Malaria Month (a little late because of lack of internet)

Recreation at school....a 30 minute break at 10 am where the teachers of my school sit around and chat about whatever. Today's topic? Malaria!

We were all sitting outside under the big neem tree, wishing that we had snacks to eat. One of the teachers brought out a bucket of shea fruit for us to snack on. I personally can't appreciate shea in any other form besides lotion, so I politely declined. The other teachers dug right in. The last teacher to join us was also offered some of the fruit to eat. He refused saying that when he eats shea fruit he gets malaria. WHAT?!

After some inner chuckling I look at him and asked him to repeat what he had said. He said "Chaque fois que je mange de karité je suis malade avec palu" (Every time I eat shea I get sick with malaria). The other teachers all seemed to agree with this statement. Wow. So I thought to myself, what a great time to teach about the real facts of malaria.

According to the World Health Organization-
 "Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium, which is transmitted via the bites of infected mosquitoes. In the human body, the parasites multiply in the liver, and then infect red blood cells.

Symptoms of malaria include fever, headache, and vomiting, and usually appear between 10 and 15 days after the mosquito bite. If not treated, malaria can quickly become life-threatening by disrupting the blood supply to vital organs."

*In 2010 malaria caused an estimated 660 000 deaths (with an uncertainty range of 490 000 to 836 000), mostly among African children

Malaria is preventable and curable!

I asked the teachers at my school to give me some examples of how they thought people contracted malaria. Some of the answers are as follow-

1. If you take a shower too late at night you will get malaria

2. Eating shea will give you malaria

3. Travelling at night will give you malaria

4. Too much sun will give you malaria

5. Rainy season gives you malaria- Bingo!!!

I decided to take this last fact and start from there. I am not the sort of teacher that likes to just give away answers so I asked questions to try and get them to arrive at the right answer

-Rainy season gives you malaria?

-Yes

-Why?

-Because there is a lot of water, when there is a lot of water people get sick with malaria.

-Ok...this is true. But what is there a lot of when there is a lot of water?

-There are a lot of mosquitoes.

Tah-dah!

I explained to them that rainy season is that time of year when most people get sick with malaria but they can get sick with malaria year-round because it's actually the mosquitoes that bite them. I picked up a stick and drew a picture in the sand of how malaria is transmitted. I explained to them the mosquitoes are the ONLY way to get malaria, that the teacher could eat shea until he turned into shea butter and that was not how he was going to get malaria. We went over all the myths that they had heard and we discussed why they were not true. 

After talking about the ways that people contract malaria, it's EXTREMELY important to talk about the ways that malaria can be prevented. I told them that the easiest way to prevent malaria is to use the FREE bed nets that they get from the CSPS. Even if they sleep outside all they have to do is just hook it up and sleep under it. Also, removed stagnate water from courtyards and shower areas is an easy way to get rid of mosquito breeding grounds. 

The teachers were all really engaged and asked a lot of questions. It was amazing. We made a plan for me to come in the each class and teach all the kids of the school about malaria and malaria prevention. I'm also going to get out in the community and let people know the causes and prevention methods of malaria.

Also side-note, I'm a survivor of malaria. I got malaria last year, I had it on my birthday (happy birthday to me). I was feeling sort of feverish one day while traveling to Nate's site. I kept taking ibuprofen to keep it down. It would go away but it would eventually come back. The next day I was just feeling sort of crappy still but didn't think anything of it. I just wasn't feeling myself and had no appetite. I told Nate that I was going to take a nap, 2 hours later I woke up feeling just horrendous. I asked Nate for a thermometer and some medicine. I took my temp and it was 103.2. Yikes! I took medicine and it went away. I went to bed that night and suffered all night. I kept getting the fever, my head was killing me. The next morning after taking my temp and seeing that it was 104.8 Nate's sister walked me to the clinic. Where I was diagnosed with malaria and given the medication for it. I spent the next 3 days in and out of sleep and throwing up everything I ate, and then my insides. It was the worst I've ever felt in my life. I developed anemia and had lost 10 lbs. in that week. I had no energy at all. It literally sucked the life out of me. Luckily I recovered and all was fine. Now I want to help others prevent that horrible feeling.

Hopefully this year there will be less adults and less children that get malaria this year. 

The Holiday Season 2012

Christmas

This Christmas was better than I ever could have imagined. Sudawg and I made plans for her to come to my site for the holiday and it turned out that 5 others wanted to come too! The more the merrier! We all bought matching Christmas fabric and everyone was to get something made out of it to wear on Christmas day, and we drew names for "secret Santa". Amy, Kelsey, Elena, and Maren all came on Christmas Eve and Sudawg got there Christmas morning. 

Because we wanted to everyone to have a good time and remember Yoro well, Omar and I went a little crazy planning for the holiday. We bought 5 roosters to kill and eat and also 5 boxes of Sangria. I went in to Leo to buy a bunch of tomatoes and onions and other stuff we would need to cook with. I also ran all over Yoro borrowing pots, pans, and serving dishes from everyone (being by myself 90% of the time I literally own one pot haha)

So for Christmas Eve the mom of my family made us all foutou and chicken. it was really delicious. We all ate until we were stuffed and I took some over to Issaka's house. We all stayed at Issaka's house because his 3 bedroom house is way bigger than my tiny shack. Since everyone had traveled that day they were all tired and went to bed. I stayed up to wait for Issaka to come home. Some friends of mine came by to take me drinking but I didn't end up going.

Christmas day was good. We all woke up and had tea and bread and then headed to my house to start cooking. Sudawg showed up and I couldn't have been happier. We greeted all of my friends and put on our matching Christmas outfits.We spent the day cooking and then we ate with my host family, Issaka, the director of my school, the chief, and whoever else stumbled into the courtyard. After that we were tired so we went to my house to repose a bit. That night we went to my best friend Jonas' house to eat again and party. We drank so much. It was a great night, we had a lot of fun.

The day after Christmas we all went to Boura to visit Lindsay and her family. We went to the marche and then everyone went home and Sudawg and I went back to my village. We were tired so we mostly just hung out and went to bed. The next day we spent all day in my house listening to music, putting on makeup and acting silly. It was a lot of fun. Issaka told us to come over but we ended up going over to Jonas' again and eating and drinking wine. It was a perfect send off for Sudawg.

The 28th Sudawg and I headed in to Ouaga so that we could celebrate New Years here. I called Idrissa and he came to pick me up and we went over to his house. His friends wanted to take me out dancing so we all went drinking and dancing and it was a lot of fun. I ended up spending the night. The next day Idrissa and I went to his grandma's house and to visit a bunch of other people. I went back to the Transit House in the afternoon to head to the expat's house (see "The Social Experiment"). The next day Idrissa came and picked me up again and we went out with his friend Zakaria and this other guy. I ended up staying the night. 

New Year's 2013

After spending so much time with Idrissa it was decided that I would stay and celebrate New Year's with him and his friends. His friends were so much fun, I felt totally comfortable partying with them. During the day we hung out, ate and drank liquor and beer. At night we got all dressed up and went out to this club to go dancing. We got there early which was good because that place filled up really quickly. I danced all night with Idrissa and his friends. At midnight we all toasted the New Year and there were fireworks and more dancing. It was magical. We ended up going to bed around 4 am.

New Year's Day was even more fun. We got up around 9 am and bathed and stuff. Idrissa's mom cooked us an amazing lunch and all the guys came over and ate with us. After we got dressed to go greet people. We visited so many people and had at least a beer everywhere we went. Needless to say we had a lot to drink. People were so nice and everyone welcomed me into their homes. I took a lot of pictures with Idrissa and his family. He has a such a beautiful family. His mom is amazing. She treated me like part of the family. His little siblings all loved me, especially the baby Sharifa. Indescribable how amazing my New Year's was.

I had a fantastic time with Idrissa. He's someone that I can talk to about anything. We would literally fall asleep after talking forever and wake up laughing like idiots. He wasn't weird about people looking at us together. He did explain to me that it was a little strange for him. He told me that he grew up in the same neighborhood practically his whole life, everyone knows him there so no one really makes a big deal when he's around. When we were together people were not only looking at me, but him as well. He said that people were wondering what he did to get to spend time with me. It was cute but I get how that could be weird for him. At least now he understands how I feel everyday. I finally left his house the 2nd. Not that either of us wanted me to go, but I had other things that I needed to get done while in Ouaga.

This year's holiday season was really something to write home about :)

A social experiment...

What happens when you put 3 starving Burkina Faso volunteers in an expat's house for a night?

MADNESS!

While trying to figure out what to do with myself during my time in Ouagadougou I of course call my friend Amy to see what she's up to. She informs me that she is going to be house-sitting for someone right down the street from us. Obviously that means that I will be joining her. We get there and oh my God we are instantly overwhelmed. This house can fully stocked with 2 fridges, internet  t.v., and a phone-line that lets you make FREE calls to America. Boy were we in for a long night.

Walking into their house was like walking in to an American house. We were greeted by a HUGE golden retriever puppy named Holden. He was cute and fun for all of 5 minutes before he got annoying lol. They also and 3 huge cats as well. Their house was decorated in awesome Christmas decorations. It felt a little like being at home. There was a Christmas tree and lights everywhere. It was beautiful.

The first thing that we did upon arrival was check out the contents of their fridge. They told us to help ourselves to anything in there (mistake number one). It was fully loaded with beer, CHEESE, American candy, and all kinds of snacks. We surely did help ourselves. We literally ate like everything in their fridge. The wife told Amy that there was some meat in the fridge for the dog. She fed him a pice and then looked at it. Being from tiny villages where meat is rare and you defiantly don't waste it on your dog we decided to eat it. We stole food from a dog....that was a low point haha! We had pizza and wine and I even had a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup! Something I have not seen in the last 18 months!

We immediately tried out the internet and the phone. The phone really let us talk to America! Fist thing I did was call my mom. She didn't answer because she didnt recognize the number so I kept calling until she did. Also, it was like 8 am. we got to talk for a while. It was awesome. I also got to call Lauren and talk to her for almost 2 hours. That was the highlight of my day. In 18 months we literally haven't gotten a chance to talk for more than 10 minutes. We caught up on each others' lives. We downloaded the new Grey's Anatomy and a ton of music.

We joked so much about how much food we ate and how if anyone could see the way we were acting they would be mortified! But to us, it was a night of fun and good friends :)

P.S. The next day we all left before they got a chance to look in the fridge lol.