Stuff, stuff, stuff

Hey y’all. (I actually do say y’all here, due to the abundance of Southerners. Sorry. It’s science.)

To start off this month’s blog, here are a couple common village insults and why they do not work on me:

“You eat so many beans! Beans only! So many, all the time!”

“Yes, they’re delicious on sandwiches.”

“You don’t grow corn/peanuts/rice, but you eat it!”

“…Yep.”

Here’s a quick update on the Tamba Run for Education, which took place in early March: IT WAS AWESOME! Thank you so, so much to all of you who donated!  We’re trying to get a list of donors from Washington so we can send out thank-yous, but there’s a lot of red tape involved – so if you’d like a personalized thank-you from yours truly, please reveal yourself, you wonderful, wonderful person. There were about 150 runners, including PCVs, students, firemen and gendarmes, and many random Tamba sports enthusiasts. A professional runner, Djiby Sow, came with his personal photographer and was amazingly nice (and fast, duh). Expats came all the way from Dakar to run, as did a cavalcade of PC/Senegal staff in their fancy buses and cars, ready to help manage, chauffeur, and ensure nobody succumbed to dehydration. Even Tamba’s portly prefet d’education ran the 5k! It was great. Many PCVs were involved in all aspects of organizing the race, from hand-made race numbers to hydration stations to prizes to tent/speaker rental. I have to say that watching some of these students finish the race, especially the girls – who had probably never had this sort of opportunity before - was one of my favorite moments of my service so far. Annnnd, in addition to spreading awareness through the marathon, we also managed to raise nearly 4,000 bucks for girls’ education – not bad for the first time!

First time, I say, because we wholly expect this to be a yearly thing.  We’re already planning the next race, which will take place on December 9^th, 2012 – and it will be even better than last time. It’s never too late to start training/saving up money for your trip to Senegal, people!

A quick and dirty update on other projects that I don’t feel like writing about: LatrinesMasonTrainingGirls’LeadershipCampSchoolGardenMoringa. BAM.

So, I was looking through my journal the other day, and I found an entry from last June – right after I installed – that I want to share. It definitely affected me at the time, and still does (because now I know the aftermath), but illustrates some of the problems with healthcare here, especially for women. It’s a little gross, so don’t read it if you can’t handle amateur descriptions of injuries. You’ve been warned, wimp.

“June 6^th

I guess this is going on 3 weeks now – 2 weeks and 5 days?

It’s hard to say if much has changed. I still have moments when all I want to do is give up and go home. I figure that will last the entirety of my service (note to past self: so far, yes). I think the 3 nights I spent in Tamba did me good, though. It’s comforting knowing I can go back there to escape village for a while.

A weird thing happened today. Kind of disturbing. A man who works at the health post – not a doctor or nurse – as far as I can tell, he just does bandages – told me to come with him to see this woman’s wound. He said he has just been dressing it every day, and she hasn’t been to the hospital. When I got there, the woman limped in – though there was nothing wrong with her food or leg – and sat down. She looked young. She hiked her shirt up and her pagne down, and the guy took off the bandage. I couldn’t believe it. In the lower left side of her abdomen there was a gaping hole. It looked like somebody had opened her up for surgery, changed their mind, and left it like that. The wound must have been 6 inches long, and over an inch wide. When the bandage came off, the room immediately filled with the smell of rotting flesh. I could see right into her belly, but the flesh was grey and obviously very infected, rotting. It looked torn, like the infection had eaten holes further into her. It was horrifying, and combined with the smell, I thought I was going to puke. I backed out of the room.

As it turns out, the woman had a small sore or boil in that area some time ago. One person said two months, another said last year. She had hid it from everyone, including her husband. Over time, the small problem had turned into this monstrosity – something that would surely need surgery and lots of drugs to heal. She had gone to the doctor, who wrote her an order to go to the hospital in Tamba, but she didn’t go. She continued to do all the work a Senegalese woman does, suffering God knows how much, and didn’t tell her husband.

Finally, the day I saw it, we called the husband in. And yes, he had no idea. This woman had this huge, open, infected, rotting wound in her belly, and no action had been taken.

Was she afraid to tell her husband, the one who makes all the final decisions for the family, because she didn’t want him to get angry? It costs money to go to Tamba. Treating the original problem would have been simple and cheap, but now treatment will cost them a fortune. And she had let herself suffer for all this time. I could hardly believe the stupidity of the situation, but that’s an American view. This is one of the first real illustrations I’ve had here of women and healthcare, and the problems there.

She went to Tamba, or at least her husband said she would. I never heard her speak a single word.”

A couple months ago, I remembered this incident and asked my host dad what had happened. So here’s the story: Her husband did not take her to the hospital. He made her try traditional medicine for a long time. When that failed to work (surprise!) he finally took her to Tamba – but by that time it was too late. She was sent back to her parents’ village, where she died soon after.

I have some new questions: Did the husband really not have a clue? Is it possible to live with someone and not realize that they’re rotting inside? Did he just ignore it? Was he just really reluctant to spend money to take her for treatment? Sure, I don’t know the whole story here. Maybe I’m being too cynical. But after living here for a year, and hearing numerous stories like this, usually with the same ending, it’s hard not to be. Laziness, superstition, false information, and ignorance lead to so many easily preventable deaths. Sure points to the importance of health education in village. But deep-held beliefs, such as trust in traditional medicine and distrust of modern medicine (and unwillingness to spend money) are not easily shaken.

On a much brighter note – I will (inchallah) be in America in a month! I’ve been thinking about little else for quite a while. I keep making lists, usually about what kind of food I want to eat there. It’s a great way to pass the time in village. My last list was 46 items long; I counted. I’ll spare you the entirety of the list, but here are a few highlights: Sushi. BBQ tri-tip and roasted red peppers. Latte. Salad. Summer squash soup. Chili. Panini. BURRITO. Thai food. Pho, Etc, etc.

Here’s another list I made in village:

Future Blog Post Titles

“The peanut in Senegal: Its many faces; also, get used to it”

“Sheep or human?: The art of differentiating screams in the night”

“Arguments for ‘The Water Method’”

“SPAM and its growing role in PCV food culture”

“Social customs surrounding care packages”
“The vague reassurance of wearing a bike helmet on public transportation”

“Pigs: everywhere, and yet no bacon”

“’I have good catch’: PCVs’ worrying loss of their native language”

“We’re expected to integrate, but aren’t meant to hit children?!: Guilty thoughts I may or may not have had”

“Signs it’s time to leave village (see above)”

“Toddlers, knives, and fire: village parenting techniques”

“Dirt: all over, all the time” (also: resignation)

Til next time.