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.
Dear Liz,
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to say that I am very glad for the extremely beneficial work that you are doing there in Mali, and for the awesome life experiences that you are now able to have and learn from. What a great and meaningful time of your life this must be.
Having studied and taught about indigenous cultures of America for the last twenty or so years, and of Africa for about the last 10 (yet with so very much more to learn!), I thought I might be able to offer a little bit of help to you on this "problem" of people not knowing, or even caring about, their birth dates. For indigenous or "first ways" peoples around the world, time is generally understood as a cyclical entity, rather than in the linear mode that much of this modern world is immersed in. To the first peoples, prior to contact with the lineal thinkers, time was/is measured by natural events that recur in cycles and seasons- rainy and snowy seasons that bring water, dry, hot seasons that grow and ripen both wild and domesticated food crops, the seasons in which certain foods and medicines are ready to be gathered, etc. While under this system of life there is an awareness of what years are, and tribal oral historians and genealogists (called "griots" in parts of west Africa) do keep track of that sort of chronological information, most people see time as primarily the here and now and secondarily as a part of a larger system of connected, interwoven natural cycles. What has often been interpreted by "westerners" or "modern people" as a lack of foresight on the part of indigenous, fist ways peoples, can also be understood as a sense of trust, or faith, that these long-dependable cycles of life will continue to repeat themselves as long as the people maintain good life ways, good hearts, and due respect to Creator and the helper spirits in the here and now. Of course this way of life became harder to sustain after the ravages of colonialism, the slave trade, and industrialism took their toll on their natural world. The processes involved in adjusting to a new world over the last several hundred years have been difficult, to say the least. This is due in part to the fact that the old ways had worked so well for thousands of years, and the foundation of their worldview, beliefs, and moral values, set within that context, is not easily shaken or lightly dismissed. Nevertheless, powers beyond their control have shaken and corrupted those foundations, and in times of disaster and desperation humans sometimes make poor choices (do we do so any less often when times are good?).
Just one additional comment on another influential aspect of indigenous belief systems that devalues the idea of birthdays. These people generally believe that our lives, our spirits, pre-existed our entrance into these temporary earthly bodies, and that our spirits will continue to exist in other realms (including occasional returns to this one) forever. In other words, they believe that humans are eternal beings and a part of an eternal one whole life, rather than just the beginnings and endings of our present bodily form. That way of seeing ourselves, when it is lived out with some consistency, makes individual births (which are usually celebrated by the whole community) seem to be more significant as a part of the whole of life, including the gifts and talents that the individual brings to the community, rather than as just a particularly important point on some linear time scale. Nevertheless, as you recently witnessed, this belief does not erase the need to grieve when a loved one leaves their body, their earthly kinfolk, and this current stage of life activity.
I hope that this is helpful to you and that you keep learning about many other ways of seeing life and the world. Please take good care of yourself and treasure each day. I look forward to visiting with you again some day, maybe at your Grandma Esther's house.
Wunniook (may you live in wholeness and balance),
Uncle George
Email: george.price@mso.umt.edu
Hey Liz!
ReplyDeleteIt's been a while since I've had time to do it, but I just got caught up on your blog. This might sound depressing, but it's kind of nice knowing that on the other side of the continent you are literally going through the EXACT same thing as me. Your statement in your last post about how it's hard to deal with all the challenges when you don't even feel productive epitomizes how my first several weeks at site have gone. I'm trying to figure out how to do something meaningful here! Otherwise, why am I putting myself through this?!
But I'm so glad it sounds like things are slowly but surely looking up for you...I figure if thousands before us survived, we can too, right? Hope month 3 goes well for you!
Love love,
Kristen