Monday, September 6, 2010

"You're an emotional rollercoaster"

Well, first night back at home stay post site visit and site announcement and everything else that is revolutionary. Tons of events have happened in the past week or so that have made pretty big impacts on my Peace Corps life as I knew it. First of all I met my homologue and such as you know from my last post. Those were simply first impressions. I am still deep in the first impression stage of the Peace Corps; I don’t have a routine anywhere yet. But by IST (in service training) in December though, things should be relatively normal.
Nothing too revolutionary has happened since returning yesterday. We are reviewing our Bambara to get ready for the big test next Saturday. While I feel confident alone, I still can only carry out the most basic conversations where I already know the answer and have a problem with comparing myself to others and then feeling bad about my skills. But this week we learn how to do baby weighing to scan for malnourished kids, so that will be really interesting. I am curious to see what percent of the kids actually are dangerously malnourished, and how my perceptions have changed since getting here. A child in this town who is relatively ok may be malnourished but I just don’t see it yet. We also will teach the women how to make ameliorated porridge to feed the kids on the lower end of the scale. It is oatmeal beefed up with corn and rice and peanut powder, providing extra calories and nutrients. The only problem is that most kids don’t actually get to drink it. Sometimes, when the woman comes home with it or makes it for her family, it goes to the old person because of seniority but they aren’t the ones who will benefit most from it. Being a child under 5 here is like being a grass eating dinosaur. Everyone else is beating you to the food and it’s accepted that you’ll get chased away from the food bowl before you get any of the good stuff. Maybe that not the best analogy but it’s the first thing that popped into my head. Kids here are sent straight from breast feeding and into the food group with the other kids. Then the little 2 year olds forced to fend for himself. They eat slower and less. A good solution is to give them their own bowl. Many women here do not practice good weaning techniques so the babies quickly drop weight after they are denied breast milk. Then they are exposed to dirty water and a carb heavy diet that lacks variety. Women here don’t always exclusively breast feed until 6 months either, sometimes they add in water and other things thinking that it’s ok, but the little babies aren’t ready for all the diseases present, thus starting a cycle of diarrhea and all kinds of parasites and dehydration. Another problem is that women believe that breastfeeding while pregnant is bad, so if a woman gets pregnant while still breastfeeding then she will cut the kid off breast feeding cold turkey. Contributing to this issue is that women think that breast feeding is a form of birth control, which I don’t think it is. In the book I am reading right now, 9 hills to niamambuka (spelling?) She talks about this. This book is really good and is written by a Cote d’Ivoire health volunteer in the late 1990s I think. It’s great though and I definitely recommend it. I personally find it better than Monique in the mango rains, though both are good reads. But I am also in a rush to finish this blog post because I am reading ‘extremely loud and incredibly close’, and I really love this guys writing style. He makes me think of so many things at once and it written in a very natural tone. Makes me want to narrate my own life this way. There are tons of good quotes that I am writing down in my book since I am reading this off a friends kindle. I totally should have gotten one of those.
Some funny things that happened soon after arriving back at home stay last night: I was bored and feeling antisocial so I got out my nail polish and rounded up the kids in my compound and painted all their nails. Even the boys wanted it but I called my host brother over for a second opinion and he said that was a bad idea. He will be coming with me to tubaniso in September for the swear in dinner and things, I am really excited. Each volunteer brings one member of their family and while I would love to bring my sister, all my time has been spent with my host brother so I asked him already. Another funny thing was when I got back; obviously my house had become the home of many animals, ranging from lizards to many obscenely huge spiders. So I opened the door, stepped back, watched some scatter, then rounded up the kids yet again and sent them in storm trooper style to get them all. Single file they came out with an assortment of dead animal body parts, some with only wiggling lizard tails and others carrying spiders by one leg. Successful mission. Then they all sat in my door way and watched me unpack… typical. I love these little kids. I will certainly visit this town at least once a year to stop by, since its relatively close to Bamako and I will be around pretty often to get things done in the city. Once at site, I will be there 3 months essentially with the exception of maybe 4 days before I am allowed to leave my region. This means 4 days of internet in 3 months, so September through December should be interesting. But another funny thing was that they shot down this giant hawk like bird for my return. My host dad had apparently been hunting with his revolutionary era rifle and managed to shoot down this giant oversized parakeet looking bird. It looked like a bird that you would see in the Amazonian rain forest but bigger and with giant claws, hopefully for killing snakes (side note- at tubaniso they found 3 black mambas and a king cobra…. These can reach 15 feet) but anyways, the kids were messing with me and the bird so I sat in my hut for a little while they put a leash on it and ran around with it in the air pretending that it was flying. Then they started hitting it against rocks to get some feathers off, and then these 5 year old boys lit it on fire to start plucking it. So basically they just manhandled it for 2 hours and then lit it into a flaming torch and ran around some more. Then they started plucking it and I could see the bullet hole in the wing. … Then I ate it for dinner. What is becoming of me? I don’t know but I miss American meat… I will never scoff at meat in Publix again after eating this for 2 years. It’s hard enough trying to gain weight in America… But I’ll give it till December and then assess whether or not I should start eating ameliorated porridge.
Is it better not to know? I remember when I wrote my Peace Corps essay I quoted this song that I think about a lot that says that ‘living is easy with eyes closed’. Strawberry fields I think. And I think he had a point. In my essay I said how he is right, but that I don’t want to live with eyes closed. Sure, a documentary is nice, I love watching those. But do I want to live one? Every time I leave my room, be confronted by more and more issues? Never get a break? When will I get a break? Do I have to do this? It’s hard. I hide in my room in my bug hut under the UNHCR blanket they give us because it’s the closest I can come from removing myself from the present. But is this far enough? Have I gone far enough? Can I go back, but that doesn’t make me feel good. Today is a free day. I rode 30 min down the road to visit friends. It was really nice. I love Peace Corps people. So different but all on the same page. We all jumped through hoops to be here but we all want it, need it. I rode home at the last possible minute before dark and as I changed out of my sweaty shirt in the negen, I see my host dads breaking truck crumble into the compound. Out pour 900 kids and all the women he took to the fields with him. Then he takes out two monkeys. It is a dad and a son, they boast. I smile and say that we don’t have those in America and that we don’t eat them. I grab my camera and take a picture, thinking, well this is Africa. They are all thrilled. Then I notice that the baby monkey is still alive. Fatally injured, but rolling around on his dad and making monkey noises, tail flailing, pushing its little hands into his dad. The kids, all probably 15 of them, are surrounding it. They are poking it with a knife, torturing it. My host dad is sitting off in a chair yelling at them every so often but I don’t know what he was saying. We were all standing around a dead dad monkey and a dying baby monkey. It felt so weird to be standing so close to something dead. I felt like I had killed it, standing above it. I don’t know how it felt but I had never felt so out of place and removed in my life. Then I snapped. Berated these kids in English and French and Bambara and told them how ridiculous it is that they are enjoying this. How inhumane and unnecessary to promote suffering for sufferings sake. Just kill it, just eat it already. My one host brother who speaks French was unfortunate enough to be next to me and I yelled at him in French too but unlike the kids, he could understand me. Then I knew I was going to start crying so I went and got my already full water bottle and said I was going to my friend’s house to fill it. On the way out I say my other host brother who I am closest with and told him that I can’t be here, near people who will poke and prod a living animal and how it is very important to kill it fast. But they don’t care and they don’t understand. Will they ever understand? Am I being unreasonable? Just add it to the reasons to laugh at the emotional tubab with her nalgene and chaccos and tubab medicines. So I get myself together and I’m petting my dog that has become a lap dog and its so cute. Then I go in my house and then I hear him crying. So I run out and I see the dog running around crying, dragging his butt on the ground. No one cares and everyone is laughing. I run to my house and they laugh at my urgency. I get my flashlight and roll the dog over and see something giant and white stuck to her butt. I thought maybe it was a scorpion but it looked more like a giant white play dough starfish. I didn’t know what it was so I told my host dad to get it off with the stick he was holding. I know the dog has been having issues lately because it has been constantly biting its butt and I could tell it was itchy or burning. But then the host dad pulls out this giant white thing out of the dog. I don’t know of this was some sort of female dog issue or what but it was disgusting. I went and washed my hands. Then the dog was laying there. People beat their kids and wives behind closed doors for the most part. But animals they don’t care. This is why I snapped- because I saw. So what am I not seeing? Will there come a point when I know enough, to not want to know? Will my naïve curiosity turn into a realistic knowledge? When will that happen? I hope it happens. When I no longer want to know, when I can’t do anything; when I no longer want to know just for the sake of knowing. It doesn’t help anyone.
But I love the Peace Corps. I can’t stress it enough. I have never been happier. If anyone is reading my blog and thinking what I was thinking a year ago- start the application process some rainy night and you will see. I can’t believe I am here. There are reasons that I am here. We did a baby weighing yesterday. Literally all of the kids that showed up looked pretty good. But I was amazed to find out their ages. A normal looking kid, who doesn’t even look underweight, can be in the red zone meaning that he is critically malnourished. They have to go to the CSCOM asap. We had a 26 month old who weighed 7 kilo. He looked normal, but not when you factor in his age. That’s what blows my mind though. He wasn’t skinny. But he was in bad shape. So today we had an ameliorated porridge making session to teach women about construction foods that will help their kids stay in the green. There are lots of behaviors to be changed and I keep hearing the Peace Corps beat it into our brains- we are here to change behavior.
Side note- Ashley- remember the incident which I can’t explain for politically correct reasons when we were standing in our door ways in muscle beach and I said something stupid then you clapped to kill a bug but I was mistaken? Jajajajajj I would call you right now and tell you that right now if I had phone credit. You lie like a bug.
Last day at home stay. It’s sad saying good bye but I am so, so ready to get a routine and cook for myself and have a say in what I do. Today I learned that my 16 year old sister is married and that her husband lives in Bamako but she lives here, until she is done with some school and wants kids. I had no idea. I was just talking to my host brother about when people get married here, and he said that the average for girls is about 18, but that it varies based on puberty and things. And he said that men get married around the age of 30, to the 18 year old. He had some interesting explanations for this age gap. I said I want a husband near my age. Another experience today was when my host mom came home from the doctor’s office. Her one year old has been sick lately and he doesn’t look too good. So he went to the CSCOM today and she came back with 5 bottles of medicine. I looked through them, the instructions to which were in English and French and while she can’t speak either language I don’t think she can read either. But the instructions were obviously translated from Chinese or something because they made no sense and basically said to follow the doctor’s instructions. But she had medicine for everything from amoebas and giardia to malaria. I hope the pharmacist didn’t rip her off, because a blood test could have narrowed down the medicine list for sure. But she’s giving this poor kid the medicines and he doesn’t want any of it and it says to take with food and milk and things but she doesn’t know that… it was depressing to watch. Her breasts dried up so the kid has been sucking on nothing for too long now and I am trying to be optimistic for the kid but it’s hard. The other one year old in my family came back from some time away and its skin looks like kwashiorkor to me. I don’t think it is because its limbs aren’t swollen but it isn’t looking too healthy either… and as usual, every kid has eternal amounts of snot dripping on their faces and coughs akin to TB. Being a kid here is hard- I look around at the teenagers and wonder how many didn’t make it that far. I was happy to see that my host mom could afford the medicines though and that she didn’t depend on only African traditional medicine. I know she had been using it a few weeks ago, but I am glad to see that she went to the CSCOM. I wish I was going to be around for long enough to see this kid get better, but I am off to my new site. I do plan on visiting though and I have my host brother’s phone number.
And a BIG THANKS goes to AUNT SUE, CARIN GREENE, MY MOM, AND THE LEARS!!! THANKS SOOOOOO MUCH for the packages- I cannot express how much my friends and I enjoyed that. THANKS!!!

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