There has been a lot going on over in America that's made it both difficult and easier to be away. Here in Rwanda my eyes have been opened more than they ever have before and that's always been my goal, to show you all what the view is like from where I am and the view of some amazing people you may never get the pleasure pf meeting. Everything you read and hear from me is 100% authentic with no other intention but to open your eyes a little too.
First, at the end of January I helped with the first mosquito net distribution that has taken place at the health center in over 2 years. You may or may not know that sleeping under a bed net is the best way to prevent Malaria. Malaria is a treatable but extremely dangerous disease that affects so many people not just in Rwanda but in so many countries in Africa. I will say that I am very lucky to live in an area with a cooler climate and higher elevation which makes it a less ideal breeding place for the mosquitoes that carry malaria. However I do see patients almost everyday coming in to either get malaria medicine. The tricky part with malaria in the rural setting is that the symptoms start off as something small, something that a person may think they can fight off and isn't worth the time off work or the trip to the health center. This then causes the symptoms to worsen over time and make the trip to the health center more necessary and more difficult and in turn the treatment becomes more difficult. Death is the worst possible outcome yet happens more often than you would realize. It's frustrating to see such a preventable disease take so many lives especially so many lives of children. Here in Rwanda I've gotten to see the refresher training of Community Health Workers where they review new protocols on diagnosing and treating childhood malaria in the community, right at the village level. I have also gotten to see the implementation of protocols allowing them to diagnose and treat adults with malaria right there in the community. The idea is catch the diagnosis as early and treat with medication as soon as possible to 1. better treat the patient and 2. to stop the spread at the source. Once someone has contracted malaria the mosquito who infected them or another mosquito who bites them can easily infect another nearby person. which is then where the magic of bed nets come in!
The mosquitoes who transmit malaria feed at night so by sleeping under a mosquito net people are protected from the feeding mosquitoes as they sleep defenseless. The problem with not having a net distribution in 2 years is that the nets get old and dingy, sometimes destroyed. Also a lot of time there isn't a lot of education that tells the people how to properly care for the nets to make them last long. Finally, a lot of people don't like the way the insecticide affects their skin within the first few days of use and choose not to use them. All of these misconceptions and lack of education can easily be rectified and that's what this amazing week held for me.
We received over 5000 nets to distribute in to the community over the course of the week. I worked very closely with my counterpart Etienne and the CHWs to organize how many were needed per village and how to get them to the 4 sites we had set up for distribution. I taught the CHWs about net care and repair so they could teach their village members and helped with some demos at the different distribution sites. It was a week of early days and late nights and I loved every minute of it.
On Februray 2 Rwanda celebrates Heroes Day. It's a day to thank people, both living and who have passed, for their hard work and dedication to their community in whatever fashion that may be. This year I didn't even realize it was a holiday (my health center staff and myself have worked through most of the holidays that fall during the week). I showed up for my morning run with my coworkers and Etienne informed me that it was indeed a holiday and that there was a celebration we were going attend near the sector office. I though it was going to be a small shindig with the sector officials and leaders in the community, they seem to like it when I show up to their activities :) Little did I know that the Mayor of Gakenke District (sort of on the level of a Governor) had chosen our little sector to come and celebrate Heroes day with our community. So, when I am finally summoned to head to the party I get thrown in with the CHWs who have posters with the words to their songs and we head to the field singing and clapping. Once we reach the the market area there are tons and tons of people. There are groups like ours in a line singing ad clapping, there are sooo many community members sitting in the grass in front of a big tent filled with important people, it was amazing! So we kept in line and walked past the tent and were presented to the mayor as the Muyongwe Health Center. The ceremony consisted of the typical speeches you see at ceremonies here but there were also performances by different people. There was dancing, poetry reading singing, etc. There was even a karate demo which was done with such enthusiasm it was pretty amazing. It was completed with the presentation of the heroes being honored from our sector that day. They received certificates and got to meet the Mayor. Unfortunately it was to advanced for me to understand exactly what was going on and I didn't have someone to translate for me but I could tell how amazing the honor was and I was so happy I got to be a part of that day as a mere spectator.
You all have heard me mention my best friend here Emiliene yes? Well her brother recently got married and I got to be a part of the whole celebration! Emiliene and here family have basically been my adoptive family since I arrived in Muyongwe and that's how it felt at this day long celebration. The way weddings work in Rwanda is there are 3 main parts there is the Dowry Ceremony, the Legal Ceremony, and the Religious Ceremony. Some people do them on different days and some, like Emiliene's Brother do them all on the same day. So at 7 am I head over to her house in the nice fancy dress she designed for me to wear ( I turned a lot of heads walking through the village). We hopped in a twedge (16 passenger van type vehicle) and we headed to the dowry ceremony. we had to walk up a decent hill to get teher once we reached the point where the vehicle could no longer pass, and did I mention Emiliene also picked out some nice wedges for me to wear? So my love for wearing heels back in the states was just training for the moment I would be hiking in a floor length dress and wedges. The Dowry ceremony was great we ate and drank Fanta and gifts were exchanged amongst the families.
We then headed to the Church to have the religious ceremony. We walked down the mountain and crammed back in the twedge with the bride and groom now too. They are Pentecostal so we attended what was a short service compared to some others I've been to but it was nice. There was amazing singing and dancing. They took their vows and received their marriage certificates and we headed to the final celebration at their new home. This part is what you would think of as a typical wedding reception. There were some speeches, more fanta, and then the newly weds were showered in gifts by the guests. At the end we all escorted them into their new house where the minister blessed it and them. They actually live just up the hill from me so that's pretty cool! It was a long but amazing day that I was so happy to be a part of. I've never had so many fantas in my life and I never plan to have the many again! (5)
The last thing that has been occupying most of my time is my hygiene project work. I've learned that doing a lot of projects at once sometimes cause one to get put on hold while the others get finished up. Luckily the sector itself along with the hygiene clubs I started have started to do regular hygiene checks within the community and educating the community, themselves, about how to further improve hygiene and why it's so important. I love being a part of these supervisions because 1. I get to get out and see the community that I love, 2. I really believe in the power of not just giving someone the tools to make change but educating them and continuing to work closely with them to ensure behavior change, and 3. as a PCV i know my time is coming to a close hear and seeing that the local officials and community members are able to continue the work that I've only started is what this job is all about. I really have been lucky to be a part of a community that has such self motivation to improve their situation and leaders both within the government and especially at the health center who know that it can be done it's just a matter of perseverance and hard work.
I also finally had hand washing stations built to be placed in every village at their malnutrition screening sites. We did some education with the CHWs and we are currently working on getting to every village to teach the mothers how important hand washing is and how it can prevent so many illness that affect children. This is what I'm working on now so more to come on how it goes.
Wow... If you've made it this far into the post you're a trooper! I know it's long but it really has been an amazing month and I have a lot more coming up in the 5 months left despite me being in denial that that's all the time I have left.
On top of work things I try to have some ME things too. I've fallen back in love with running since I started running every morning with my coworkers and just last weekend I ran my second Half Marathon! It was back in the town Rwamagana where I had training at the very beginning. The event was put on by an organization called Msaada http://www.msaada.org/home/index.html
"Msaada assists the people of Rwanda, East Africa to restore their dignity and their livelihoods that were destroyed during the horrific genocide in 1994 by establishing self-help income-generating projects.
Msaada’s main activities at present are:
A dairy project, using high-yielding European Friesian-Holstien cows, that enables widows and orphans of the genocide to become
self-sufficient.
An education project supporting the 2,000-student Scolaire Rwamagana A pre-school, primary and secondary schools to improve the
fabric of the school and to provide a high-quality technological capacity to allow students compete in the modern world.
Msaada supports profit-making projects in Rwanda, run by the Rwandans themselves, that fund a range of physical and psychological care and legal advice to widows and orphans still suffering from injustice and trauma after the dreadful events of 1994.
Msaada involves the people themselves in solving their own problems and is guided by their capacity, skills, experience and vision.
Msaada enables families to make their own decisions on rebuilding their lives and in their fight for justice and against crushing poverty."
It was a fun run, I met my goal not to walk the entire time which compared to my first 1/2 in May was amazing!
Well, that's my big update! Keep reading there is a lot of amazing work coming up! Thank you for all the support!
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