You're probably thinking that I am becoming negligent of my writing, but I am just legitimately busy.
Monday was not a news worthy day. I stayed in Notse to send Jorge my new weekly email, all the while feeling guilty because I thought I was letting Lili down with the vaccination campaign that was supposed to start on Monday. Turns out, it didn't start until Tuesday anyway, relieving me of my guilt. I spent the whole day going back and forth between Ashley's house and the internet to check if it was working yet. I got lucky twice = once around noon when I was able to receive Jorge's mails (and my parents') and once at dusk when I was able to send my mails. That was a big relief because I particularly hate leaving Jorge without my weekly news.
So that's Monday. In the evening I watched "The Gods Must Be Crazy" – it wasn't as hilariously funny as I remember, but it was still worth a few good chuckles. The only other eventful occurrence in Ashley and my evening was that some neighbors brought us a voltic bottle (1.5.L) full of what they said was soy milk but that tasted like boiled cigarette butts. We decided that the only appropriate place for it was the toilet.
On Tuesday I biked out of Notse at 7:00 and was back in village by 8:30. The vaccination campaign had already started when I arrived, but I went home to shower and had to deal wit ha putrid, maggot covered mouse (rat?!?!) on my floor. I asked a child to come in an remove it for me and I gave him five pieces (25cFA worth) of chewing gum in thanks. Good to keep it around for just those occasions. Great for rotting teeth too. My house smelled rank. I don't want to talk much about it because it makes me want to gag and I am trying to enjoy a yummy pineapple, but I think it might have been a rat rather than a mouse – it was pretty big. Not huge, but definitely bigger than cute-little-mouse size. Maybe it just got fat after eating all my beans and no wonder there is a lot of poop in my guarde-manger. When you eat a lot, you poop a lot. Some day I will clean it out. For now I am too busy. After dealing with the mouse and trying to clean the smelly spot it left on my floor, I showered and returned to the dispensaire. Luckily, everyone is really doing their part this time. Tsevi, Bebe, Victor (Pres. of COGES) and village ASCs were all present helping out. The campaign is to vaccinate against rougeole (measles, mumps and rubella perhaps?) and to administer liquid vitamin A and deworming tablets (sounds like something you'd give to your dog, but the children here are in dire need as their distend stomachs show).
I helped administer the vitamin A and deworming pills. This time they had made efficient use of the space – filling out information cards outdoors on the porch and then filing indoors for the viatamin pill and vaccination and then filing out past someone who registers the child and marks their fingernail (I'm not completely sure if it is to prevent people from coming twice – a double dos of a good thing is doubly good, right? Double protection. Or to make sure we've reached all the children). Anyway, for a while they were marking thumbnails with a black crayola marker until I noticed and informed them that the whole point of crayola is that it is washable. I gave them a Sharpie to use instead (which they lost a couple of days later by the way). I was impressed by how smoothly things went. As the women were standing in line, Lili gave a small causerie (informational session) to explain the purpose of each of the substances we were administering and then we proceeded with the business at hand. The Vitamin A is an oily liquid enclosed in red tear-drop shaped capsules. You cut the tip of each capsule and squeeze tit into the child's mouth – only three drops for infants under one year old, but, otherwise, the whole thing. The deworming pill (albendazole, if that means anything to anyone) is a white chewable tablet – children under one don't receive it – one year olds get half a tablet and two year olds and up (to age 5) get a whole tablet. The three, four and five year olds will chew the tablets and drink some water to wash it down, but for the younger ones it has to be made into a paste and often forced down screaming throats. Literally. At first, mothers were crushing the pills themselves, but then Lili gave us a really useful pill crusher. Sometimes the things mothers do to get their children to swallow the medicine make me shut my eyes and cringe. I am just waiting for a child to choke. Sometimes the mothers will pinch the baby's nose shut (not just to get him to open his mouth, but to get him to swallow). If we get through this week without a serious choking incident, I will be very thankful, but perhaps I should review my first AID response to chocking infants just in case. When their babies are gagging and coughing the mothers either blow in their faces or give a baby a full body shake – as if that will help it go down (problem is that it is in the wrong tube . . . ). Some of the kids are terrified and are dragged in kicking and screaming by their mothers (the presence of a white demon (me) probably doesn't help). Other children are really stalwart and brave.
We worked at the dispensaire all morning until 1:00 when the flow of women and children abated a bit. We ate rice and beans (and spaghetti, don't forget!) wit ha spicy tomato fish sauce that someone from Lili's house prepared. Because no more people were showing up, we decided to get a head start in Chalimpota (Avassikpevi – the village one kilometer away). I biked over and we worked there until around 5:00. We were just finishing up when I got an unexpected call from Jorge. Amazingly, we were able to talk for ten minutes or so.
Afterwards, I biked home and worked diligently on the lesson-planning for my peer educator class. The topic was the building of both knowledge and capacity (decision making skills, communication skills, self respect, negotiation skills, self affirmation, etc.). I wrote out the syllabus on a big sheet of paper (the inconveniences of not having computer, printer and photocopier available – I could have them in Notse, but I can't seem to plan far enough in advance). I planned out my class step-by-step and wrote out scenarios for the students to discuss in groups, only this time I had to make them up rather than just copy them from my Life Skills manual. I worked hard until 9:30 (way past my bedtime).
I slept well – undisturbed by mice and insects and in my own bed – I hadn't slept particularly well at Ashley's house. We were set to meet at 7:00, but when I got to the dispensaire, none of the workers (only women and their children) were present. Lili arrived shortly, but she told everyone that we were going directly to Chalimpota and that they would have to bring their children there. When we arrived (I biked, Lili took a moto) I was impressed to find Tsevi and Bebe already on site. We vaccinated there until around 9:30, returned to Avassikpe, prepared more vaccination cards and ate some boiled ignam with spicy red sauce before continuing on to Abourdikpe. I followed Tsevi on our bikes – everyone else took motos. The road (path) to Abourdikpe is better now that it isn't rainy season, but it is still a little tricky to maneuver. It was about a half an hour ride and we did more of the same in Abourdikpe. Problematically, though, in the rush to get everyone attended to as quickly as possible (a problem exacerbated by the fact that most of the adults can't read and some women show up with five children under five and older children in tow), cards get mixed up and I am ashamed to recognize that I gave a full dose of both vitamin A and deworming medicine to a child who was only 11 months old because the woman handed me a card that said he was three. 11 months? Three? You'd think I would be able to tell the difference, but then again sometimes three year olds are the same size as eleven month olds here because of malnutrition. The last time I told Lili that a child certainly didn't look the age stated on the card, she shrugged as if to say "what do you want me to do about it?" Considering the fact that parents don't know their children's ages unless they were born in a dispensaire and have a health card, it is quite hard to determine a child's real age. I certainly hope the overdose won't hurt the child. When I realized the mistake, I told Lili. The man from the hospital in Notse who has been helping us with the vaccinations didn't seem too concerned though (but that non-chalantness could signify a variety of things) and for once I was glad that half of the deworming pill had dribbled down a child's chin as the mother tried to force a spoon through clenched lips.
I left Abourdikpe around 12:30 and biked back to Avassikpe without getting lost (very proud of myself). I made beans and gari for lunch, read over my lesson plan, and then biked to Agbatitoe. I was a little nervous again for my peer educator class. I was nervous that I had scared them all away the last time or bored them so much that they wouldn't come back. I was also afraid that they had seemed like little angels the last time (almost too good to be true) because they were on best-behavior for the first class, but that it would all fall apart for the second class. But it went really well again, better than I could have imagined/hoped. It isn't that they got everything that I was saying, BUT they were on time (for the most part), respectful, interested, and actively participating. The lesson went well and I think that even though it was a bit of a difficult lesson conceptually, they grasped at least some of what I was saying. The scenarios I made up also seemed understood (even better, perhaps, than the ones I copied last week from my Life Skills manual), which made me happy. I hope they find the class interesting and at least a little fun. Because I have almost doubled the programmed class time (by adding Friday sessions almost every week) – I told them that they can miss five classes and still receive the certificate, but I encouraged them to come to all or as many classes as possible and promised some sort of reward for the person or persons who come to each and every session.
I left Agbatitoe very pleased by the way the class had gone. The Director (and a woman teacher who sat in on the second half) also seem pleased by my efforts. On the way back to Avassikpe, I met up with a group of men and women from Chalimpota and Avassikpe who were walking back from Agbatit after attending a funeral in Notse. I biked alongside them for a while and then biked on ahead because it was getting dark.
Once home, I showered quickly before dark, ate more beans, gari and pineapple and now I am writing. Tomorrow – more vaccinations in the surrounding villages (I like going out to the villages) and on Friday and Ewe lesson in the morning and P.E. class (peer educator, not physical education) in the afternoon.
Two side notes in closing: Yolke is back in village after being gone for ages – since before Christmas – to attend to her sick mother in Tsevie (I guess that is one of the benefits of being in a polygamous marriage – there are always other women around to pick up your duties if need be). I hope she is back in village for a while now – I have missed seeing her around. The second side not is that I think the children are going to be disappointed by my new rigorous work schedule – I won't have as much free time to play (largely à cause de my P.E. class).
1/17/08
Wow. I feel like I am glowing with happiness. Jorge just called my cell phone from skype and I sat in my little house in Avassikpe (in the dark because it was dusk and I hadn't yet lit my kerosene lantern) and talked with him for half an hour. HALF AN HOUR! That is a treat I never even dreamed of having. I wonder how much it cost him, but I am so happy that I don't really care. He is spoiling me, though – I've gotten a phone call each of the last three days! The problem, though, is that I'm never satisfied – I want more more more and I won't be satisfied until he is here with me. November is the target month – ten and a half months left (too much really to get excited about, but less than a year!).
There seems to be some sort of party/ceremony/something going on because I can hear clapping, drumming and singing. It isn't the church, though, because there are no trumpets and they are mostly men's voices that I hear. It seems as though the voudou ceremonies might most often take place on Thursdays – I will have to continue to pay attention every Thursday to confirm. I want to go, but I am scared of how I will be received. I am not sure my presence would be welcome.
Today we vaccinated children in Azakpe and Kodjoviecope. I rode my bike to both villages – it is great because I am gaining confidence – now I know I can get to both Abourdikpe and Azakpe (via two different routes none-the-less) by myself without getting lost. That will make it easier for me to go out to those villages for baby-weighing if I ever find a scale. I am also getting to know the ASCs (Community Health Agents) better – another very good thing.
Vaccinations went pretty much the same as on the two previous days except my work partner wasn't Bebe (the woman who will accompany me to PDM next week), but one of Azakpe's two male ASCs. I didn't particularly like working with him. Even though he lives in Azakpe and obviously speaks the language, he would gesture to the women and children and grunt rather than using his words to give instructions. I found that frustratingly condescending and even dangerous because he was gesturing with a pair of scissors in his hand.
I got really really hungry late morning and cursed myself for not having brought something to eat. Eventually, though, women from the village brought us food – pate and sauce, beans and gari and then fufu. I ate beans and gari (my favorite meal recently) and then some fufu.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I fell off my bike, but it wasn't even a spectacular fall – stupid in fact. I was tottering on the edge of a rut on my way to Azakpe this morning and I tottered all the way over onto the ground. Luckily, no one was there to witness it (it is almost like it didn't happen =0), I wasn't hurt and the vials of medicine I was transporting didn't break.
Kodjoviecope is a tiny village about 2 km from Avassikpe and there we must have only reached ten children or so. In Azakpe our numbers are probably near two hundred.
We arrived back in Avassikpe around 3:30. I was going to come straight home, but there was a couple at the dispensaire with a baby that Lili delivered last week. Two days ago, the baby stopped nursing. He was horribly skinny. Skin and bones. Literally. It was really scary – he looked like he was at death's door – he didn't even have a baby's chubby chin, but a gaunt old man's chin. He didn't move or cry or even blink and his eyes seemed gloss and wet. He looked sad and resigned to death as if, after only a week of life, he had given up. Lili gave him some glucose solution (sugar water?) with a syringe and he drank that and then she gave him breast milk through the syringe. We gave the couple (they are very young and this is their first child) the syringe and advised them to squeeze breast milk into a clean cup and feed it to the baby through the syringe. We told them to boil the syringe each time before using it and to devote as much time as possible, day and night, to getting him to eat. I must say, though, that I think the baby will die. I certainly hope he won't, but I am afraid he will. Lili advised them to take the baby to the hospital in Notse, but the husband (the one with decision-making privileges) refused. Perhaps it is a question of money or perhaps it remits to a conversation I overheard earlier in the day – a man commenting on another man who reportedly said that if his child dies he'll just make another one as one might say if this batch of cookies doesn't turn out, I'll mix up another batch. Only a man would ever say something like that. For the man, making a baby is just a question of ejaculating in the right place at the right time. It is the woman who bears the burden of the baby for nine months and then suffers its birth. During the same conversation, a man recounted a story of a woman who used sorcery to transfer her birthing pains to her husband so that he would no longer poo-poo women's pain and suffering during labor. Again, even the educated man from the hospital in Notse didn't question the fact that sorcery do this.
Once home, I cut up a pineapple, prepared my beans, showered, worked a bit on my lesson plans for tomorrow, and now I am writing. It is only 7:30, but I am already really tired and, to make matters worse, Lili gave me a stack of some 400 vaccination cards to fill out with basic information to expedite the process tomorrow. Ugh.
1/18/08
I killed another mouse today. This one was smaller and I was able to remove it from my house before it started to smell and turn into a maggot breeding ground. When I woke up, it was still alive, but I could tell that it had eaten of the poisoned apple (just kidding – the poisoned pâte) because it moved out of my way very slowly and usually they are so speedy you can't follow them even with the eye.
I went early to the dispensaire to help fill out vaccination cards until Lili and the dude from Notse left. Then I came home, prepared ginger rice and lentils for lunch for Jerome and I and then I worked on my P.E. (Peer Educator) lesson plans. The children were bothering me to play UNO, but I made them wait until I finished my preparations. I then played a few rounds with them, but again they were really little kids (the oldest is six) and so it was frustrating. I only played a couple hands and then I continued perfecting my lesson plans. Jerome arrived just as I was finishing around 10:30-11:00
Our lesson was fine – I'm trying to remember whether or not I learned anything interesting. I was a bit aggravated because yesterday Tsevi told me that the guy who is supposed to have my eight baskets ready by the 15th – (three days ago) – said that he didn't have time to make them after all (I have now wasted about four months on this baskets business. I really don't have much empathy for people in this village who complain that they don't have money because when you try to support the local economy (even when it is the low labor period in the fields) they don't do the work. No wonder they don't have any money. Here is an offer of guaranteed income – it isn't that he is going to expend time and effort to see whether he can sell something – the payment is guaranteed AND he set the price! I find that frustrating – it is as if people here don't want to help themselves. But later, he is going to wish for one reason or anther that he had a little bit of extra sash on hand. I also find it hard to believe that he doesn't have time. Like I already said, it is the low labor season in the fields. The reason I am particularly frustrated is that he wasted my time for two months and now the high basket season (I didn't know this before today, but apparently baskets are readily available when they are in high demand for bean and cotton harvesting). Now baskets will be more difficult to find and more expensive.
After Jerome left, I got ready to go to Agbatitoe to teach my class and then I played a couple of hands of UNO with the children (older children this time) until it was time for me to leave.
I was a little worried that because it was Friday, the students wouldn't show, but most of them did and it was another good, seemingly successful class that went much more quickly than I had expected. The students breezed through the True/False and then assimilated the function of the immune system and how HIV attacks the immune system quickly. They acted out what happens when an antigen like tuberculosis attacks a person with a healthy immune system and then they acted out what happens when a person contracts HIV and how he/she is more susceptible to opportunistic infections. Then we played the chick-chicken-hawk-serpent game, but I didn't tell them what each of the animals was supposed to represent. After the game, I asked them what they represent and they answered quickly and correctly (human body, immune system, opportunistic infections, HIV respectively) and so I was pleased to know that they understood. We were finished with my whole lesson in about forty minutes. The students took some time to company the information down and then I told them they were free to leave. Meanwhile the Director arrived (the woman teacher had been in attendance throughout the lesson) and we had two interesting conversations. One was about corporal discipline. Apparently, the whole troisième class (the highest level – like ninth grade perhaps) was disciplined (hit on the hand with sticks, I think) yesterday because they refused to do some exercises. The director seems to be a very nice man, but he is none-the-less Togolese and therefore perfectly fine with beating students. I told him that in the U.S. it is illegal for a teacher to hit a child and that if they did they would be fired immediately. I tried to explain other methods of disciple. I tried to explain that perhaps that is because they are beaten from the time they are babies. I told them how I disciplined the children who played with my hammock after I specifically asked them not to, not by beating them with a stick, but by revoking a privilege – the privilege to play cards and how I feel that they were more impacted by that then they would have been had I picked up a stick and wholloped them. The director fell a couple notches on my totem pole when he started making fun of a girl (who must be around 18) who started to tremble and cry before they hit her. Very funny.
The second interesting, but also not happy topic of conversation was that several children (including some girls as young as ten or twelve) were rounded up outside the school that morning to be taken to Lome and then Nigeria. I was speechless at the fact that people watched this happen and did nothing. I don't think they fully understand that child trafficking is a crime. The woman teacher didn't learn until after the fact that the children were to be trafficked, but some of the students, some of my Peer Educators, knoew the children were to be taken to Nigeria and they said and did nothing. I chastised them and told them that that was a perfect moment for them to inform someone responsible – a teacher, the director, the priest, the chief – I don't care who – that this was taking place. It made me feel sad and impotent.
I went to greet Mana afterwards and then biked home, showered and ate pineapple. I haven't gone to sit with DaJulie and her mom lately – I am afraid they might feel neglected. Sometimes I feel. Like I need a purpose to go over. If I get home early enough from vaccination tomorrow, I will go sit with them if they are home before it gets dark and before food preparation starts.
1/19/08
Today was another good, but long and tiring day. We did vaccinations in two different villages. I biked out to them – I really like biking places. It is so pretty here – even if it is Harmattan and everything is brown, and I like knowing that I am getting exercise and going somewhere at the same time. Also, the paths are just rocky, bumpy and sandy enough to be challenging, but they are more or less flat and so it isn't exhausting to bike either. Fun.
Pretty much today was like the other days except we got a bit of a late start and ended rather late as well. As we were filling out vaccination cards, I learned a little more about Lili's family. Her Dad had two wives. Her mom was the first – she was a market woman and rather wealthy, but Lili lived mostly with an aunt because her mother was always moving around. Her mom died when she was around twelve years old and about a year later the aunt she lived with died (she didn't specify what either woman died of). She said that her mother's brothers took all her wealth and after her death and the death of the aunt the suffering began in earnest. Again, she didn't specify, but she did say that her father didn't really take responsibility for them or care of them. I don't know who cared for her after her aunt died.
Today I worked with the ASC of Hake – it was fine for the most part, but again, slap in the face – you're a woman in Togo . . . It was fine as long as things were running smoothly, but the minute I had a question or concern – he just didn't listen to what I had to say. At one point, exasperated, I frankly asked, "Can you please listen to my words, listen to what I am saying?" Very frustrating.
Other than that, everything was fine. I was very happy again when they fed us – one woman brought us rice with beans and fish (I am starting to be brave enough to eat some fish. From the tail end only, though, I am still not brave enough to dissect the head – I don't know what is edible!) and another woman brought us fufu.
I want to remark on how many sets of twins there are there – an awful awful lot and one must expect that some of the twins probably died in infancy (just because having twins is so much harder here with limited food and resources) and so if you take that into account the number of twins per one hundred children seems extraordinarily high. Maybe it isn't though, maybe it is just that they have so many children in general that they are bound to have lots of twins. I still think that there are an unusual number though. The other thing about twins is that either one is big and healthy looking and the other weak and sickly (and seemingly half the age of the first – when they are infants, that is) or both babies are sickly. Today, a set of twins that were a year old were remarkably smaller than a baby that was eight months old. It is sad. Often one twin dies. I think I neglected to mention that the second time I did baby weighing, I asked a woman where her baby's twin was and she said he died. She can't read and so she handed me both heir health cards. I remembered seeing them at a previous vaccination day two months before. So sad . . .
We didn't' finish until 4:00 and then I had to bike home. I am rather tired, but tomorrow is the last day. Hopefully we will finish by early afternoon and I can bike in to Notse before dark. I am already packed, so that should help move things along.
I don't know what to do about the mice and the poison. I will be gone for about a week – I don't want the mice to have an all-out party, but I also don't want them rotting in my house for a week. It was pretty putrid and smelly after a couple of days, imagine after a week.
1/20/07
Today started out rough. It was like one smack in the face after another. I woke up dreading that I would find news of a dead baby when I arrived in Djakpata (the baby that came in on Wednesday and was just skin and bones) and then, when I arrived at the dispensaire I found Khosoivi (one of the women in front that I greet every morning) in Lili's office. When she left, Lili told me that during the night Khosoivi suffered a miscarriage (I didn't even know she was pregnant – five months pregnant) and that the placenta hadn't come out yet. They waited until the morning to involve Lili and so it had already been a couple of hours. Lili told her she had to go to the hospital in Notse (normally, Lili would try to get the placenta out herself, but because we were busy with vaccinations . . . ). I was worried – worried that they would shrug it off and that she wouldn't go straight to the hospital. I was also worried because Lili said that if the head mid-wife wasn't at the hospital, Khosoivi wouldn't be well cared for and if they couldn't get the placenta to come out by itself they would have to operate (which would cost up to 60,000 cFA – unheard of quantities of money here). I leant Lili my cell phone to call the head mid-wife, but she was at church. I walked over to see Khosoivi to make sure she was going to the hospital and fortunately, her son Koffi (14 years old or so) told me that she was on the road waiting for a taxi-moto. I wrote my cell phone number on a piece of paper for him to give her just in case; she went by herself – her husband didn't even accompany her. Afterwards, while talking with Lili, I learned that it is Victor's (Khosoivi's husband) father (also Effoh's father) who is using grigri (black magic) to cause Khosoivi's miscarriages. She has had four or five miscarriages and it is her one-year-old who died when I first arrived at post (Lili is of the opinion that her father-in-law was responsible for that baby's death as well) – I just feel like some people suffer so much and to be perfectly honest, I have never really suffered. Not really. It isn't that I want to suffer, but rather that I wonder why some people suffer so disproportionately much and I suffer so disproportionately little. Again, I don't want to suffer, I'm not complaining, I have been very fortunate in my 24 years, but I don't like to see other people suffer either.
While I was talking with Lili I also learned that she has tried and tried and tried to conceive and hasn't yet been successful – if you think being barren or "reproductively challenged" as Charlotte on Sex and the City would say is a big deal in the U.S., it is a HUGE deal here. You aren't fully a woman until you have born a child. Luckily Lili has a career . . .
As I biked off I was feeling angry, sad, frustrated, impotent, worried, guilty, confused. I was angry (perhaps unjustly) at Lili because she had sent Khosoivi to Notse instead of making her life a priority and treating her directly. I was angry at her sometimes uncaring demeanor. I know she cares. And I also know it must be exhausting to care in a place where means to actually DO SOMETHING are virtually non-existent, but I still wanted her to do something more. I was sad because people here in general suffer so much. I guess people suffer in the States too, just in different ways. I was frustrated because sometimes people's priorities here are so off-track (at least in my humble opinion) – they don't want to spend money on health care (and so, for example, Khosoivi's husband didn't call Lili in the middle of the night when his wife was miscarrying their baby and instead waited until the morning when he ended up spending even more money to send her all the way to Notse and might have had to pay for an operation. In a second example, the skin and bones baby's parents don't have enough money to take the baby to Notse for care, but, were there to be a funeral, I am sure they would round up some cash from somewhere to throw a big, whopping party.) I felt impotent because I can't really help and worried that Khosoivi might actually die. I felt guilty because I have never known what it is to really suffer and guilty that I was thinking about what a rotten day it was starting out today when none of the real rotten-ness affects me directly. I was feeling confused because I didn't (and don't) know what I should do in a life-and-death situation in terms of dishing out the cash. I mean, if I CAN afford the service that would save someone's life, ethically, aren't I obliged to do it? The dilemma goes back to the fact that sometimes people here don't value their own or their children's or wives' lives as much as I think they should and so they don't fork out their own cash and so then I wonder, why should I? I have no answers to my questions.
As I biked, I thought of a phrase to describe myself – "indignantly idealistic" – as only a person who has never really suffered can be. I think it is a good phrase to describe me because I get frustrated and angry with people who don't go the extra mile to move mountains, but that is because I have never tried to move a mountain that didn't budge even a little bit, for all my efforts. I pretty much grew up in an environment in which, with hard work, I could make any and all dreams and desires come true. But when you don't have the opportunity, possibility or means to make something happen, people who insist that everything is possible probably just come off as annoying and incredibly naïve. Here, my little privileged bubble is getting holes poked in it and I am not sure how well I am going to handle feeling so completely and utterly impotent all the time. I also don't know how to handle the ethical issues – how can I let someone die when I could do something about it? but should I do something about it when the people who are most implicated could and don't? and how will I ever know if it is that they really and truly can't afford to help their loved one or if it is that they choose not to?
Vaccinations was more of the same except I was working by myself, but I didn't mind. Sometimes it was a little difficult to communicate with the women, but I managed. It was a fabulous food day – I ate fufu mid-morning (stopped the flow of the vaccinations to chow down because fufu gets spoiled if you leave it sit for two long) and then, when we finished around 1:00, I ate pâte and a really yummy okra fish sauce (no, I am not being sarcastic – it was really tasty) and then rice with another amazing chicken sauce. The women of the village provide and prepare the food for us – it is really sweet and apparently doesn't happen everywhere – but remits to the particularly hospitable nature of the people in my area.
We ran out of the pills that are supposed to de-worm the kids. I got frustrated at one point because sometimes the women have a lot of difficulty getting their child to swallow the medicine (even when I have crushed it and dissolved it in water) and the other women just stand by and watch her struggle with the child – trying to hold the kicking, screaming two-year-old while at the same time hold his or her mouth open, plug his or her nose and pour the liquid down his or her mouth. Then the child either ends up choking, spitting and/or vomiting and we have to repeat the whole process – wasting medicine that could have gone to other children.
Once we finished, I bugged Lili until she agreed to go check on the skin and bones newborn. We rode out to their house – a small village about a kilometer from Djakpata proper – and I was relieved to see that the baby was still alive at least. Apparently he still doesn't suck, but he will at least drink the milk if the mom squeezes it into his mouth. He seems to have some sort of bacterial infection in his mouth, though. I am still really worried about him because I feel as though his parents are only half-heartedly keeping him alive. I feel like telling them that it is all or nothing. They have to dedicate every moment to feeding the baby or he is not going to survive.
I quickly biked back to Avassikpe (it took me a little over half an hour to go the eleven kilometers) because I wanted to bike to Notse before dark. I stopped to arrange departure plans with Bebe for Monday and then to speak with the EPP Director (the director of the primary school) to let him know that I am leaving for a week and won't be able to start the health class we had tentatively discussed starting next week. I packed up my house, and my stuff and biked off. From Agbatitoe to Notse I had company because many of the lycée (High School) students from the villages around Agbatitoe were also biking back to Notse for class tomorrow. I actually passed some of them as I was biking from Djakpata to Avassikpe and, even though I stopped for half an hour or so in Avassikpe to grab my bag and close up my house, I caught up with them and passed them again right outside of Agbatitoe. Then they passed me. =0)
I arrived in Notse to find that two other girls from my Stage (besides Ashley) are here. I think this next week, in which we will all be thrown together again after several months at our respective posts will be both interesting and, at times, trying.
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