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.