Hey Happy Days

Hey guys, how's it going. For of those of you still reading and checking up on this blog, thanks, for those of you who are not, it probably won't matter that I cuss you out on this. Just kidding.
Okay, just to let you know, for those that were genuinely worried, I didn't really think I had tea with the devil, the last time I blogged. I understand some peopel were genuinely concerned that I had sold my soul to the devil and such, but needless to say, I don't have one so I couldn't complete the bargain when he asked. ;-)

Next subject.
Stuff that is good.

Things with my work are actually going pretty well at the moment. It's pretty nice. The corn, peanuts and garden groups are starting dialogue amongst themselves about the moringa tree and the demand for seeds is pretty good right now. I've been searching about locations where I've staked out trees and have been harvesting seeds as soon as I run out. The "seed" is nearly done, so by the end of this month or june, seeds will be hard to come by and most of my work with Moringa will be done in village. Work with the tree and the bureau will continue. I'm trying to get the bureau to allow me to plant a number of trees on their grounds to serve as a reserve for forthcoming seeds/seedbanks after I leave. Them seem so far to agree, but not too committed to caring for them.

I've been continuing with the survey of my region on their base knowledge on Malaria and AIDS. I just finished the initial baseling survey and the results are pretty dim on Malaria, and expected for AIDS. For Malaria, eventhough it's consisted of over half of the reported cases at the clinic, 30% of the people in my region don't even know the correct symptoms. 66% don't know how it's transmitted(by mosiquitoes). 62% don't know ways on how to prevent it(using mosquitoe nets). Pretty surprising numbers for me. The really think of Malaria as the common cold and believe too much sun, work or rain are respective causes for getting Malaria. Good times, and good info to work on. For AIDS, nearly everyone knew AIDS could be sexually transmitted, like 98%. However, only 2% knew the mother could pass it onto their child through mother's milk. So guess what I'll be talking about all next month and forcing my theatre troup to perform. Yep, that's right stuff all about the above. This survey has been a lot of work. I, with the help of an interpreter, interviewed 83 subjects on Malaria and 78 subjects on AIDS. It took about 3 weeks on my off days and village market days to get it done. After I do the sensibilization, I'll do another round of interviews to see if the sensibilizations changed the level of knowledge. Let's hope.

Speaking of my theatre group, it was a kinda funny Larium story, that I'm about to share. Okay, so I have been explaining the whole AIDS mother's milk idea to my theatre group. Well to add confusion to it, there's a national program that is free to women who are pregnant and have HIV. It's medicianal program the helps prevent the transmission of the virus to the child. Well, after I explain the idea of the sketch how the mother gets HIV from the father after he wanders I thought they all understood the idea of the national program, how it worked and the point of the sketch. Well they start talking and discussing how the sketch will go for about 20 minutes and then they try the sketch. After about 5 minutes I could tell what they were doing was wrong but let the sketch go just to see what happens. At the end, I asked,"okay, why did you say the baby had HIV and the dad didn't?" They looked at me and said because of the program. I blew up in a larium induced way. I yelled, in English, several curse words, and barely got out in French,"NO, NO, NO, it does not work that way. The program isn't to protect the father from getting AIDS it's to protect the infant! People are going to think you have a cure for AIDS!" They stopped and stared for a moment, never having heard me yell. Then said. "Oh," collectively. I rolled my eyes so hard they hurt. We then started the discussion over so everyone would understand without miscomprehension again. It was a long night with larium and my theater group. Good times.

Other good things happened as a result of the survey. One of my interpreters, Lukeman, asked to have part of his family be interviewed as part of the survey and I was cool with that. It's amazing the differing levels knowledge on maladies within a immediate family. One brother will know everything you need to know on AIDS or Malaria and his older brother won't know jack. I saw it several times. They just don't discuss these things inside the family environment. Anyway, a couple nights after I surveyed his family, I was watching European Cup soccer(of which I'm a huge fan of now, GO BARCELONA! and Ronaldohino rocks!) at the local public venue and Lukeman comes up and asked to talk to me. I said sure and as we walked away for privacy he asked me if he and his brothers could come over to my house later and ask some questions on HIV/AIDS. Surprised, but pleased, I said sure and told I'd meet them there after the match. An hour later at my house they arrive, Lukeman with two brothers in tow. We sit and he introduces their dilemma. His cousin, as it turns out, had unprotected sex with a girl about 8 months ago and he thinks caught HIV from here. His cousin said his skin was itchy and he could see and feel his blood pumping through his veins. Nodding, I said, has he done a blood test? The cousin wips out his health notebook(here the clinic can't keep the files so people carry around their own a little notebook). He took 2 test, one 5 months after and another just 3 days before. I asked if he had any other unprotected sex since and he said no. Nodding, I told him, I think what he did was great and I thought that he was a very responsable man to take the tests, not once but twice. it took a lot of courage to get those tests and he was good example to his family. Then I explained how he didn't have AIDS, not just by the tests but his "symptoms" weren't what would be considered serious symptoms of AIDS, etc. The whole experience was really gratifying to be a part of, because this man was really scared and didn't trusts the bloodtests enough and needed an explanation to be sure, and unfortunately he needed it from a Nasara(me). I was really impressed his family members were there to support him. That is huge. Part of my survey showed that about 80% of all surveyed said they would cast a person with AIDS from their home, would not say hello, and would not eat with them. I told him that even if he did have AIDS, by them being here they showed they would support him regardless. There is a really strong stigmitization against someone with AIDS here, so much so that just going to get a blood test is suspect and shame ridden. So for this guy to go more than once to make sure he didn't have HIV, is really courageous for a Burkinabe. The night ended really positively, the brothers and their cousin went home more at ease and I felt like I actually helped someone here, so there's one of my diamonds in the rough moments. Aw garsh. Hope that made you smile.

What other news:
My new chief nurse seems to be a genuinely nice guy, and now the asshole is gone and away, the new chief nurse is getting an earfull from the other clinic staff on just how terrible the old chief nurse was. I learned some things new thing myself that cemented the fact, he really was a major asshole. He grifted money from the clinic on outing to our district capital. He treated everyone like shit, so much so, our clinic attendance rate went down by about 20%. The whole staff is exploding with over pent-up rage now that he is gone. The way the hierarchy system is established here there is no avenue for checkin a superior's performance, his/her word is "god". However, once they are gone, everyone is talking. So, the clinic is now a much better place to be around.

My house is still standing, but I don't know for how much longer because there already fissures developing in another wall the same way as before. So I decided to have a raffle for who can guess the date my wall will fall. If you guess right you get a special gift from Burkina Faso delivered to your door! Good times. If it doesn't fall before I leave, the raffle is null and void, so for those who are game, post any date between not and Oct 1st on the comments page and we'll see who wins and who's paying attention.

Um, one more thing, I just wrote about 12 letters and hopefully will mail them tomorrown. Yeah. I will try to write more letters to thank everyone in their awesome support of me while I've been here. YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN AMAZING!!!! I can't write enough letters to thank you. Anyhoo, that's enough for now. Take care, and hopefully hear from you soon!
L