Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Ramadan and Robbery

Hello everyone! I know it’s been a super long time since my last post so this time I will try to update you on everything that’s been going in these past few months : )
Ramadan
For the past 30 days I have been fasting for Ramadan (Muslim holiday) with my host family. I was unable to eat or drink anything between 5 am and 7:30 pm (although I did cheat a bit and drink water from time to time, but shhhh, that’s our little secret). The whole point of the fasting is to experience how people in extreme states of poverty live everyday—how it feels to not be able to eat no matter how hungry you are. There are other religious aspects, but I am unclear on the specifics, but my reason for fasting was the poverty issue as well as to help my cultural assimilation.
All that being said, I LOVED Ramadan. It was a really awesome experience; my whole village was super impressed that I fasted for all 30 days (well, we’ll get to that in a minute) and everyone congratulated me at the end. In actuality, it wasn’t all that difficult. The first week was pretty rough, but once you get into a routine it feels kind of normal. Plus since almost everyone was fasting there wasn’t much temptation to eat. My favorite part was breaking fast with my family each night. Around 7 pm everyone gathered on the veranda, checking their cell phones for the time every few minutes. At 7:30 on the dot people chugged water, ate popsicle bonbons, or just started in on the rice….and then of course prayer began. After the prayer we really dug in to the food—imagine Thanksgiving-style feasting all in about 30 minutes time every night for 30 days. Intense, yes, but totally awesome. I realized after the first few days that this kind of binging sort of undermined the whole “how poverty feels” ideology of the holiday, but whatever, we were hungry!
OK, so I know I said I did all 30 days of fasting, but that is actually not true. I only fasted for 29 days, right up to the last day. I’m sure you’re wondering why I stopped when I was so close to the finish. Well, the answer is simple. My family tricked me into eating. It was malicious, but I still don’t know why they did it. I said I was fasting every day until the end and the second to the last day (my last day; Friday) came around and everyone was saying it was over after that. The fete was scheduled for the next day (Saturday) and that’s all anyone talked about all day. However, by that night, people were starting to say the fete was not Saturday, but Sunday. They did not say that fasting would continue, it was still clear that Friday was the last day for fasting. So Saturday morning I woke up all excited to eat in daylight. My mom asked if I was fasting and I said “no, it’s over, right” and no one corrected me. My brothers were joking around saying the fete wasn’t until the next day but they didn’t say I shouldn’t eat. (let me say here that one of my brothers started fasting a day late so I thought he was continuing to fast to make up for that) One of my other mothers then brought me a bowl of rice and I said again that Friday was the last day and asked for confirmation, but I didn’t get a straight answer, so I assumed I could eat. Well, I ate and only after when I counted the days on the calendar did I realize that there was in fact one more day of fasting. It wasn’t my fault, but I should have checked before eating…oh well, 29 days is close enough, and it’s not like I ate because I couldn’t handle fasting, there was just a bit of miscommunication.


Work
Although I haven’t actually started working yet, I have planned out a few projects and am eager to get started as soon as the timing right ( I know that sounds lame, but keep reading and you’ll understand). Firstly, I plan to have a nutrition table at the “petite marche” in my village. I will be giving out samples of healthy meals I prepare using locally available foods and want to make the same dishes families currently eat but make them more nutritious. For example, I can make a simple rice and sauce dish without oil or salt and adding more vegetables to boost flavor. I am hoping to reduce hypertension and malnutrition by teaching the women why these simple changes make meals better and by giving a sample of how the food would taste the women might actually believe me.  I will also give demonstrations on how to make some new meals if any women are interested. Right now there is really no market (besides the larger one outside of town) because of the rains, but once the weather improves in the next month or so the women will start selling the vegetables and other wares and I can start educating them on healthy food prep : )
I am also planning on starting a small youth group with teen boys and girls (5 each, maybe) to discuss difficult and taboo issues in a safe, confidential environment. I want to cover serious concerns such as relationships, sex education, and female circumcision, as well as lighter topics like education, future goals, and life in general. I am hoping to use the members of my group as peer educators to give talks in the schools about important questions youth may have regarding health or anything else. In addition, I would like the club to put on skits for village illustrating some of the issues we cover, allowing the youth to express their opinions to elders in a culturally acceptable way. This project is on hold until school starts in October, because the majority of teens from my village are visiting family or doing summer school activities in some of the cities.
My third project is moringa education and distribution to families in my village. Moringa is a tree that can grow pretty much anywhere and is super easy to raise and very hard to kill. The leaves have all the vitamins and minerals necessary for healthy growth and development for children and can lower blood pressure for adults (in addition to some other stuff). I have planted twelve trees at my health center from which I plan to harvest the leaves and sell to raise money for the health center (to buy a generator so women can give birth with some light instead of just candles—trust me, that’s not as romantic as it may sound). I am also going to use the leaves to make sauces and breads to give out at the above mentioned nutrition table so women can have a better idea of how to use the leaves. I am drawing up a design of a moringa tree illustrating all the health benefits to paint on the wall at the health center next month and have started growing 40 more trees to distribute to families when I discuss how to use the plant.
Finally, I have started planning a pre and post survey about malaria and use of bet nets to administer to people in my village and surrounding neighborhoods which I will use to monitor how malaria morbidity and mortality are affected after bed nets are distributed. This will be a long term project spanning pretty much all the rest of my service and will count towards my Master’s degree. I am hoping to create my final version of the survey in the next week and then start visiting people to talk to them about malaria and gather some data. Over the next few months I will continue to pre-survey and then in April distribute the bed nets (provided by various NGOs) after which I will follow up with the same individuals and ask similar questions to see how bed nets made a difference for them. Hopefully the results of this survey will show something about how beneficial bed nets are at reducing malaria transmission, but we’ll see.

Other Exciting News
Well, the past few weeks have been pretty intense here at PC Guinea. For starters, four volunteers were sent back to the states for riding motorcycles. This may seem like a minor offence, but motos are incredibly dangerous here as no one wears helmets and there are virtually no rules on the road. It was made extremely clear to all volunteers that riding motorcycles would result in immediate expulsion from PC but people still do it all the time. Unfortunately this time PC found out. Actually, one volunteer got a burn from the moto muffler and went to the PCMO to have it looked at. When the PCMO asked the volunteer what happened, he (stupidly) told the truth. The PCMO was then required to tell the country director that a volunteer rode a moto as this is a serious offense. Well, the volunteer met with the country director and told her the WHOLE story, about how him and three other volunteers took motos to a farm and whatnot. As a result of his huge mouth all four of them are back in the states.
Unfortunately, my stage has also lost two other volunteers but as a result of medical separations rather than disciplinary rulings. Firstly, Aprille, a public health volunteer tore her Achilles tendon during in-service training in May and had to go home for surgery. Her treatment and recovery are beyond the 45 days allotted for medical hold and so she is no longer a volunteer, but there is a chance she can come back at some point in the near future, if she wants to, that is. Also, my friend Marissa, an agfo volunteer, has recently been medically separated for an unknown medical issue. She is now in the states working on getting a diagnosis. I’m not sure yet if there is any chance of her returning to Guinea.
On a more personal note, one rainy night during Ramadan someone tried to break into my house. He cut my screen door, but was unable to enter my house as the door was locked with a dead bolt. I slept through the whole thing and knew someone tried getting in when I saw the screen but didn’t think much of it. Later the next day my family told me someone broke into my brother’s house (which is right next to mine) and stole his cell phone, a good bit of money, and a pair of pants. I then told them about my screen and they said it was the same person. They then scared the hell out of me by saying that thieves came at night when it was raining to steal from people and told me to keep my door and windows closed no matter what. Needless to say I didn’t sleep very well for the next week, and even called my brother a few times to come see if someone was trying to break in. It’s easy to think you hear things when it’s raining and the wind is blowing (plus there’s a branch of palm fronds the scrapes against my tin roof and sounds a lot like someone trying to cut open a screen). The person who stole from my brother was caught; turns out he was just a teen visiting family in my village on vacation and he won’t be stealing again (most likely), so no need to worry, I’m ok!