Let's Do a Little Planning

In the past month I have seen more of my prefecture Vo (comparable to a county) than I ever thought I would, and all of it was from the back of my counterpart’s motorcycle.  From our journeys I am convinced my counterpart, Fogan, knows everyone in the prefecture or possibly just that he really really likes to wave and honk his horn.  I have seen Vo’s phosphate mines and fields of manioc, napped under the trees, and stumbled off the moto with stiff legs, but most of all I have been able to speak with rural villages all over the prefecture about family planning.

In my work here in Vogan I have been so lucky as to pair up with a local NGO—ASFECDI—that works with health and women’s rights.  Much of their work is with sixty-one different farming cooperative groups (groupements) around the prefecture of Vo; promoting women’s leadership and helping to connect these rural agriculture groups to sources of micro financing.  For the past month ASFECDI has assisted me in working with these rural groups in another way—through educating about family planning—an endeavor the NGO hopes to continue after I leave.

For those of you a little rusty on what family planning is: Family planning is making the active decision of how many children you want and when you want them.

Along with Fogan and two women from the NGO, Felicity and Delfine, I have visited about four to six groupements every week to explain the advantages of family planning and the planning methods available in Togo.  We tag-team answering questions and getting the group involved with a small sketch, and of course my three Togolese coworkers serve as my translators for local language.

Having a large number of children is ingrained in much of the culture and expectations of Togolese, but the importance of spacing births is an idea that is easily grasped once it has been suggested.  Many people are eager to share their experiences with having too many children and their own bits of wisdom about the importance of family planning.  There are of course concerns about family planning and we receive many questions.

Most questions pertain to rumors and side effects of using hormonal contraceptives and other concerns about effects of future children and fertility, but there are also some questions that are a bit different.  The rumors people hear about using contraception can be amazingly bizarre and once they become comfortable people ask questions very freely. I have been asked by one man about his wife becoming a loose woman once she can have sex without the fear of having children, who would pay for the parents’ funerals if there were only a few children, having a child born with an IUD in its head if the mother uses that method, and whether or not I personally enjoy sex with a condom.

After our work is done each groupement insists on giving us a meal or drink as a thank you for giving our time.  After a long day I have been stuffed with food I can’t refuse, though at least it keeps me from having to cook that day   Thanks to another day of groupements that fabricate sodebe (the local hard liquor) I have returned home from work hung over for the first time in my life, granted with the heat it is very easy to become hung over.  All day long I was offered shots of liquor and to refuse would have been very impolite.  Thankfully, I wasn’t the one driving!

Having closely spaced births is a problem that is very common in Togo.  Without knowing how or why to space births many Togolese, particularly many of the rural subsistence farmers, suffer a huge burden by having more children than they can fully support.  Not using family planning can have a significant negative impact, not only on the family itself, but on society.  Family planning is one of those things that if used can make other behavior and development changes easier to accomplish.  Many of the Togolese I have spoken with recognize the problem and I hope will begin using family planning or talking about it with their children and peers. 

You may have notice that family planning and access to contraception has been a hot topic in the U.S. the past few months.  I don’t want to get political, but I just want to let it be known that according to Togolese law all women are guaranteed access to contraception and family planning tools.  It is true that in practice this may not always be the case… but seriously, come on U.S.

“About the most massively useful thing”

Some local ladies rockin' pagne.

If you have ever read Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy you know that Adams has said that, “A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.” 

I think Adams may have been a little confused; I think he meant to say “pagne is about the most massively useful thing.”  Pagne [pon-ya] is a colorful cloth that many people in West African countries use to make their clothes and really use it for everything else.  My preference is for the good looking handmade African-made pagne called batik.

Of course I have clothes made of pagne, but I also have some spare pagne around for everything else in my life.  I use pagne for a sheet, for a towel, a wrap to throw on and walk around my compound, a cover for my couch, curtains, table cloth, a rag to clean up, a head scarf, and a baby carrier.  Pagne is an item I always pack when I am traveling.  It is so utilitarian I wonder how I ever functioned without it back in the states.  I suppose I had a dozen different things back home that served the function of this one item.  It’s nice to grab just one thing to do it all, maybe using pagne will be one of those things I bring back home with me.

Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday

April 25^th is world malaria day, and along with Stomp Out Malaria April is blog about malaria month. 

Here in much of Sub-Saharan Africa malaria is the number one killer of children under the age of five.  In many regions of Togo malaria represents approximately 60% of all childhood deaths.  Eliminating malaria in Africa would represent an opportunity for thousands of children every year to celebrate their fifth birthday.

The effects of malaria reach far beyond the thousands of deaths it causes every year.  Everyday kids can’t go to school and people are kept out of work all thanks to malaria.  With cyclic fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, and malaise, who can blame anyone for not being able to head into work?  As a result, malaria endemic countries suffer huge losses in GDP and productivity every year.  Malaria is a serious illness with resounding consequences, but it is something we can ameliorate.

You say “well that’s tragic, but what possibly could I, someone thousands of miles away from Africa, have to do with combating malaria?”  Just knowing that the issue exists is a step towards eradication.  Did you know that the U.S. used to be endemic with malaria?  It was as or more prevalent in North America than malaria is currently in Africa, but with focused efforts we eliminated it from the continent.  The same can be done in Africa, especially with the new tools we have.

There are of course always opportunities to give charitably, there are continuously campaigns to distribute the highly effective insecticide impregnated mosquito nets, but you don’t have to give money to help the cause.  Just be aware of the issue, talk about it, and read about what is happening in the world of malaria and you can help make a difference, too.

Renew, Reuse, Recycle

Since a very young age I have been shaped and molded into a recycler.  For me separating plastics, metal, glass, and paper has become second nature or quite possibly a compulsion.  In the U.S. my compulsions are satisfied easily enough; recycling is made so convenient, I can drop off soda cans and bottles at my grocery store, trash collection picks up my separate bins of paper and plastic, and separate trash bins are provided on the street.  Such recycling opportunities are not available here in Togo and I am suffering.

In my kitchen I have a bag for tin cans, a bag for plastic bottles, a bag for paper, a place for used batteries, a bin of compostables, and recently I’ve even added a bag for toilet paper rolls.  If I was back home I could take all these things to the dump and have them whisked away to a recycling plant, but here they sit in my house causing me anxiety every time I see them. 

I am involved with a project establishing a trash collection in Vogan and soon we will be installing public waste bins around the city.  However, even convincing people of the importance of not throwing all their garbage into the street can be a challenge, much less recycle.  We have discussed implementing composting to reduce the amount of waste that enters a landfill, but beyond that there is little to no option for recycling.  We could ask people to separate their trash, but no recycling plant exists, we would simply be making a more organized trash pile.  There are some women who melt down tin cans into cooking pots, but that’s it.

We volunteers have tried to recycle in our own way, particularly for dangerous things like batteries.  In the office we have a bin for dead batteries and whenever someone ventures back to a developed country they are asked to take a handful of batteries to recycle.  The little pill bottles the med unit sends vitamins in can also be sent back for reuse.  Among other acts of recyclable material creativity, at post volunteers use tomato paste cans for making candles and water bottles for hand washing stations.

Maybe the potential use of these materials has also contributed my hoarding.  In addition to the act of tossing my cans and bottles onto the ground being unimaginable, I can’t toss things because they may be useful one day—this is my explanation for even creating a place for toilet paper rolls.  In a place without the convenience of Walmart or Home Depot you never know when a random little doodad may be needed and you have to build it yourself.

My longing to recycle and my resulting compulsion of hoarding is painful.  Probably one of the most persisting discomforts of life here is not being able to dispose of my trash in an environmentally friendly way.  It may sound silly to be so uncomfortable about not recycling, but when you know better and are directly faced with your own waste management it’s tough.  If I had a list of things I miss from the States waste management would definitely be there. Just be grateful that you get the opportunity to recycle, it’s good for the environment and you get the opportunity of not having your very own trash heap.