Campaign Season (no, not that one)

As things in France cool down (Hollande won) and things in the US heat up (will Obama get a second term?) it has stayed ridiculously hot here in Burkina Faso.

Also, on the health side of things, we’ve been doing a variety of campaigns against various health related things.

We did nutrition: going door to door to find out how many kids are malnourished in Poa (my village).

We did Polio: going door to door to give polio vaccinations to kids.

We did Mebendazol and Vitamin A: going door to door to give kids a deparasiting agent and vitamin A.

Now, we’re handing out albendazol and mictazine. Albendazol is a deparasiting agent (chemically the same as mebendazol but it’s a higher concentration and thus, for adults. Mictazine is a drug against filariose and hydrocele, more commonly known as elephantitis.

Next week looks like it’ll be trachoma but we’ll see what happens.

My role in all this is relatively simple. I plan. I divide the community health agents into teams, and help divide the village into manageable areas for each team. I then divide the medicines into which group gets how many pills, then I help explain how to give the medication and explain that if someone refuses to call the Major or myself and we’ll come out and figure out what the issue is (side note: this is where the color of my skin is actually a benefit).

Anyway, not the hardest job ever. Important? Kinda. Fairly straightforward? Absolutely.

The people who do all of the actual labor are the community health agents who are easily overlooked in the healthcare system here and play one of the most important roles. So they most definitely win the unsung hero award. I’m a foreigner. The nurses and doctors are civil servants so while we’re both here and they’re actually Burkinabe none of us really belong. This is where the community health agents come in. They belong. They live in the village, they were (more often than not) born in the village, and they’re well known in the village. Some can speak French, some can’t- but it’s really no big deal. People in the village know the community health agents and because they are actually part of the community (not just integrated into it) people invite them into their houses and they don’t feel self conscious or anything like that.

The thing about this though, is that these community health agents are just normal people. Some went to school, some didn’t. And all of them have other things to do. Most people in Burkina farm. Some people raise animals, some do both. All of which can be a full time job, so where do they find the time and energy to help out the health center?

So these people are a huge resource but with almost five weeks now of consistent campaigns each weekend (lasting for four or five days), I’ve got to wonder, is there a line where there are just too many campaigns and the people that help us out so much just say, “sorry, we’ve gotta plant our fields, or take care of our animals”?

Or is the sense of doing things for the greater good and that giving up a couple hours each day to hand out medications for the betterment of all is totally worth it really that strong here?

Of course, everyone who helps out is paid for their work but in a village of subsistence agriculture time doesn’t necessarily equal money.

I guess what I’m trying to say comes down to this:

1) The fact that we have campaigns like this every week is awesome. I’m not quite sure who donates everything we give out but I think if they came to visit they’d see that, in Poa at least, their resources have been well used.

2) The fact that there are people who rain or shine (usually shine) show up and do what needs to be done is a standard that more people all over the world should try and emulate.

3) When you have a resource of people who will give up their time to go door to door to hand out medications, don’t take it for granted- and don’t overuse it.

4) The little things count. I’m not rich. I probably will never be rich. And, that’s okay. But it’s not like I can give everyone who helps a ton of money to say thank you. But what I can do is go and buy water for everyone to give out when we visit people as they hand out medication. I can smile and say you’re doing awesome, thank you for helping us out, and give some moral support.

We don’t do vaccination campaigns like this in the United States but, I can’t help wondering if we did: would we find people like this to help out? I certainly hope so.