Work Stuff: Training on Cervical Cancer Screening

I saw this recent New York Times article about a cervical cancer screening program in Thailand, and it just so happens that this week I'm sitting in on a week-long training program that teaches local nurses, midwives, and health workers to screen women for cervical cancer. The ten trainees came in to Kédougou from surrounding towns and villages, including Salémata, my village, and are spending the week learning about cervical cancer issues.

The Kédougou training program, run by Kédougou Regional Hospital staff, and supported by Peace Corps Volunteers and Peace Care, is pretty comprehensive. There are sessions on cancer in general, anatomy, risk factors for cervical cancer, how to recognize pre-cancerous growths, available treatments, and how all of this applies to people living and working in Senegal.

The schedule for this week's training

For many reasons, including lack of education and resources, cervical cancer has a disproportional impact on people living in certain parts of world. (The United States isn't in the dark red zone, but we're not in the white, either.)

From the WHO's cervical cancer guidebook

If you're interested, do take a look at "Comprehensive cervical cancer control: A guide to essential practice," provided by the WHO.

Also, my own little PSA: As you prob'ly already know, human papillomavirus (HPV) causes all sort of problems, including cervical cancer. In addition to regular check-ups, there is a very safe, effective vaccine for HPV available for males AND females who live in parts of the world that have more developed health systems.

Terrible Fuzz

This morning there was a weird little bit of funny stuff wedged under my 'A' key and in the process of getting the fuzz out I think I broke the tiny piece of plastic something that kept that key from jiggling around like a loose tooth. It still works, luckily, it's just irritating, but I guess I'll either just have to deal with it or start being like that guy who wrote and entire novel without using the letter 'E.'

Either way, if you happen to get any messges or e-mils from me now you know why. 

This Week in Kédougou

I've been in village for the last week or so, and things went well, as usual. My host family, the Souarés, are doing pretty well -- there is quite a bit of conjunctivitis (a.k.a pinkeye) going around, which is gross but under control, and other than that everyone's fine.

Some host family cousins were visiting from Guinea last week, so there were even more people at the house than usual, and the corp harvest is almost ready, most afternoons there were a lot of people just hanging out under the mango tree, making tea and cooking ears of fresh corn on little Hibachi-ish grills.

I helped do paper work at the monthly vaccination and baby-weighing day at the Salémata Health Center, worked on my Pulaar a bit, and worked on formatting my baseline data and planning my Action Plan.

Today I'm going to swing by the post office, try to catch up on e-mail at the cyber cafe, download and start filling out my Volunteer Reporting Form (VRF) and just generally take care of work-type stuff, and then a few of us are going to make lentil soup for dinner at the Regional House. Exciting times here in Kédougou...

Waterfall Tourney

A "tourney" is our anglicization of the French tournée, which, as you can prob'ly guess, means "tour." So, say, if some volunteers around going around to a group of villages giving Neem Cream demonstrations we'd call it a Neem Tourney.

The region of Kédougou is known for being lush and verdant, especially compared with the northern regions of Senegal, and also for having very pretty hills, rivers, and waterfalls. So, since it's been raining and the rivers are flowing, my friend Meera's been talking about going on a Waterfall Tourney. It was a fantastic idea, and so far I've seen four of the best waterfalls in the area.

Here they are, in order of lovely to loveliest:

Dindéfélo: The easiest hike in, but it was kinda cold, and there was a pretty big snake.

Mike, Patrick, Meghan, Jess A., Eric, and LaRocha

  

We we saw a snake and almost took off
but then realized it was already dead. 

Ségou: A big hike, but the hike is almost as nice as the waterfalls. And the campement is really nice.

The campement at Segou has a lovely view.

Me, Jess A., Eric, Meghan, & Tatiana

Pélal : And easy ride, a pretty short hike, lovely falls, and not one but two snakes. And they were alive. Yay for a good zoom. Fun times!

One of TWO snakes we saw here.

Patrick

Me and Tatiana

Ingoley: There was a lot of biking and some impressive river crossings, but it was definitely worth it! And no snakes.

Patrick & Kate

Ingoley! 

More Notes on Camp

The radio show This American Life has an excellent episode called Notes on Camp, and it's totally work a listen.

Here are a few more photos from youth camp:

Tatiana running a Marketing activity for selling
 locally made bug repellent and the weekly village market.

Host Sisters: Mariama Gaulo and Adama

Eric & I, exhausted from teaching First Aid. 

Also, doorways here tend to be really low, and everyone hits their heads pretty frequently. One evening Patrick, one of my Peace Corps neighbors, hit his head one time too many (he had a couple scrapes on his scalp that were actually bleeding a little bit) and went and got his bike helmet. That night was also spaghetti night, and they ran out of utensils at dinner (usually we'd get spoons to eat with) so some of us wound up eating with our hands. It was a total mess, and also almost pants-wettingly funny. Almost.

Patrick, Meghan, & Tatiana

Meghan and me, eating spaghetti with our hands

Tatiana and Patrick on Spaghetti Night

You can tell who sat where by how much pasta
 was left on the floor afterwards. (Those are my toes.)

All in all, I'm lucky to be in a region with such awesome and entertaining people; even when things got hectic and confusing (which happens a lot when cultures and schedules and languages collide) we still managed to have a lot of fun.

Also, just for the record, my summer camp, Camp Unalayee, is still the best summer camp of all time.

Dindéfélo Youth Camp

Because Camp Unalayee, the summer camp I went to in California, is such a wonderful place I'm a big fan of summer camps. I signed up to help out with the Université des Vacances, a youth camp for local middle school students run by Peace Corps and a Senegalese organization called A.D.D.K. in Dindéfélo, a village about 50 kilometers (about 30 miles) from Kédougou.

I live in Salémata & the camp was in Dindéfélo.

Here's an overview of last year's youth camp, and this lovely map is courtesy of the Dindéfélo Nature Reserve, which works with the Jane Goodall Institute/Spain and other organizations to preserve biodiversity in general and chimpanzee habitats in particular. 


There were about 70 campers this year, from all over the Region of Kédougou, and they stayed in huts for 11 nights at a local campement. Senegalese and Peace Corps counselors ran activities, games, and day hikes. I was in charge of the how-to sessions on making Neem Cream mosquito repellent and Enriched Porridges. The camp was held in French, because kids from different villages speak different languages, including Pulaar, Mandinka, Jahonke, Bassari, and Bedik. One of my host sisters from Salémata came as a camper and it was really great to have her there.

Youth Camp 2011

Making enriched nutritional porridge from affordable, locally available ingredients is a great way to teach information on basic nutrition and also turned out to be delicious. We made several different versions, using rice, millet, and corn flour for carbohydrates, ground peanuts, milk powder, and bean flour for protein, and lime juice and tamarind for flavor, extra vitamins and as acidic preservatives. Malnutrition is a widespread problem, and since every camper knew an underweight baby, an adult who had a goiter from iodine deficiency, or a kid who'd lost a lot of weight from an illness, it was useful and relevant for them. 

Cooking up Neem Cream

There were also arts and crafts activities, a great Challenge Course, a day hike to local waterfalls, campfires with skits, and lots and lots and lots of singing and dancing. On the last day they had a sort of Field Day called Les Olympiads, where teams competed in obstacle courses, relays, and three-legged races.

Les Olympiads at the Primary School

Most kids here don't get many chances to travel, even around their own regions, and they had a great time visiting Dindéfélo, meeting kids from other villages, and doing all the summer-camp-type-things that kids like to do.

Biking en brousse

Since the start of the rainy season I've expanded my list of things that I consider "bike-able" to include rock fields, sand pits, and small rivers. The only thing around here that it turns out you really can't bike through is mud. Your wheels sink in, and the mud cakes up so thick on the brakes that the wheels stop turning. Even pushing a bike through the deep clay mud in some places requires stopping every few minutes to scrape off the rims and tires. 

A few days ago I biked from Dindéfélo to Kédougou, all by myself. I'd done it before, but in a group and from the other direction, so I was a little nervous about remembering where the turnoffs were, and about mud and water level, but it went just fine. It is en brousse, but even out in the sticks there are little villages and huts along the way, and at the one fork where I wasn't sure which was to go I just asked an old man who was sitting under a tree, enjoying his morning tea, and he told me which way would take me toward Kédougou.

My favorite part is this stick bridge, supported by tall big branches and wires attached to another tree off to the left. I felt very Indiana Jones-ish starting my day off with a 30 kilometer (19-ish mile) ride through the African countryside. Except that I had a water bottle and a helmet instead of a whip and a fedora. 

Stick Bridge!