No, she’s not. And she’s not going to be. But there was a question that she may be up for it. Is she going to be fired? Possibly. If she isn’t, she is going to quit and leave her job as a midwife, and leave the town of Dombila for good. At least that’s what she says now.
Irene was involved with what us as Americans would understand as a medical mal-practice civil case. Not quite as technical in Mali, but still gave her a bunch of problems. I’ve tried to act dumb and stay out of it but I’ve caught the drift and it’s not good.
It was revealed after a medical examination at the CESREF of Kati that Irene pushed on the stomach of a woman in labor so hard that she broke the umbilical cord. Irene didn’t call the ambulance for three days. When the women went to Kati and had 2 operations, her and her husband blamed the death of their child on Irene. “And-” as it’s always emphasized when a Malian is telling this story, “the baby was a BOY!” Oh no! Not a boy! If it was a girl, well, maybe we’d forgive her.
The father has demanded that Irene be fired from her job as a midwife. She took off to Kati for a week while ASACO had a series of meetings about it. Because there is no hard proof that she was responsible for the death of the child, she is probably not going to be fired. But according to Irene, the father said that even if she is not fired, he is going to kill her.
After all this I came to visit Irene in Kati on my way to Bamako. I was surprised to find her in good spirits. She said if it wasn’t for me, she’d call her daughter and have her bring her things and never come back. “The people of Dombila don’t trust me. The doctors in Kati say hat I’m mean and lazy and that I do not do my job well. If this is resolved, something else will come up soon. I’m done with midwife work.”
My shocked face also didn’t surprise her. “I’m not leaving you now. Once your service is up, I’ll quit. But we work together and I made a promise to Peace Corps that I would work with you and look after you. So don’t you worry. I’m not going anywhere. But when you go to America, I’m also leaving the village.”
I’ll be the last to stop her. I enjoy working with her, but her passion for the job has waned as she gradually looses her connection with the community. She is always speaking of how the Dombila women are lazy and stupid and impossible to work with. And apparently, they think the same about her. I love Irene, don’t get me wrong. She’s taken me in as her own daughter and has been enthusiastic about my projects and aspirations for Dombila. But I want to work with someone who isn’t going to walk out at the same time I do. Talk about sustainable development. If I work with one person closely for two years on improving the village, who is just going to leave the village, well, where does that leave our work?
So pray for her, and for the family of the dead child. It seems optimistic now that this situation will blow over. But the lasting effects it will have on the relationship between Irene and the community are yet to be told.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Planting Season
We’re well into the rainy season here which means the mangos are gone, the mosquitoes are out, and everyone is hard at work in the fields. The new trainnees land in country the night of the 10th, and as I think about myself a year ago, its amazing how much I really feel at home here. These foreign, strange people have become my close friends, I speak their language well enough to have real meaningful conversations, and I even find myself wanting to be more like them. My millet pounding has greatly improved (I don’t knock over the hollowed out tree stump much any more subsequently spilling a family’s dinner on the mud…), and while everyone is farming, I wanted to jump on the bandwagon.
“Well, what would you plant? Millet? Corn?” Shaka asked me on one of our runs.
“Nah, when those things are ripe theres so much of them around. I want to plant something that there isn’t much of.”
“Like what?”
“Cucumbers.”
So my host family agreed to give me a section of their garden so I could plant my cucmbers. But, I didn’t really want to be crowding them. “Is there like a field or something I could throw down my cucumber seeds?” Ever since my mom saw Dafine’s garden on her trip here, she begged her to help me start a little gardening. One day, Dafine had Shaka take me out behind her garden to show me the place I could plant my cucumbers. Turns out, it was an entire abandoned garden! Somebody just left it there, and gave Dalfine the permission to let me have it! It’s so perfect. It’s got a good amount of space, a stick fence and gate around it so the animals don’t get in, two dug out wells, and it’s right near Shaka’s family’s garden. When the 4 boys took me to see it, I jumped up and down and picked them all up and spun them around. I couldn’t believe this was my garden!
Shaka and the younger boys agreed to help me out, and they’re also gonna grow some stuff in it themselves to sell at the market. Me and Shaka are going seed shopping on Saturday- not just cucumbers my friends, but green peppers, maybe carrots, and a few other vegetables that you wouldn’t know and I don’t know the English words for them anyways.
Before our run we went out there with little garden hoes. It’s tough work. There’s no rotar-tiller here, or hose. To water it, I’m gonna have to buy a watering can and tie it to a string and draw water from the deep well. I couldn’t believe how those boys can work it. It’s their life though. Once school gets out- it’s to the fields. I see my boys less and less these days because they’re always working. Their daily afternoon “Let’s go bug Aminata” sessions, which previously drove me crazy, have thinned out and I miss them. But to have them come and work with me in my garden was the funnest thing ever. They didn’t even beg me for candy either (but I gave them some anyways, I’m such a sucker.)
“Well, what would you plant? Millet? Corn?” Shaka asked me on one of our runs.
“Nah, when those things are ripe theres so much of them around. I want to plant something that there isn’t much of.”
“Like what?”
“Cucumbers.”
So my host family agreed to give me a section of their garden so I could plant my cucmbers. But, I didn’t really want to be crowding them. “Is there like a field or something I could throw down my cucumber seeds?” Ever since my mom saw Dafine’s garden on her trip here, she begged her to help me start a little gardening. One day, Dafine had Shaka take me out behind her garden to show me the place I could plant my cucumbers. Turns out, it was an entire abandoned garden! Somebody just left it there, and gave Dalfine the permission to let me have it! It’s so perfect. It’s got a good amount of space, a stick fence and gate around it so the animals don’t get in, two dug out wells, and it’s right near Shaka’s family’s garden. When the 4 boys took me to see it, I jumped up and down and picked them all up and spun them around. I couldn’t believe this was my garden!
Shaka and the younger boys agreed to help me out, and they’re also gonna grow some stuff in it themselves to sell at the market. Me and Shaka are going seed shopping on Saturday- not just cucumbers my friends, but green peppers, maybe carrots, and a few other vegetables that you wouldn’t know and I don’t know the English words for them anyways.
Before our run we went out there with little garden hoes. It’s tough work. There’s no rotar-tiller here, or hose. To water it, I’m gonna have to buy a watering can and tie it to a string and draw water from the deep well. I couldn’t believe how those boys can work it. It’s their life though. Once school gets out- it’s to the fields. I see my boys less and less these days because they’re always working. Their daily afternoon “Let’s go bug Aminata” sessions, which previously drove me crazy, have thinned out and I miss them. But to have them come and work with me in my garden was the funnest thing ever. They didn’t even beg me for candy either (but I gave them some anyways, I’m such a sucker.)
Progress
So to follow up on work in Dombila, there are some new projects on the horizon. I’ve partnered with a NGO that has worked with Peace Corps to help start up a small women’s gardening project in the village of Sidian-Coro. The boss of the NGO, a quiet, content guy in his 40s, is from the commune of Dombila, and was very eagar to work with me when I came to his office in Bamako. He also wants to be my best friend- and gave me a ride in his car all the way to Dio. It was nice, but maybe I shouldn’t have taken it. He followed up by offering to take me anywhere I wanted anytime. When he came to my site, he left shaking hands and giving me a 10,000 cfa bill (about $20) and refused to take it back. It’s so weird to have people offering me stuff when I’m used to people trying to get stuff from me. But, maybe luckily, after visiting the project site, the gardening project is not going to be as big of an ordeal as I thought, so I won’t have to deal with this weirdness too much.
Our chef de post, Bouary is still plugging away on his computer work. He seems to understand quite a bit now. While we work, we talk about projects and such. As for getting the HIV rapid test in Dombila, he thinks its extremely important and knows the CSCOM staff is capable of HIV counseling. “I know there’s AIDS here,” he says, and continues to talk about the mother-to-child prevention drug that can save infant from contracting HIV if it is detected in their mother. So I was sent on a wild goose chase, and talked to some officials in Kati. Man the situation here is terrible. There are no materials. Kati trained 17 CSCOMs in the rapid test, but the Malian government does not have their act together and these places can not be equipped with the necessary materials to continue this group. “We can’t add Dombila to this list unless we can guarantee testing materials.” It seems unbelievable to me that three decades into the AIDS epidemic, poor countries still cannot have HIV tests available to people of high risk. It seems like a deeply rooted problem, in politics and organization, deeper that I can understand right now. But I’m gonna try to dig in the dirt, get as much information as I can, and even if Dombila’s HIV rapid test does not come during my service, Peace Corps should be active in this work- find out what’s going on up there with those people in charge, and see if we can’t voice our opinions.
My biggest prospective project now is a week long school with our 30 community health workers. I’m putting together educational materials, seeking out guest speakers and trying to develop an evaluation system along side the health workers for better quality work. The training school should happen in January 2010, so there’s time, but a lot of work.
I think I’m finally getting into the swing of things with the radio show. My Bambara is comfortable enough that I can be interviewed on-air and not have to stop and ask him to repeat the question 3 times (very embarrassing). We had a great show about water sanitation in which I interviewed some people working on the project. We joked around on-air, and at that moment, I really felt like I knew this language, like I knew what I was doing, and that I was where I was supposed to be.
Handwashing stations: rest in peace. Funny story, I had a little sit down meeting with the new mayor the other day. Actually, he’s a pretty motivated and smart old thin, white haired guy. I explained to him what my job is and has been so far. I asked him for suggestions on small projects. “You know, maybe you could do something with the school.” He is not from central Dombila, mind you, but the tiny outskirt village of Koyan. “Like fix up the latrines or give them a place to wash their hands.” Sounds like a good idea doesn’t it? It’s like trying to fix a square peg in a round hole. Admit defeat?
Binot says he can make new hand washing stations with left over material from the new school. But trouble is, he also says he can do a project with me building some solar fruit mango driers to get ready for next mango season. And to top it off, the whole village is counting on him to fix these damn wells. Of the 19 that were in the project. 16 were done quickly, efficiently, and with good quality. He was a motivated worker. And then he convinced the project committee to give him all of his salary and since then, he’s been a lazy bum! I can’t get him off his feet to finish these darn 3 wells. To his defense, his two sidekicks have since abandoned him to go work in their fields, but come on! There’s only 3 left! Let’s get to it so we can moooove on! I crept up on him one morning with a branch (supposedly to whip him) only to find him listening to Malian Christian xylophone tunes on his cassette player. Darn it, he’s being all religious. I dropped the whip, said a few bean jokes, and tried to believe him when he said he’ll get to work right away.
Our chef de post, Bouary is still plugging away on his computer work. He seems to understand quite a bit now. While we work, we talk about projects and such. As for getting the HIV rapid test in Dombila, he thinks its extremely important and knows the CSCOM staff is capable of HIV counseling. “I know there’s AIDS here,” he says, and continues to talk about the mother-to-child prevention drug that can save infant from contracting HIV if it is detected in their mother. So I was sent on a wild goose chase, and talked to some officials in Kati. Man the situation here is terrible. There are no materials. Kati trained 17 CSCOMs in the rapid test, but the Malian government does not have their act together and these places can not be equipped with the necessary materials to continue this group. “We can’t add Dombila to this list unless we can guarantee testing materials.” It seems unbelievable to me that three decades into the AIDS epidemic, poor countries still cannot have HIV tests available to people of high risk. It seems like a deeply rooted problem, in politics and organization, deeper that I can understand right now. But I’m gonna try to dig in the dirt, get as much information as I can, and even if Dombila’s HIV rapid test does not come during my service, Peace Corps should be active in this work- find out what’s going on up there with those people in charge, and see if we can’t voice our opinions.
My biggest prospective project now is a week long school with our 30 community health workers. I’m putting together educational materials, seeking out guest speakers and trying to develop an evaluation system along side the health workers for better quality work. The training school should happen in January 2010, so there’s time, but a lot of work.
I think I’m finally getting into the swing of things with the radio show. My Bambara is comfortable enough that I can be interviewed on-air and not have to stop and ask him to repeat the question 3 times (very embarrassing). We had a great show about water sanitation in which I interviewed some people working on the project. We joked around on-air, and at that moment, I really felt like I knew this language, like I knew what I was doing, and that I was where I was supposed to be.
Handwashing stations: rest in peace. Funny story, I had a little sit down meeting with the new mayor the other day. Actually, he’s a pretty motivated and smart old thin, white haired guy. I explained to him what my job is and has been so far. I asked him for suggestions on small projects. “You know, maybe you could do something with the school.” He is not from central Dombila, mind you, but the tiny outskirt village of Koyan. “Like fix up the latrines or give them a place to wash their hands.” Sounds like a good idea doesn’t it? It’s like trying to fix a square peg in a round hole. Admit defeat?
Binot says he can make new hand washing stations with left over material from the new school. But trouble is, he also says he can do a project with me building some solar fruit mango driers to get ready for next mango season. And to top it off, the whole village is counting on him to fix these damn wells. Of the 19 that were in the project. 16 were done quickly, efficiently, and with good quality. He was a motivated worker. And then he convinced the project committee to give him all of his salary and since then, he’s been a lazy bum! I can’t get him off his feet to finish these darn 3 wells. To his defense, his two sidekicks have since abandoned him to go work in their fields, but come on! There’s only 3 left! Let’s get to it so we can moooove on! I crept up on him one morning with a branch (supposedly to whip him) only to find him listening to Malian Christian xylophone tunes on his cassette player. Darn it, he’s being all religious. I dropped the whip, said a few bean jokes, and tried to believe him when he said he’ll get to work right away.
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