I am borrowing the name of this post from an e-mail I sent out four years ago when I was in Kenya. At that time, I had just recovered from malaria so I happy to say I am currently healthy but am doing some work with malaria.
It feels like not much has gotten done this month but I have felt very busy. Part of this I know is the exhaustion from the heat. I see an end in sight though. We have had two huge storms and sprinkles a few other times. Things are starting to look green after many months of dust and dirt. Its almost like spring in Wisconsin except 40 degrees warmer!
With the rains also come the bugs. Even with such a little moisture, I have seen a huge increase in the number of critters out. At night it gets so bad when I am using a flashlight that I usually give up and hang out in my bug hut. Mosquitos are also reproducing rapidly and we are entering into malaria season. Even though Burkina is dry for a good part of the year, this parasite is a huge problem year-round but it gets so much worse with the rains. At least 50% of the patients coming into my health center are treated for malaria. I say treated because there are no blood tests done and anyone with classic malaria symptoms (normally a reoccuring fever) is treated. If they are still sick a few days later, the nurses will then treat them for something else. I wrote a few months ago about the newborn from my family that was treated for malaria. There also have been a few other kids that I know that have gotten malaria since I have been here.
Last week one of my favorite kids, Maneera, had a really high fever and chills. It looked like malaria to me but her dad was gone and her mom said she couldn't take her in then. They gave her Tylenol and the fever went away. I was pretty sure it would be back again and sure enough two days later they came to tell me she was sick. Since I had told them the fever would be back in two days if it was malaria, they really believed I knew what I was talking about and agreed to take her in. While we were waiting to leave, I asked them about mosquito nets. I had brought it up before and the women all said they had them and the kids slept under them but I knew this wasn't true. Our health center gives out nets during the rainy season to pregnant women and babies so the family has several. Anyways I convinced them to find a net and we hung it up right then. Since then I have seen at least a few of the younger kids sleeping under it. I also went to hang out with my family one day and found that the two week old baby was asleep inside a small pop-up mosquito net. I was so excited to see they had such a contraption and were even using it in the middle of the day when the mosquitos aren't so bad. Its great to see even the smallest changes in my family and my village.
There is still lots of sensibilizing to be done but I know rainy season is long so I figure I will have many opportunities.
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