The Times They're Not A-Changing.

Monday and Tuesday morning of this week I went to the CSPS, as I normally do, except both mornings there was a different young girl there with Palu (malaria). The first day, I found her passed out on a path near the CSPS--the infirmary nurse and I carried her into the clinic. Palu. The next day, I walked into the infirmary the next morning to find another young girl, looking weak and tired with an IV drip. Palu.

Wednesday, I cross the gorge with Tene (my neighbor and closest friend in village) to Beregedougou to buy produce in their grand marche. While we're there, Tene and some other women from my village stop by a quartier to pick up mangoes. Not just 4 or 5. They each fill 30-40 liter metallic basins FULL of mangoes--I would say that's about 40 or 50 mangoes. But what was even more incredible is that these women carry these mango-filled basins on their heads (two additional women were needed to just lift the basin up on to each woman's head). And what is even MORE incredible is that these women walked down and up a gorge (which I would say is more like a hike since its steep and very uneven) back to village to sell these mangoes on the side of the road. They sell these mangoes for 25 CFA each--that means four mangoes cost about 25 US cents. So if each woman sells all the mangoes in her basin that day, she makes about 1000 CFA, or $2 US dollars. That's less than what she spent on produce for her and her family in Beregadougou.

Thursday, Tene falls ill. Instead of working all day, cooking, cleaning, and selling mangoes until 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night, she sleeps, too weak to move. I ask her, "Will you go with me to the CSPS?" and after agreeing with me each time she would make an excuse "Tomorrow, we'll go together." Friday, and today (before I left to come to Bobo) she went back to work ask if everything was fine, but I can tell she's not herself. It could be a lot of things--I'd imagine it's Palu based on what's been happening in village, but I'm no doctor. But she works too hard, she doesn't get enough nutrition in her diet, she carries ginormous mango-filled basins on her head up and down gorges. It could be a lot of things and it could only get worse if untended to.

So here's the issue: When you've lived all your life one way (and that way is to struggle just to make ends-meet), when you work all day, getting water to cook, clean, drink, wash yourself, wash your kids, wash your close, selling fruit on the side of the road to have money for the next day, cooking meals for your family--how can you have the time or the effort to even the intuition to make a change in your life? If Tene skips half a day of work to go to the CSPS, she loses money--for the cost of medication and for the loss of income for that day selling. So, people like Tene make excuses and wait, until its too late. So as a volunteer, I see that something needs to change. But the way of life here is so ingrained in people here, that I wonder sometimes how something so new and different (like taking preventative measures when it comes to health) could be receptive to my village. When your life is one big struggle to make ends-meet (though you could never tell by the smiling faces and optimistic attitudes of the wonderful Burkinabe) do you have room to try something different? Can you afford it? I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you can.

Friday I traveled around my village with my Coges Treasurer and the maternity nurse, giving Polio vaccinations to every child under 5. This is because many babies are NOT taken to the CSPS when they're born (many aren't even born in the maternity, they're born at home) and are NOT brought in to receive vaccinations (the CSPS is far, its hot as hell, there's so much work to be done at home, one doesn't think to go in for something preventitive) . Later that day, I gave a presentation to 3 classes in the school, the desks were table-style, meant for 2 people per desk. There were 4-5 children at each desk. And when there's no money and home is a kilometer or two away, they don't eat lunch. And they're water pump is broken, so they have no water unless they want to travel far to get it.

Money is needed, but the hard part is getting it, because there is nothing. And once there is money, the harder part is creating something new that is sustainable in a village that has lived the same lifestyle for decades without time to think of how to make the future better because the present is just too immediate. So lets see if I can change that.