Dust churning underneath the wheels of our 4x4 truck as I stood
holding onto the bar behind the truck cabin dodging each overhanging branch as
it came rushing toward my head winding our way down the 11km dirt road to the
mato farming village. Nhandoa was our destination for the afternoon,
about 45 min from my town.
As we made
our way passing mães who’d moved off to the bank of the tail with food goods
and water balancing on their heads as our driver laid on the horn to warn them
and possible others that he was coming. As we came through the dried
shrubbery into some clearage that showed a scattering of mud houses with grass
roofs and not a power line in sight, the picture became quite clear and this
was more what I’d imagined about the places working in PC would take me.
Two Fridays ago I got my site mate, a health Volunteer, to let me
tag along with her and other hospital staff to do their next "Brigada
Mobile" at a village outside of Chitima but within our district.
Didn't take much convincing as the hospital staff were more than happy to let
another PVC join on their regular duties. Even as non shalant as they
made it seem I was quite excited to be getting out into another part of my
district. As and education Volunteer we are pretty much confined to the school
and our immediate surroundings. Sure I'd been to other villages down the road
past my town but never more than a stop to pick something or someone up. To
which I would often forget the village name before I was even out of it.
Abby my site mate though, talked each week of her trips to different barrios
(neighborhoods) in Chitima and surrounding villages to do monthly check ups,
give PSAs, health demos, and do mobile consulting out there for people who
couldn't make it into town. Which for me and the fact that I didn't even
know what barrio I lived in, I thought it was just the "school
barrio," had been quite jealous that 4 months in Chitima and she already
had a better lay of the land and surround area than I. To which she
sometimes made fun of me, deservingly. So with school winding down I needed to
start learning more about area around my bubble of a life in the Vale barrio,
the school’s actually neighborhood name.
As we pulled up in the truck to the massive Baobab tree in the
center of Nhandoa carrying vaccines, vitamins, and documents to set up a mobile
baby and maternity check-up station, the shaded area below the tree was packed
with mães and all their kids all waiting for us. The health centers coordinate
with local leaders to help set up and get word out about days like today. So
without an email chain or message board crowds of anxious babies and mothers
waited for their bi-monthly check up and vitamin resupply.
As best we could we created a baby weighing,
vaccine, and early-mother station.
With
some rickety desks from the towns near by primary school, one enclosed building,
a sturdy branch and portable scale we were in business.
There wasn’t much for me to
do as I couldn’t administer vaccines or speak nhungwe, so I assisted the baby weigh
in as best I could.
Moms with their
babies tied to their backs with a capulana cloth would each come up to the
scale, put their babies in the harness to be weighed, and hand the nurse a
yellow pamphlet.
Each mother carried one
of these yellow pamphlets.
They were the
entire medical records for their children, literally the only copy of the medical
history that existed for their child’s growth, vaccines, and past consultations.
They are kept with the families and must be
brought to every one of these mobile check-ups or any other type of medical situation.
Which made the hassle of getting my medical
stuff in order before PC seem like a breeze compared to their responsibility with
these cards.
After weighing each baby I
distributed vitamin packs to each mother with a baby over 6 months old.
These weren’t Flintstone or princess gummies
but packets that are mixed in with soft food for the kids daily.
Although, mini bags of Cheetos were the only
think I could think about while handing them out.
After we had finished all
the weighing, consultations, and vaccines we were treated to a modest meal of
xima (thick grits), beans, and rehydrated salted fish as a small thank you from
the towns’ people for making the trip out to them.
While we ate the food and I took notice to my
very sun burnt skin, the older kids who had been playing in the area came up
and began to take stock in the trash of vaccine bottles and syringe caps, no
actual syringes as we had a bio-waste container. Making long wands out of
connecting caps together and stacking empty mini vials up on each other they
were 10x more entertained than they had been while waiting around for us to
finish.
Packing up the truck we all
piled back in and made our drive out of the mato and 45 min journey back to
Chitima, leaving Nhandoa with some more knowledge of my surrounding area and a
better appreciation for the health and hospital workers in this country.
(Cute little fat baby reminding of my own self, on the right)
