Nets.
A mosquito net distribution here in Senegal is much than bringing 3,000 mosquito nets to the hospital with some balloons and t-shirts. It is a science, a logistical undertaking, a Public Relations event, and sort of a party…in its own little way.
Two weeks before the scheduled distributions, which were to take place in two different zones in the district of Saraya, in total about 50 villages, we called all of the village stakeholders, the mayor, the village chief, the radio owners, the prefet, the imam, women’s group presidents, to inform them of our activities and to invite them to be on the ‘follow up committee.’ This committee exists to make sure that nobody is lying on their census or to be a buffer for any fights that break out or confusion that happens.
The next step is training the health relays, at least one from each village, on how to take a census, communicate to their villages about malaria and how to run the net distribution. I, along with other volunteers, the hospital staff and a representative from NetWorks, and USAID organization that has made mosquito net distributions into quite the formula for success, ran the two trainings. The community health workers learned how to each household in the village and count the number of people, number of children aged 2-7 who theoretically all received mosquito nets in 2009, each bed with a net and each bed without a net. The point of the distribution is not to give every person a net, but to give every sleeping space a net, because most people do not sleep in their own beds. It is weird here that I have my very own bed. Children share with each other, with their moms, sisters and brothers share, everyone shares, the basis of Senegalese culture: sharing. Anyways, the community health workers learned all about the census taking, received net coupons to give out to the heads of households, and of course, sweet t-shirts.
After the training, each relay went to every house hold in his or her village to count beds without nets, which took two days. At this point, I acted as a supervisor behind the scenes. It is best when people from the community who know it best go to each of the houses because they know everyone, can tell if people are not telling the truth, or forget someone when counting the number of people in their households (totally legit, sometimes there are 55 people in one family! And to think, sometimes my mom got my name mixed up with my dog’s and we only have four people.) I could never do this, I get confused about names because there are so many with the same last name, and of course, I did not grow up here and know everyone like the back of my hand.
Next, we ‘validated’ the census with the follow-up committee. We went through every census sheet from every village and made sure the numbers matched up and decided how many nets each household needed. My brain hurt from all that addition, which yes I did on my fingers because 5th grade methods never die. The day before the distributions (some the day of) we wrote on each of the almost 3,000 nets the name of the eventual owner, the date and village.
Then, finally, drum roll please, we did the net distribution! We had nine different distribution points throughout the Saraya zone so people could come pick up the nets, and we did all of the distribution in three days. Some villages were more successful than others because of organization, etc. In Saraya, the biggest one, we divided the town by neighborhood. As organized as we tried to be, the whole day was quite stressful. First, when faced with free things, people seem to just go a little bit crazy. All of the sudden, everyone is so busy and needs to get their nets immediately and leave. I understand that it is farming season, but never before have I ever seen anyone here be in a rush…
Second, it is always difficult to remember the people that thank you for the nets and tell me I am doing a good job, because those interactions are so brief and quiet. What really got under my skin were people who said things like ‘ce n’est pas normal’ it is not normal, when they had to wait more than 10 min for their nets, or they thought they needed more nets than the census determined, and I get yelled at. I am not usually one to lose my temper in life, but this day, I really almost lost it. I am for these net distributions and for giving people the opportunity to stay healthy and take their health into their own hands. But in the fact of what seems like a sense of entitlement and complete lack of regard to not only the work I am doing, but the work that people in their own communities are doing for almost nothing, that gets to me. Sometimes I start yelling in English and then people generally stop yelling at me because I look like a crazy person. It is like the people who give out red bull in the park in America and all of the sudden everyone needs as many red bulls as possible, even if they don’t even like it you know?
These interactions seem frequent because I get so stressed out by them, but mostly, I just love it. In one village, Sanela, which was the most organized and calm distribution I have ever seen, every single person was so gracious and excited about receiving their nets. We sat in a meeting after the distribution when everyone gushed about the work their health workers and Peace Corps did for them. The relays too, were so happy that they were able to do this for their village and worked tirelessly for their community. I wanted to stay there forever and have a party under their new mosquito nets.
After the two weeks, I was a little tired, a little stressed and quite relieved one zone is over, and we still have one to go. I had to hide away in Kedougou for a few days in the aftermath of the various fights and anger that existed. But now, all the beds in the Saraya zone can be covered (if they are up!), and the fight against malaria continues.
http://www.networksmalaria.org/networks-home-page
http://pcsenegal.org/index.php?page=malaria/index.html
