May 4th
I think I might be coming down with a cold. I'm kind of at a loss as
to how I should go about fighting it off. It started this morning,
just that feeling of your nose being kind of thick and congested at
the back. No coughing, no nasal drip, I've been sneezing a lot the
past few days but that could easily be the dust I'm inhaling day and
night. At home I would drink my orange juice and try to avoid
contamination, but I have no orange juice or vitamin c or zinc or any
other placebo-inducing pill I can take, and I work at a health clinic
and am greeted by dozens of children every day, most of whom probably
never wash their hands.
Today we got right underway at the maternity, it was actually quite
impressive. Sali and Alain (I finally learned the name of the
intern!) weighed and took blood pressure, Belem and I did the exams
and the paperwork, respectively. Once they were finished outside,
Alain took over the exams, Belem went to the other room to do the
post-natal consultations, and I handed the paperwork over to Sali so
I could bike out to Ecole D. I timed it perfectly, I pulled up just
as they let out for their 10am break, and talked to the director. We
planned for me to come back next Tuesday afternoon to talk to the APE
about moringa and give them the seeds, and he told me about a giant
“recitation” happening tomorrow at Ecole A with students from all
14 schools in our district. Not sure what it involves, but I'll go
and say hello at least.
It was fun being back at Ecole D, the director is so nice and the
other teacher, Janine, was back from her maternity leave. She named
her son “Oswald”, all I could think was “that poor boy”. It's
not a name I've heard here before, but living in a Muslim village I
don't get to hear many non-Muslim names so I guess it could be really
popular in other places. I realized this afternoon why she looked so
familiar when I first saw her at the school – it's because I met
her at Sylvie's house when she was still the Major here! It clicked
today when the director told me her name, and when she told me that
Sylvie is posted in OHG now, and I remembered eating attcheke with
her and Sylvie's little sister and telling her that I had a friend in
the US named Janine. Now I know why she was so friendly the first
time we met at the school. Functionaires here have amazing maternity
leaves – 3 months with your family, you can bring your baby to
work, and you officially have up to an hour and a half of breaks each
day to nurse. In the US I think you get 2-6 weeks? And nursing at
work?!
I went back to the CSPS as the break was finishing, watched Mariam do
a very impressive IV insertion into a severely dehydrated and
malnourished child (I couldn't see a vein to stick the needle into,
but she apparently did), then went back to the maternity side of
things and helped Belem with post-natal consultations in the birthing
room (thankfully no one was in labor). She did a Jadelle insertion
for the woman who had the stillborn twins, I really wish I could have
understood what they were saying to each other in terms of if she had
wanted the babies and why she was choosing to wait at least 2-3 years
before trying again, if ever. Granted, from an American perspective
having 4 living children by the time you're 30 sounds good enough,
but that's still a relatively small family size here and she would be
expected to have more. By the time they're 40 and on their 12th
pregnancy (as one woman today was, although 2 ended in miscarriages
and 1 had died so she “only” had 8 living children to care for)
they look so tired and worn down.
In the afternoon I got some water for laundry tomorrow, and just as I
was getting out of the shower I got a call from Sali, which is very
unusual. She said she was at home, that her mother had come to visit.
I had been hoping to lounge around in my pagne after my shower, so I
reluctantly took that to mean I should get dressed and go over. I did
and it was a lot of fun! I didn't stay for dinner (the sauce sounded
quite tasty until she said that the first two ingredients were
soumbala and powdered dried fish) but I greeted her mother, talked
about cooking, foods you can and can't find in the US (we don't eat
bean leaves, for example, but do have beans), her trees (one is
malnourished and needs to be de-wormed, the other is beautiful and
you can see how much it's grown in her years here by the laundry rope
that got stuck in a groove and is now high out of reach), and looked
at photos including a few of Sali with Lauren, and the ones I gave
her. It made me so happy to see them there, to know that I'll be
remembered. What I need to do is take photos of me with each person
and give it to them so they can prove they knew me :) She and her
mother spent a long time on the photo of Mom and I with some of my
nurses, pointing out how similar we looked “like sisters” with
our glasses and short hair and big smiles.
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