Back in Action

My camera had been broken since March, but thanks to Nurse Eric (who went to Yaounde this summer for an anesthetiology formation) my camera is back in my hands and working!

 Funny to think, that once it broke in March I was ready to get rid of it, and go out and buy a new one. But Cameroonians just laughed at me saying, "Amanda, we dont get rid of things here, we learn how to fix them. Just wait, we will fix your camera for you." Sure enough, it took five months but its back in action = )

Here is a shot of Dr. Gaya and Nurse Romeo during an operation in Dir. Dr. Gaya had his first job placement at a clinic up North where he worked underneath an American doctor who did surgeries. Dr. Gaya was his right hand man, and learned through observation. The first time he flew solo the American doctor was out of town, and a woman came in who needed an emergency Cesarean section. The nurses at the clinic told Dr. Gaya, "Listen, you need to operate. We know your worried about her dying on the table, but if you DON'T try to operate, her and her baby will DEFINITELY die." So, he went for it, and operated succesfully. That was 6 years ago and he's been continuing to learn ever since. In Dir, he mostly performs Cesarean sections, hernia repairs, and stomach mass removals (although the other day he did his first kidney removal!!). Its amazing to me to see how, even in a village without electricity, they maintain sterile procedure. (Since starting operation Dr. Gaya has never had a case return because of infection. I think that's partially due to the fact that there are not as many resistant bacteria here, and also that people have very strong immune systems). Unfortunately, Dr. Gaya just got promoted to a different hospital and left Dir this past week. Its a wonderful promotion for him, and after 7 years of excellent service, he was ready to move on, but things at the hospital are definitely going to change while we adjust to his absence.

 

 A picture of some of the women waiting to be seen at prenatal consultations (every Thursday) at the health center. On average, we see about 30 women a week for prenatal consultations! One of our biggest problems at the health center, is that women are very diligent about coming once a month for PNC but then they give birth at home in very unsanitary conditions. Only, to come into the hospital a couple of days later with post partum infections and neonatal infections. Its a message we're trying to drive home pretty hard, because in the past two months we have lost 4 women and 3 newborn babies to infection.

We are almost done with the soy harvest! We only have about one half cart of soy stalks left in the field (but we planted them two weeks after the rest of the seeds so we are waiting for them to fully ripen still). Right now we have about 75 kilos of soy! I had no idea that planting 3 1/2 kilos would give me that kind of yield, aikes a beeee! Now the difficult part is going to see how I can best use those 75 kilos to make a project that will have the most impact and also be sustainable. Here is a picture of the soy laying out to dry after we have removed it from the field. Its best to let it dry in the sun for 3-4 days. This was a comical process because the weather here is very volatile and you never know when a beautiful sunny day is going to turn into a powerful rainstorm (and it can happen in the timespan of 2 minutes, no exaggeration). Over the past three weeks I can't tell you how many times the weather would change and I would run out to the street calling any goober that was nearby, "COME QUICK, THE RAINS ARE COMING, WE HAVE TO BRING IN THE SOY!" haha as per usual, the village thinks I'm crazy.

After the soy has dried for a couple of days the next step in the process is beating it with a stick to get all the little beans out. (Later you remove the stalks and then sweep up the beans, and have to sift them to take out all the dirt and rocks). Here I am, in my concession, getting some serious tension out by BEATING dem soy beans. Notice how my neighbors are drying their clothes in the back ground! Also, its a bit hard to see in this picture, but my land lord is building a new house in the background. Its been neat to see the weekly progress of  how a house comes together with nothing but mud, water, and cement.

At night, or when the rains came, the soy rested in my living room. Looka that mountain of soy! It literally TOOK OVER my house for the three weeks that it took to dry all the soy! (This is the second tours of soy that we harvested, all together we did three tours).

I would have never have been able to harvest all the soy without the help of Ibrahim, (the boy in the middle), a young highschool boy who I hired to help with harvest. He's an orphan and an incredibly hard worker (he is also the guardian of one of our two water pumps in Dir), and throughout the three weeks we really built a friendship as he would come every day to help me collect the soy from the field, bring out/bring in the soy for drying, beat the soy, and sift it. He was literally a God send (and so were my little boy neighbors who are always willing to help me with any little chores I have around the house).

Two of my little neighbor girls, Bebe and Adiza (both ten years old) laying on my porch as they take turns unbraiding each other's hair. Most of a woman's Sunday is devoted to unbraiding and braiding each other's hair. It doesn't cease to amaze me how much time women devote to their time here, or how much patience little girls have to just sit and stay put as they get their hair braided (which can take upwards of 3 hours!) p.s. notice more soy drying in the background.

Last week, we succesfully put on Dir's first "Peer Educator Formation". Here we are taking a "family picture" after the opening ceremony! (You can see the traditional chief behind me) Working with the Youth Delegate, Nurse Romeo, and some of the highschool teachers we were able to take 10 students from the highschool and 8 youth from the community to teach them about the obstacles and issues that face a teenager (with a strong focus on how to choose a positive life and sexual health). The youth we chose were incredible, and really participated in the sessions and have already presented a session about HIV/AIDS to their peers at the high school! Our goal now is that we will continue to see each other once a week (just me and the youth) to continue learning about the subjects they have questions on, and also empowering them to learn how to teach these subjects to their peers. Our major goal is to have a big say in the activities surrounding International HIV/AIDS day, December 1st, 2012.

In order to keep the youth engaged throughout the day, we broke up the sessions with activities such as putting on sketches, games, and animations. Here the youth are taking a (much needed) mid-morning break by playing a game of musical chairs!

I believe I have mentioned before how theatrical of a people Cameroonians are. Its amazing to see how quickly Cameroonians can put together an organized song, sketch, or dance. Here we are practicing a song that they ended up performing for the closing ceremony. They also presented a dance emphasizing the importance of wearing condomns, and put on a sketch about a young girl who disobeyed her older sister's advice and gets infected with HIV.

As the doctor always says at the end of his surgeries, "That's all folks!" (The Doc used to watch Bugs Bunny as a young goober).