Dzaleka Refugee Camp

I’ve been wanting to write an update about this for a long time since last year, but I always felt like I didn’t have the knowledge and the words to start… How does one begin to talk human rights? About the Ugandan child soldiers who have been fighting the adults’ war for the last 20 years? About the 800,000 Rwandans were massacred in one hundred days in 1994? About the warlords in Sudan attacking UNs’ convoys and pillaging the innocents’ only means of survival? About the generations of girls brought up in brothels deep in the heart of India? About women being raped and murdered in Somalia while the world is sitting by even though UN is calling it “one of the worst humanitarian crises” at this very moment?

I just spent 2 days at Dzaleka refugee camp with a friend of mine. "Dzaleka" means "Never again", yet I'm not sure some of these refugees really believe they will "never again" see the terror and horror that siezed their lives in Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe. I didn't really spend any time with the refugees themselves, but I was walking amid the refugees, hanging out at their market, health center, houses, mess halls, schools, etc. We spent most of our time wandering around, searching for the administrators of the camp, health center, and school, and staying with a British volunteer we had met at Dzaleka. I had learned so much just from talking to people and wished I had more questions and time to ask them. I didn't meet any weeping refugees, amputee escapees, or anything like that, but I was glad that I was able to walk among the refugees' homes living their lives as normally as they possibly could.

The UNHCR first opened the camp in 1994 just eight months after the Rwandan genocide. Recently it consolidated with another camp due to some problems, so currently there are over 9,000 refugees overpopulating the camp with roughly half from Rwanda, followed by the Congolese. I was surprised that there were so many Rwandans and that after 14 years, they still remained in Malawi, especially considering how Malawi had little to offer them. But one person told me that even after hearing their fellow Rwandans sharing about the stability in their homeland, their fear still dominate their lives, forcing them to camp out in a foreign land. I guess I cannot underestimate the consequences a genocide produces, but thankfully, the UNHCR has an unconditional policy that allows them to stay as long as they want until they feel emotionally prepared to return home.

As for the Somalians, I cannot blame them for being stuck here - or anywhere - for so long. As the only anarchic state in the world, they really don't have anywhere else to turn to. It seems that Malawi also doesn't know how to handle the influx of Somalians (or even the Congolese) because their lack of governance left them with little or no documentations of their lives. As if their lives were erased or never written.

Even though these refugees escaped from their countries for a safer place to live, it seems that they're still insecure. The administrator of the camp shared that their biggest challenge has been security amongst the refugees and even between the refugees and Malawians. Though there hasn't been any major violent outbreaks (that'd be a problem for the place of "asylum"), apparently most bickering would not be internationally but actually intranationally, most especially with the Congolese.

As I walked through the camp, I tried to imagine and understand what the refugees must face and deal with. To have their homes, lands, crops, livestock, and all things we consider assets taken away from them, I couldn't imagine how they can recuperate from that, especially living in another country where the language and culture are foreign to them. It's amazing how one little war between two warlords or two power-hungry dictators can ruin so many people's lives.

In case you're unaware of the current issues, I've summarized the current major humanitarian crises from the book Not On Our Watch:

Congo (1996-present)
After the Rwandan genocide, the fighting didn’t stop. Instead, it flowed into its neighboring countries, like Congo (formerly known as Zaire). Since Rwanda and Uganda invaded it again in 1998 to overthrow the dictator Mobutu, it has been dubbed as the “African First World War”. Though a peace deal was signed in 2003, violence still continues throughout the country.

Northern Uganda (1986-Present)
Just two countries away from here, the rebels, Lord’s Resistance Army, have been abducting children to fight the government. The leader, Joseph Kony, believes himself to be God’s “messenger” bringing punishment to the government. But he does so at the expense of eight to fourteen-year-olds, who are brainwashed to kill and used as generals’ wives. Though a peace process has been in the works since 2005, the IRC’s warrant to arrest Kony has left the rebels unwilling.

Somalia (1991-Present)
Somalia is actually the only “failed state”, in which anarchy takes on its true meaning since the Cold War. Since “Black Hawk Down”, the U.S. has provided little, if any, support to the Somalis, showing strong interest only in fighting terrorism.

After my visit, my appreciation for the UNHCR grew. Of course it's far from perfect and has room for growth and change, but I can see that they're trying to create a place as safe and comfortable as possible while dealing with the constant influx and outflux of refugees and taking in the Malawians and refugees' needs at the same time. They're trying their best with the little resources they have. I admire how the administration is also trying to mainstream the refugees with the local villages to avoid isolation from the community. But how do they have a life for themselves when they don't have a home to live in? Land to farm on? Businesses to run? I didn't realize how difficult it would be to displaced from everything they knew and had once.

Anyway, I wanted to say more, but I couldn't put down everything I learned, so I'll stop here. I've also posted a few more pictures from Malawi at http://www.flickr.com/photos/26853368@N04/sets/72157605200076398/. I hope you enjoy them! :)

Dzaleka,
Elaine

This is the health center serving both the refugees and the Malawians

These are the primary students who mobbed us

Peace Corps' Job Description

"Waiting on people forever at the risk of never meeting the deadlines."

I don't think Peace Corps mentioned this in the job description. Yet that was what I've been doing for the past three months. This past month has been a bit hectic since I was trying to organize last-minute details for the proposal I’m working on.

Currently, my biggest assignment has been writing a proposal to the USAID (in joint partnership with Peace Corps) for funding to build an 8m x 12m shelter next to my health center where the under-five children can be weighed and immunized, as well as for youths to meet. As of right now, the mothers and their children (screaming ones who don’t have diapers, mind you) often wait up to an hour or two outdoor, which can become problematic during rainy season or hot season. This is one of the several factors that our under-five immunization coverage rate has been one of the lowest in all of Malawi (the penultimate one to be precise).

The other issue that challenges the youths is the lack of a venue for meetings and recreational activities. The youth-friendly health club I’ve been working with has been struggling a lot with attendance for various reasons. I don’t want to divulge too much here about the problems the youth club faces, but I know that they do need to have more activities to look forward to, like sports, games, movies, etc. I’ve also been encouraging the health staff to take a more active role in encouraging and advising these youths, especially regarding reproductive health.

With that said, I’m hoping that this proposal will pass and come October, we’ll be able to start building!

I’ve also been working on a few more proposals to fund other projects. The one that I’m most focused on right now is Nutrition Clinic. Before I came, the World Food Program withdrew their Supplementary Feeding Program for moderately to somewhat malnourished children from my health center, so we don’t even have an outpatient therapeutic program for these children. I’ve been trying to work on this one for awhile. Initially, I started a record book to monitor underweight/malnourished children over a period of 3 months, but the mothers were failing to show up the next month and/or the health workers were not following up when they were supposed to.

In an attempt to improve attendance, we designated a date each month for the mothers to come – the same day as the family planning clinic – so that they would have an easier time remembering and coordinating their hospital visitations. In addition, we added an educational component to the clinic that would promote self-sufficiency. After we’ve measured the children’s nutrition status, we’d educate them on different sustainable topics each month – basic nutrition groups, kitchen garden demo, food preservation demo, jam-making demo, and cooking demo. We’ve just gone through the nutrition groups and kitchen garden demo. Next week we’ll be presenting the food preservation demo: how to dry tomatoes and mangoes.

The kitchen garden demo has been a huge undertaking in addition to the work I’ve been doing for the shelter. I dragged one of my health workers with me to town to buy the mesh wire (to keep out the chickens) and the 100-pound metal pole, and it took four of us all day long to dig a 5x2 meter (x knee-high) pit out of a rock-solid floor. (Seriously, I thought we were digging up bricks and rocks. It reminded me of the time my brother and I dug up a pond in our backyard when I was in third grade.) But the point is that we want to show the mothers that they can build a small garden within their home compound, instead of going into their maize fields, and turn a dead ground into a piece of life. We’d add compost into the pit before sowing the seeds, so the seeds would then grow into a healthy bed instead of the dead rocky soil. The really cool thing about this kitchen garden is that there’d be a variety of food, alternating by legumes (i.e., soy beans), fruits (i.e. tomatoes), greens (i.e., spinach), and roots (i.e., garlic). They’re arranged in a way that would support the others. For example, the legumes nourish the soil, so the roots would benefit most from being next to them, and some of the roots (i.e., garlic and onions) are natural pest repellants from which the greens and fruits would benefit. To encourage the mothers with applying the knowledge, we also explained to the mothers that if they also dig the beds within their home compounds, we would visit their homes and provide some of the seeds. Since it’s still a work in progress, I won’t be able to know the effectiveness of the program, so I’m just hoping that it’ll be successful or be somewhat helpful to the mothers.

To take a preventive and more wide-scale approach, I also wanted to educate the villagers, not just the mothers with underweight children, about nutrition and proper food preparation techniques. Since men are the ones who usually buy the food or provide the money for food and the women are the ones who prepare the food, it is essential to include both men and women. My workshop will target mainly the Village Health Committee who was elected by their village to communicate and monitor health issues within their community. It’ll be a fun workshop with lots of cooking practicals and recipes! :)

My final major project is a natural medicine workshop. I’ve talked a lot about natural medicine in my previous update, but I didn’t want to just stop there. I want to host another workshop for Villages AIDS Committees and support groups for people living with HIV/AIDS. They’ll be able to learn about simple treatments for common colds and illnesses, as well as natural products they can use to generate incomes.

I’ll be continuing my secondary projects in November. My mentorship program fell apart for awhile because of all the exams and other problems (one of our mentors ran away after Camp GLOW and never came back), but when the new school year starts in November, I’d like to polish the program a little and start over. I might also consider teaching Life Skills at the secondary school again, but… I didn’t have the best experience last year, so we’ll see. And then there are the youths, of course. I’ll continue working with them, even though I’ve been facing a lot of challenges with them lately. I’ve also been involved with the youths at my church, though it’s not considered a Peace Corps assignment but a personal one.

I can’t believe how much this all sounds, but it really doesn’t feel like I’ve been doing a lot! I’m only here for 10 more months! I feel like I’m running out of time to accomplish all these things! I know it’s ironic that I mentioned helping people who don’t want to help themselves in my last update when I’m talking about the billions of projects I’m doing here. Will they all just go down the drain? I just hate the thought of giving up on people. I’m hoping that someone somewhere will actually learn something and think, “You know, maybe that is something worth trying and changing my life for.” Maybe they’ll start to hope and strive for a better life. :)

My yard while I was digging up a pit for my kitchen garden... using a hoe

My counterpart mixing the compost of our kitchen garden demo

A little eye candy

This was my agogo at homestay training cooking nsima

My homestay family eating in July 2008

These were the kids from my homestay village

These were 3 sisters - so cute!

My neighbor's baby is sooo cute! He's starting to talk now but can only say "Bye!",

so he always yells "Bye!" whenever he sees me! :)

This is the future Shaq O'Neill - Hope! He's huuuuge and he loves to laugh!

Baby Elaine! My friend named his baby after me!!

This little sweetheart is Kingsley, my co-worker's kid.

He's learning the alphabets now, so whenever he gets to "L",

he says "L-N-E" ("Ellen-e", get it? haha) and does a little dance! haha

A baby at church. She's sooo - yes it's that word again - cute!!! :D


I love the babies here, so I hope you don't mind me posting pictures of the babies and kids! haha


But here's a non-pediatric picture...


This is a toilet. I don't have one like this, but the cool thing is

the family (former Peace Corps Volunteers who stayed in Malawi)

uses the refuse and throws it into their compost to fertilize their gardens.

If that ain't recycling, then I don't know what else is!

For more pictures of Malawi, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/26853368@N04/sets/72157605200076398/

Enjoy!

The Unappreciated Agogo Generation

I can't believe I didn't post about this before...

Meet my agogo, Ellen. She was born and raised in South Africa, met her Malawian husband while working as an au pair, and then moved back to Malawi with their newly built family. She has lived in Malawi ever since since 1950-something.

Doesn't she look like Mother Teresa? :) She may as well be dubbed Mother Ellen! She has been my greatest source of support since I've stepped into Malawi. She's one of the very few people I trust in my community, whose company I thoroughly enjoy. I spend every Saturday (when I'm not busy with other things) sitting outside her house at the tap, washing and scrubbing my clothes for 2 hours while chatting it up about food, South Africa, Malawi, history, culture, hardships, and all that good stuff, but mostly about food. :)

She has shown incredible strength that I've never seen in an 82-year-old. She has watched 9 of her 11 kids die from malaria, yet she keeps fighting to live with meaning in her life. She still works as hard as any other 20-something-year-old would. She wakes up before dawn everyday to sweep the ground and clean up the mission's house. And then she farms until all the weeds have been pulled up. And (keeping in my mind gender equality is still an issue here) she cooks for her grandson(s) 2-3 times a day. As embarrassing as it is for me to admit this, she's also the one I turn to when I want a chicken killed and gutted... :/ But if it weren't for her, I wouldn't be getting my monthly intakes of soysauce chicken! She's my lifesaver!

Meeting her has made me realize how incredibly undervalued our grandparents are, because I think they have a wealth of knowledge about culture and history that we can really gain from. I didn't live close to my grandparents at all to learn much from them, but from the few times I've learned about their history - from fighting with the British in World War II to hiding in the moutains with the guerrilla to escaping Communism - I've always wished that I could learn about their whole history and record it.

I'm also starting to realize more and more how incredibly spoiled our generations have become. We've been untouched by war and poverty that once plagued our great-grandparents, grandparents, and even some of our parents' lives, so we take all the things we have for granted and are never happy with what we have. How did materialism and greed take such reign of our lives? We now expect to get a car in high school, a free college education, and the latest iphone. Sometimes I wonder if it's even a good thing for developing countries to learn about the things we have, because then they'd think "Why can't we have that?" when the options are readily available to us, and I want to tell them, "Because that's not going to save your life." Other times I wonder if perhaps we, the West, are better off living in poverty so we'd actually appreciate each day we live, each bite we eat, and each thing we own. But on the contrary, I think that even poverty cannot teach us the most important values in life. I've been baffled by why the youths in Malawi feel so entitled to nice clothes, expensive (and unhealthy) food, Western music, etc. and spend all their time complaining about their poverty but not appreciating their education or the value of hardwork and self-sufficiency.

It's been interesting for me to interact with people from different generations and trying to understand the reasons and justifications for these dichotomies. I think a huge part has been the influence of development, which may have a worse influence on developing countries than we'd like to think. A lot of us volunteers always agree that it is so hard to "help those who don't want to help themselves". That has been one of the greatest struggles for me as well, partly in fault because of the way a certain NGO has worked here.

Anyway, I think I'll stop here, because it's starting to become one of those emails where I just draw out my thoughts incoherently and prolong the conclusion. But I'll send another email in a few days to update you of my projects! I'm at the Peace Corps office to work on a few proposals, so I'll be using the free internet while I can! :)

Mother Nature

There’s always so much I want to talk about, but I never know where to start!

The first thing is that I got my electricity back! Hallelujah! Actually, I got it back two months ago but forgot to mention it in my last update! It’s nice to be able to cook and heat bath water… even though we’re now in hot season. :( That means the next nine months will be a period of enduring mosquito bites, especially during rainy season (November – February)! That means lots of DEET (I apply it liberally like lotion!) and burning cow dung (which I don’t have) and basil. And planting lots of marigold and lemongrass.

That brings me to my next issue… we have been preparing ourselves for malaria season (during rainy season when mosquitoes breed like crazy). In July, our health workers (the overworked social workers/medical assistants/community advisors combined into one) ventured into the villages and recorded the names of under-five children who didn’t have insecticide-treated nets. About 17% of our catchment population are under-five (roughly 3,000), but most of them didn’t have nets. I think it was only about a quarter of those under-five who did have them. (Of course I don’t know how reliable the data is, because I heard some mothers would lie.) We just received the nets last week to distribute to the mothers, but there was a shortage of nets so some remained without them. In fact, the shortage of nets (and everything else) is so substantial that the donor withdrew distribution of nets to other targets. The original targets included the under-five children, people living with HIV/AIDS, orphans and vulnerable children, and other needy people, but the nets were so scarce that they could only distribute them to the under-five children.

I’m not sure who the donor is for this campaign, but I do know of a few who are trying to battle malaria. At the forefront is our very own Presidential Malaria Initiative. In 2005, Bush pledged millions of dollars to eliminate malaria in 15 countries with the worst cases of malaria. Malawi was one of them. Malaria is actually the number one killer here (as you may or may not remember from my update about “death season”); HIV is not. So many die from it that anytime a person is sick, the cause is assumed to be malaria – no questions asked. Not “What are your symptoms?” or “Were you tested?” It’s “Oh, you’re sick? Poor you. You must get malaria medicine.” But as I mentioned, the millions of dollars Bush pledged are going into the nets and medicine.

Another donor is PSI/Malawi. Their nets are usually given to the Ministry of Health who use the nets to promote incentives for women and children to attend the health facilities (instead of the traditional birth attendants and traditional healers who sometime put their lives at risk). Pregnant women usually receive a net during their antenatal check-ups (so the health professionals can monitor their health) and another one upon delivery (so they can have a proper and safe delivery that doesn’t involve putting herbs into their vaginas). And usually babies who are starting their immunizations would receive nets too.

At one point, UNICEF (or some other organization) was distributing nets to health centers to sell at a cheap price. But it was stopped for some unknown reason. I remember asking someone in the Peace Corps office about it and the response was about some unknown “higher up issue”.

On the one hand, there’s a huge demand for nets. I don’t know why there’s such a shortage of nets (isn’t it cheaper than DEET?), but I can understand why mothers are trying to scam the health workers to purchase nets for themselves. To them, malaria is the face of death.

But on the other hand, even with a sufficient supply of nets, they’d all be distributed by now if it weren’t for the “scammers”. While some people want to use the extra nets for themselves so they don’t have to buy them (most people wait until the free ones come even though they’re meant for children), others use the extras to sell for profit. By the lake, fishermen were using them for fishing. It’s beyond me why people refuse to spend money on a net (it was so cheap that it would only cost them maybe about 1.5 sodas’ worth) when the money they spend for treatment at a private facility or transport to a public facility would cost them 4-6 times what the net’s worth.

And that brings me to my next point – malaria treatment. My in-charge told me that before the Americans stepped in with their large-scale campaigns, people died from malaria without any hope of survival. Medicine was and still is so expensive that even private pharmacies couldn’t afford to buy them in Malawi. In fact, the plant used to make the medicine – Artemisia – is worth $300! Holy macaroni! The reason it’s so valuable is because it’s the only treatment that can effectively treat all strains of malaria (yet another reason why it’s so hard to combat). I heard the Chinese had known about the plant’s secret for centuries and refused to share it. It wasn’t until recently that the scientists discovered the secret after ten years of research. Since its discovery, some people have taken great effort to introduce Artemisia as a natural treatment. If you look at our health center’s front yard, you’ll notice a little tree that looks like a Christmas tree – that’s the miracle tree.

I think it’s amazing that there’s so much value in one little plant that it’s such a shame to think of so many potential medicinal plants being destroyed by deforestation and environmental degradation. Though natural medicine has been around for eons, the movement to use natural medicine as a complement to western medicine didn’t start until about ten years ago (perhaps coinciding with the discovery of artemisia’s secret?). You can learn more about it at http://www.anamed.org/.

I’ve been trying to set up natural medicine workshops for villagers, but the challenge is that we already have traditional healers (herbal doctors) are often associated with witchcraft. In reality, not all traditional healers practice witchcraft but because they both use natural means of “treatments”, natural medicine carries a negative stigma.

To be honest, I wasn’t interested in natural medicine much before I came here. My knowledge went as far as the bitter concoction my parents made for my colds (and which I adamantly refused to drink) and the “cuppings” and “back carvings”, but that was about it. I have yet to use acupuncture. Since I’ve been here, I have a newfound appreciation for our ancestors’ knowledge and methods of Eastern treatments. I think that we overrate Western medicine to the point of neglecting our ancestors’ methods that have worked since the beginning of time. What I like about ANAMED is that they actually try to experiment and see if a specific plant is effective or not, so we’re not blindingly believing in a plant’s potency.

So to advocate the use of natural means of improving your health, I’ll give you a few pointers! (Keep in mind that they’re not cures but are complementary to other forms of treatments to improve your health.)

-Garlic is good for boosting your immunity and memory, and reduces high blood pressure. It can also treat amoebas, colds, and fungal infections like athlete’s food
-Chilli pepper is good for flatulence and hemmorhoids! as well as rheumatism and hair loss. It can also help a woman with labor pains if you stick a chilli in her mouth!
-Lemon is good for coughs, fever, cold, and herpes labialis (canker sores).
-Eucalyptus is good for coughs, sore throat, and helps with diabetes and urinary infection. (It can also be used to make toothpaste!)
-Ginger is good for nausea and vomiting (especially during pregnancy) and hookworks.
-Onions are good for improving memory, gastrointestinal infections, and fungal infections.
-Aloe is good for burns, wounds, ulcers, conjunctivitis, and loss of hair.
-Pineapples are good for amenorrhea (lack of menstruation flow), oedema, external inflammation, and indigestion.
-Peanut leaves are goodf or sleeplessness.
-Coffee is good for migrains and nausea.
-Pumpkins (yes we eat them here!) are good for tapeworks and stimulating lactation after giving birth.
-Honey is good because it tastes good! :) It’s good for exhaustion (sleep is good too), heart diseases, liver damage, and most especially wounds.

There’s a whole lot more (see? isn’t it fascinating?) but I don’t want to write incessantly (or is it too late?)! I think it’s so interesting that the plants we live with and are used for ornamental or seasoning purposes can actually have medicinal purposes! I hope this gives you a newfound appreciation for Mother Nature and her gifts to us!

Baobab tree - the oldest tree in the world!

It's about 5,000 years old - can you imagine someone like the pharaoh passing through and embracing this tree? I'm sure once upon a time, it was worshipped by the Malawians. But this tree also has a lot of medicinal properties (and other uses) as well!

(By the way, can you see me standing next to the tree? haha)