MALARIA.

My last few posts have been upbeat and positive and although the majority of the time I am very happy here I think I've failed to share with you some of the most serious problems that restrict mozambique from developing to be on par with other leaders on the African continent. So after having someone I knew pass away from malaria I thought it was a good time to address the topic here.

Malaria is arguably the most important health issue confronting Mozambicans today. UN reports estimate that malaria accounts for 29% of hospital reported deaths (HIV/AIDS accounts for 27%) but this percentage is likely even higher because of unaccounted deaths occurring outside of the hospital in more rural communities. Shockingly malaria accounts for 43% of children's deaths under age 5.

Malaria is a year round problem with cases reported every month, but the peak season for incidents is during the rainy season (December-April). Mozambique is also prone to natural disasters such as droughts, floods and cyclones, which occur in low-lying coasts and along rivers. These incidents make the country more susceptible to malaria because disaster-affected areas are breeding grounds for Mosquitos.

In peace corps training we learn about malaria prevention (and are urged to take our malaria medicine religiously). Malaria is also included in the national curriculum for every grade in Mozambican secondary schools. Students are taught the causes and means to prevent malaria. The Mozambican government (in collaboration with many NGOs, INGOs and other governments) has created extensive programs to distribute insecticide treated nets, indoor residual spraying, intermittent preventative treatment for pregnant women and diagnosis with rapid tests. Yet with all of these efforts malaria continues to be a leading cause of death in mozambique.

At school, when I ask my students how to prevent malaria, most of them are proud to respond 'with a mosquito net!' Yet when I ask how many students actually sleep under a net the number is almost none (if any) who do. Although nets are sometimes distributed in the community, for sale in the market and readily available at the hospital for pregnant women, they are rarely used. It is more common to see someone in Vanduzi using a mosquito net as fencing around their garden to keep out goats and chickens. When I traveled to ihla I saw local fish man using mosquito mets to reel in their daily catch. So although nets are here and available, they are used for all different reasons, many Of which do nothing to prevent malaria. Medicine is also available at local hospitals but many people are slow to see a doctor and acquire medicine so when thy do go it is usually too late. In more rural communities (where hosptals are under stocked or do not have access to medicine) people will instead visit a curandero (traditional healer). But malaria can't be treated with homegrown remedies and chants, someone who is sick has to take antibiotics or the disease is fatal.

About a week and a half ago my Dona da Casa (landlord) got sick. After 5 or 6 days, and some pretty alarming symptoms (aside from a high fever an hallucinations he was also going in and out of a coma) his family took him to the hospital. He was diagnosed with cerebral malaria (the most serious type) and given medicine to take. He returned home on rest and waited for the medicine to kick in but the symptoms only got worse. On Thursday night his family called a traditional healer and I could hear chanting and yelling (in toungues) well into the night. Friday Torres went back into a coma and his family took him back to the hospital. At around 10:30 PM Friday night, while trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep in the heat I heard yelling and sobbing...In a culture where people rarely show sadness or shed a tear, this type of emotion is very uncommon...i saw a group of people enter our compound. After walking outside I discovered Torres had passed away and his family was now returning from the hospital.

Note: i live in a dependencia, which means my landlords house and my house are on the same compound and in this case seperated from our neighbors by a stone wall. Our houses are about ten feet apart and we share an outdoor toilet and water well. His children play in frot of my house everyday (Taunting amendoim and building forts or playin with empty bottle-constructed cars.) I see my landlord everyday and we always greet each other and make some small talk about the weather or work or just ask about the other persons health. We were by no means close but we were neighbors.

The next day was spent paying respects to the family and many people filed through our house compound to visit the family and sit in mourning outside. By 10 AM there was easily over a hundred people there. Feeling a little awkward, I paid my respects and then took my school directors advice to pass the day in chimoio, so the family could have their privacy and our compound could be used for families visiting to pay respects and mourn.

This morning I returned home for the funeral and boy was it an event! I've been to a few funerals here in Vanduzi but none like this one. Torres was well-respected In the community. He worked in the fish market, supported a large extensive family and although he clearly was well-off, he didn't give off the chefe auro that many male leaders seem to posses. He was always friendly and polite and was overall very popular in town.

A typical funeral in moz starts at the family's house, where people gather to sing and dance and pepare for the day. After a few hours everyone goes to the hospital to retrieve the body, more dances and songs are performed and from there the funeral party piles in trucks to parade through town (singing church hymns) and finally proceeds to the cemetery, where the body is laid to rest. After all of this, everyone returns to the family's house to eat lunch. After eating people slowly trickle on home, so that now, at 9 PM, the only people still gathered outside are close friends and family.

I always understood that malaria was a huge problem here in moz and I also knew people weren't exactly serious about taking real measures to prevent it. Whenever someone gets sick (or worse, dies) people say it is because they had malaria. Seeing someone like torres, who was well-off, educated, and even took the initiative to go to the hospital and take medicine, get sick and die, really brings the seriousness of this problem to light. The resources and funding is (arguably) present here but people are slow to use them. Today 10 pick-up trucks full of people attended the funeral. Easily 400+ people were here yet even though most people know that Torres died from malaria, I doubt that any of those individuals will go home and decide its time to buy a mosquito net. I don't have suggestions about how to change attitudes here in my community. If there's one thing I've learned so far it's that culture can sometimes be the biggest obstacle in grassroots development because people are so reluctant to change their habits and culture. I hope that ican find a better way to at least educate my students at school and in our student groups about how to prevent malaria because Torres death, like so many others here in mozambique,happened too early on in his life and was definitely preventable.

NOTE: I am sorry for typos and grammar errors I typed this post from my phone and it was a bit difficult!

End of the school year!

Because I'm posting two blogs posts at once I thought I'd make this one nice and light (with lots of pictures) and save the writing for the next one...

The school year is coming to an end and with that comes end of the year celebrations. My school director (who is fantastic!) took all of us to Millpark, this chicy hotel on the outskirts of Chimoio, for one final staff get together before everyone starts to leave for the holidays. Aside from the fact that the chalets and hotel grounds overlook beautiful fields and mountains out in the distance, there is also a really nice, fancy pool, and MINI GOLF! (NOTE: I did not play mini golf but will return in the future to do so!). My director let me bring a friend along, Ana, who is a PCV in Messica, a town close by to me, and it was great to have her with me. An entire day of Portuguese can still be pretty draining but with another friend at your sides its easier to shake off the jokes when teachers encourage you to dance, and negar bottles of beer when colleagues are trying to get you tipsy. Needless to say we spent the entire day at Millpark yesterday, eating delicous food and talking to my collagues, many of whom I've come to know much better in the past few months. Ana also helped me describe different types of secondary projects that I can do (which are PC projects) with my colleagues at school. It was great having her there!

The teachers and staff at Vanduzi Secondary School

Sophia (easily one of my closest friends in Vanduzi!) , her daughter Shanazia Clarina, and I.

Simao and Siguake, two of my colleagues at school who also teach English.

And this is Bea, my other closest friend at school, she was sick yesterday and couldn't come to our end of the year lunch but it didn't feel right to write about school and not include her!

Ana---I'm not sure how we missed taking a picture together :( but here's proof of the mini golf course! Note--Manica/Central crew, we will go back here!



And here are some pictures of some of my better students at school...I don't feel too guilty labeling them that way because they were also the only ones who showed up for the last 2 weeks of classes!

Students from turma 8J: at the end of the semester I asked my students to prepare a short dialogue to present instead of taking a final exam. Only two of the students from this class showed up prepared and it although I was dissapointed in the rest of the crew, these two students literally made my day. They spoke clearly and loudly and it was very obvious that they actually practiced! They were of course rewarded with some starbursts (thanks mom!) One of them, Castro, is the student all the way on the right

Students from turma 8A:
So I know I'm not supposed to pick favorites but in this turma, up until the end of the school year students were still coming to class EVERY DAY, and taking notes and asking me what we could do to practice more english. They were also my class with the highest pass rate and they were pretty awesome.



And that's it for now :)