Health Hut How-to

Last week there wasn’t school for any of the kids except the highest class. There are 2 CM2 classes. CM2 is equivalent to 5th or 6th grade. One of the teachers was there all week, so he held class, while the other had class only on Friday. In fact, all of the teachers were in on Friday, but not having had class Monday through Thursday, none of the students showed up Friday, except the upper class.

I’m in Velingara today, so I’m not sure if there’s school today. The strike is still on, but it seemed to me that the teachers said on Friday they’d teach Monday, strike Tuesday, teach Wednesday, etc. That seems a little more reasonable to me, given that what they’re teaching is still last year’s school year. Through the end of the month (and who knows, but now possibly longer?) they’re finishing the school year that was interrupted by too many strikes last spring. So this year’s school year is meant to start in December.

I spent a lot of time last week planning. I have two books that I probably could have/should have read earlier to help with my work: Environmental Education in the Community, and the Nonformal Education Manuel. I did read parts of the EE one when I was working on my Environmental Assessment, but I’m now reading it through to help me better do my job, now that I know what my job is. (and what my community wants from me). I’ll be starting my Environmental club at the school the week after Thanksgiving, so I worked a little on planning the first session.

Work at the health hut has been frustrating, mostly because I have had no idea what I my role would be there and so I’ve been just spending time trying to figure out how it works and is organized and run. A great epiphany came this week in that area. The main problems of the health hut (as identified in our meeting with Mamadou) are 1. lack of medicines available, 2. lack of equipment, especially for the maternity room, 3. sub-standard care(?). How can I help with those things? 1: I cannot supply medicines. I could find someone like USAID or World Vision to do that, but they’re both already active in the health hut. I have thus far been unsuccessful figuring out what medicines are lacking and why. 2: I cannot supply equipment. I could find someone to do it, etc, but again, why don’t we have it? If the reason our health hut is lacking is because someone is eating the money (I don’t think this is it) or because it’s badly managed, that needs to be fixed first before the foreigners swoop in and save the day with a great (and unsustainable) gift to the health hut. It’s very important to the development of Senegal, and probably Africa in general, that development workers and organizations are not seen as simply sources of stuff and money. Knowledge is power. And sustainability is the buzzword. And they say (at least on the BBC) African solutions to African problems. Foreign investment and aid can help, certainly, and is absolutely necessary to development, but it must be done the right way, which is not often the easy way. All this to say, finding things out at the health hut is not as simple as I think it ought to be (the information sharing demons strike again), and I don’t know as much about what I can do as what I can’t do. 3: I’m still trying to sort out why the care at the health hut is thought to be sub-standard. It may just be a misunderstanding of the capabilities of a health hut by the villagers. I think essentially what they’d like is a mini-hospital in our village. Velingara is only 15km away with a district hospital, Sinthian Koundara is 11km away with the next level down, the health post; but both are deemed too far away and some people want an ambulance in the village for emergencies. There is an ambulance at the hospital in Velingara, so I’m not sure why they want one here so badly. It’s not like we have a real road into the village or a place to keep it, or a place to get fuel easily. You’d have to go to Velingara.

Recently (and predating my involvement) there have been several things going on to “revamp” the health hut: USAID is partnering with them to make sure things are run the way they should be, and that it is well equipped. World Vision is doing the same, and provided a new stock of medicines last week. SO, my great epiphany was this: my strengths are not in what I can bring into the health hut, or things I can get them. They are problem solving, support, and (remember this from earlier?) nonformal education. USAID and World Vision are trained and experienced in health hut work, so they know what to do and how to do it. What do I know? I know how to follow direction, and I know how to keep track of things. So I can help by being a local presence that supports their work. Since I actually live in the village, I can stop by regularly and help the health hut workers do the institutional and organizational things required by both USAID and World Vision. I can continue to ask questions because that reinforces the training of the health workers—when you have to explain how and why you’re doing something, you solidify your understanding of it as well. I can also help with causeries.

From the meeting with Mamadou, (and the fact that I haven’t seen any causeries in my village), I was led to believe that there were not any educational practices being hosted by the health hut. UNTRUE. We actually do have causeries. All the time. I just didn’t know about them. (Surprise, surprise, I am unaware of something going on in the community… just like everything else. Apparently everyone else knows, but either I’m not affected by it so they don’t tell me, or I’m just that oblivious, and bad at pulaar.) It wasn’t until about 20 minutes into a conversation about me wanting to bring another volunteer to the village to talk about nutrition that I was shown a schedule book that keeps track of the causeries. (Causeries are like public service announcements or health trainings). So now that I know about them, I will be attending causeries to help gauge their effectiveness and hopefully make them better. The main thing the community asked for from me at the meeting was health education, so something is clearly lacking in the health education already available. I can help with that. I realized that actually, I have a lot of experience in working with education in the community: lots of youth work, volunteer stuff, even my internship as a park ranger that I thought would prove to be more fun and less useful in the long fun. Tadaa! I am useful and have a skill set valuable to my community. Huzzah!

Yesterday was a fun day: Tostan hosted a huge declaration against the practice of excision in the Velingara department and people came from all over the country to show support. There was dancing, singing, speeches, a parade, and some theater that I kind of understood. And I stayed in town last night, which was interesting… The room we have here is pretty basic: a new table, some chairs, a mattress and mosquito net, and a fan. And some mice. No bed, just a mattress on the ground. And some mice. I was a bit paranoid about the mice getting into the mosquito net and crawling on my in my sleep, but eventually I did sleep and the net was effective in protecting me from creepy-crawlies. Still not my favorite, but it’s fine.

Now I’m off to the cyber to post this blog and hopefully head home earlier today than usual, since I’m leaving the village again Wednesday for THANKSGIVING! I’m headed down to Kedougou for some turkey and friend-time. I am very excited and hope to have a lot of fun. Happy Thanksgiving!!!!