Today I returned to Kasama after being back at home in my village for a solid month...it's crazy how much of a shock it is to come back into the "big city" after being in the village for so long. I can't wait to see what it feels like to return to the really big city of Americaland in a few short months!
So since arriving back in Misengo on January 28 I have been keeping busy by attending A LOT of under 5 clinics. (And I'm happy to report I have now officially visited all the 11 villages within my catchment area). My job at these under 5 clinics was mostly to record the kg of each child on their card. I also thought it was important to learn about the child's height to get a real sense of their nutritional state so I went to Shoprite and bought a measuring tape and brought that along to the clinics as well. Now while I'm here in Kasama I'll make a stop at the district health office to see if they have a graph of some sort so I can plot out the points and visually see if the children are stunted in their growth due to malnutrition.
February is the biggest time of "hunger season" here in Zambia as well as a high time for malaria cases, which in turn meant that MANY of the kids were very under weight if not malnourished. It was tough to see that a 2 year old was only weighing about 7kg when he should be weighing around 12kg, especially when in many instances the problem isn't about a lack of food for the family it's about a lack of giving that food to the child. This 24 month old, named Mapalo which means blessing in Bemba, I learned from the mother was only being fed porridge twice a day! Porridge consists maize (corn) that is pounded into a flour like texture and then mixed with water. There is no protein, no vitamins in it so this child is lacking two major things that would allow him to grow. After discussing this with Mapalo's bamaayo and teaching her about how many times her son should be eating and what he should be eating I invited her to that village's next women's group meeting where we will be cooking bread, high protein nshima, and a soya and pumpkin leaves relish. So here's to hoping that she will come and in March little Mapalo will be a few kgs heavier!
Because it's planting season here around this time most of the people in my village are out in the fields all day and therefore I haven't had any regular group meetings. So when I wasn't busy with under 5 clinics I have been spending my time working on my "secondary project" which is teaching. It's pretty informal and very basic, but I'm helping some of the grade 9 students with Math and English skills. I go in the mornings with an assignment in each subject prepared and then we work through the problems together and then I give another of the same type and have them teach me how to solve the problem. I'm really having to brush up on my algebra skills again! The students I am working with are really motivated to learn and even more motivated to pass there exams in November and it's exciting for me each time they really understand the problem! In addition to working with the grade 9 students I'm also trying to start a preschool with some of the kids in my village ages 5-7 in math and English. Last Sunday I have 3 of my little boys over at my house and we practiced writing the numbers 1,2,3,4,and 5. My favorite little boy, Mutuka wrote the number 3 all by himself and then got a huge smile on his face and said, "ba Emily naishiba ukulemba 3!" (translation: Emily, I know how to write 3!)I felt like such a proud mom in that moment. I know that many of you are teachers or teachers in the making so if any of you have any tips or tricks that you can give me I would gladly accept them!!
The other big project that will now take up my time will be the issue of malaria. While in Lusaka for training we had a workshop on behavior change with our counterparts. The behavior change project we decided on was about malaria with our specific goal being that by January 1, 2012 there will be a decrease in the reported cases of malaria in Misengo by 50 percent. Malaria is a huge problem in my village and most of that is due to lack of mosquito nets as well as lack of education about ways to prevent mosquito from breeding. In fact we've been having around 3-4 children die each week due to malaria which is heartbreaking to see because it's both preventable and curable. I visited the health office today and talked with the malaria net distributor about when my village would be receiving our nets and he said it will begin next week, so let's hope that is indeed the case. Be praying for my villagers during this time!!!
Well I think that's about all for now. I appreciate all the letters and care packages I have been getting from you all back in America so THANK YOU times a million. Be praying for health, safety, and open hearts among the people of Misengo!!
