How to Distribute Mosquito Nets

Giving away 3,000 bed-nets to people who need them most in the world... doesn't sound too bad. I think I would have pictured myself with a clipboard, posing, shaking hands presidentially with village cheifs. Maybe they'd have funny hats, and maybe I'd have a superhero cape. 3,000 is a big number, but I'd probably have pictured us rolling through villages in a jeep, tossing them to overjoyed crowds like old kings with gold coins. Or to hut doors like newspaper boys. But... NOPE. Here's how it's really done:

1) Get a group of insane masochistic volunteers
2) Make shifts, rotate team members to decrease probability of in-group massacre
3) Somehow sweat through obtainment of funding, nets, number of nets needed, and transportation of nets to at least the region.
4) Bring extra: drink mixes, nescafe, oatmeal, MAYONAISE, peanut butter, energy bars, candy, rice, other beverages of your choice (remembering you've got to bike it..)
5) Make sure people putting you up (ASC/ Dr in our case) know you're not fasting and will actually pay anything for meals
6) Sleepover party!
7) Curse the roosters from 3 AM on, finally giving in and getting up at 6. If you're like us, you'll stir awake on your last morning to a sound sequence that goes something like this: rooster-from-hell clears throat and crows, team member curses, rooster crows, team member stumbles out from under net, rooster crows, team member trips over stuff and down hall, rooster crows, door swings open, rooster crows in a scared and surprised way, shuffle, squawks, flaps, struggle, team member stomps to other building, rooster shreiks get louder, sounds recede, more flapping and screeching, silence... team member returns to bed, silence again... some nervous muffled laughter from nearby mats. Turns out he didn't kill it, but tied it to the owner's tree, away from us.
8) Strap nets (in rice sacks) to your bikes and waver and fall until you can figure out how to stay balanced with them
9) Use up bandaids
10) As you grunt and sweat, pray that this is the hardest biking you'll ever do in your life
11) Take a moment to sigh appreciatively at the mountains framing the fields of gold-haired grasses that part in ripples and waves like your bike is its comb
12) Pick yourself up off the ground and vow to keep your eyes on the rocks in front of you from now on
13) Unwrap nets, write on them the village name and year, and try not to touch your face unless you want it to sting from the chemicals for the next 20 hours
14) Repeatedly tell villagers one-at-a-time, please sit down, hello hello, peace only, no we're not fasting today, please don't yell...
15) "oversee" the ASC questioning each person: name? ID card? #of family member? #of beds or mats? # of current bed nets? are you telling the truth? You'd be surprised at how confusing these few questions seem to be
16) Set up assembly line of name/card-checker, and net-labellers. This gets tedious quickly, so I recommend substituting first name initials for foods or dirty words or even a sick combination of the two if there's a middle name. For example, O. Diallo becomes Oreo Diallo, or...
17) Don't expect too many thank you's. It's Ramadan so everyone is hungry, and you're doing roll-through impersonal work anyway
18) Not being thanked is one thing, but kids crying at the sight of you every single time is another. I recommend you just OWN it. Practice your creepy face, growls, teeth-bearing, and how to say things in local languages such as, "I'm going to eat you! Come back here, food!" The kids may wet themselves, but you feel more proactive about causing it, at least. And even the mothers will laugh hysterically. I know this sounds cruel and unusual, but THEY'D CRY ANYWAY, so lay off! We all need our destressers, mine happens to be terrorizing toddlers, and remember, we're potentially saving them from malaria anyway!
19) Try to return to slumber party ideally before dark. The way is much more trecherous by headlamp
20) Good luck trying to go to the "bathroom." Holes I can take, paper not necessary, and maggots I've seen before. But this was the worst I've ever seen. Going to the bathroom for these 10 days have been like entering a sick horror movie. The worst was when a frog slipped down into the clogged and squirming puddle and kept trying to climb out. I don't know if I felt worse for the frog, the maggots, or me. Wait, yes i do.
21) Fix your bike, go home in better shape, pat yourself on the back (or partake in a massage exchange), and you're done!
22) Sleep!