Hellen Keller International

Hi everybody

Yesterday we decided to go meet with Mrs. Ann Tarini, a woman from Montreal who studied Nutrition at l'Universite de Montreal and who has been living in Burkina Faso for the past 10 years, working as the president of Hellen Keller International (HKI) here in Ouagadougou. We had the chance to discuss with her the different projects they are working on.

The organisation originally worked to help the blind population. It gradually transformed its mission and started working also on the prevention of blindness, mainly cause by lack of vitamin A as well as trachoma, an eye infection that is the leading cause of the world's infectious blindness (you might have seen a World Vision tv special with the little black children with the big bellies and flies in their eyes... well the flies usually like to stick to the eyes because of the pus caused by trachoma.... and then they fly to other children and the disease spreads...). HKI have made many steps towards educating children on hygiene to prevent theses infections as well as the importance of a diete rich in vitamin A. It seems simple but many obstacles still are in the way, mainly in little village where they eat the same rice and sauce 360 days of the year (the rest they may eat a little meat for celebrations... special occasions). They have managed to finally get the oil enriched in vitamin A (it had been written on the bottle for years but the oil actually wasn't enriched yet) and they are now working on enriching the flour. However the problem with that is many families can't afford commercial flour and usually go to the mill to grind their own..... however they are still planing on getting it enriched in the hopes that one day most families will have the means to buy commercially processed foods. They have many other projects concerning vitamin A, iron, folate, etc. So it was very interesting to discuss the different aspects of the nutritional deficiency here. How can you educate a population about food when &) you don't have a food guide 2) Half the population is under the poverty line so they have trouble feeding their families....

Anyways I could go on and on about other of their projects....

Very interesting :)

Semaine 6 sur 10 !

Bonjour tlm,

6ieme semaine vient de se terminer et ils nous en restent plus que 3 de stage plus quelque jours de vacances!! Les choses vont vite!

Nous avons passer une tres belle semaine car elle a commencer en grand avec la St-Jean! Que nous avons bien celebrer ici (le 23 au soir nous avons prit quelques bieres entre Quebecoise (voir photos) et nous avons même tenter de trouver le restaurant la Quebecoise, qui existait avant mais qui est maintenant fermer! donc nous avons manger des hambergers/frites au Moulin Rouge!).

Lle 24 au soir nous sommes sortis danser en boite avec Eric (un des garcons de la Dame chez qui Caro et Vanessa habitent) et ses amis. On commence a sortir vers 12h, nous avons danser sur de la musique africaine en buvant du mousseux (tlm boit ca ici et c'est la chose la moins cher dans le bar haha) et puis on a finalement retrouver notre lit a 5h du matin..... C'etait tres sympa comme soiree!

Ensuite au courant de la semaine j'ai enfin defait mes tresses (ca commencait a piquer avec les cheveux synthetique!) et puis c'est la premiere fois de ma vie que j'avais un Afro lol!! (encore une fois il y a une photo a l'appui. On voit peut-être mal les cheveux mais dites vous que le noir entourant ma tête c'est une boule de cheveux lol).

Sinon la routine reguliere (matins au centre a travailler avec nos enfants, les apres-midis passer a la maison avec la famille, manger des nouvelles choses, le jogging sur le bord du canal sale en plein milieu de la ville, aller se promener dans les petites rues et bien sur faire notre lessive a la main! Mettons que mon linge est plus ou moins propre.... nous avons perdu les techniques de l'ancien temps pour frotter aequatement notre linge a la main.... vive la paresse avec les machines a laver!).

Alors c'est pas mal ca.

Souper de Quebecois!

Bonjour tout le monde!

Ce dimanche nous avons decider de faire un super souper quebecois pour notre famille. Oui oui pleins d'idees de bouffe delicieuse nous viennent a l'esprit mais etant tres limite dans nos ingredients .... bref nous avons opter pour le pâte chinois ainsi qu'un dessert. Le pâte chiniois fut assez facile a realiser puisque tous les ingredients etaient disponible, nous avons piler les patates dans le mortier (voir Mel en action) et puis on avait la chance d'avoir une maison avec un four au propane (la mere s'en etait servit qu'une fois et avait eu peur car elle croyait que ca fonctionnait mal puisque ca faisait chauffer beaucoup la cuisine... lol). Bref Celine, Bernadette et Yvette (cousine de Bernadette) nous ont regarder preparer ca avec beaucoup d'interet (elles veuillent apprendre afin de repeter la recettes pour les fêtes haha)... comme si c'etait un met super gastronomique! Bref, tout le monde a beaucoup aimer le repas et la majeure different avec leur nourriture est que le pate chinois est gras (ici je vous rappel que tout est frit.... et ya toujours de l'huile dans le fond de l'assiette apres avoir terminer de manger) tandis que le pâte chinois etait PAS GRAS :)

Et pour le dessert, on avait initialement voulu faire un gâteau ou un pain au bananes... mais faute de poudre a pâte et soda a pâte, nous avons opter pour les Rochers (vous savez la recette derriere la boite de biscuit graham....Gab je pense a toi!), voir la photo ci-dessus. Enfin c'est une couche de biscuit grahams cuits, des morceux de chocolat, du lait condenser sucre et puis des guimauves!!! Alors la c'etait drole de voir leur reaction.... ils n'avaient jamais vue de guimauves (on en a trouver a une epicerie francaise).... certaines ont aime les guimauve... d'autre moins comme Celine qui etait a la recherche du chocolat sous les guimauves (car elle adore le chocolat) et s'impatientait car "les guimauves ne veuillent pas decoller!" Bref on a rit enormement et ils veuillent un autre souper d'ici notre depart (ah oui et cette fois-ci elles veuillent comme dans les films... manger tous assis a la table avec des assiettes et ustensils deposer et des verres, etc). Car je vous rappel qu'ici il n'y a pas de "protocole". C'est sur la table a partir d'une certaine heure et du te sers quand tu veux et tu manger assis dans le salon devant la tele.... La table n'est pas un meuble ici concu pour manger autour.... lol seulement pour deposer des objets dessus.

Ce fut un succes! MIAM

Semaine 2 du projet mais 4 du stage.... halfway done!

Hello all,


Tomorrow will mark the 1st half of our long journey at the center.
Things in general went well this week, however a little girl I mentionned last week (the one who we sent home to get rest because she had diarrhea and her lips were all dried up), she died this week... We often see images of malnourished dying children with World Vision on t.v. The unsettling thing is that know I actually have a face and name in mind.
11 percent of the children in Burkina Faso suffer from severe malnutrition.... Educating is the key I believe, hopefully someday it will be part of their history and not their present. Its a bizare thing having to deal with those very sick children and not it let it get to you once you leave work...


We had the chance to go to Glady's end of school celebration (her parents couldn't go so Melanie and I went alone to see the little sketchs everyone put on. She goes to a fairly good school (in general there are the really really inexpensive school, then the "good schools" which she goes to and then there are the private rich schools that are extremely expensive.

It was cute to see and many of the classes put on a dance or sang a song! There is a little picture down below.

Then on Sunday we celebrated Vanessa's birthday by going out to have PIZZA!!! yessss there are a few excellent pizza places (see incredible picture of shrimp garlic pizza! yess i managed to eat all that plus a beer and frieds haha.... so much better than Tô)!

And then on Tuesday evening Mel and I went out for a beer with Marie-Christine, one of Sarah's( my sister) friends from Quebec that was here for 6 weeks in charge of a group of Horizon Cosmopolite that were based in Leo in different schools. It was pretty great to speak to other people from Quebec They seemed to have enjoyed their experience. :)

So that's about it :)












.

Travailler avec des enfants denutris...

Hi again,

The first official week of our project has been completed and over all went pretty well. Most of the children show up for their therapy but we send them back to rest up if they are having diarrhea or fever.

The children come to the center every day (for the M3) and three times a week (the M2), they come to get weighed, get the milk (see pictures of Caro and Van in action distributing the milk) and soup. The mothers stay at the center all morning and are suppose to participate to help make the soup (it helps them learn how to cook properly with the essentiel ingredients to make a healthy soup). They also can feed them extra food they bring from home. For those that have a feeding tube, it usually is because they have lost their appetite and need to be fed by the tube.

There are two main types of malnutrition:

1) Marasmus, which is also called the "dry malnutrition" and they are deprived of energy and proteins. These children are typically skin and bones (see the picture of me with the skinny little girl, she is 14 months old). Their faces become wrinkled and the often have the face of an old person.

2) Kwashiorkor, which is also called the "wet malnutrition" which is the type of malnutrition where the children have edema, are irritable, loss of appetite (anorexia) and have ulcerating dermatoses. Their hair often gets thin and brittle as well and they usually have a distended belly.

The main difficulties for us are that the children cry and lot, they are not use to being apart from the mothers and are not very stimulated at home in general. We are trying to make sure that the babies have been fed before coming to therapy to make sure that they are not crying because they are hungry....

We see a lot of potential in most children and will keep doing our best in the following 5 weeks. We also plan on doing a "causerie" with the mothers to educate them of a specific subject. We have many ideas but haven't decided on one yet....

Project on its way!

Hello again,

We continue to follow a few regular patients at the center (clubbed feet, polio like the little girl you see in the picture on the left who is about 5 years old) but last Friday finally started our project! We selected the patients we wanted to follow for the next six weeks (its suppose to be 8 weeks but because of the wonderful professeur things were a little slow to start....). Anywho, we chose children between 7 months and 24 months who have motor developpemental delays. We also chose them according to their nutritional status (we took M2, moderate malnourished and M3, severely malnourished). We have 6 children each and we gave the mothers a little card saying when to come (they all come twice a week in physio without any fee) and they come everyday to the CREN to get weighed, fed and checked. The girls take extra measurements once a week with those children (circonference brachial, perimetre cranien, taille, etc).

Today (Monday) was our first day and things went pretty well. We evaluated their motor status and will reevaluate at the end to see if they have progressed a little. 6 weeks is very short to see a change but its better than nothing and the mothers can see what we encourage so they might do it at home as well. We initially wanted to take less than 12 active patients because we also wanted to have a group that we evaluated at the beginning and at the end without seeing them in therapy... but we decided against it because its quite hard to decide not to help those little babies.... So we are actively following 12 children.

Oh one major difference is that the babies here don't have diapers (I think I mentionned it in another entry), so 2/3 of my patients today peed on the mat.... Lovely. Also, children here aren't use to playing with toys nor to be stimulated so we are going to focus a lot on that.

We sent one of Melanie's patient ( 7 months I believe) back home to rest because she was having lots of diarrhea. You can tell she was pretty malnourished by the brittle hair, the tube in her nose, her lips were all dried up, she seemed very drousy and energy level was very low. I hope she will recover, for severe diarrhea in small children can be fatal pretty fast....

So to sum up, things went pretty well, quite different from home and it is hard to communicate with the mothers who mostly don't speak French. However I now know the days of the week to remind them when to come back in physio. Anyways, hopefully it will continue to go smoothly.

Enjoy the pictures!

Nos cheveux

Okay un mini message pour vous dire que Melanie est moi devenons des Burkinabe blanches de plus en plus a chaque jour. On a decider de se faire tresser (une des activites favorites des femmes ici. Elles refont faire leurs cheveux a chaque 2 semaines a 1 mois) et ca prend comme 3-4 heures a chaque fois! Je capote. Ca la prit 5 heures pour Mel et environ 3 pour les miens.

Bref, j'ai un peu mal a mon cuir chevelu mais c'est marrant et tous les africains nous disent "ah vous etes jolie maintenant!!" lol comme si on etaient si laides avant!
Enjoy the pictures! Oh by the way the picture of me getting my hairbraided is taken in the dark (he had yet again another electricity cut and she was braiding with my frontal flashlight on her head!!).

WFP

Hey Everybody!

This past Sunday, the girls and I decided to participate in the annual Marche against world hunger organised by the WFP (World Food Programme) which organises it every year to collect money to help feed millions of children. We ended up being adopted by an organisation and we walked with them!

It wasn't a very long walk (mostly symbolic) and most of the people walking were children. There were also many speeches and they spoke about different statistics.... HALF of the population of Burkina Faso is under the poverty line (sous le seuil de pauvrete), 1/3 of the children of Burkina Faso are undernourished, only 50% of girls and about 65% of boys get to go to school and the total adult literacy rate is only 29%... hard to develop a country with those statistics....

Aren't you glad to be Canadian?

....

Ma famille

Bonjour tout le monde!

Alors je suis enfin en famille depuis presque une semaine! Nous logeons avec Jerome (le neveu du professeur) que nous n'avons apercu brievement que deux fois depuis une semaine car il est jamais a la maison, Bernadette sa femme, Celine la cousine de Sylvie (la niece du professeur qui avait son anniversaire en même temps que moi) et puis Gladys la fille de Jerome et Bernadette qui a 5 ans, une vraie tornade!

Notre maison est genial, nous sommes confortable dans etre dans l'exces de luxe. Tout le monde est super accueillant, la nourriture est excellante (excepte le Tô.... je vais vous faire une chronique culinaire bientôt) et nous avons des discussions tres interessantes avec les membres de la famille puisque c'est la premiere fois qu'elle discute vraiment avec des Nasaara ( les blanches ).

Je vous joins une photo que j'ai prise a la fête de Celine (gauche) avec Bernadette (droite) hier soir, soiree arosee avec de la nourriture partout et de la grosse musique africaine dans le stereo!! Et il y a egalement une photo d'une porte bleu, c'est notre porte d'entree avec Gladys a cote!

Ah before I forget, if you had the cell phone number Mel and I had, don't try and phone on the .... a couple of days ago Melanie went to the bathroom (our toilette is a hole in the ground about 2m deep at the back of the house) and had the cell phone in her pocket. As se crouched down it fell into the hole.... lol. So its pretty much burried in poop by now!! Hihihi

That's about it!!

Ciao

The joy of being sick....

Im not going to go into too much detail but the objectif of this entry is to share some of the more unplesant things of being in a third world country....
About 1 week after my arrival my intestins started working up.... lets just say that i had to run to the bathroom 7-10 times a day.... not to mention the pain in my gut. Anyways after enduring 1 week of that, I finally asked to have a lovely stool test ( yes yes i had to crap in a pot and go over and hand it to the guys in the lab that were finding it all very funny. They kept asking me what i had eaten!! I was afraid of having picked up parasites again (i got that last year in Senegal) Anyways I saw 2 italien doctors (many Italiens here) and they gave me a few pills to relax my intestins and slow them down and said to come back when my results were in. Finally after waiting 3 days they found out I didn't have parasites (yaie) but I did have Shigella, bacterial dysentry, which is pretty disgusting when you realize that Shigella's transmission is what they call "feces the mouth".... I have no idea how in the world did i pick that up!! Anyways the 2 Italien doctors were funny about it, here they call that bacteria "la mangeuse de caca" lol. They said that if I had got that in Canada I would have been placed in quaratine for it is the cousin of Cholera and dangerous for epedemics. However here in Burkina FAso, they simply give you pills and let you go home! So they gave me a huge pack of Italien samples of Cippro (anti-biotics) for 10 days and after that I will have to crap in a pot again.... lovely.
The good news is that after 4 days of anti-biotics I feel pretty good! Thats the number 1 adavantage of working in a health center and being in the Capital (access to health care). I would have been a whole other story if I had been en brousse.....
Lets just cross our fingers I don't pick up any more bacteria....

Frustrations professionnelles

Rebonjour tout le monde,
Pour vous mettre en contexte, Mel et moi sommes partis pour venir ici afin de faire un stage INTERDISCIPLINAIRE. Ce qui signifie que nous sommes partis avec 2 filles de nutrition afin de travailler sur un projet commun ici. The project wasn't determined but we knew we were going to work with malnourished children, the objectives written by l'Universite Laval are quite clear about that and in order to get our credits and diploma and bursary, we must fufill those objectives. Le probleme est que notre supervieur de stage ne sait pas ce quest de la physiotherapie.... ils pense que ce que Mel et moi faisons cest des massage et ne comprend pas le lien avec la nutrition.... ca cest la premiere des choses alors comment lui faire comprendre? Ahhh encore des frustration (car nous avons 8 semaine de stage seulement ici, 1 deja est passer et nous navons quobserver!) alors la on va passer encore la semaine a regarder!! Bref en 5 minutes on a tenter de lui expliquer ce que nous voulions faire les 4 ( en gros cest de cibler 8-10 enfants malnutris qui present des retards de dev. moteurs et on aimerait les suivre 1-2X par semaine chqaue en physio). Cest pas tres compliquer puisque les meres nauraient rien a payer de supplementaire et puis elles sont au centre tous les jours jusqua 13h de toute facon!!! On veut seulement ajouter un petit service gratuitement qui pourrait etre benefique aux enfants! soupir).
AH un autre hic est quon etait prête a un stage en pediatrie (donc toutes nos notes, outils devaluation et tout pour les autres clienteles, AVC, SMS, neuro, etc... est a qc!) Bref tout cela est frustrant. ON sy en attendait un peu et on va continuer a travailler fort pour reussir a organise quelque chose mais cest pas facile.
Une autre chose dassez frustrante est quon a toujours pas de maison ni famille. Pour linstant on loge encore chez les soeurs. On veut vivre lexperience de manger avec notre famille, discuter avec eux, dormir sous le mêe toit ou dans la meme chambre. Il a trouver une autre solution, un celibatarium ( commes des petites chambres avec une cour commune mais encore la on vit seule Mel et moi mais bon cest mieux que chez les soeurs car cest tenant avoir a manger tous nos repas dans un resto, pas de frigo pour rien mettre au froid, etc!)
Bref
frustrations... complications.... T.I.A