trachoma boot camp

i have had a wonderfully busy start to the new year, thanks to a big public health campaign in my district. i've been waking up at the crack of dawn, biking a couple hours a day, walking from hut to hut in villages with my counterpart, eating lunch with the traditional village chief, and feeling a little bit like i'm doing what i came here to do, which is fantastic.

however, i've been out in villages combatting a disease that i had very little knowledge of prior to two weeks ago. trachoma is basically pink eye that lasts a long time and eventually causes blindness. in early stages, it can be treated with antibiotics, but after a point surgery is necessary, and after another point it is irreversible. a year ago, thirty one percent of people in the kolofata district had trachoma (that's enormous), so the kolofata hospital collaborated with opthamalogists without borders to fight this. health promoters went into each village and educated people on trachoma and how to prevent it, then explained that they would be treating the entire population with eye drops over the course of two weeks. health promoters and community volunteers went door to door giving two doses a day for three days to over twenty-seven thousand people. the prevalence of trachoma went down to six percent this year. the goal is to eradicate the disease in three years by treating everyone once a year, as well as providing education throughout the year. i get to be a part of year two :)

my counterpart, falta, is a health promoter at the hospital, so it is her job to go door to door with eye drops and a list of the people living in a each compound, and recording each time a person receives their dose. oh an small side note, she does this with a twenty-month year old child on her back. i've been giving the eye drops. it's been a great chance for me to get to know each village in the district and learn the greetings in local languages. when we've given everyone the morning dose and i've sufficiently terrified the children of the village, the health promoters rest and have lunch at the village-chief's compound. i have yet to figure out what the village chief's role is, but they have been great hosts. i've been eating quite well, a lot of rice and meat and leafy greens. i'm really growing to enjoy sitting on a mat eating from a large shared platter. the other health promoters tell me i'm already a kanuri woman, which makes me feel quite warm and fuzzy inside.

after lunch, we do the afternoon dose and i bike back home around four. it's a nice routine, but my body and bike are definitely feeling the effects. the roads here are rocky and sandy and overall just rough, and i have now experienced over ten flat tires. i'm getting better at patching them, but i always feel a little bit of dread as i get on the bike and anxiously pedal away thinking about the impending deflation.

i think the highlight of my trachoma week was when i spent a day in a small village called grea, which is tucked into the side of a little mountain that rises somewhat unexpectedly out of the flat sahara. after the morning dose, we walked back to the chief's house, and saw a group of people with bright blue dots of paint under their eyes, long beaded necklaces and earrings, large nose rings, and slightly lighter skin. they were a nomadic mbororo group from niger. they will live outside of this village with their cattle for a couple months. they go into town once a day with all of their donkeys and fill containers of water from the well. i'm still mostly confounded at how this little village next this tiny mountain has five different ethnic groups and languages. it's quite a place. on the way home that day i got a flat tire and was rescued and brought home by a kind neighbor with a moto.

oh funny story, i was in an a small arab-shuwa village one day where my counterpart's sister lives. when falta introduced me, her sister said, "oh i know you, you're the girl who always bikes by with a dog chasing after you". the week before, the dog ran along side of me for 20 kilometers as we were coming back from maroua. so in that village i'm known in as the crazy dog loving foreigner who comes as your face with an eye-dropper. it's pretty strange to never be anonymous.

so i'm doing well, i got some shelves and a table built so my house is feeling a bit more like a home. the dog has not eaten any more chickens, he's more into lizards these days. miss you all, i've gotten a bunch of letters this last week and the responses are on their way. thank you!!!

life at post

so here's the first entry in my new blog! sorry, my old e-mail address expired so i opened up this new one. to catch you up, i finished my ten weeks of training i'm now officially a peace corps volunteer! i was sworn in at the beginning of december and i got to give a speech in french at the ceremony to the rest of the trainees, our host families and the ambassador. it was short and sweet and a bit sappy. i tried to use the phrase "you are the wind beneath my wings", but i think the meaning may have been lost in translation.

the next day i made my way up to maroua, the capital of the extreme north province, to pick up my new dog :) he's a loveable two year old mangy mutt that i inherited from a volunteer who just finished her peace corps service. i named him mclovin after the superbad character, but i think now that houdini may have been more appropriate as he is able to jump fences and squeeze through crevasses like he has magical powers. other than that and the one time he caught a chicken and brought it into the yard, he is a really great dog.

when i reached my village, i moved into my new house. it's big, with a spare bedroom for visitors (hint, hint) and i have running water and electricity, so i feel like i'm living the good life after three months of bucket baths. it's also really nice to cook my own food and plan my own schedule.

work-wise, right now i'm doing a lot of observation at the hospital and meeting people in the village. there was a big vaccination campaign my first week in kolofata and the surrounding villages, so i got to spend a bouncy day in a land rover touring the health district and another couple days giving vitamin a to swarms of little children. this month i'm hoping to start teaching at the women's center, get regular kanuri lessons, and start doing a big community health assesment.

i'm settling to village life little by little. i have a very motherly neighbor conveniently named mommy who has given me some cooking lessons. there is kind of a funny gang of foreigners here- there's the french medical student fabian, the linguistically challenged egyptian teacher at the franco-arab school, me (the wholesome midwesterner?) , and my funny post-mate and temporary roomate adam from oregon who i think is a bit apalled at my well, my low ambition to bring modern comforts like a fridge and couch into my house. i like a lot of things about this place, like how i always feel like i'm on a beach walking through the sandy streets, how i have a regular egg lady and meat man, and that people greet me in multiple languages.

right now i'm back in maroua spending the holidays with my friends in the province. maroua is by the way a wonderful city with cheese, hamburgers, pizza, and smoothies. we created a christmas tree with neem tree branches and exchanged secret santa gifts at the peace corps house here.

i hope everyone had a merry christmas and has a happy new year, i miss you all very much!