First let me acknowledge that I have not posted on my blog
in quite a while and for that I am sorry. After the few somewhat traumatic
events in a row, I took a break from writing, but I’m back at it now!
Merry Christmas from Senegal! This was definitely the
strangest & most unique Christmas I have ever had. I stayed in village
until Christmas morning due to a couple of baby naming ceremonies in my house
(yay for new babies!), which also meant that I spent Christmas morning
surrounded by people who know some kind of Christian holiday exists, but they think
it runs from the 24th – 31st and don’t know anything else
about it.
I then took a lovely Christmas bike ride into the Tamba
regional house and met up with about 14 other volunteers. We made a wonderful
family style dinner, got dressed up, set off some fireworks (which drew Oohs
and Aahs from all the neighbor kids who came running outside to watch), and
then capped off the night by watching Elf. It was nothing like my Christmases
past, and I missed my family and all of our traditions dearly, but it also gave
me an appreciation for this community of volunteers and the family we make for
each other.
Now back to my original post topic – MALARIA!
I was fortunate to be selected for a 2-week intensive
Malaria training held in Thies, Senegal the first two weeks of December. This training was unique because it
brought together volunteers serving in countries all over Sub-Saharan Africa,
so 30 volunteers in total representing 13 countries.
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| Team Senegal: Sarah, Laura, & Lindsay |
I learned a lot about malaria basics in our original
training when I came to Senegal, but this training took that education to the
next level. We Skyped with people working in malaria from the CDC, President’s
Malaria Initiative, USAID, and other organizations. We Skyped with doctors
conducting research on malaria as it relates to HIV, pregnancy, and future
innovations for controlling malaria (ex. Vaccines). We learned about behavior
change strategies and how to most effectively plan malaria projects in our
communities. And we presented in front of all the other volunteers about the
best practices from our own countries. Needless to say, my To-Do/Idea list was
out of control by the end!
Perhaps my favorite part of the entire training though was
the series of field trips. First we visited a man whose daughter had died of
malaria, which motivated him to start his own malaria prevention organization
in his village.
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| Posing with the photo of his daughter |
They work with local women’s groups, schools, and soccer clubs
to do malaria education, and they even have a committee that conducts random
bed net checks in the village and charges a fine if they catch someone without
her net hung! He was inspirational, and as a result of his efforts, his village
has been malaria-free since 2009!
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| Showing us samples of other work they've done |
For our next field trip, we split up and visited various
structures in the Senegalese health system. I visited a health hut, the same
level at which I work in my village, to see how mine functions compared to
others. Here I met a woman who is solely in charge of her health structure and
who now has to keep the medications at her house because the hut recently
experienced a break-in and she is worried about all of the medicine getting
stolen. She’s extremely motivated and spends much of her day doing health work
in the community, despite this being a volunteer position. It was cool to
experience this with volunteers from other countries and see the health hut through
their perspectives.
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| Volunteers checking out the health hut |
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| Posing questions to the head of the health hut |
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| Lab grown mosquitoes |
Lastly, we visited the Senegalese government’s entomology
lab in Thies. I have to admit, I have not nerded out this much in a while… at
this lab, they grow mosquitoes and then use those mosquitoes to conduct
experiments on the insecticides used on the bed nets distributed around West
Africa. They test new insecticides to see if they could be used on bed nets,
and they also do longevity testing on existing nets to make recommendations to
the Senegalese government about how often universal net distributions should
occur. It was SO cool!
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Showing how the lab mosquitoes get their blood meal.
A bunny gets strapped to the top of that... |
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Pumping mosquitoes into a chamber that houses a
sheet to test new insecticide |
The whole two-week experience was mentally exhausting, but
filled me with so much energy and motivation to do malaria work. After some of
the tough emotional challenges I’ve had at site, this was exactly what I needed
leading into Christmas.
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| Volunteers from across Africa |
Now if you haven’t heard, I’m on a less-than-2-month
countdown before my parents come visit, and shortly after I’ll hit my one-year
mark. It’s crazy how time flies when you’re loving life.
Thanks for reading. Peace & love,
Lindsay
