BAMM, Under 5, Fish, and general vill life

      Wow, its been a long time since I posted last! Sorry about that! Was in the vill and Kasama hasnt had wifi for a month or so, but now Im in Lusaka (enjoying some amazing food and teaching the new intake a thing or two) and Ive finally had time to update you on whats what here.  This post is going to be a bit of mash of things. Hopefully, Ill be able to post again in April. 

     So march is BAMM, or Blog About Malaria Month.  Its certainly a problem here, people get malaria like its the flu, and its a huge issue for younger kids especially. My area dosent have a working clinic (yet) which means the profalaxis and coartem pills to prevent/treat malaria and few and far between.  While everyone has a mosquito net, hardly anyone sleeps under it and its most commonly used for soccer goals, fish nets, or chicken hutches.  A lot of the reason for the lack of use is due to misconceptions about the spread of malaria, and some of the prevention methods.  Im hoping when I get my clinic finished the rate of malaria will go down in my area due to better education and access to health care.  

                              

So this is my clinic right now - Im working on a grant to get it up and running so be on the look out for that when its done. Any and all donations are welcome! 

     Ive been helping out at the under 5 clinic a lot lately.  Once a month all the kids in the area, under age 5, get weighed to make sure they are on track (for the most part) for growth.  Its a pretty good way to monitor malnutrition in rural areas, of course 90% of the kids are under weight (although not too drastically), and there arent many options for getting them more nutrition (besides more nshima - which doesnt do much). Vaccines and vitamin A supplements are sometimes given out as well.  While most of the kids are underweight, a vast majority of them gain weight every month so thats always encouraging.  

What the chart for each kid looks like.  The green line is the ideal weight/age growth rate. 

Some little guys getting weighed.  Shockingly, no crying.  Usually, there is a lot of crying. 

Every baby in Zambia is always wearing 5 layers or clothes and then a blanket and a hat.  Theres an idea that they cant get bit by mosquitos if they wear enough clothes.  Malaria mosquitos only come out at night though.  Im suprised none of these kids have heat stroke. 

     After the weigh ins I got all the bamayos (mamas) together and talked about family planning and birth control and did a condom demo. Its amazing how few people know how to use a condom, especially when they are FREE in zambia.  You just have to ask the clinic or NGO "hey, I want condoms" and they practically throw them at you.  I got a box of 150, which were quickly taken by all the mothers.   A lot of the mothers were VERY interested in the the pill and wanted to know where they could get it.  A week later 3 came up to me to show me they actually bought the pill! I was so excited for them! Way to be proactive.  While some boring stuff was going on I grabbed BaJoseph (the son of BaHelen, one of my fish farmers) and we had a little too much fun with the camera. 

     Ive also done my first fish harvest this last month! While Ive been stocking like crazy lately (4 more ponds just last week!) and all my farmers, so far, have done a great job at feeding, I havent had a chance to harvest yet.  Like most things in Zambia, this was an adventure and nothing went smoothly. 

The ponds we just stocked, well harvest these in June or July. 

Here we go.  We initially tried to use a net, but it didnt have a lead line.  So all the fish just swam under it.  We tried tying rocks to it but that didnt work out so well.  Looks like I need to invest in a net or some sinkers for my farmers. 

What we caught with the net.  Mojo thinks fish are weird. 

So we resorted to good old hook and line fishing.  About 6 of us had rods and we actually got more fish than I thought we would this way.  We were hoping to pull 40 - 60 kgs of fish between 4 ponds but without a net that didnt happen.  But we did manage to grab 10 kgs from one pond with just rods (and fish to spare) and some of them were quiet impressive! And it was just a lot of fun. 

YUM!!! I bought a couple for my family here and they were thrilled.  Thats a pretty good sized tilapia.