Babies and spiders and bats OH MY!!

March 4, 2011

We’ve been back at homesite for 10 days. I’ve had some ups and downs with language, culture and my host family. Dooni dooni…little, little at a time. My small goals…trying not to complain every day, trying not to cry at all, trying to retain as much language as I can, trying to make it until next Wednesday when we return to camp. Then we find out where we’re going, who our homologues will be and who will be our American neighbors (up to 10K + away but the closest English speaking person).

In the meantime, today we had more technical training. We actually worked at the CSCOM weighing babies. It’s amazing how quickly the word got out. They don’t usually do baby weighing and what baby stuff they do is usually on Tuesday and Saturday. But today is Friday and we weighed 54 babies. I think we only had one or two in the red zone (mal nuriti…) quite a few in the yellow (a bit underweight) and a lot of bilibiliba (big) babies. For the babies underweight, tomorrow we are having a demonstration on how to provide and cook ameliorated porridge. So we are expecting more moms and babies tomorrow.

Weighing the babies was quite a feat. There scale is a leather bag/diaper with a strap. You put the baby in the bag and then hang the bag from a round scale with a hook on it. The top part of the scale that also has a hook is hung from whatever is available. We had a rope tied around a big branch on the tree in the center of the CSCOM compound. Then hung the scale from the rope, then hung the bag with the baby from the other hook on the bottom of the scale. It was a site for sure. We were the hit. The PCV that is working with us that is due to go home in September after being here 17 months was saying it’s probably more so because the women just want the white folks to handle their babies. It’s an anomaly for them. Unfortunately some of the babies cry just when they see us walk down the street. Now here we’re hanging them from trees. LOL!!! Does that sound as funny go in your ears as it does coming our of my mouth? We’re the talk of the town though. We learned all kinds of sentences and questions in Bambara. How is your baby? What’s your name and your baby’s name? How old is your baby? (which a lot of people don’t know…for sure...they don't track the birthdays) Your baby is good and healthy. You baby us underweight. You should come back tomorrow for our porridge demonstration. Useful stuff…opposed to “your family eats beans…Jarro’s are donkeys”, etc. Although we fit in better talking about beans and farts.

I’m not sure what just ran over my feet but it was huge. At first I thought it was an ant…the ants here are pretty substantial but then I saw it continue to run about 10 feet away and knew that it was waaaayyyyy bigger than an ant. Then about 20 minutes later I felt something by my feet again. I didn’t wait to see what it was before I jumped out of my seat and headed for my bedroom door which of course was the direction this beast was headed. Of course everyone was laughing at me when someone got up and chased it and killed it. They showed me it was dead so I would stop running. It was huge. It was kind of shaped like a scorpion (from what I could see from what was left) only white and big!! It was hideous. Apparently this thing has a name…gadalamini. I have a feeling it’s not the first one of these things they have seen. I also have a feeling it’s not the last one I will see. They come out during hot season, at night, to escape the heat of the underground. Like most bugs they are attracted to the light/lantern.

And when these things weren’t attacking me, the tunezu (bats) were coming dangerously close to my head. I’m sure they are attracted to my hair…or my eyes. Either way it was a bad night for wildlife.

I’m safe tucked away now in my 90 degree room. At least I know while I’m in my bed with my mosquito net tucked tightly around me nothing can get in. Unfortunately that means air as well.