Back from central senegal!

Hello and sorry it took me so long to post!
The week long trip with ANCS was amazing. We began last Tuesday early in the morning. The drive was 9 hours to Toumba where we rested before proceeding onto Tambacounda. Tambacounda was our base for a few days. Every day we would wake up early eat a quick breakfast and then pack into the car to drive even farther to the surrounding villages.

The program that ANCS has funded and supported is an education program for rural villages. They fund and train a group from the local village to educate their community and the surrounding communities about HIV/AIDS prevention. We would spend the day in the village meeting with these local teams and the villagers. We would discuss with the team how they felt the programs were going. We would also assess their understanding and make sure they were still giving out solid information in an appropriate way. We brought contraceptives to the village health centers. The farther we got from Tambacounda the health centers would be gradually less and less adequate. There were no contraceptives available in a few of the villages before we got there. In order to access any medical professionals or equipment they would have to drive for hours. The team was working very hard to incorporate an element of TB/HIV coinfection. Trying to convey this to people who have barely been able to go to school was incredibly difficult. But everyone was incredibly resilient, no matter how hot the mid day sun got. TB in these villages is essentially a death sentence because no one can afford treatment. Pairing this with a feeble understanding of what it even is and a lack of healthcare to begin with and the scene looked increasingly dismal. But everywhere we went people would sit and listen for hours at a time in order to grasp the concept of these sicknesses. It seemed that in every village at least two elders would make a point of giving a speech of deep deep gratitude for the gift of these education programs. They had no idea what HIV/AIDS/TB was before. We delivered bikes to three of the villages. This will allow the teams to reach farther and educate more communities. These bikes were clearly mind-blowing to the villagers. Their excitement and enthusiasm was really moving. What made me the happiest by far was the fact that there were teams from villages that were made up of mostly or all women. They had an amazing command of the information. We sat in on one program they held for the women of Sarya village on how to protect themselves from HIV infection. The room was packed. I was so excited to see this after the lack of agency and power the women I worked with in India had. In a similar rural culture where women are traditionally distinctly subordinate, these women were educating each other and taking control of their health and the health of their families. THAT was by far the best part of the trip.

I've put up pictures of some of the villages. We reached one that was as far as the Mali border. The poverty was indescribable. The heat was unbelievable. But it was hard to remain sad for too long because everyone was so overwhelmingly grateful and welcoming. It seemed as though we spent hours just shaking everyone’s hand. One of the village elders in Khassanto grabbed my arm after shaking my hand and started rubbing it. He had never seen freckles before, he thought they were dust stuck on my skin.

The team from ANCS that I spent the week with was amazing. We ate every meal together. I’m not going to describe the food and places I ate because I think my mom (the public heath guru that she is) might faint or make me come home right away. Goodnews is that I did not get sick once! The team was all Senegalese. We had many long talks about the politics here and the culture and how it all differs or is similar to America. One of the guys asked me if American women have time to take care of their husbands. I kind of laughed and asked what he meant. He said that in Senegalese culture the woman cooks and brings water to her husband every day. I tried to explain that in my house my dad comes home every day and cooks and my mom pays the bills. They were SHOCKED.

The news of Michael Jackson’s death was on the morning news as we were driving to Khassanto village. The announcement was followed by 'Thriller'. I think everyone in the car was really disappointed that I wasn’t more upset.

Love to you all. Home in one month!
Hugs, c