Guinea Worm Hunting

“Somebody Poisoned the Water Hole!”
by Julia Day

Mid-August, Sarah "Juicy" Zuger, Rachel Emmick and I set out on one of the greatest adventures that we've had to date: a twenty hour bus ride to Gao to get involved with the eradication of Guinea Worm in northern Mali. Back in the day guinea worm was quite widespread, reaching all the way to Europe. Interestingly enough, the snake on a stick symbol that is used today in the medical field originates from healers’ signs depicting place to come for guinea worm extraction. Today, guinea worm cases are decreasing as organizations, such as the Carter Center, fight to stop transmission. Mali is one of the few remaining countries in the world with guinea worm cases, mostly in the Douentza, Gao, and Kidal areas.

For those of you who have not yet read Where There is No Doctor from cover to cover, guinea worm is transmitted by ingesting drinking water contaminated by guinea worm eggs. When an infected person enters the water source, the worm pokes out of the wound it creates and sprays its eggs into the water. Water fleas, acting as the primary host, pick up the eggs. The eggs cause the fleas to become lethargic and float to the surface of the water hole. That way, when someone new comes to drink from that water source, they scoop the surface water, including the tiny fleas, and ingest the worm eggs. The worm takes around 9-12 months to develop. A painful sore or blister forms, usually on the lower part of the body, and the worm will poke out when it senses water to continue the lifecycle.

The Carter Center doctors and staff are working to eradicate guinea worm in Mali in three main ways: distributing cloth water filters that catch the infected flea, chemical treatment of contaminated water sources, and isolating current cases to ensure they do not contaminate water sources. Guinea worm can be easily avoided if everyone in the area follows one or more of the above guidelines. If infected people stay out of the water, or if everyone agrees to filter their water it will break the guinea worm lifecycle. But as an extra measure of safety, the Carter Center also puts a chemical called “Abate” in the water holes to kill the water fleas.

Treatment for someone hosting guinea worm is simple, yet painful and slow. Once the worm sticks out of the wound it should be tied to a string or a small stick and slowly pulled out. This process may happen quickly or over a week. The worm can be more than a meter long! It is important that this process happens slowly and thoroughly because serious infection may result if the worm is broken. Also, it is very painful for the patient if the worm is forced out more than it is willing to yield.

Though the days were long, it was the highlight of my Peace Corps career. I felt like I finally made it to that romanticized Africa you always see on TV. Expect to get up early to a huge breakfast of greasy spaghetti and a tabaski amount of “bush meat,” drive en brusse to the most remote villages (not even huts, just stick support structures with leather hide tarp) you’ve ever been in your life, see camels and milk them, hand out filters, poison water holes, hunt antelope and utards (giant birds) from a land rover, drink cow, goat, and camel milk daily, meet the most hard core and rustic people in the world, extract some guinea worm (if your lucky), see incredible sunsets, eat a dinner of greasy zamé and another tabaski amount of meat, and do some awesome star gazing. I highly recommend you all take advantage of this opportunity as, Inshallah, guinea worm will soon be extinct. It really is an opportunity of a lifetime.

Well, some bad news. Since it took so long to get the paperwork pushed through Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington DC, it was decided that I wouldn't have enough time to complete the funded youth soccer project before I leave Mali. I suppose it was the responsible decision, but I'm still rather disappointed. So for now, I apologize and we won't be taking donations for the soccer team. Of course, I wouldn't just give up on these kids:) My friend Paul and I might begin setting up a "sister soccer team" project to get donations from and establish connections with youth soccer teams in his area. Also, there will be a volunteer in Tioribougou after I leave who will hopefully try to write a new grant.
The days go by exponentially faster as I prepare myself to leave while trying to keep my head in Mali. I know I have a lot to come back to, but it will be really hard to leave Mali. After two years, it really feels like home. It's my life. I speak the language and enjoy eating to and I'm even starting to like coupe de coule music. But, life goes on and I'm looking forward to starting pre-requisites for nursing school. And I miss blackberry-apple pie and tortilla chips:) I leave country September 8th and will head to Morocco with my sister and two Peace Corps friends Juicy and Lindsay. I'll be in Portland for my cousins wedding on the 15th and be in Seattle shortly after that! I'm looking forward to seeing you all soon!!
Oh...and I just took a crazy trip all the way to Gao to fight Guinea Worm (gross). I'll write a good long post about that when I get more internet time:)

Want to get involved?

As I near the end of my service, I have decided on one last project to do in my village and this time, I'd like to include you all who are at home in Ameriki. As I said in my last post, a youth soccer club in Tioribougou has started playing everyday. It is well-supervised and a great opportunity for these kids. However, they have very little equipment, even for soccer which doesn't take much. My villagers and I have decided to get uniforms, shoes, and soccer balls for them to show our support for the club. It's not a complicated, expensive project, and will easily be finished before September if the funding comes in quickly. If you're at all interested in helping us out with this, or even if you don't think you can but want more information, check out the project description on the Peace Corps web page. http://www.peacecorps.gov/. Click on Donate Now, Volunteer Projects, and then look for my name under Mali. (As of today, the project has not been posted online yet but should be within a week). Writing the proposal, we made efforts to ensure that this project will be sustainable, benefit boys and girls alike, and will be responsibly supervised. Anything you can contribute would help, even some words of encouragement to the kids!

I'd like to thank Aunt Colleen for her generosity and initiative. After merely mentioning the project over the phone to her, she sent ten quality soccer balls through the mail! I wish you could have been there, Aunt Colleen, to see the look on the coach's face when I handed them to him. Your generosity meant so much to him and the team! I ni ce, i ni baragi!

Timbuktu!

For most of my life, I thought Timbuktu was a parking spot far away from one's destination. Turns out there's much more to this mythical place than that. Having gotten it's reputation because of the difficulty explorers had in locating it, Timbuktu continues to be a city on the edge of the world, a challenge for travellers. Six of us decided to brave the heat and sand and distance last week with the goal of conquering the mystery. After 28 hours on a bus (a stretch which should have taken 10 hours, but when our bus broke down we had to sleep on the side of the road) and 8 more in an 80's era Land Cruiser over Sahelian scrub into Saharan sand, we finally arrived exhausted, dirty, and triumphant. A language professor from the Peace Corps lives there now and invited us to stay with him, so we were able to avoid the aggressive tour guides and souvenier vendors for the most part. I was able to talk on the phone that first night to my sister who graduated May 5th from the University of Portland! Go Becca!! Then we spent some time wandering the streets of sand admiring the unique architecture and history...mud mosques, Moroccan doors and gates, ancient manuscripts. One can't visit Timbuktu without taking camels out into the desert for a night. Camels are rediculous looking animals...like caricatures of real animals. We all wrapped our heads up in turbans for protection against the sun and sand, and headed out 8 kilometers to live with the Touregs for a night. I fell in love with the stark beauty of the desert, but my heart is on a coast. I'm looking forward to being home in September where I hope to start nursing school!

As far as work goes, I'm still going Hearths, giving impromtu health talks, and tutoring English students. I've been doing alot of work with the women's organizations on various income generating activities and with the nearby town to put in a small dam. A youth soccer club has been set up recently and has asked for equipment so they don't have to play barefoot. Hopefully, this will be a really rewarding project and I'd like to give you all the opportunity to contribute. If you're interested, look out for my next post for more details.

Work and WAIST

Not only has it been too long since I've written, but a lot has happened in the past 2 months. At the begining of February I did a Hearth in the little tiny village of N'Guinia. Since it's farther away than most of the villages I've worked in, I decided to stay there for the twelve days instead of going back and forth from my village each day. This was the best project so far because I was able to spend the afternoons visiting the women and their families, learning what its like to really live in the bush. The women were more interesd than ever in the health talks, and the babies had the best average weight gain yet. My favorite little girl was Djoni, a smiley little 1 year old who it was worth spending time with even if I did catch pink eye from her.
After the Hearth, a bunch of PCVs and I hopped on a bus for WAIST (the West African Intermural Softball Tournament) in Senegal. For 3 days each year, ex-pats all across West Africa (which is in large part made up of Peace Corps volunteers) gather in Dakar to play a lot of softball and drink alot of beer. It was fun meeting volunteers in other countries at the games during the days and at the dance parties at night! Us Mali volunteers loved wandering around downtown of what, to us, is a huge metropolitan city. After the tournament, we took off down the coast to find a little beach town, and we found paradise. We rented a house right on the beach and spent every possible moment in the waves. I had missed the ocean just a little bit:) Fortunately, some of my closest friends and I were able to spend a few extra hours on the beach because after the 36 hour bus ride from Bamako (3 hours of which my eyes were completely sealed shut thanks to Djoni and her pink eye), we had made the genius decision to fly back. 1 hour with an inflight meal beats 36 hours living on egg sandwiches and peanuts.
Back in Tioribougou, I started another Hearth in the village of Djanyabougou. Since the water table is higher there, there's a big, beautiful vegetable garden and I often came back with papayas, lemon grass, and salad. It's amazing. Remember when I wrote that I thought I had seen everything, then witnessed the bean-smearing fertility ritual? I continue to be amazed. Once day during our session, what strode into the concession? None other than an enourmous white camel and it's rider all the way from Timbuktu. He told me the journey had taken two months. I asked if I could ride his camel and after making me promise I wouldn't fall off, he clicked his tongue and the animal gracefully knelt. I climbed on amidst laughter and "je! wallahi!" from the women. The owner clicked his tongue again and I was suddenly 7 feet in the air. So yes, there are camels in my own backyard.
What else is new...mango season aka hot season is begining, I've adopted an orphaned baby chick, I'll most likely be home at the end of September, and I'll be spending St. Patrick's day rock climbing in Siby. There you have it!

Cell phone junkies, it's true

I just got back from our training center, Tubani So, where I hosted sessions on needs assesment, reproductive health, family planning, HIV/AIDS, and my absolute favorite thing to do, Hearth. The new volunteers are really picking up the language quickly and I'm so excited for them to finally dig in and get some good work done at their sites. Go Belushi's!

I've been getting inquiries regarding a rumor that I have a phone here. Yes, it's true, but I don't get cell phone reception at my site so it only works when I'm in Bamako. Just in case you get an email from me or see that I've updated my blog in the past day and thus discover that I am in Bamako, please call! It's a bit expensive unless you use Skype or Zaptel, but 011-223-525-9971.

I know this was short and doesn't count as a real update...I'll try again soon. Tons of love from Mali, anyway!!

A Wonderfully Dogon Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you were all safe and healthy and with people you love. I know I was:) Spending Christmas in Dogon country this year was incredible, and it was so nice to see a bunch of my PCV friends. We stayed in the town of Sangha, which is on the top of the cliffs. Thanks to Cristina and Jesse, the two volunteers posted there (jealous!!), housing at the mission, meals, and tours were all pre-arranged for us. This was my second trip to the area, but it doesn't get old. I can't describe how unbelievable it is to see villages built straight into the side of a cliff. The Dogon legends say that the Tellum people, the original inhabitants of these villages, had wings, or sticky hands, and built the houses with magic. That's the only explanation we were able to get out of the guide, so I'm still at a loss. Lots of hiking, rock climbing, singing Christmas carols, dancing, tasting traditional millet beer (just tasting, really...it's an acquired taste I haven't yet acquired. I think it tastes like stomach acid), and just spending time together made for a very merry Christmas this year.

The ride back was quite and adventure. We left Sangha for Severe mid-day, so by the time we left Severe for San, it was pretty late and we didn't have many transportation options. After waiting for a few hours on the side of the road we found a bus claiming to have just enough seats for the group of us. Seats, yes. Room, no. Every square inch of room on the floor of the bus was covered with sheep. Instead of walking down the isle, we stepped on the edges of the seats. Instead of putting our feet on the floor, we rested them on the backs of sheep. Add to that our huge bags on our laps and the smell of the whole ordeal, we were rather uncomfortable. This was the first time we were actually relieved when the bus broke down (under the weight of us all) and we had to unload and find a new one. We got into San very late, had a few minutes to talk to the volunteer there, Eric, and left for Bamako very early. Home sweet home!

Tired as we were by this point, my teammates Lindsay, Sarah, and Jacqui and I rallied to meet a friend for dinner and to check out a Salif Keita concert. The information about the concert was a little sketchy, and we weren't sure we were going to find it at all or if Salif Keita was really going to be performing. Once we did find it, after a couple of fun acts with lots of dancing and drumming, we learned he wouldn't be. Luckily, thanks to a connection via our friend, we weren't dissappointed!! After the show we had the opportunity to meet the famous Malian singer and snap a few pictures. A wonderful end to a wonderful vacation.

Now, I'm ready to head back to Tioribougou in time for Tabaski, the Muslim holiday at which we all eat lots of mutton:) This time, I'll finally be heading back with the funding to open our health center's pharmacy! It wasn't always this way, but the during the last couple of months I've felt really good about being in village instead of only looking forward to getting back into Bamako. I'm crazy about my host family and have finally overcome the language barrier enough to make some really good friends. I'm falling head over heels in love with Mali.