An update for the new year

Cold season is upon us now in Mali, and I’ve hit my 18-month mark here. (Say what?!) It’s really hard to believe how quickly time has passed, and I can only imagine how quickly the last 8-ish months of my service are going to fly by. I apologize to everyone for not having written here very recently, but I have been keeping busy, despite the dearth of blog entries lately. I thought I owe those who read this regularly a little update.
We celebrated Tabaski in my village on November 6th, which predictably was a big dressed-up deal and a lot of fun. (I’ll see if I have any success uploading pictures directly onto the blog). I spent the entire time with my host family (and proved to them once in for all that I can brew tea Malian-style!) and with my good friend Sambou and her family. Sambou is the ex-volunteer’s homologue, a super motivated individual, and I’ve come to appreciate her more and more in recent months, especially since we’ve started collaborating (see below). I ate a ton of meat, watched a football match, and of course got my dance on at the obligatory soiree organized by the youth in my village.
Work-wise, the cervical cancer training project is all wrapped up, and I’m still spending most of my days at the clinic, which has been going through a rocky period since being re-launched with three new personnel. The traffic at the clinic is too light to support continuing to pay personnel salaries and buy medicines, so there has been a lot of talk by the Managing Committee recently about how to encourage greater utilization of the center, and generally a fair amount of complaining and arguing about various financial, logistical, and personality conflicts. Needless to say, I have tried to stay out of these kinds of problems, but the mood at the center has noticeably fluctuated as a result, and in some ways this has presented a challenge to getting work done. I still spend lots of time with the midwife Kandia, have observed some deliveries (interesting to watch, but make me realize I really could never be a doctor), and we have continued our regular pre-natal, post-natal and family planning consultations as well as malnutrition visits.
Nonetheless, I decided recently that I want to spend the last part of my service doing much more outreach and being out there in the community. If the women aren’t coming to us, well then….we need to meet them where they are. I’ve always been horrible at sitting around anyway–I have far too restless of a personality. So I’ve gotten Sambou on board, and we’ve started doing health presentations in the village, talking to women about malnutrition and exclusive breastfeeding, going from house to house and explaining how to make enriched porridge to help babies gain weight. We’ve started by doing just a few a week, going from compound to compound and doing a spiel with group of about 8-15 women each time. The women seem responsive, especially in small groups, so with any luck in January we’ll expand to visit nearby villages as well, and continue this format to talk about other topics (family planning, pregnant women’s health, diarrhea…) and see where we can go with it. Sambou is an ideal work partner; she’s got a lot of courage, is really knowledgeable, and women in the community trust her. I wish she had been my designated work partner from the beginning, but c’est la vie–sometimes you just stumble upon great people over time. I’m just glad to have her by my side now.
I’ve also done some mural painting, and my host dad’s newly built school will be all finished soon so I hope to do some paintings there and hopefully get the kids involved. I’m trying to get more involved with youth in general, and I’m hoping to do some reproductive health talks with the middle-school aged girls in my village–not a class, but more of an informal setting where the girls can get information about birth control, STIs, healthy relationships, etc. I think a “safe space” for them to discuss these issues is extremely important, because I know from one on one conversations and observations that girls are really curious about these issues, but are too shy to ask. I’m hoping to get Sambou and/or my female adult literacy teacher friend, Kadia, to help me out with these talks.
The volunteer closest to me and I will soon (In sh’allah!) be starting a radio program on local (Manantali) radio, to discuss various health topics, and maybe even play some Ameriki music. Local radio is a great, low-technology and accessible way to disseminate information here, so I see a lot of possibilities. If I ever get my clinic to commit to doing a community cervical cancer screening campaign (it’s been brought up a few times since the training, but is on the back burner for now, due to all the other issues my CSCom is facing), I think the radio could be a great tool to initially sensitize villagers in the area about the disease and to encourage voluntary screening.
Meanwhile, I’m hoping to open up another funding proposal in the next few weeks to help my CSCom replace the now non-functional batteries in the vaccine fridge. The fridge, which has been in the slow process of dying for months now, is finally completely out of commission, which means we aren’t able to store vaccines for longer than a few days–so basically we are unable to perform one of the most basic functions of a community health center–the vaccination of infants. If the community is able to mobilize to collect their required portion of the cost of fixing the unit, I’ve agreed to work with the management committee to seek funding for the rest. We will see how that unfolds in the coming weeks.
That’s the work update. Aside from that, the last two months of 2012 saw me take the GRE in Bamako (and completely stress out about it for two weeks prior!), take a few day’s hiatus in lovely, languid Segou to celebrate two friend’s birthdays; spend Thanksgiving with two of my best Peace Corps friends in Kita; introduce the trainee who will be living in Manantali to our beloved, under-appreciated little corner of Malian paradise; celebrate Christmas in Tali and the New Year in Bamako. I don’t think I’ll be traveling again until the Segou Music Festival at the end of February–I want to savor the cold season in Marena, to sit huddled around fires with my host family, to see a lot of grassroots education and sensitization done, and to just be home.