Still Standing

The past two weeks at post have been quite encouraging for me. Overall my health has dramatically improved as if God read my blog and bestowed a little mercy upon me. The series of health related problems have gone away temporarily, and it has really allowed me to enjoy my life again. I am continuing to work at the hospital each week helping with the baby weighing sessions. Baby weighing is something I really looked forward to doing because the weight of the infant is a nutrition related problem which I spent the last five years of my life studying. In many cases, however, it is not an issue of nutrition at all. It is an issue of sanitation and infectious disease. In Africa children do not sleep in immaculate cribs away from dust, dirt, insects, etc. They are exposed to the harsh environment right away and mothers here give their children freedom to crawl pretty much anywhere they please. In the long run, the children build up immunity to many of the germs present over here. That is why a 23 year old Togolese man is not going to be wiped out for an entire month like I was when exposed to the bacteria in the food and water. The problem in exposing children to so many germs so quickly is the fact that they get sick at a very early age which has severe consequences on the development of that child. So basically baby weighing has been difficult because there is no advice you can really give mothers (as a nutritionist) to help an infant grow and develop at the correct pace. If a child is malnourished the mother in all cases I have heard proclaims that her child has been sick. Where nutrition plays an important role is when the child is introduced to other foods as well as breast milk. But I have noticed at the baby weighing sessions, the mothers tend to stop bringing their babies after a year or so, thinking that the critical time period for growth in development is over which is not correct. So why did I just ramble on about this issue? I think the issue of sanitation is not given enough attention when programs are developed to combat malnutrition in developing countries. I think one of the most important issues is the unavailability of running potable water. When infants are exposed to dirty well water they are going to get sick and when they get sick they are going to lose weight. The problem with sanitation work here is the fact that it is a very expensive and time consuming endeavour to try and bring running potable water to small villages in the middle of Africa. The overall sanitation of a community is something that is going to take a very long time to change and right now all I can really do is stress the importance of finding potable water and storing it away from dangerous pathogens. I’m also going to spare you my views on the overall cleanliness of my village in regards to garbage for in my opinion it is one of the dirtiest villages in all of Togo.

Random notes from the past two weeks

I bought a refrigerator which has significantly improved my overall quality of life. I forgot how refreshing cold beverages were.

I finally got around to buying a soccer ball, its frustrating getting schooled by 7 year olds but once I get back into shape and practice a bit I think ill be able to hold my own.

AIDS ride starts Monday and lasts all week. It will be interesting getting to see some of the more remote villages in country and how they react to 10 pale white Americans dressed the same.

The difficulties of living in Africa

It has been about of a month now at my post and I have been overwhelmingly frustrated throughout most of it. The reason for my frustration is an ongoing illness that seems to baffle both the Peace Corps Medical Staff and myself. I have been chronically fatigued day in and day out with spontaneous sometimes week long bouts of diarrhea. Stomach issues are something that is to expected especially living in Africa but, whatever is causing this sense of fatigue and weakness should have been expelled by my immune system weeks ago. On days where my condition worsens I have been confined to my bed drinking Oral rehydration syrup with liter upon liter of water to stay hydrated. It is during this time when I feel utterly useless. Not being able to go out and integrate myself into the culture is severely hindering my Peace Corps experience up to this point. Because there are not many sustainable NGOs in my community, it is up to me to make connections and network with other local health agents or citizens living in close proximity to me. Having this myriad of symptoms plaguing my body has made this task impossible. Being sick also leads to other problems such as: spending more money on prepackaged foods at local boutiques, having other people cook for me, being too weak and tired to clean, increase in the electric bill because the fans are constantly running, etc. With time I can only hope that I will grow accustomed to my environment here in Africa and I must keep in mind that there is a reason why the Peace Corps lists "flexibility" as the most important attribute a volunteer should have.

Okay my whining and complaining is done for now. In other news, the holy month of Ramadan has finally ended and the Muslims (who represent 80% of my community) are not obliged to fast any longer. I have been very interested in the role that religion plays in the peoples lives here in Togo. Prior to me coming to my post I did not feel like the Islam of Africa was anything remotely close to that of Middle Eastern countries. But, I have been impressed with devotion that my friends have to their religion (studying Arabic in their free time, abstaining from alcohol, keeping a strict prayer schedule, etc) and my knowledge of Islam has definitely come in handy when trying to have a general conversation with people of the community.

My next month is definitely an important time for me here in Togo. AIDS ride which is a Peace Corps sponsored event where about 15 of us volunteers in the northern most region will cycle 40km each day from village to village doing HIV/AIDS lectures and theatre style skits. It will be a good time to gather information and discuss possible collaborations with other volunteers. It will also serve as a good time to improve my French and get to see the eastern side of the country which I have yet to see.