Re: Hello From Adjohoun

Dear Friends and Family,

 

  My time in Benin is going by too quickly!—I only have about two and a half weeks left before I move on to the next stage of my trip.  Paris!  I'll be back in Virginia around mid-July.  I was going to write an email about what I've been doing since I last wrote, but instead ended up writing about a little family I met when I first came to Adjohoun:  

 

   When I first came to Benin there was a mom living at the clinic with her three children, Isaiah, Veronica and Joseph.  Veronica had swallowed a significant quantity of lye (I think it's lye, my translation of this word has never satisfied me…) and wasn't able to keep any food down.  Isaiah is the oldest of the family, I'd say about 8 and Joseph is a baby, just learning to walk.  Veronica is maybe 4.  The family spent several weeks at the clinic and I completely fell in love with Isaiah.  He has a smile that goes on for days, a really infectious laugh and every single time he saw me, he waved.  We saw each other about 20 times a day, since we both lived in the compound.  That's a lot of waving.  And he was always smiling.

   Veronica never smiled… not once.  I have pictures of the kids, but she's always looking at the camera with a severely disapproving expression.  After a few weeks she seemed to have stabilized a bit, so the mom took the kids home.  Another couple weeks went by and I didn't see the family, so I assumed everything was going well.  But then one day Veronica showed up with her mom and dad in her best outfit.  When people go to the doctor here they put on their best clothes.  She still wasn't holding down food and she was losing a lot of weight.  The clinic director admitted her overnight and tried to do what he could for her.  Ultimately, he referred her to the regional hospital and told me that there was no hope for her; that her stomach was too far gone and she'd die soon.   Isaiah had lost his smile and my heart was breaking for this little family.

   It's been about a month since we heard anything from this family, and each time I asked the Center Director if he'd heard any news, he'd tell me she was probably already dead, but that no, he hadn't heard anything.  

   This past week a familiar-looking man showed up with his twin infants and spent a long time talking to the Center Director.  They spoke in Fon, so I had no idea what was going on.  The man left and the Center Director turned to me and said "Little Veronica is doing better.  She's holding down gruel and a few other things.  They managed to repair her stomach."  The familiar-looking man was Veronica's paternal uncle.

   Needless to say, I'm thrilled by this news.  The Center Director and I are going to visit the family before I leave and take a picture of the kids.  Hopefully this time, Veronica will be smiling. 

 

    Much love to you all, and thanks again to all of you who have written and kept me in the loop—I really appreciate it J

 

   Lauren

Malaria's Over

Oh my-- malaria sucks.  And I'm glad I'm not a doctor.  Will write more to explain those two statements later.

 

I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to come home, despite the rather shockingly unpleasant encounter I had with an American yesterday.  (I really shouldn't be so shocked, but there it is, I'm shocked and disappointed)

 

Hope you're all well!

 

LRB

Malaria

I have malaria!  My plasmodium falciparum count is 1200, which is double what the French nurse had two weeks ago.

 

Ugh.  I (thankfully) didn't present with a fever, but I had intermittent stomach pain, headaches, and random periods of fatigue. 

 

And now I'm going to go lay down again. 

 

Sigh.

Hello From Adjohoun

Hello Friends and Family,

 

   I hope this email finds you all well !  I'm still in Benin, and while the initial thrill of being in a new place is long gone, I'm enjoying my stay here.  It's a holiday here, so I'm taking some time to write an email—it's a long one.  If you don't want to read it all, know that I'm well and I miss everyone and would love to hear how you're doing.

 

   The countryside and the village are still as beautiful and as charming as ever, but I've been here long enough to see a bit of the really difficult life that most people lead here.  Excuse the statistics-ese, but I'd like to think that I'm working from a biased sample, since I live on the grounds of a clinic. Most of the people I interact with are injured, sick, or in desperate situations.  I've fallen in love with several of the kids who have come to the clinic… some of whom probably won't live much longer.  And the role of women/girls here breaks my heart and makes me angry and I feel helpless. 

 

   But on to the more entertaining aspects of my life here—I've become very adept at making pancakes—and flipping them in the pan!  I can catch them and everything.  I'm finally (finally) learning how to cook, thanks to my French roommate/colleague (who's been incredibly patient, both with my halting French and my inelegant attempts to cook for the two of us).  I'm a huge fan of palm wine, which is most definitely a girly drink, no matter what the guys here say.  

 

   I went to Togo for the weekend a week or so ago with the Center Director, Emmanuel.  I needed to leave the country to stay within the limits of my Benin visa, and he wanted to visit the School of Public Health in Lome (the capital of Togo), so it worked out well.  African borders are crazy!  The School of Public Health turned out to be more of an allied health school… no biostats, epidemiology, health behavior, etc.  I was disappointed, but I now understand why it's been so hard to explain what it is I do to people here.  There's really no reference point. 

 

   Ah, my Montreal roommates and the Denver VISTA crew will appreciate this—I think I've finally gotten over my fear of knives—people walk around here with machetes like we walk around with Nalgene bottles.  Well, except they carry them on their heads J 

 

   I'm crazy tanned, so tan that occasionally it startles me when I see my hand or my arm.  Everyone here finds it HILARIOUS that if I lift my shirt sleeve a little I'm completely white again.  And I've given up trying to explain that when I get red in the sun, it's not that I'm hot, it's that I'm actually burned.  They think if I take a shower or turn on a fan it'll go away.  Pretty adorable… though patently false.  When I tell them it hurts, they're completely bowled over.  The sun burns?  But when you're on the motorcycle, you can't get a sun burn, because there's the wind.  HA!    

 

   I've done some more HIV/AIDS awareness workshops in local high schools and while I still don't love doing them (let's stand up in front of 700 teenagers and talk to them in a second language about sex and condoms and immune systems… sounds like fun, no?), I'm glad we're doing them.  The kids seem to be interested and they seem to have a lot of questions that they haven't been able to ask anyone.  It's especially heart-warming to go into a particularly rural school (a "lost school") that has never had a visitor, and talk to the kids about how to protect themselves.  

 

   My main role in the clinic is to be an "apprentice" to the Pharmacist—she finds it pretty amusing that I'm her apprentice, and I ask her every day if she's going to "liberate" me, which is what they do when apprentices finish their time with their patron.  You have to pay 100,000 francs CFA  (about USD250) to be liberated… so if anyone wants to pitch in and help me out, my address is:

Lauren Bateman

Amour Sans Frontieres

BP 58

Adjohoun, Benin.

 

J       There are three girls who work at the clinic as nurses aides.  I taught them Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.  And the chicken dance.  I figure I've done my part to help spread American Culture around the world! 

 

   Well, I'm going to sign off now.  It's a big month for a lot of you so: safe travels, happy graduation, happy birthday, happy anniversary, etc etc etc J

 

   Love to you all, and a bientot!

 

   Lauren

Yovo Yovo Bonsoir

Hi all! 

 

I'm writing on an english-keyboard (thank goodness, I can find the a!) at an american agriculture/recycling/compost center in Porto Novo, Benin.  I've been here just over four weeks, and everything is going really well!

 

   Most days I spend the morning at the clinic, either learning Fon from the pharmacist (who, of course, has no actual degree in pharmacy) or observing the procedures.  If there was ever any doubt that I shouldn't go into medicine, it's been cleared up pretty well by now :) 

 

   The organization I'm with sponsors children who have difficult family lives (or no family life), provides malnutrition treatment/counselling, and takes on social cases when they present themselves.  The woman who started the organization has been in Benin for 15 years and is pretty incredible.  The Beninois man who is the Director of the Clinic is incredible-- he's good with children, can talk to both the female and male patients, and has a way of settling family disputes that's really remarkable. 

 

   In the afternoons I either go to the little library on the grounds of the organization and give english/french/statistics lessons to the high school students who come to use the text books (oy... me, a stats teacher???).  If we have something scheduled, I go with Emmanuel (the Director of the Clinic) and the other woman who's here volunteering with me, and we drive into the bush to a "lost school" and give hygiene talks to the primary students and HIV/AIDS prevention talks to the high school students.  Yes, in French!  The dictionary I brought didn't have the necessary vocabulary for the HIV/AIDS talks, so I passed a pretty amusing day with some of the nurse's aides who work at the clinic, trying to figure out what the french is for some key words.

 

   I've been able to do some travelling, too-- a small village up to the north of where I am, where you "shower" under the stars using a basin of water and a bowl, and where the health center has no electricity.  We also went to the City of Pobe, where one of the sponsored children attends a technical school-- it's nicer than my high school!  Last weekend a group of us went to the ocean and the city of Ouidah, which is where the Kingdom of Dahomey sold slaves to the Portugese.  We were in a hurry, and I wanted to spend all day walking around the beach and the Slave Road, and the Tree of Forgetting-- legend has it if you turn around the tree three times you become an amnesiac and won't remember your family (so you can't be sad) when you get on the Portugese slave ships. 

 

   Because of the internet connection, I can't post pictures, but I'll try my best once I get back to the states. 

 

 

   Oh yes, Emmanuel calls me Madame Soleil (Ms. Sun) because the first week I got here I got a sunburn on my arm-- he kept touching it... I guess he hasn't seen many sunburns.  Now he worries every time I'm outside for more than five minutes at a time :) 

 

   I hope you're all well-- I wish I could respond to everyone's emails-- thanks to everyone who filled me in on March Madness, and thanks for sending me gossip and news, I really appreciate it!

 

   I've got to get going now, but I miss everyone! 

 

   Love, Lauren

 

P.S.  If your birthday is in April, or if I've missed it, please know I thought about you on your birthday! 

benin

im here, on a french keyboard and i cant seem to find the punctuation:

 

its gorgeous here and my french is good enough to get my point across and im learning some fon, which is the local language;  its hot and humid and lush and really amazing:

 

ill have limited internet while im here but would love to hear from everyone:  the place im staying is pretty classy... shower and toilet and even a fridge! 

 

my address in case you want it is

amour sans frontieres

lauren bateman

b.p. 58

adjohoun, benin

 

ive gotten to observe in the clinic... tooth extraction; removal of a polyp (i think...) from a womans foot.

 

i should go, but miss you all!

 

lrb

While I'm in Benin

While I'm in Benin, I'll be emailing posts to this blog, mostly as a way of keeping an electronic record of what goes on.

 

I'll be in Benin from March 17 to July 23 doing some work at a clinic that does maternal/child health work.  I have very few details, but I'm very excited about it all! 

 

Cheers,

LRB

--
"Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings." –- Hodding Carter