Who You Gonna Call….Malariabusters!

I never pass up a chance to wear a costume. So you can imagine my delight when my job gave me the opportunity to dress like a Ghostbuster…..or shall we say Malariabuster because it is much more fun?

Preparing to be a Malariabuster

It all started innocently enough. I traveled with two coworkers into the dusty hills of the Mwanza region of Tanzania. We would be working from three district medical offices collecting data from the first round of the 2013 Indoor Residual Spraying(IRS) campaign. According to the World Health Organization(WHO), ‘the main purpose of IRS is to reduce transmission by reducing the survival of malaria vectors entering houses or sleeping units.’

In average-person-words, IRS is the spraying of walls with an insecticide which kills the mosquitoes when they rest at night. IRS is not meant as a one-stop malaria control but rather as a supplement to sleeping under Insecticide-treated mosquito nets(ITNs). IRS is particularly beneficial during the evening hours when people are relaxing inside their homes before bedtime.

My third year extension placement is with the ResearchTriangle Institute(RTI) out of the North Carolina and funded by the United States President’s Malaria Initiative(PMI). Along with organizing and implementing the IRS campaign in northern Tanzania, RTI collects and evaluates data from the houses sprayed as well as the malaria patient statistics from local village health clinics. This is where I come in! I am part of the data collection team working directly with team leaders from each spray site to ensure data is being submitted correctly and efficiently. We also work with data entry staff to confirm data is typed into computers accurately.

Just as it sounds, my job involves a lot of computer work. So after the first few days of this trip, my antsy-ness caused me to casually mention an interest in learning the spraying process first-hand. By the reaction of my Tanzanian coworkers, you would have thought I had suggested creating a project with goats laying eggs instead of chickens! They were shocked I would want to dirty my hands with such a task.

One of the Site Headquarters

Well, let’s be honest…..as many volunteers would attest, much of our manual labor work is being ‘allowed’ by our local counterparts to try a task, being laughed at for our ineptness and then being told to rest while they do it correctly. And I do enjoy hamming it up to make them laugh while secretly learning their methods which are effective albeit can use my adjustments at times.

So I expected to be taken out to a spray site, spray two or three houses, share a few laughs, raise worker morale and then be done for the day. Nope. This team had a whole different day planned for me. My first suspicion of what was to come occurred when I was given the FULL safety attire: heavy coveralls, rubber boots, rubber gloves, a hardhat with a mask and an industrial-type mouth and nose mask. The outfit was topped off with my own spray tank- the perfect accessory!

I was then introduced to the spray operator with the best English vocabulary. I learned he had been chosen for the coveted position as my caretaker. I was very flattered by how the team wanted to take such good care of me and by how excited he was to be given the position. He made sure I received my equal share of chemical packets and supplies……which I wondered why I needed since I would only be spraying a few houses as a source of entertainment but I just went with it.

Repairing Drainage to Protect Surrounding Environment

We traveled about an hour to a more remote village, waited another hour for a rain shower to pass and then it was time to work! I quickly realized what makes this job harder in a Tanzanian village than an American town: spacing between houses. In American neighborhoods, houses are a few steps apart. In Tanzania, they may be a few steps apart or a few kilometers apart! Either way, we walked/sprinted to the next house as soon as one was done. Between the heavy air from the recent rain and all the layers of protective gear I was wearing, I was soon sweating more than a pig on Zanzibar.

But the villagers….oh the villagers….are what make hard work all worthwhile. At this point, I had been out of the village and living the sweet city life for more than seven months. I am not sure how to explain it. A year ago, I would not have believed it. But there is something so much more gratifying from spending a day in a village over a city. Some villagers had already heard about IRS through community outreach and radio spots. Others knew nothing about IRS but were interested in learning and protecting their families. There were a few skeptical villagers who preferred not to have their homes sprayed. One even claimed we were spraying malaria into the homes to kill villagers. My partner handled all situations with dignified calmness and appropriate responses.

One of the most common questions Tanzanians ask foreigners is ‘are you tired?’ This is one question I usually reply with an emphatic ‘NO’ whether it is the correct answer or not. I guess because I personally see being tired as a sign of weakness in these situations. By the end of my spraying venture, I was ready to change my answer to an emphatic ‘YES’! When various people asked, I quickly agreed the work of a spray operator is very hard and explained how much respect I have for them.

Coworker Showsoff New Tent-like Net

Fast forward about three weeks to the team leader trainings for the second half of the region, and I was even more grateful for my new first-hand knowledge. In their Swahili language (and my own charades-inspired-hand-signals), I described my experience. Conveying my appreciation for how hard their job is as well as my hope that they would remember how important their work is and how IRS gives them an opportunity to save lives in high epidemic area.

Annual malaria deaths in Tanzania are estimated at 60,000 with 80 percent of these deaths among children under five years of age, according to PMI’s website. The Mwanza Region has the fourth highest prevalence rate at 31.4% for malaria in children under five years of age. A 2010 study of malaria in Tanzania showed approximately one in 12 children died before their fifth birthday. A sad statistic indeed, however, this number showed an improvement from just six years prior when it was one in every nine children.

The improved statistics are the combined results of PMI’s four major malaria prevention and treatment measures:

• Insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs)

• Indoor residual spraying (IRS)
• Intermittent preventive treatment for pregnantwomen (IPTp) with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP)
• Diagnosis with rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs)or microscopy and treatment with artemisinin-based combination therapy (AC T)

Fellow PCV Jessica Moreno Teaching about Malaria

I may never know the exact impact of my one-day stint as a Malariabuster, but the enthusiasm and appreciation voiced by the villagers and my coworkers made the sweat and sore muscles all worth it. Like most development work, the reward is not in the paycheck or the immediate results….though how great would it be if both of those were possible!

No, the reward is what you are able to take away at the end of the day: the interaction with students excited to practice their English with an American; the laughter shared between sprayers as they competed for how many houses each could spray; the appreciative smiles from villagers seeing support from a foreigner. These are the rewards that will stay with me past the day when malaria is finally eradicated. 

Curious for more? Visit StompOutMalaria.org! Stomping Out Malaria in Africa was built on the vision that through strategic partnerships, targeted training and mobilization of Volunteers, intelligent use ofinformation technology, and radically efficient use of seed funding, Peace Corps will focus the efforts of over 3,000 Volunteers in sub-Saharan Africa to make an immediate and measurable impact in the fight against malaria.

My Citified Maisha

I know, I know….way past time for a blog update. I feel like every post starts this way. And I blame Facebook. Now that I’m sitting at a desk most of the day-every day, my insightful comments on the world and updates on my bowel movements end up as Facebook statuses instead of fully thought-out blog entries.

So it’s time for……….another way-too-condensed update on my life!!!

The last time we visited I had just returned from wonderful, wonderful America. I brought back tons of goodies carefully distributed among three suitcases and 13.5lbs not-so-evenly distributed on my body. I’ve been working off the latter. My walk to work is about 35 minutes and my walk home is about 15 minutes. How does that work? Well, my morning walk is down a big hill, aka a small mountain. At the end of the day, I usually walk half and then take a daladala (public van) up the worst of it. Also I’m doing kickboxing videos 2-3 nights a week….which is also great for working off the aggression city life can cause.

While we’re on the subject, I should talk about my new city life. It’s quite different than my old village life…both in good ways and bad. Good ways include what you’d expect: electricity, hot water, gas stove. Housing in general has taken a huge step up.

When I first moved to Mwanza, I was placed in an apartment across the street from a public open space used for very large and loud events. Let’s just say when I would try to listen to my iPod or a movie on my computer to drown out the noise; it was so loud that I could not hear what was coming through my earphones! Tanzanians love their speakers and sound systems.
I was also a block away from three nightclubs. Perfect for nights out…not so great for the other six nights a week when I needed sleep. I was VERY lucky and appreciative that Peace Corps let me work with the landlord to break the lease. It’s not a standard solution in a country where respect is so important, but I was also lucky my landlord had worked before with foreigners so was very understanding.

I returned from home leave basically homeless! But lucky yet again another Peace Corps Volunteer had an open room at her house. She’s here working with Baylor and living in a house they have for their visiting doctors and med-students. We thought I’d just be able to stay till I found my own place….a feat much harder than expected. Mwanza has grown over the past few years, and housing has become expensive.

This week we found out I was approved to stay till my 3^rd year ends next August! There’s one other girl living in the house and working with Baylor through a Princeton program. Plus, the house is kind of a duplex with another 3-bedroom house attached- even accessible through a door in the pantry! We all get along great and have fun together. So I’m feeling great about my new housing. We’re also making fun friends from various countries…wonderful to have a social life again!

Another bonus for living in a city? I found an awesome lady to cut my hair! She of Indian decent born in Tanzania and her family moved to the UK when she was a child. That’s also where she first studied hair. So she knows what she’s doing and how to deal with white-people-hair.

The not so great parts of city life…..there’s not really a sense of belonging to the local Tanzanian community. In my village, I had finally become one of them. There were still those few villagers who would ask me for money and gifts, but for the most part, I had earned their respect. When I walked through the village, I saw the same people who were interested in talking with me.

On my walk to and from work here, I see different people every day. To them I’m just a foreigner…a walking ATM. It is much harder than I expected, resulting in so many emotions. Anger that they ask, sadness that they live a life where they think it’s acceptable, guilt that I have so much more than they do yet I never give handouts.

It was a standard among Peace Corps Volunteers. We barely make more than they have so it was easy to say no. The only exception being those few villagers who I knew would pay me back. Or paying for work they did for me. Village kids loved to catch me returning from town, so they could help carry my bags and I’d give them candy.

Plus for us PCVs, we could rationalize it by saying hand-outs aren’t sustainable. Sure, it might help them that day, but what are they learning from me giving them money? This train of thought at least helped with the guilt.

At the same time though, I almost feel more immersed in Tanzania now than when I was living in a village. In the village, I’d leave my house for a few hours here and there. I’d go teach or visiting, to the market or meetings. Otherwise, I could be in my house doing activities to help with the stress and home sickness: reading books in English, listening to American music, talking to other PCVs on the phone in English.

In the city, I’m working a regular 9-5 office job. I’m in an office with only Tanzanians and eat lunch 2-3 times a week at a little restaurant near the office where only Tanzanians usually eat. This is usually fun as it’s almost like Ruby Faye’s back home….they know my name and what I drink!

Most of my co-workers speak really good English, which is helpful when we are discussing more technical matters one-on-one. Still when just talking amongst themselves or casually talking with me, they speak Swahili. On one hand, I’m glad because it has helped my Swahili, whereas most volunteers lose their Swahili after moving to a town. However, on the other hand, I get so frustrated by sitting in meetings and barely knowing what is being said. I’m not able to contribute much or feel useful. I recently realized I have gotten way too use to going through life not completely aware of what’s being said around me.

All in all, I am still really glad I am getting this experience. It has opened me up to a different part of the Tanzanian culture and is a good transition back to the working world.