Update from Matam

Call me romantic, call me inspired, call me a lazy American, but my favorite thing to do in Matam is ride around in our air-conditioned car and watch the scenery outside. God must have heard my laziness/romanticism, for we spent the better part of the workweek riding around finding small villages and hamlets for my project.

Day 1: We stopped by the office and picked up a sheet listing 30 villages, one of which (as pointed out by Andrea’s Senegalese counterpart, Latsouk) was named “Peru.” Despite my lame pleas, we did not end up in Peru, but instead went to another village whose name I cannot remember nor did I copy down. I know, great investigation skills.

After some navigating around cows and asking half a dozen confused people where our mysterious village was, we stumbled upon our desired hamlet and spent the next hour and a half talking to various people of the hamlet to gather quantitative data. Being two foreigners and two Senegalese, we managed a fine audience of dumbfounded adults who masked their interest as best as possible, and dumbfounded kids who made no effort whatsoever to mask their interest. But no matter, we got the data needed out of the short interviews.

Day 2: Japan’s philanthropy runs in mysterious ways, not limited to agriculture development in the middle of Senegal. I have no profound comments to make of this endeavor; the reason I mention this is because in our first hour of driving around on day two, we went by pasture land that was restored by the Japanese. Day two consisted of asking more people along the street for directions to a very small and largely unknown hamlet. Fortunately for us, we found number 13 (he was wearing a shirt that said “13”) and pointed us in the right direction. Said hamlet had a current population of two: one adult and one kid. The kid of course wearing a “New York” t-shirt, but suffice to say that “We’re American” is all the information most people need, and we didn’t get to have a laugh about the coincidence of the shirt locality.

The luck of the week continued, because the adult was able to direct us to the village center, where we found a few people capable of translating directly from the local language to French, so all of us could understand, but the results of the survey were less than encouraging. When asked what happens when someone who is migrating by foot falls very sick, our guy more or less answered, “Well you know…whoever dies, dies; whoever lives, lives.” The rest of the interview followed in similar fashion.

Day 3: We were told we’d be going to an even more remote location than the previous two, so I decided the occasion called for full-length pants. Unfortunately, the only location that got to see my pants was the car. Mysterious hamlet was so mysterious that it took us a full 2.5 hours to determine that it was currently uninhabited and only accessible by foot. We did manage to get some pictures of the neon grass up close, and convince our driver that his services should remained unpaid on our part. Andrea also got a marriage proposal by a 15-year-old boy. Last I heard, that’s a no go.

So on to the weekend! On Friday night, we were informed that we’d be attending a conference for World Population Day. The conference was planned to start at 9 AM, but this translated to anytime between 9 AM – Sunday, but being the good Americans and Senegalese we are, we woke up to be on time for the 9 AM start time. At 11:20 AM, the conference officially started, and the next few hours proceeded with a blur of two local languages interspersed with French words and some snoring on the part of the audience.

On Sunday, I was feeling slightly ill, and was greeted with a torrential downpour of rain as my saving grace. I opened the door, looked to my left, and saw Andrea thoroughly drenched and smiling. Obviously, the solution pick-me-upper was getting soaked, so I stormed outside in full force, fully clothed, and ran as fast as possible to the edge of the pavement before I realized I couldn't see anything and was experiencing a sensation that is utterly foreign at this point: being cold. Sure enough, I feel a million times better after the brief run, and that night, fully enjoyed comfortably wearing JEANS in 77 degree F (23 degree C) weather. Hallelujah!

Below is a picture of Andrea and her binome, Latsouk:




-Mala

Kolda

The third leg of our in-field research mission has brought us to Kolda, within the Cassamance Region of Senegal. The region of Kolda has been stabilized, and military presence is significantly less relative to other areas of the Cassamance. Kolda is refreshing, green, and lush.. and a nice change after almost a month spent in the steamy desert of Tambacounda. In Tambacounda, life was restricted - and the days planned according to the heat. The climate here in Kolda is tropical, the scenery jungle-like, the ambiance tranquil, and the people very calm, warm, and grounded. Our residence is walled within one grand village, filled with wonderful families, curious children, and life - simplified. The evenings allow for long walks through the village, exchanging with families in the region, taking in the scenery, and learning... Living in Kolda for the past two weeks has brought me internal peace, restored my creativity, and already connected me with people very special to my heart. 

The group with Governor Seck of Kolda

The view from the terrace at our residence. 

Tambacounda, part deux

Muttons trying to keep cool in the shade

When it rains in Tambacounda... 

    

A trip to a village, Gambi, far removed - to visit health posts. We had to drive through a forest for 30 minutes to reach the village, of only a little over 300 inhabitants. 

True beauty is a feeling. In the midst of poverty and destitution, I have found astounding beauty that is, raw, untainted, and free… strong eyes and a gaze full of force and strength, surrounded by an aura of African gold.

The last two weeks in Tambacounda were nothing short of an emotional roller coaster. Research and interviews conducted in the field lead to a daily, sometimes hourly turnover of stories, and realities, that continued to haunt me in my dreams. My research partner, Antoniette, and I spent a week working at the Tambacounda Regional Hospital in the maternity ward. Tambacounda Regional hospital serves the entire region of Tambacounda (the largest region in Senegal) and has extremely limited staff, i.e. only 2 general surgeons.  We spent our time uncovering records, hunting down statistics, interviewing doctors,coordinators, surgeons, mid-wives, and also interviewing the reason of our study – women who have been hospitalized during delivery for obstetrical complications.

 The rooms in the maternity ward are very small, and there are usually five women, or girls,  to a room, whom have just given birth, or experienced a problem with delivery. The there is no AC, it is over 100 degrees outside, and even warmer inside the rooms where there is no air circulation. There are not enough cribs to sustain the amount of women that deliver at the hospital. In the delivery room, after a baby is delivered, he is placed on an open table, resembling a desk in a science lab, in the center of the room, with the other babies of the hour, unattended (except for me, somewhat frantic, constantly running back to make sure they were still on the table and not experiencing anydifficulties). In the maternity rooms, some new born babies lay on the floor, wrapped in a piece of cloth, on a plastic mat because there are not enough cribs. Attending nurses are few and many areas of the hospital are pure, chaos. Although I did notice that African, perhaps Senegalese babies, rarely cry. They are relatively happy, curious, and excited. Welcome to the world…

Inspiration

 Dr. Millogo, head surgeon Tambacounda Regional Hopital

Madame Aja Diop, President Regionale de la federation desassociations feminines du Senegal

Meeting with the Governor of Kolda

The group in Kolda had the opportunity to speak with the Governor and his staff yesterday about reproductive health in the region. See below!

Kolda is heating up

We are finishing up our second week in Kolda here and things are starting to heat up, both methodologically and meteorologically! We arrived pleasantly cooled-down after our time in Tamba. It rains every few days in Kolda which tends to keep us rather cool, but today is rather hot.

My binome Oulèye and I are moving along well with our research and are eager to start the next (and most exciting!) phase of the IFP: data analysis. We will conclude our surveys of youth this week. After all is said and done we will have spoken with 70 youth, either through focus groups or individual interviews, in Mbour, Tambacounda and Kolda. We are starting to notice some definite trends with regard to gaps in the CCA's strategies to raise awareness amongst out-of-school youth, most notably the so-called advanced strategies, which are events carried out in remote quartiers and villages, where behavior change is most critical to reducing early pregnancy and STI/HIV/AIDS infection rates. We've also noticed that many youth and community leaders say time and again that the responsibility for reducing the number of early marriages, early pregnancies, and early sexuality in general falls on the shoulders of their parents, yet there is no ostensible awareness-raising strategy for top-down behavior change at the head of household level. Early marriage rates in Tambacounda and Kolda are especially high, largely due to poverty, but also linked to certain socio-cultural tendencies in these communities. A concerted effort to increase dialogue with parents about alternatives to early marriage and early sexuality in general would likely yield dramatic changes.

We are excited to start analyzing our data in full to confirm whether these initial impressions hold true. Only time will tell!

Kolda

We arrived in Kolda last week and we really like it. We are living a bit outside town in a center for women that was built by the government. The center is in the middle of a village. It is really quiet and peaceful, and the family who runs it is wonderful. We also love the UNFPA expert, Cheikh Ba! He has been so supportive of our work, and he is great to work with. The driver, Sidi, is also a lot of fun. He loves introducing us to his African music, and we are having fun teaching him English phrases like, "What's up?!"

Work is going well. I interviewed a lot of young people last week about their knowledge of HIV and reproductive health. My binome and I went to a mechanic shop, a beauty school, a couple of wood worker shops, and a tire shop to talk to young apprentices who have dropped out of school. There are a lot of HIV awareness activities in the town, but I am seeing that the activities aren't really translating into significant behavioral changes. There is a really strong culture of early marriage and early pregnancy, so the research has been incredibly interesting.

This weekend, we took a trip to Ziguinchor, which is on the Casamance River. We went to a cool market at the Center for Artisans, and we had some great food. Now, it is pouring rain and we are wondering if our sept place is going to make it back to Kolda today. :)