Ramadan and Hearth Success

Economics are exhausting!
One of my Hearth participants with her baby.
The most malnourished baby in the Hearth with his mother.
This baby gained 1.1 kilos!!!
Anna, Chelsea, Trinh, Katie, and me at Trinh's going-away party.

On Wednesday I fell off the wagon. The Ramadan fasting wagon, that is. Actually, I guess it’s arguable whether I was ever technically on the wagon.

In case you didn’t know, Mali is about 90% Muslim. The Senufo, the ethnic group of my village, are often animists rather than Muslim, but not by village; they are 100% Muslim. I have never seen any fetishes or animist rituals (which PCVs in other Senufo villages have), and there are mosques, and zero alcohol, and the imam is an important figure in the village.

On the other hand, while I can hear prayer call from my house five times a day (faintly, fortunately), not very many people pray five times a day. But EVERY adult fasts for Ramada, even some women who are pregnant or nursing and therefore technically exempt.

Anyway, I figured I would try fasting this year, at least while I was in my village. Fasting means that from the dawn prayer (5:30 a.m.) to the sunset prayer (about 6:40 p.m.), you do not eat or drink. That’s right, no water. Especially devout people won’t even swallow their own saliva – they spit it out.

Ramadan started Sept. 1, which was a day earlier than it was supposed to start, so I missed the first day. The next day I decided to try it out as a one-day-only thing, because after that I was going to visit Ben, which would involve biking and buses (yes, Malians fast and work in the fields, but I am weak).

I got up to eat at 5:30 rather than 4:30, which is what Malians do. And I did it, but it was painful. The good news was that I didn’t feel hungry because I was so overpoweringly thirsty!

I came back to my village last Monday, so Tuesday I fasted again. Again, I ate later in the morning than technically allowed. Wednesday I was fasting again, but at 1:30, I snapped. I actually was really hungry, not thirsty, and I couldn’t face the thought of sitting there for 5 more hours feeling hungry. Lacking religious reasons, I just didn’t have the motivation.

Great work news! I successfully did a Hearth in a neighboring village – I got together a group of women, most of whom had malnourished babies, to cook ameliorated porridge for 12 days in a row, and to discuss a health topic each day. It went soooo much better than my attempt in my own village.

A few things were different. The relai (community health peer educator) from the village paid out of pocket for the more expensive ingredients, sugar and peanuts, so the women only had to provide corn and millet powder. I didn’t think this was the best way to finance it, but my motto for this Hearth was “whatever you guys want to do.” I gave several options for obtaining the ingredients (and that wasn’t one), but that was what they wanted to do.

I did very little preparation for this Hearth. We had one meeting with the potential participants, and started 4 days later. I think this was a case of less being more. It worked. Also, I think it was good for the women to see themselves as a group from the start, and we had the meeting at the village chief’s house, which showed his support for the project.

Most importantly, since I was more of a guest in the community, I just had to show up with a plan of what we were discussing and maybe bring the peanut powder (the relai often bought the peanuts but gave them to me to get ground into powder). They took care of things like dishes and fire, which makes so much more sense. There is no reason for me to fumble around cooking on an open fires while they watch when they know how to do it far better than I do! One woman was the point-person for all the supplies, and they also organized themselves to have one woman come early each day to start the fire.

But the attitude of the women was what made it a success They came each day and seemed happy to hang out, chat, make porridge, and listen to some health information. When we divided the porridge up, some would take their kid’s portion and leave to do work, but several would stick around and feed some to their babies.

There were 14 babies (12 women – 2 sets of twins). Of those, 12 gained weight! To be fair, a few of those only gained 100g, which could be weighing error, but that still leaves 9 kids who unequivocally gained weight – some gained 600 or 700g, and one gained a whole kilo!

In August I had started painting a world map on the outside of one of the school buildings. I painted a blue rectangle, and a grid on top of that (to guide the drawing of the map), but then the Hearth began so my work on the map dropped off. Now I’m back to work, and should finish this week. I’ve drawn everything and outlined it in black, so now I just have to color the countries and work out how I’m going to do labeling. It looks amazing, if I do say so myself.

It’s been a great project because it’s helped me form a relationship with the school director and teachers, who come by to chat while I work on it, and I’ve seen them give several impromptu geography lessons to villagers to explain what I’m up to. One day the director brought out a globe to show an old man who had probably never seen a world map before. He was amazed at how much of the earth is ocean.