Friday 17 October 2008

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.

1 comment:

Happy AlegreS said...

Hi Mark!
I stumbled upon your blog while searching for postcard resources from Togo. Are there postcards in Togo? I hope there are. And I hope that maybe you can send me one :) I just so love those little windows to the rest of the world ;) I would really love to have one from the side of the world where you are. In return, I can send you a post card should you be interested to receive one from my country. Thanks and good luck on your stay in Togo.