Letter to Brad and Margaret Nov 15 -Rcvd Dec 6 05

Dear Margaret and Brad,
Hey Guys, how's it going? I've got ink stains on my hands from a permanent marker. Today was another day of vaccinations but today we rode through the countryside going door to door to give out drops of Polio vaccination and Vitamin A supplements. It's kinda of a daunting idea if you look at the big picture of the logistics of planning and carrying out a vaccination of this sort. There are so many levels of infrastructure to support sucha a plan but people carry it out nonetheless.

We were given our smocks and cooler box to keep the vaccination cold. We organized the regions surrounding each village and assigned teams to tackle a certain retgion everyday and another a different day. My team of two is doing region 1 of the village Toebila which is about 15km outside of To. We're working in coordination with 3 other teams in Toebilla for the next 2 days, while there are about 15 teams total working throughout and around To also. The difficulties are coordination, education and supplies.

Yesterday, we tried to gather all the teams to coordinate the vaccinations. We started 2 hours late and many people didn't show. Explaining the procedure to new volunteers who have minimal education background is also an obstacle especially when you need for them to fill out forms and they're illiterate. 3rdly, going door to door isn't liek a normal neighborhood. There's no definitive streets, signs, or maps that depict exact locations of anyhome. You ask a household set apart "Where are your neighbors?" they'll point vaguely in one direction or another and off you go to find them and you have no idea how many they are. We came to one courtyard, it had 20 children, all under the age of 5. That's one "family". Another had none.
We ran out of vaccine before we finished our region and will try to complete it and the next region tomorrow.

As I talked to people, they seem to believe there's a gradual moving of the population south. Probably due to the previous famines in the north and the more stabel harvests here. However, the infrastructure is at its limit. With the growing # there isn't enough wells or pumps to support everyone, especially the smaller villages that are growing the most rapid. One town has only one well to support over 500 people, when it's late in the dry season this coudl become disastrous if there hadn't been a good rainy season previously.

I'm doing a regional study and the potential information to be gathered is incredible. I foresee doing an initial draft and adding on supplements throughtout my 2 years.
One interesting note, some of the houses we had been to were empty of small children. They were allready out in the fields working. Some of the children, I've seen, working in fields, taking care of stock, caring for other infants, have only been like 3 or 4, I swear. They play, but they also work as hard as anything I've seen. I guess they figure, these kids are able, might as well earn their dinner. It doesn't shock me anymore but I still try to imagine Andrew, Michelle or little Joe being given such responsibilities and can't. Is this because we expect too little of our children or too much? I'm sure Brad will have Clara sanding and painting in no time. :)
I'll let you go, Take care.
Love Laura