Fabulous Malian Women

Rarely does anything in Mali go completely smoothly, and my latest project was no exception, but overall I think it was successful and that's what's important, right? I've just finished a Hearth (see the 2.02.2006 post) in Sirado, a little village 3k outside of Tioribougou. Why did I think that biking out every day to do a Hearth during the harshest part of Malian hot season was a good idea? That still eludes me, but I did it. I am completely crazy about the women who I worked with during this project, to say nothing of their beautiful children. Three of the women in particular deserve extra praise.
Elizabete made the whole Hearth possible. A well respected member of the community, she is extremely intelligent and involved in many aspects of community development even though she never attended a day of school. She helped me select participants, organize supplies, motivate the community, and fortunately, she could translate my poor Bambara into understandable Bambara for the other women during the sessions.
Each day, Seje was my motivation to ride out there. Her son, Sekena, is severely undernourished and though his smile is beautiful, the empty look in his eyes broke my heart again every morning. At a year and 7 months, he is still not walking or talking, and has earned the nickname cekorobani, or little old man, because a baby's face without it's baby fat looks like an old man's face. Seje is sweet and quiet and loves her son deeply. Sekena did not gain as much weight as I had hoped for. Please keep Seje and Sekena in your prayers.
At the end of each day, Sirantu was usually the one who made me feel the session had been successful. Bright and outspoken, Sirantu was always able to flawlessly repeat the health information presented that day and eagerly promised to implement positive changes such as properly sanitizing drinking water, sleeping under a mosquito net, and most importantly continuing to make the ameliorated porridge on her own after the Hearth. Her son, Gwanze, was the most successful regarding weight gain: 600 grams! (The average for my Hearth kids was 333 grams).
Plenty of little things went wrong throughout, but enough went right that I'm looking forward to my next Hearth in Kanegebougou. All about that next time!

P.S. Thanks to so many of you for the birthday wishes! Most Malians don't know what day their own birthday is, let alone understand our tradition of celebrating, so I just treated myself to a plantain sandwich:) Yumm...