Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Happy early Turkey day!

Happy Thanksgiving! I am in Sikasso to celebrate with other volunteers, although it sure is weird not to have a family Thanksgiving. Things in Kourouma continue to go well, although as always there are ups and downs. The biggest plus for the past few weeks is that I started baby weighings! I’ve done two weighings in Kourouma, which take place on Thursdays. This past Friday and Saturday along with the week before, I biked to other villages to do weighings, which coincide with vaccinations. The farthest village I’ve biked to was only 7 km away, although the road was horrible with big rocks all over the place. During rainy season, I may not be able to bike there at all. I enjoy baby weighings and the vaccinators, Bakary and Solika, are super nice. The women in the other villages are often very impatient, which is a bit frustrating and surprising considering how slow Malian culture generally is. I put the babies in a little pair of shorts which then hang from a scale. Afterwards, I give the mother a bit of advice if her baby is underweight. I’ve been peed on at least once every day, and sometimes the baby is kicking so much it takes three of us to get them into the shorts! This past Saturday I got peed on twice and literally came within an inch of being thrown up on. Needless to say, I’m always worn out after a morning of weighings!

While I don’t really feel like I have any good friends at site yet, I almost always have kids hanging out at my house and sometimes grown-ups come by. The Mayor comes by on Sunday mornings to chat. He is so sweet! He’s probably about 70 years old, but is missing his two front teeth. So when he smiles, it’s like a mixture of an old man and a first-grader! A few weeks ago, I was asking about his family. He didn’t know how many kids he had so we just settle on ‘a lot’. I was biking back to Kourouma last week and he passed me on his moto, wearing a heavy winter coat, even though it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon and probably 90 degrees. It’s “cold” season right now, so Malians tend to bundle up. I meanwhile spend all day sweating like a pig.

I continue to be thankful each and every day for having been placed in the Sikasso region. When I go to Sikasso I can buy big avocados for the equivalent of 40 cents each (Mommy, I have made some delish avocado sandwiches). I can get onions and tomatoes at site, and bread, eggs and other veggies at market on Wednesdays. Dinner at my homologue’s house is always good. Lately we’ve been having manioc, which is kind’ve like potatoes, with an onion and tomato sauce. Two nights ago we had grits! A few weeks ago was the peak of the corn season so I went to my homologue’s house one day where a group of 40 women or so had gathered for a corn-shucking party. Cotton picking was last week – the problem is that a lot of people are needed, so school was closed last Thursday and Friday afternoon so that the kids could help out in the fields. Education is ranked second below agriculture. Right now is onion-growing season, so women are out in the fields from dawn to dusk, planting and watering their onions. I went to the fields yesterday morning to help plant for a handful of minutes – it’s not a hard job, but very tedious and I can imagine having major back pains after working in the fields year after year. A few weeks ago was also the arrival of peanuts. My kitchen was almost overflowing with them, and I felt like I was snacking on peanuts all day!

I’ve had some interesting gender role conversations with several men in the village, one of whom is one of the vaccinators, is very well educated and has lived in a big city. All of them seemed to very seriously think that men literally are unable to cook, get water, or wash clothes. They thought it was hilarious when I said that I think men are perfectly capable of doing those things. I was talking to my homologue’s kids and mentioned that there were places in Africa where a woman can have more than one husband – they were astounded!

Oh, I had an interesting mouse experience last week. I was making breakfast when a little mouse scurried across the floor. I had heard them and have swept up tons of droppings but it was the first time I’d actually seen one in my house. Anyway, my trunk was open and it ran inside! So I had to take all of the food out until I realized the mouse had gotten stuck under a bowl. I lifted the bowl and the mouse climbed out of the trunk and ran over my foot and across the floor, out of sight. I bought some mouse poison at market so soon I intend on beginning a full-scale battle!

Hope everyone's well. Send me letters, I want letters! Miss you all!

Friday, November 2, 2007

"What do you have?" "Malaria"

I have had this conversation with people more times that I can count. Almost any time I ask someone what’s wrong with them, they nonchalantly say that it’s malaria. Who knows whether it actually is or not. Other than that, things are going well in Kourouma. I still haven’t been able to start baby weighing unfortunately due to various reasons, but this coming Thursday for sure, they will begin! Since I haven’t been doing baby weighing, I either watch vaccinations or pre-natal consultations once a week. Watching pre-natal consultations is interesting – since there’s no computer system, all info is written in little notebooks. There are two rooms. One is to weigh the women (on a small bathroom scale), measure their height, and record basic info. The other room contains an old medical bed where women are briefly checked for eye and tongue discoloration, lumps in the breasts, edema in the legs, and the size of the baby. There are no ultrasounds; the heartbeat is listened to with a little hollow metal tube, no stethoscopes. Ideally, women start coming in for PNC’s at 3 months and continue to come once a month, but some women don’t show up at all until they are already 7 months pregnant.
When I got back to Kourouma after my last visit to Sikasso, we had a balafone (xylophone) party to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Probably a couple hundred people showed up and formed a big circle, into which about 10 people would dance for each song. The songs were all really long, starting out slow where the people in the center would basically just be walking, and then ending super fast. I danced for a few songs, but I really hate that style of dancing where most people are on the outside watching!
I’ve gotten A TON of reading done. Since I’ve been back, I’ve read The Red Tent, The Nanny Diaries, and Barack Obama’s, Dreams from My Father. The Nanny Diaries was especially funny having been in Africa for over 3 months. The mom in the book has a looong list of rules for her son, including “he can’t pick anything off the ground”, and “no nakedness except while bathing”. Here, I watch kids literally pick up and chew on old balloons, used batteries, or dirt. And kids are naked half the time, and not just babies!
Last week, I ran pretty frequently. A boy who lives in my homologue’s concession said that he wanted to run with me. I said OK, but when I went to his house that evening, it turns out he hadn’t been serious. Well I convinced him to come on, so he ran inside to put on his jelly sandals and off we went, for about a mile and a half altogether. The next day, my homologue’s 10 year old son went with us, and on the way back, about six other kids joined us as well (some probably as young as 6 years old). I kind’ve felt like Forest Gump, with all the random kids joining in to run (although less than a mile total, not a 4 time trip across the US!). The next day I ran with my neighbor who’s 13, and several other kids have expressed interest. So maybe I actually can get a little Kourouma running club started!
In order to feel somewhat productive, I’ve started surveying people on health issues, which has had some interesting results. I’ve only surveyed people in five concessions so far, but it’s already apparent that variety in diet and malaria prevention are two big topics that will need to be addressed. These are all issues that I know the previous volunteer did A LOT of work with, which just makes it clear how things don’t necessarily stick with people after just two years. Also, almost no one had heard of AIDS, or at least said they haven’t, so that is another topic that I’d really like to work with, although I have a feeling that the issue of STD’s will be hard to get people interested in. We’ll see! Anyway, it has been helpful doing the brief surveys, because it lets me know which topics I’ll need to focus on once I start animations.
The other day was fun but tiring. I went with my homologue’s kids to the fields to help pick corn. Almost everyone in village goes to the fields every day (right now is the time for corn, peanut, and cotton pickin’), so I’ve wanted to go for a while. We picked corn for a couple of hours and then loaded it and ourselves onto the back of a donkey cart for the ride home (I even sat on a donkey for about 5 seconds!!!). Later in the day, I went to a concession to watch a group of women make shea oil. I’ve helped a lot shelling shea nuts, but that’s the easy part I realized. Next, the women pound and beat the shea nuts until a pasty texture forms (the strength of Malian women absolutely astounds me). Then they cook the shea paste over a fire until an oil-like texture is formed. They can then use the oil for cooking just about any food, along with rubbing on skin or in hair for cosmetic purposes.
I think rainy season is officially over, so I’m going to have some men in my village build a chicken coop in my concession, and then I’m gonna buy some chickens (so I can eat eggs each and every day)! I basically already have chickens and roosters though because those belonging to neighbors wander into my concession all the time (along with sheep and sometimes even a donkey or two). So if I’m at home, half the time I’m running around with a stick, chasing away animals. Not much other news, so I’ll end here, but miss you all and hope you’re well!