Month two in village DOWN. Feels really good to finally have some more time here under my belt. There are less surprises now and it’s so nice to settle into more of a routine. I have some friends in my town, know how to feed myself well, I’ve figured out how to do the dishes with no running water and get my laundry done without washing machines. Gave up quickly on trying to wash clothes by hand on my own. Lucky for me a teenage girl in town is eager to help if I pay her…I justify it to myself by thinking I’m putting money into the economy, right? It’s making my life a lot easier anyway.
These past three weeks have been filled with trips to the health center, still trying to get a better understanding of how things work, who comes to use their services, and what the major health issues are. They perform pre-natal consultations twice a week - once for the women in my town and once for people who come in from the “bush” (from one of the 40 surrounding villages that also use the CSCOM). They also give vaccinations to babies two days a week - again once for my town’s babies and once for babies from the bush. One thing I didn’t notice last month is that they’ve been conducting baby weighing sessions on Wednesday mornings.
SO just a little about baby weighings. Health centers conduct baby weighing sessions as a way to monitor childhood malnutrition in the area. They take the babies height, weight and the circumference of the arm. There are different charts we can use that tell us what combination of height/weight is healthy, moderately malnourished, or severely malnourished. My health center will usually decide the level of malnourishment using the arm band, how fat the baby’s arm is. You can also use the combination of height and age. Trying to use this combination has been most frustrating for me because so few people have any idea of their age here! Most mothers seem to completely guess the age of their babies and look at the health relais like they’re crazy for even asking. Most babies do have vaccination cards that mothers will bring with them but I know for a fact the date of birth written on these are not always accurate either. Twice I saw dates written that have not occurred yet, clearly an impossible birthday for a baby. Most baby weighing days will examine probably 30-40 babies and all but maybe five fall into the yellow, moderately malnourished category. Two-three are severely malnourished and maybe a couple are deemed “healthy” weights. Any moderately to severely malnourished babies will get Plumpy Nut, peanut butter packages, that will hopefully help them start to put on more weight. But I know there is a limit to how long the health center will continue to provide the Plumpy Nut. There are so many babies coming from so many different villages that I’ve been having trouble figuring out if the same babies are coming each week. Not sure if anything is actually being monitored or if we’re just kind of going through the motions. I’d like to know if the babies are actually consuming the Plumpy Nut they’re given and if it’s helping. Still pretty overwhelming! I see a lot of promise but also a lot of problems with the system and hope that this is an area I can focus on once my language comes along a little better…
I’ve been continuing on with my needs assessment. So far I’ve made it to 15 different households conducting my survey. I did have one pretty disturbing event towards the end of this month. I was sitting in a family’s concession with my health relais, the women who is helping me with language as I conduct the survey. I was interviewing one of the male heads of the household (most households have two to three men, maybe six women, and ten to fifteen kids). In the middle of the survey, a women carrying a three year old boy ran out of her hut hysterically crying. The other women in the compound immediately ran to her and within moments were all crying too. In all the commotion, all I could understand was my health relais telling me the child was not well. As far as I could tell, his eyes were closed and he was not moving. I suppose he must’ve been sick for awhile and took a turn for the worst. I just continued to sit, dumbfounded, not really sure what to do with myself. I know I did feel incredibly inappropriate being there and could not even remember the customary blessings we’re supposed to say in such an event… I’m still not sure if the child died or what was the end result but just to be that close to one family’s grief was really traumatic for me. A child died in my training village a few months ago, and the other trainees and I were relatively shielded from the whole event. No one ever cried in front of us and it was possible just to push the event out of our minds. But with this child, their grief was so intense, so real and since seeing that it’s been really difficult for me to come to terms with their suffering. It’s easy to forget the common nature of death here with all the laughing and joking that goes on. Guess these sorts of experiences are just going to be a reality of my life here, still need to figure out how I’m going to handle it.
Back in Bamako now and so happy to be with Americans again, eating good food and speaking English. Have eaten well and had a great time celebrating a friend’s birthday. Leaving Bamako in a few days for site until Thanksgiving.
