Tuesday, January 12, 2010

help dig wells for my village

Go to the following link to learn more about my current project. Donations of any size help so much, and go directly to my community. Tell your friends :)
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=694-155&

Friday, January 1, 2010

Christmas. . . in the time of cholera

First of all, Happy Holidays! I found myself missing home a bit more this second Christmas in Cameroon, but I had fun celebrating with the other volunteers here in the Extreme North. I still managed to eat lots of cookies and watch A Christmas Story, though it’s not quite the same as watching it during the 24 hour TV marathon. Also, it magically got cold enough to use a blanket at night. A Christmas miracle.

A month before that on Thanksgiving, as I felt myself drift into a food coma, I thought happily that I had a lot to be thankful for this year. First of all, because despite living in the Sahel Desert, we volunteers pulled together a very traditional thanksgiving meal including mashed potatoes, stuffing, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. We couldn’t track down a turkey, but the chicken we ate was delicious, and I could swear it contained some tryptophan. Secondly, I’ve been able to do some really interesting work lately, thanks to a recent cholera epidemic. I mean, I’m not particularly thankful for the cholera itself, just that the CDC came here and I got to help them do research. I’ll explain.

Two medical epidemiologists with CDC (Center for Disease Control) came to Cameroon to investigate a recent outbreak of cholera going on in the northern part of the country, where I live. They came to find out why it appears that many more people are dying of cholera than should, even in a developing country. During this epidemic, the mortality rate is about 13%, while the World Health Organization acceptable mortality rate for cholera is <1%.

The epidemiologists came to do two studies: one interviewing the families affected by cholera and one interviewing personnel at health centers. My role was to give a questionnaire to nurses that treated cholera cases to find out if they were aware of how to properly treat cholera patients and had enough supplies to do so. I also served as a kind of language/culture guide throughout the study. It was really interesting work, and a great way to see some very remote parts of the Extreme North. The CDC is still analyzing the data, but we observed that the main reasons the mortality rate was so high was that the health personnel weren’t counting the mild cases of cholera, and that people with severe cases weren’t getting to the hospital soon enough because of the cost or difficulty of traveling to the health center.

My other recent adventure/project was a bike tour around the province. For about two weeks, I and my two fellow Minnesotans took on the Mandara Mountains, stopping in villages to teach people about nutrition and how to make tofu. Protein-calorie malnutrition is a big problem in this area, so teaching people how to grow and prepare soybeans, a cheap high-protein food, can make a positive impact on the health of communities. Most of the time, we pedaled pleasantly on beautiful mountain roads. However, there was one time that the road (dirt track) disappeared and we had to ask a man working in his fields to show us the way to the (real) road. He very kindly did that, even though we had to bushwhack our bikes down a mountain for three hours, inundating our bodies with prickers. We took it easy the next day.

I spent quite a bit of time away from Kolofata doing those two projects, but in December I came back to my village and completed my first funded project. With the help of a PEPFAR grant, I held a two-day HIV/AIDS Training of Peer Educators. I invited twenty people from Kolofata and the surrounding villages who have been involved in past public health campaigns to learn more about HIV/AIDS and how to teach people in their communities about it. The group was very diverse and dynamic, and it was a very hands-on training. To give you a mental picture, just imagine me holding a wooden penis in front a robed village chief as he tries to unroll a condom. Overall it was a success, much thanks to the help of my super-volunteer friend Brad.

As for village life, all is well. My new thing is bringing popcorn and movies to my counterpart’s house. We add the spicy “piment” powder to the popcorn to make it an American snack with a Cameroonian kick. Dreamgirls was a hit with her family, though a little risqué. If you have any old Disney movies you want to send over, I promise they’ll be put to good use. Miss you all!