On Friday I took my first trip out into the field. My supervisor, a Congolese man named Raphael, needed to meet with someone in the town of Foya, less than 50 miles away. Despite many of the staff members cautioning me that the roads were very bad since the rains, I was excited to be seeing more of the region.
About twenty minutes into our trip, I began to appreciate a bit more my colleagues’ statements about the road conditions. About every half mile or so, the dirt road turned into giant mud trenches. Though luckily we did not get stuck anywhere along our way, the trip took us over four hours. In the dry season, it takes only one.
If the way to Foya was difficult, the way back was far more challenging. Around 5pm, we arrived in the town of Kolahun, the half-way point between Foya and Voinjama. We stopped at the IRC-run hospital to pick up a patient with a ruptured intestine. Since the Kolahun hospital does not have an operating room, we needed to transport the patient with her daughter and a nurse to the larger hospital in Voinjama. We placed a mattress in the back of our land cruiser, and Martina lay down for the ride. While I had cringed at many of the constant bumps and jerks on the way to Foya, the ride felt a million times worse knowing that we had Martina in the back. To be honest, I really do not know how to describe just how bad these roads were and how painful it must have been for Martina, with her intestines already ruptured. I tried to take photos of the mud (I posted a few below), but they really do not do the situation justice at all. At one point, I tried to calculate the longest stretch of flat road, and I couldn’t ever get past twenty seconds. Martina’s daughter was so bumped around and nauseous from the road and car fumes that she threw up intermittently for most of the trip.
In addition to being jerked around as our vehicle navigated through potholes and ditches, eventually we got stuck in the mud. We were only able to get the car out by having half a dozen Liberians rock the car back and forth with all their strength until the front wheel could get enough traction to pull out of the ditch. This took countless tries over a half hour period, and all the while Martina was lying there in the back seat with only her daughter and the nurse able to steady her as the car jerked to and fro. The saga didn’t end here, however. Instead, once we finally got going again, the sky opened up and started to pour, turning the road into a giant muddy soup. Luckily, we did not get stuck again, but the trip back still took several more hours.
As we bobbed along the road, I could not help but wonder about a lot of things. First, as the rain poured down, I wondered how it must have been for people during the war, having fled their homes and villages, to survive in the jungle with no escape from the rain and mud—not to mention all the diseases that came with them. Never having experienced a war myself, I have no idea if it was silly of me to wonder about the rain and to feel like it must have just made everything worse. Maybe the rain was the least of everyone’s problems. But watching it pour down so relentlessly, I couldn’t help but wonder. Second, as I stared at Martina, lying there in the back of the car, surely in terrible pain, I wondered what other horrible experiences she had been through? Did getting jerked around for hours in the back of a land cruiser with her intestines ruptured seem like a minor form of suffering in comparison? Or did she wonder what trick God was playing on her to allow her to survive so much only to have her die in the back of a car because of something so seemingly insignificant as mud? Third, I thought about Mali and the different challenges faced by individuals trying to access health care there and here. In Mali, Malado died for many reasons, but the final cause was the lack of available and affordable transport to get her to a hospital. Though the health district has an ambulance, patients have to pay, and it would have cost about $100. This was an unthinkable amount of money for Malado’s family and well beyond even my means while I was in Senossa (I only had about $30 and there are no ATMs). In contrast, here in Liberia, IRC provides free health care and transport to patients throughout the county. But what good is free transport when the roads are completely impassable? It was horrible sitting for hours in that car knowing that even with all IRC’s funding and four-wheel drive-equipped vehicles, we might not be able to get this woman to an operating table in time to save her life.
In the end, we arrived safely in Voinjama and were able to drop Martina off at the hospital. The doctors intended to operate on that night or in the morning, but I haven't heard yet if she survived. Another patient died in the car on the way to the hospital yesterday because of the roads.
When I was in Monrovia and expats complained about the Liberian government’s priorities, wishing they would “just pave the damn roads already,” I was unmoved; investments in health care and education should come first. But progress in many key areas relies on people and programs being able to get from one place to the other in the country. Although I still don’t think that the roads should be the government’s first priority, I will not be so indifferent the next time someone laments their poor condition or warns me of a long, bumpy day when I am next headed out to the field.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Arrival in Voinjama
In Voinjama, I am living in the IRC’s guest house, which is located in the same compound as our offices. The compound is very pretty, with lots of green grass, flowers, trees, and tropical plants. One tree in particular is filled with birds and what seems like a hundred individual nests, although when I asked what kind of birds these were, my coworker merely replied: “Just birds.”
While I am happy to live in such an attractive compound, the downside is living where I work. Since it was pouring rain when I arrived on Tuesday and again the next evening, I did not even leave the compound for my first 48 hours in Voinjama. All I could do was walk down the path to my office and then back to my house in the evening because it was too wet to go into town. This felt a bit like house arrest, and since the Kenyan woman who also has a room in the guest house is away for a conference, it was quite lonely.
Luckily then, when the office closed today, the sun was shining and I was finally able to see the town. As I walked out of the compound and down the red dirt road towards town, my immediate thought was: Oh my god, it is so beautiful! We are in the mountains, so every so often as you walk along, you arrive at an incredible view of the surrounding jungle. Needless to say, I was very excited to finally be wandering about and it took about all my energy not to start jumping up and down like an idiot in front of my coworker, who was showing me around.
Adding to this excitement was my discovery that numerous Peulh families live in my town!!! For those of you who do not know, the Peulhs are the ethnic group with which I lived in Mali and whose language I spoke as a Peace Corps Volunteer. There are many Peulhs that live in Guinea as well, and it seems that some families have moved here since the war and set up shop. Since I seriously love Peulhs, I just about exploded when, while buying some packets of powdered milk and Nescafe, I overheard the saleswoman speaking in Pulaar (the Peulh dialect they speak in Guinea). Naturally, I immediately introduced myself and made friends with the woman and her brother, all the while so excited that an onlooker might have thought that I had just won a million dollars or a free trip to Hawaii. Needless to say, it was a very good day.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The ride from Monrovia to Voinjama
Photo: Quick snapshot out the car window of the landscape on the way to Voinjama.
After two weeks in Monrovia, I have finally arrived in Voinjama! Voinjama is the capital of Lofa County, and is nestled in the northwestern-most tip of Liberia, just a few kilometers from the country’s borders with Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Though Voinjama is only about 400 kilometers from Monrovia, the trip took eight hours due to bad road conditions. The first half of the trip was not too bad—the driver had to navigate around potholes, but at least the road was paved. The second half of the trip was along a dirt road. Since we are in the midst of rainy season, this meant driving through what often seemed like giant trenches of mud. And while the jump seats in the back of the IRC land rover were more comfortable than the bench seats of a Malian bachée, after eight hours, my bottom was definitely sore.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the trip because it was the first time I got to see the Liberian countryside. My face was glued to the window the entire ride, and the Liberians sitting with me kept laughing as I tried to take photos even as rained poured into the car. An additional perk of the ride was the soundtrack. Boys II Men, Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton--you name a popular R&B artist from the 1990s, and we probably listened to them. Alternatively, think of any slow song ever played at a middle school dance. Totally cheesy, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it (although don't tell this to the Peace Corps Volunteer I sat next to on the trip because I'm guessing that his hasty decision to put on his headphones meant that he did not feel the same way about the playlist). Regardless, it was with these songs in the background, and with the Liberians next to me occasionally singing along at the chorus, that we tumbled along the road and I got my first peek at Liberia.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
First Impressions of Monrovia, Liberia
Photo: Standing on the beach in Monrovia. After ten days in Mali, I flew to Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. Since I arrived at night, I went straight from the airport to my hotel room to settle in. When I got to my room, I found the following: a fridge, stove, sink, hot water shower, tv, air conditioner, and wi-fi access. For someone who is used to Peace Corps-style living, this was like walking into a palace.
The next day, I got my first peak of Monrovia on my way to the office. It is a bustling city, full of people selling anything and everything. Particularly interesting have been the street food options. Pigs feet are incredibly popular, along with slices of Spam on toothpicks. There are also tastier treats, such as bananas, fresh grilled fish, and meat pies (like empanadas). Sadly, I seem to have just missed pineapple and mango season, but this gives me something to look forward to next year.
Surprisingly, the temperature here in Monrovia has been pretty cool. We are in the rainy season right now, so the days are usually pretty overcast. While this has made walking around the city a lot more pleasant than it was in the Malian heat, the downside is that it doesn't make for good beach weather. Since Monrovia is on the coast, there are several nice beaches around, and I am excited to go swimming when the days get warmer. Granted, by "swimming," I mean "wading" because the waves are pretty gigantic. And after my near drowning in Ghana (well, I wasn't really that close to drowning, but it was scary nonetheless), I have learned to stay where it is shallow.
Visiting Mali
After a long flight, I finally arrived in Mali. Since my job with the IRC did not begin until September, I decided to visit Mali (where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer) for ten days before flying to Liberia. Mali is the only place in the world other than Arlington that feels like home to me, so it was good to go back. Very little has changed in the past year and a half, and if it weren’t for running into children who were noticeably taller than when I last saw them, I could have believed that I never left. My “tokara” (someone who is named after you; see photo) had just learned to stand when I left Mali to come back to the U.S.; now she’s running around, getting into trouble, and pestering her mother like any two year old. Since she was too young when I left to remember me, she was pretty shy around me at first (aka she would run away and hide every time she saw me). But after constantly buying her peanuts and other treats, she finally decided I wasn’t so scary and we became friends. I have to say, it was also pretty funny hearing everyone call her “Ariel” or “Wagner.” Since people in my village call me Aminata (my Malian name), I am not used to hearing my American name (which they pronounce “Awah Wanner”) and often got mixed up as to whether people were talking to me or my tokara.
Though the trip was wonderful overall, it was definitely emotional as well. Within about ten minutes of getting to the village where I used to live, I was called to the home of a friend who was sick. I found Malado lying weakly on the floor of her mud hut, her body reduced to a skeleton. Her family didn’t know what was wrong with her but handed me a note from the hospital. The note simply stated that Malado was HIV positive; seeing her, it was clear that she was in the final stages of full blown AIDS. With treatment (provided for free in Mali), Malado might have been able to return to health; but by the time I arrived, she was too sick and weak to make the half-day journey by bachée (a rickety minivan with the seats replaced by planks to fit as many people as possible) to the hospital. For the next four days, all I could do was visit her and bring her food in the hopes that with better nutrition, she might regain enough strength to be able to make the trip. Saying good bye to her the day that I left to catch my flight in Bamako, I had to fight to hold back my tears. I wanted to cry not just for myself for losing a friend but for Malado’s two young daughters who had been a daily staple at my house for the two years I spent in Senossa and for the unfairness of Malado’s entire life and all the factors that contributed to her fate (poverty, a bad marriage, lack of education, poor access to health care).
This said, I do not want to give the impression that Mali is a relentlessly depressing place. Though the country is mired in poverty, the spirit and generosity of Malians are amazing. This is why I enjoyed living there so much and was so happy to go back.
Introduction
Hello, Friends! I am back in Africa, working with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) for a year while I apply to medical schools. Since I have never been good at sending out email updates detailing what I'm up to, I decided to create this blog. I am not very technologically savvy, nor do I really know anything about blogs, but I figured I'd at least give it a try. So here it goes...
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