Texts from my Hut

Technology has made Peace Corps service a drastically different experience today than it was 50 years ago. I’ll write more one day about the pluses and minuses of having an iPod in village but today I’d like to focus on another gadget that the first volunteers half a century ago didn’t have – the cell phone. My phone keeps me sane, plain and simple. My day is made infinitely better by texts and phone calls that let me know my friends are experiencing the same highs/lows/frustrations/exultations and cultural misunderstandings that I am. I also have some pretty hilarious friends here.

Please enjoy this first installment of Texts from My Hut…all messages will remain anonymous to protect the dignity of senders and receivers.

-My fam just crushed up aspirin and put it directly on this cut thing behind the baby’s ear. WTF.

-Things I find challenging include not picking scabs

-Cipro is magic. Feel so much better.

-I love not wearing pants. They’re such an imposition.

-I think it might be time for pantsless dash to the douche.

-Ways to know you have bad hygiene: today I washed my hair for no reason other than I accidentally pulled too much water, so I though “ugh, might as well”

-By the way, I told my mom I wipe my butt with my hand. She doesn’t believe me. She’s sending tp

-I have a lot of those moments. I think my pc service will be my selective memory’s greatest challenge yet.

-What am I doing? Oh, you know, just attracting the crazies, like usual.

Let the Fasting Begin

Sadly with all of this momentum built up post-IST I will be returning to village at potentially the least work-conducive time of year: Ramadan. Yes, Senegalese Islam is somewhat more relaxed than elsewhere but I have been told that this is one thing they do take seriously. Starting tomorrow (assuming the moon plays along) there will be no eating or drinking between sun up and sun down.

Volunteers all take their own approach to Ramadan, with some not even attempting to fast and others going the whole month. There is no expectation (in most areas) that we will fast. We are not only recognized at not Muslim, but generally seen as weak and child-like (thus the surprise when I actually pull my own water from the well). However, most volunteers give fasting a try simply to better understand what everyone else will be feeling for the next month, even if just for a day or two. I plan to try to fast – but will still drink water, I’m not that crazy – for a few days just to see what it’s like. I see this as an exercise akin to living in the same homes, eating the same foods and taking the same kind of bucket baths as everyone else – it’s a way for me to better understand the community, what they’re going through day-to-day and how it impacts their health.

Now, I’m probably going to cheat. I mean, let’s be honest – anyone who’s lived with me knows I can get a little grouchy when hunger sets in (remember that morning in Laos, Maria Li?). But I really will make the effort for a few days and probably pretend not to eat lunch the rest of the month while actually sneaking power bars in my hut (apparently, the lunch that is made for the kids is usually unappealing leftovers from the night before – no thank you). I’m also planning to try out my new nutritional porridge recipes so that when work gets going in September I’ll be ready (and maybe supplement the kids’ diets this month if I can get them to be taste testers). I will also be spending a bit more time in Kolda than usual in order to prepare visual aids and work on the language textbook that Sharon and I have volunteered to revise.

IST: Together Again

My two weeks of in-service training have ended after what seemed like a marathon of 45-minute technical sessions, debriefs and recaps. The topics we covered ranged from action planning to tree planting, grant writing to mango grafting, and porridge making to pest management. Many of the sessions were led by older volunteers whose insight into what works – and more importantly what doesn’t – will be incredibly useful. After the first week, my fellow stagieres and I were uniformly pumped to head back to village and start being “real” volunteers with our own projects and actual work to do. Unfortunately, IST lasted another (less inspiring) week and I for one left the Thies training center a bit overwhelmed with all of the possible projects – and their associated pitfalls – we can now choose from. After this inundation of information, blogging took a backseat to cheeseburger cravings and post-session cocktails (my apologies).

One of the nice parts of IST was seeing my training stage and hearing all of their crazy stories from the first two months at site. There are 44 of us left (2 ET, 2 med-sep) and for the most part I think everyone is doing really well. Those of us in the south (Kolda and Kedougou) bragged of the lushness of our regions and abundance of green, leafy trees. Those in the north grumbled about their never ending sand dunes and thorny bushes (however they didn’t hesitate to remind us of their far superior cuisine). Aside from a few mysterious rashes (aka Zombie Rash), lost toe nails, slimmer waist lines and chipped teeth we were no worse for wear.

Although IST was long and my enthusiasm waned by the 12^th day of 7-hour session, there are a few things I really can’t wait to try out in Sare Sara. One, is to begin a child nutrition project that my counterpart and the head of the woman’s group requested. I’m hoping to incorporate baby weighings, growth monitoring, causeries (casual information sessions), nutritional porridge making and potentially a community garden into the project. I would love to do some first aid training, and see about getting a relais or two (volunteer health worker) trained in my village, since at the moment there is no one with any sort of health training. The week before heading to Thies, my counterpart and I began scoping out wells in our village and the surrounding ones in order to continue my ancienne’s well rehabilitation project, so that is also in the works. So much to do! See the next post for why none can really happen for the next 30 days...

Getting a Census of Things

One of the biggest tasks we are charged with our first few months a site – aside from moving into a remote Senegalese village, learning the language and not contracting dysentery – is conducting a baseline survey of the community. As a health volunteer especially it’s important to know where I’m starting, and hopefully be able to show that things have changed for the better after two years.

Now, waltzing into a community with, at best, a tenuous grasp on the local language and culture isn’t the best time to begin asking about their latest prenatal visit or post-bathroom use habits. Everyone thinks I’m weird enough, thank you very much, I need to be building bridges not incinerating them. To ease into the process I decided to begin with a census of the entire village. Over the course of a few mornings, my female counterpart Mata and I visited every compound in Sare Sara to learn the age, sex, marital status, number of spouses, number of children and occupation of every man, woman and child. In somewhat broken Pular I explained my rationale for writing all of this down – “in order to help the village, I first need to know the people” – and Mata pretty much did the rest. Fortunately, everyone was incredibly receptive and seemed happy to be included in my first “project.” In addition to getting important demographic information on my village, I now have a cheat sheet with everyone’s names (which I admit I’m still far from knowing).

The second piece of my baseline entailed a visit to the nearby health hut in the neighboring village of Salamata (my closest Peace Corps neighbor, Jason, is a sustainable agriculture volunteer there). The health hut is a relatively nice building – thank you World Vision – constructed a few years ago but almost entirely empty of supplies and almost never open – thank you Senegalese health system. I arranged with the ASC (community health worker in charge of running the health hut) to get access to the health records and spent a morning copying 14 months’ worth of data.

After a bit of number crunching here are some of the preliminary results from Parts 1 and 2. Hope this gives you a better idea of what – and who – I’m working with out here…

Total number of compounds: 46

Total population: 422

Men: 128

Women: 116

Boys (14 and under): 90

Girls (14 and under): 88

Children under age 5: 72

Youngest: 1 wk

Oldest: 100 years

Number of farmers (men): 64

Number of gardeners (women): 59

Number of tailors: 3

Number of fishermen: 1

Number of students: 160

Number of pre-schoolers: 49

Number of university students: 1

Number of students enrolled in Koranic school: 4

Number of women of child bearing age: 98

Number of women with at least one successful pregnancy: 89

Babies born in the last year: 13

Average number of children per woman: 3.86

Visits to the health hut in the last 6 months: 114

Visits in the last 12 months: 290

Visits during the last 5-month rainy season: 112

Percentage of babies weighing in the healthy “green zone” September 2010: 53%

And in the moderately malnourished “yellow zone”: 47%

Percentage of babies weighing in the healthy “green zone” November 2010: 64.5%

And in the “yellow zone”: 35.5%

Most common health hut diagnosis: Upper respiratory infection

Other popular diagnoses: Trauma, Malaria, Headaches, Parasites and “infectious syndromes” (exact translation pending)

Less common diagnoses: High blood pressure, conjunctivitis and diarrhea

That’s just the beginning of what I’ll be finding out through direct questioning and covert observation over the next few months. I finally feel like my language and overall comfort within my village has reached a level where I am able to ask the trickier questions. In all honesty, I think I have more trouble asking these questions – I feel so nosey! – than people have answering them. I’ll just have to get over myself.

So how many latrines do you have?

And I'm Back!

Hi friends,

Apologies for my blog neglect recently, life has been hopping on this side of the pond for the past month and I haven't had the time or attention span to write much. I've been back up at the training center in Thies for the past week for IST (inter-service training), where I'll stay until next weekend. I'm hoping to churn out a few posts in the next few days to update everyone on what I accomplished my first 2 months at site, what I'm learning now and what I hope to do when I return south.

I know, the anticipation is almost too much to handle...more soon!

kp

Home Sweet Kolda

New Pictures of Kolda in full bloom!