I just read an email from my Mom where she spoiled the ending of How I Met Your Mother, so no more! The coffee here is mostly instant and my dreams of being able to buy whole coffee beans and grind them with mortar and pestle have yet to be realized, so Nescafe it is for now.

This evening, we leave for another stay with our CBT families in Thies. We will be there for a little over two weeks so I probably won’t have the chance to post anything new for a while. Thanks for reading and Happy Trails.

Back in the land of spotty internet (for the record, this post was ready to go yesterday but the internet was not) at the Thies Training Center and life is pretty good. Today we took a midterm about the different Peace Corps’ health activities throughout Senegal and we got our final site announcements *drumroll please*…. Sare Gueladio! Yea, don’t worry, I didn’t know it existed either. It’s a small village (371 people) in the southern region of Kolda. I am about 7km away from the regional capital (also called Kolda). There is a Case de Sante (or Health Hut) in my village and a larger regional health center in Kolda. I will be the first volunteer in my village but within 10km, there is another health volunteer, two agriculture volunteers, and a community and economic development volunteer. I AM PUMPED! On Thursday, I leave for Volunteer Visit and will spend three days in Kolda with a current health volunteer so after that I will definitely report back.

Rather than another play-by play of this last visit with my CBT family, I thought I would summarize some of the skills that I have already acquired and developed since being in Senegal, and some of those that could still use some work...

Skills I’ve learned in Senegal:

Keeping my food stash secret

This is crucial to survive with your food in village. In Senegalese culture, it is rude not to share food and if anyone sees you eating, they are sure to demand some. Funny enough, the training center is good preparation for this since trainees are liable to jump you for trail mix or chocolate from the States if you’re not careful (guess we’re not so different after all). A shout out to my sister, Rebecca, for getting me a sweet Swiss Army Knife that has seen a lot of action peeling carrots and slicing mangoes, apples, and a papaya!

Variety of tasks that involve asbestos hands

One of Gramma MickIe’s many claims to fame was her ability to pull dishes straight out of the oven without mits. I never thought I would have missed inheriting that trait but in Senegal, it’s a necessity! I’m working on it though. Making tea in a metal kettle that’s directly on hot coals and eating hot meals with your bare hand are just two of the many reasons why I’m not so grateful to have pain receptors in my fingers at the moment.

Squatting

It’s not just for exercise anymore. Eating, using a Turkish Toilet, and doing laundry are just a few of the many times in a day when you may have to hold a squat position for an extended period of time. Between that and a daily bike ride, I should be developing some impressive leg muscles in the next two years.

How to greet someone for more than 5 minutes (without actually learning anything about their life) in one of Senegal’s 7 local languages

Greetings are crucial in Senegal but coming from the go-go-go attitude in America, it definitely takes some adjusting. Here it is customary to greet all family members as well as other people in the community, but it’s not just a simple “Hello, have a nice day.” It’s not uncommon to ask about a person’s health, sleep, dreams, parents, children, job, and household on top of the initial “How are you?” Greetings are different at different times of day and also depend on who you are greeting. Perhaps the most frustrating part is that the answer to all these questions is almost always “Jam Tan” or “Peace Only.” Even if your parents are sick, work isn’t going well, and you couldn’t sleep a wink, the answer is “Jam Tan.”

Handling dirty children! And avoiding shaking all of their hands.

So, I already sort of thought that babies were dirty but some kids here make kids in the U.S. look like hypochondriacs. And they all want to shake my hand. I have gotten pretty good at just doing a quick high five and one trick that seems to work really well is the fake-out handshake where I take my hand away right before they get there.

Ignoring harassment

Everyone’s favorite word when they see a white person in “Toubab.” I hear people shouting it from across the street when I walk by and kids run to catch up to me just to make sure they are really seeing a Toubab in the flesh. It gets pretty obnoxious but I am doing okay with it. It’s also very satisfying when I stop to greet people and they are shocked that I speak in Pulaar rather than French.


Skills I still need to work on:

Bartering!

This is a must almost everywhere in Senegal. Bartering is possible at the market, on public transportation, and for services (like getting clothes tailored). But, it requires some language skills that are definitely beyond my current level. Not to mention that the people with whom you are trying to bargain may be of a different ethnic group and speak a completely different language. Most volunteers, I have talked to recommend learning enough Wolof to be able to greet and negotiate, if necessary, for goods and services.

Navigating both on foot and using the deceptively organized public transportation system.

So, even in the U.S. I am famous for having a terrible sense of direction. I still can barely make it from UMBC to a friend’s house in Catonsville without getting lost. Now, imagine that all the roads are sand and dirt paths and take a gamble on how I am doing. At CBT, I made the mistake of using a construction site as one of my landmarks, but as they get closer to building the house, I am realizing that I may need to re-evaluate that idea.

Biking

Peace Corps has yet to let us get on the bikes that we will have for the next two years and try them out. I’ll be biking for the first time this weekend when I do my Volunteer Visit in Kolda, so that should be a great first impression for all the current volunteers I am meeting…

Living with almost no access to current events

This one doesn’t really bug me until someone mentions it and I realize how little I know. I mean, a lost plane? Really? Really?!

Yesterday, I rocked my orange and black for the O’s and I guess it worked. I am still bummed that I stayed in Baltimore through an entire Ravens Season just to be yanked away less than a month from Opening Day but what’re ya gonna do? Let’s go O’s!!

I’ll be back from Kolda on Sunday so hopefully I will have some good stories and fewer scars. Happy April Fool’s Day and Happy Trails.