MALARIA

I'm going to take some time and talk about how horrible malaria is and how preventable it is to eradicate.  Malaria is the #1 killer of children and pregnant women in Africa.  It's completely preventable because the virus is passed through only a certain type of pregnant female mosquito and it is not a long living virus.  If we can stop the spread and let the disease die, it will no longer be an epidemic.  This has already been accomplished in the USA.

The governments and NGOs in Senegal are currently doing a great job battling malaria.  There has been a widespread distribution of mosquito nets as well as malaria medication.  The medication for malaria is extremely subsidized and widely available at health huts and post de santes.  Transportation is often a problem, however, especially in the bush.  People also tend to wait to see if it will pass, which makes them sicker and the medication becomes more expensive.

So, you ask, what is the Peace Corps doing to help stop this horrible horrible disease?  One of the most basic things we can do are net tournees, in which we educate on the importance of using mosquito nets and how to take care of them (ie sewing up holes, how to wash them without ruining the chemicals, where to dry them).  we also talk about the importance of early treatment; not only for monetary reasons but health reasons as well.

As trainees we do not have the resources or language skills to fully communicate, but my language class was able to do a mini net tournee with our training families.  Here are some pics!!!

Site Visit

I finally got to go to my site!  I have to villages that are very close together with a total of around 400 people, which is a small to medium sized area.  I met my family and went house to house greeting the entire community.  Everyone was really nice and welcoming and I'm looking forward to living there.  I have my own hut and tiny backyard that contains my latrine and shower area, with a little room for some fruit trees or other plants.  I technically do not have a mother or father figure, since the parents of the compound died last year, but I have three brothers that are all under 35 and their wives and children.  One of their wives is around my age, and she has 4 children (including a new baby!) and the other is 18 with a one year old son.  They're really excited they get to have me which makes me excited!

Also, just so everyone knows, I can get a KITTEN when I move in.  Name suggestions can be given via email.

The village is in the process of building a health hut, which is exactly what is sounds like.  They are all around rural Senegal, and are run on a volunteer basis.  There is one person who is trained to be in charge of running it, called a relay.  Here people can have access to basic medication, including instant testing for malaria which is very important in the rainy season.  They also have basic first aid and medication available.

The next step up the health hierarchy is the post de sante, which is located 5k farther into the bush on a sandy road.  I had a tough time biking in the sand.  It's hard. I fell.... twice.  But the post de sante was nice and I was able to (kind of) speak with the ICP, who is in charge of running the facility.  Unlike the relay, ICPs have to graduate from high school and receive further training afterwards.  My particular ICP did not speak Pulaar, so we had to have a translator.  So the ICP was speaking in Wolof to her assistant, who then spoke Pulaar to the girl I'm replacing, who then spoke English to me, while the whole time I'm thinking they're speaking in French.  In my defense the Wolof was saturated with French phrases.

We also stopped by the school, and I think that the middle school especially will be a good place for me to have projects.  They also have a women's garden and an NGO called Totsan is in the village educating women on how the body works and what it needs to stay healthy.  They are also making an effort to teach them how to read, which was really great to see.  They handed out children's books written in Pulaar and a couple women read them in class.  Every household got one copy and they were excited.  The great thing, though, was that they kept at it!  When we were greeting everyone there were a couple women still trying to read the book and we could tell they had already improved.

I'm also very close to Kolda, which is the capital of the region Kolda.  It's a 5k bike ride which I thought was pretty easy.  We have a regional house there were we can go if we're feeling culturally tired or need a break.  There are no weekends here, or ever really a vacation since we always have to try and represent America in the best light, but the regional house is a sort of haven where we can rest.

So it was a great trip and it gave me more of an idea of what I'm actually going to be doing. I felt like when I left and people were asking me what I was going to be doing I made up answers or just flat out said I didn't know.  But now I have more concrete ideas, and after PST I can ask my community directly what they think they need help with.

So that's my life right now!  Things are going great and we're halfway done with PST!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYA!
EN BURINIHAN AKA BYE

CBT & Site Announcements

Our one month anniversary has passed!! It's been a great month and I already feel like I've learned so much.

I just got back from an 11 day stay with my CBT host family.  It was a really great stay.  They say it's the hardest one and if you can make it through you can probably make it through the service.  I was actually really sad when I left.  I love my family so much, I'm actually sad I won't be able to stay with them for the entire service.  My dad really believes in the Peace Corps and Volunteers in general and everyone really wants me to learn the language and is excited when I learn a new word or phrase.
     So let me describe an average day at CBT.  I'll wake up around 730/8, shower (bucket bath) and eat breakfast, which every day consists of bread and nescafe with a packet of dried milk.  They gave me a big thing of chocolate spread, but that got old quick.  They had also been giving me machine made bread, which I wasn't finishing because 1. it's a lot of fluff and 2. the kids get the eat the left overs.  So they got me a different kind of local bread, which is awesome.  I love it and I crave it back at the center, and luckily for me it's super common and super cheap down in Kolda.  Coffee here is a packet of milk with a tad of nescafe and a ton on sugar.  I gave in on the powdered milk, which is actually really good, but I still won't eat the sugar.  They put sugar in everything so I think I get enough of it.  After this I attend language class.  There are two other women in my class, Courtney and Lauren, and our language teacher is Samba.  We rotate houses everyday.  We spend 3 hours in class, which is actually laid back.  When we have class at my house my family likes to sit in and listen/talk about us, and then they critique the entire lesson to me throughout the day. We also usually get some tea which is a great caffeine/sugar rush.
   After class I'll head home and just hang out or help make lunch.  Our LCF (language teacher) had a couple days off and I learned that in the morning whoever is cooking will go to the market to buy all of the day's food.  Fatou and Mariama took me with them one day and it was certainly an experience.  It was like a market in a movie, but with less space to move around in.  I didn't even get yelled at the much.  I actually got in trouble for not greeting someone who I thought I had already greeted. Ooops.  Some of the other PCTs were saying what a shame it is that the Senegalese boil all of the nutrients out of their vegetables, but after seeing the market I'm really glad they do because I'm pretty sure it kills everything.  If we want raw vegetables we have to soak them in bleach.  But anyway, lunch usually consists of rich and fish, although my family does tend to switch it up.  The day I went to the market we made fish balls (LIKE MEATBALLS) and they were actually pretty good.  They ground up the bones in the ground fish, so sometimes I'd get a pretty big bone, but otherwise I just ignored them.  We've also been eating sheep or peanut sauce (YUM) and sometimes we have cous cous instead of rice.
     After lunch we literally sit around.  Some days it gets so hot you can't do anything but sit.  Bucket baths are common around this time.  I also like to just sit and talk with the fam or do my homework.  If it's really hot I'll go in my room and lay down or take a nap.  Once it stops being so hot I'll help with the dishes.  We also have tea at some point.  Moussa taught me how to "make tea."  Making tea involved pouring it from one shot glass-esqe cup to another in an attempt to make foam.  You have to start down low and raise it in the air like a mixologist, all the while the cup is pretty hot an burning your hand.  Moussa is awesome and didn't even barely laugh at me the first time I attempted to touch the cup and immediately started crying.  They let it cool for a minute or two now before they allow me to try.  It's a really big deal that I even wanted to learn how to make tea, my family was so happy and just kept going on and on about how great it was, even though I'm pretty positive they've had better.
      Around 6 they also start cooking dinner in the one room, windowless, kitchen from hell.  They cook over a propane tank.  My main job is to hold the flashlight but sometimes I get to shuck things or grind things.  Dinner is served around 9/930 and after that I'll chat for a while and go to bed.
    It sounds like I don't do anything, but what I really do all day is try to have conversations, realize I don't understand what most of the words are, and then write them down and try to memorize them.  It's a slow process.

     We also went to a baptism while we were at CBT this time!  The baby was actually born on my birthday (woo!)  and they have the baptism a week after the baby is born.  They name the baby on this day and shave off all his hair.  The mom gets treated like a queen and gets to go to the salon to get her hair done and wears extravagent outfits while all the other women dance and shout her name and sing.  In the morning I helped cut vegetables (for literally probably 2 and a half hours) then we hung out.  The other PCTs were there so we were able to chat in English and compare experiences.  They usually slaughter an animal too, and at this baptism we had sheep with lunch.  They also rented two tents and bought a bunch of water and passed around sour milk and grain (which was actually really good).  Lunch was awesome, there were so many expertly cut vegetables.  The party went from around 9am to 8pm, when we went home and made our own dinner.  Everyone was exhausted for days.  I wore a sabba, which is a Senegalese skirt, and I looked like a baller, everyone was so impressed.

    We got back to center on Wednesday and after a long and horrible day of waiting we got our site announcements!!!!  There's a huge map of Senegal on the basketball court in the center, and we all converge around it.  We brought handkerchiefs to put over our eyes, and the staff led us to our spots and handed us a packet.  Once everyone was placed they let the tension build up before they let us take off our blindfolds and see our location.  Surprise, I'm in KOLDA!  Not really a surprise, since all of the Fulakundas are down there.  I'm pretty close to the capital, also named Kolda, in a more rural area.  It's like 7 km.  I am also one of the farthest from Dakar/Thies; like 14 hours.  Kolda is located under The Gambia, which is difficult to get a visa for and apparently supports the bandits in the south-western region of Senegal (we're not allowed to go there either, and they don't put anyone remotely close- we're all very safe).  So we have to drive around the Gambia to get anywhere which I'm sure will be super annoying forever.  So we're heading out tomorrow for a five day site/region visit, which will be great!