What Am I Up To?

I’m sure there are quite a few of you who are curious as to the work I have been doing lately. I have been here a year and it might be assumed that I am well established in the work that I will be doing for the duration of my service. Well not exactly. At least it hasn’t been without its challenges.
My main goal/objective/work (whatever you want to name it) is to teach health topics such as the importance of proper hand washing, when and how long to breast feed, etc. with the women in the village. And usually volunteers partnered with a health centers already have an audience with women who come to baby weighings, but my health center didn’t have baby weighings when I came. We didn’t even have a baby scale until I found one last month when I went to the Ministry of Health. Before we weighed the mothers as they held the babies and subtracted their weight- not very accurate. Also women forget or don’t have the time or just don’t want to come unless I hand out cadeaux (presents). The bouille demonstration I did was during a baby weighing and that was slightly successful because women spread the word there was going to be free food (well it’s the same in any country, people always come to free food). Since then, they realized bouille was not a monthly thing and numbers have dwindled.
So to overcome this I started a project my supervisor had mentioned during one of our in-service trainings called Care Groups. What is it? Well to start I surveyed the village and I did this with Etienne (an apprentice at the health center and my very own translator). We mapped out all the houses of women with children ages 0-5 and pregnant women. This was not an easy task considering women spend most of their days in the fields, voyage frequently and are referred to by several names (Maman Raima is also Maman Amidath, la femme de le major, and Pascaline- it’s a bit confusing). With the names and maps we grouped the Mamas in 10s based on where they lived. Each group selected a Leader Mom who then meets with me and Etienne once a month to learn a health topic. Between meetings the Leader Moms make household visits to each mother in her group, sharing the information she learned. She also takes notes if there are problems or questions and gives oral reports during the next session with me.
So far Etienne and I have only met twice with the Leader Moms, once to go over their roles, responsibilities and the objectives of the project and the second to discuss proper hand washing and diarrhea. This was accompanied by a hand washing demonstration and we made an oral rehydration salt drink that is given to children with diarrhea. I have a good vibe from the Leader Moms and can’t wait to get back to see the project evolve. (Currently I am working with the new volunteers during their training. It has also been an interested experience. I noticed how far I and the other volunteers have come since when we first arrived in Benin.)
So that’s what I have been spending my time doing. It’s been a great way to get to know each member in the village and names have been becoming a little less confusing because now I know that Maman Raima is Maman Amidath, as well as Maman Worou, la femme de le major, Pascaline and Rissikatou, also someone who makes a great peanut sauce with igname pilé.