Giving Away Mosquito Nets to Needy African Villages

... isn't quite the party it sounds like. Unless your idea of a party involves leaving the splendors of Cake-A-Day to bike 4 hours up the mountains, lose one member of the team to a bike fall after the worst hill of my life (she's fine now), eat only a dirty sachet of roadside peanut butter to fuel you, and sleep on the floor. And that's just to get to the party.

The day of, it poured through the early morning as we pushed and slid our bikes to the first village. We arrived dripping, muddy, and famished. There was rumor of a breakfast in the midst of bread and mayonaise. We gasped with excitement and promptly reminded each other not to get our hopes up. A little American portion of my brain that hasn't yet been scorched out realized how sad we were top be so sincerely impressed with the idea of bread and mayo. That portion shut up when we found out we really shouldn't have gotten our hopes up. No bread. Or mayo. Or dirty baggies of PB...

We finally had someone bring us kossan. BAD IDEA. Kossan is pretty much a bowl of gross sour milk with chunks and sugar in it. Flash-forward to a sequence of Alexa and me vomitting repeatedly en brosse and in the middle of the night for the next several days, with fevers, and even a gold star for me (PCV's should know what this means...)

What makes it worth it anyway?

• amazing beautiful villages with waterfalls and kind people
• the BEST RAINBOW OF MY LIFE seen on our way back to our host's village. We made most of this trip in the dark, walking our bikes and singing for a couple of hours. Anyway, the Rainbow TRIPLED and stretched all the way across the sky. I even got extra time to marvel at it while waiting for Alexa to finish puking in the bushes.
• A ride back to the Gou! I could've cried with joy. Granted it was in the back of a pick-up along with a man, four women, a gas tank, three chickens, our two bikes, and over ten bags... down those same horrid hills... But we sported our helmets, gripped the side, tried not to boot, and appreciated that we didn't have to pedel ourselves. And for free! Because people can be so nice!
• learning about another village/planet that doesn't speak any of our languages, has weird greeting rituals involving young men turning and squatting before old women and exchanging "Ohh" "Eeee" "Ohhh" "Eeee" "Ohhh" etc., and where they perform a sort of step-team clap rhythm to show agreement. All in favor say clap-clap smack clam smack-smack clap clap-clap!
• saw the biggest moniter lizard dinosaur ever
• mountain-top sunset
• I was still sick and pathetic when I got back to the Gou, with nothing to help but... THREE PACKAGES! Thank you MB, Tessa, and Mrs.B! You made me SO happy!

Most of all, the project itself satisfied. It was mostly well-organized so we had an accurate number of nets to distribute so each bed in the villages could be covered. We explained how to use them (I put on a little snoring-in-bed act while Matt the mosquito hot the treated net and died. Then I used my steller language skills to exclaim, "No malaria here!") We wrote their names on the nets so they'd be less likely to sell them, and weeded out a few people who were just trying to get extras. For the most part I support the idea that net usage rates will be higher when nets are not given for free and thus taken for granted. Studies support giving them to health huts and having workers there explain and sell thel for a small price with a commission for incentive-- as well as through private more expensive avenues for wealthier people. But neither of these apply to the gorgeous and dirt-poor Fungo area.

It was good to feel useful.

Eat Your Peas; There Are Starving Kates In Africa

excerpt from Mating by Norman Rush:

"In Africa, you want more, I think.
People get avid. This takes different forms in different people, but it shows up in some form in everybody who stays there any length of time. It can be sudden. I include myself.
Obviously I mean whites in Africa and not black Africans. The average black African has the opposite problem: he or she doesn't want enough. A whole profession called Rural Animation exists devoted to making villagers want more and work harder to get it. Africans are pretty ungreedy-- elites excepted, naturally. Elites are elites.
But in Africa you can see middleclass white people you know for a fact are highly normal turn overnight into chainsmokers or heavy drinkers or gourmets..."

I get by with a little help from my friends... Alexa and I have adopted a cake-a-day regimen and have made it a whole week from her packages. My weight is coming back, along with my greed. It's amazing how quickly you get used to things no matter how difficult the transition. In the village I'd gotten used to corn mush. Now, cake.
The villagers will probably always be satisfied with corn mush ("lacirre"). They don't have time-consuming fantasies of tacos and oreo milkshakes. Sometimes I envy them.

Are You There, Allah? It's Me, Hadiatou

I very much enjoy that Allie's Senegalese name is Fati (Fatoumata) and mine is Hadi (sounds like "hottie"). I also enjoyed her visit. I didn't completely enjoy feeling like a sadistic personal trainer from hell on the bike-ride in, though. Let me take a moment here to remind and emphasize to potential visiters that this is not an easy bike-trip. It involves carrying your bike through rivers, heat, rockiness, and not a whole lot of what you would consider "road." So you have to be kind of in shape or else have enough money to hire someone to drive into the bumpiness of my Guinean shire.
Luckily Fati was a grade-A trooper. She survived a scorpian-siting, tuti flies, red ants, and corn mush. We christened ourselves the DindeFelo-ship and went to the waterfalls there (Dinde Felo) before failing to find the ones in the shire. We also gave an info and question and answer session to a group of visiting American high-schoolers. (Alexa the 2-year volunteer, novelle moi, and Fati the Fulbrighter.) It was pretty fun to feel so cool and make me realize how far I've come already.
The other members of the DindeFeloShip took some great pictures so you should bother them for them...

My Beautiful Face

To see photos of yours truly, stalk Jarred and Marissa through their blog albums! Links at the bottom of this page... Some day I too will have pictures...

When the Dog Bites...

Getting out of the ville has been fun... nutella fights, dancing with Trever and Amber, singing rap-ballads with Jarred, watching lightening over the ocean from Jen's roof, making reeces-banana pancakes with Allie, and Kédougou's famous 4th of July party complete with canaries of palm wine, frozen gin-bisaps, a pinata, water balloons, fireworks (that still made me miss VT), river-swimming, and homemade ice cream. I tried not to let the fun be spoiled by the fact that most of it was made possible by cancer. Not to mention that nothing even came out of the trip on that end. Anyway, good times.

The best part might have actually been that after the tourist city bustle of Dakar, the bratty white kids at the American club pool, and needing a moment to remember where I am every time I wake up, I was actually excited to return to the village. Corn mush and all.

What made the homecoming even better was that Annicka joined me. OK, so the bike ride was rough, she got sunburned, had a fever and upset stomach, we got caught in a thunderous downpour on the way to a waterfall we never found, and ever single person she met made the same lame joke about her being a theif because of her last name (oh senegalese humor)... but I still think it was a good visit!

My favorite part was probably the first night when it started raining. We were talking in my hut and in come all my little brothers and sister. I started to feel a little annoyed since they didn't knock and just made themselves comfortable on mats and all. I'd been planning on setting some privacy buondaries. But then they just looked so cute, all excited to be in my room and scared of the thunder.

When they started covering their ears and putting their heads on the floor because of the thunder, it occurred to me. I am Maria von Trapp.
"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens!" I sang to a room of confused faces.
"Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens!" Annicka gamely chimed in.

Once we finished "My Favorite Things," Annicka suggested they sing a song. Shyly, they said they didn't know any. "Oh my god, they are the von Trapp children!" This started off more reenactment ("Let's start at the very beginning...") which of course didn't work since they don't speak any english. This minute detail in not way diminished our efforts. After much prompting and bossing, we finally got a few of them to sing, "Do- a deer, a female deer," and one kid to sing, "Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do" -- though all in the same note.

At this point they remembered they were not von Trapps and did in fact know songs. So they all sang a different one at once. It was pretty adorable. But as Annicka and I were not done with the spotlight, we answered with at least 10 disney songs until the rain stopped and the kids politely excused themselves.

Good times. Next, ALLISON is visiting! Hopefully, she'll fare better than Annicka. At least we have one less huge thing to worry about...

PELLEL KENDESSA HAS WATER!

Alhumdulilai! I can take on anything now.

Mammo Wammo

7/1/08


So I've taken several guilt-ridden weeks away from my village, language, family, JOB-- to take the pricey trip to Dakar with Mariama to do something about her 4 year old gigantic breast tumor... And how glad am I to have done this only to have the hospital send us off each 30 mille poorer with the advice, "Drink lots of milk and don't eat spicey food"?


That's right. Take down your pink ribbons and stop the marches. We've found the cure for breast cancer right here in Dakar. Milk and no spices! Who knew? The doctors who gave Mariama a mammogram and ultrasound (not biopsy), that's who!


To be fair, they also said she could get medicine in Kédougou, but did not five us a prescription. I couldn't get anything else out of them. I'm wondering if they knew it was so far gone it was a lost cause? Maybe they said the milk thing just so Mariama wouldn't lose all hope? So I tried to stiffle my rage and disbelief... but... REALLY?



MILK?



It feels insensative and inappropriate to write this now, but the trip wasn't a total lost cause for me... I got to have FRENCH FRIES, ICE CREAM, PIZZA, FALAFEL, COLD DRINKS, MOVIES, TOILETS, SHOWERS, and FRIENDS. Of course, I'd prefer sound medical advice, but since I have no choice, I'll accept the consolation prize.