Project Peanut Butter

Check out picture link (on Picasa) for illustrations of the events or spots described below...

https://picasaweb.google.com/memandmac/ProjectPeanutButter?authkey=Gv1sRgCKScjuOY8qZh&feat=directlink

Wow! Thursday was one of the most interesting days I have had in a WHILE. I'm still pondering all I saw and experienced. The history: Wednesday night I met up with Chelsea Beasley who is an American woman living in Freetown with her husband Mike. She has been here 3 years (originally as in intern). Once she got married, the two of them moved here. They have established a country site for Plumpy Nut which is a food item for severely malnourished and moderately malnourished children. It's based off a model that has been very successful in Malawi - founded by one Dr. Manary. He's back and forth to the States and loved the idea of having the product in Sierra Leone. Aside from the thrill it was to eat pizza, pita & hummous, a Diet Coke and ice cream all in one sitting (while chilling in some air conditioning!) it was great to hear from Chelsea about her work and her experiences both living in Freetown and traveling "upcountry" to do clinics and pass out the food.

Check out www.projectpeanutbutter.org for more information

Thursday she and her driver picked me up and we headed out around 8 a.m. First we drove to Taima (about 30 minutes from Bo) to pick up the nurses (3 of them), John (the main coordinator for the area) and Murray (random helper guy). After checking in at the newly renovated (please note: "renovated" is all quite relative...) clinic, the nurses climbed in the Land Rover and Murray climbed on top. Our destination: Kowama, a village about 15 minutes away. The clinic is held under a thatched roof structure which was specially built for the purpose. Originally, clinic was held in the adjoining school but it was proving too disruptive for the children, hence the construction of said structure. Women were gathering when we arrived and more trickled in over the next couple of hours. They're supposed to arrive promptly on time, but this is Africa, after all. They gathered benches from the school and lined them up underneath then sat down with their children. We unpacked our gear and set everything up. Big rubbermaid totes are the way to go for this sort of thing and everything goes in plastic bags - perhaps to protect a bit from the humidity? So out came the scale, the measuring pad, the binders with information on each child and mother, and little bits of paper on which measurements are written. One of the nurses greeted everyone and it was time to get started.

First things first. Everyone burst into song - led by the nurses. I recognized a praise chorus and then there were a couple other choruses I didn't recognize. There was a prayer led by Grace (one of the nurses) and then they might have said the Lord's Prayer (in Mende I think). Then there was a prayer-type thing where they all held their hands out and at the end, rubbed their eyes. I forgot to ask Chelsea what that was all about but that same sequence was repeated at the second village, too, so clearly it's something that's well-known and familiar. Once that was over, there was a general "talking-to" and then we got started!

My job was to help measure length of the children. Unfortunately, photos of me doing this didn't come out but on the project peanut butter website, you can see pictures of this measuring being done. SO, new children were taken first. Their age is noted, then upper arms are measured, followed by measurements for height and weight. The project uses standardized charts which, based on these measurements, determines whether the child is severely malnourished, moderately malnourished, or developing at a healthy rate (in which case the kid doesn't get any food). My job was to take the child, lay him or her down on the ruler (for lack of a better word) and hold the child steady. At this point they were usually crying (maybe from looking at the scary white person?). Luckily, only one decided to pee on the table (the mothers were all about removing every stitch of clothing for these measurements). At the foot end, Susan (another one of the nurses) attempted to get an accurate read on length to the bottom of the foot/heel (a difficult task when young child is protesting by pointing his or her toes as hard as possible). I was also supposed to double check that she was writing down the length accurately. Give or take half an inch, it was fine. The accuracy of the measurements is important because it determines when the child is ready to graduate off the food.

It was pretty amazing processing over 100 children. Many of these children will die without this food; their lives are literally being saved. There is great success with it; only 2% will fall back into a malnourished state if the program is followed. The children eat the product (which comes in little sachets) 5 or 6 times a day. Mothers are required to turn in all their empty sachets on clinic day. Originally there were problems with mothers selling the food for cash. Not good. They are also tricky in that they would rotate kids and line up for food again. Now each child's finger is marked with paint when they go through the line so it's clear he or she has gotten the food and no-one gets a double portion.

But back to the kids. I found tears welling up quite frequently; I think maybe this was because of the idea that this work is so redemptive. I felt such love for these little sick ones: a number with yucky-looking skin diseases that will only get worse as it gets hotter and more humid (which is hard to imagine!) and a lot who are so clearly sick. And I felt compassion for these mothers - many of them probably 13 or 14 years old - what a life! They will remain pregnant for as many years as they have in this world - tied to the men in their lives (the majority of whom have girlfriends) but unable to leave them seeing as they have no rights and would then be hard pressed to survive at all. I give them credit for recognizing that their kids need help and pray that this project gives them hope and they see Jesus's care in this practical and life-saving way. Which brings me to one of the most heart-wrenching moments of the day. This occurred in the second village, Hendebu, but I will relate the story here b/c it's on my mind. There's a girl (9 years old) whom Chelsea has been keeping an eye on. She was severely malnourished a couple of months ago and is better now although her belly is still enormously swollen. But she is SO ill; she is nothing but skin and bones and her eyes are all watery. Apparently she's been to the hospital and all the test came back negative, but it's Chelsea's opinion that she's dying. I would concur that there is something SERIOUSLY wrong. The mother believes that a curse was put on the girl by a neighbor and her man thinks traditional medicine is the way to go. Chelsea insisted that the girl go to the hospital (there's a free one near Bo) that day, but the woman said she had to get her husband's permission. It was a strong possibility that he would say no and she was afraid to go against his wishes because he would leave her and/or beat her. The nurses were hard at work trying to persuade her that it couldn't wait; the girl would be dead within 2 weeks (the next time clinic is held). By the end of the conversation, she had agreed to talk to him that night and arrangements were made for Susan to accompany the girl to the hospital on Friday where Chelsea assured the mother that the daughter would need to remain for at least 2 months. I hope she's in the hospital even as I write! UNBELIEVABLE.

Back to the kids...Some interesting cultural info:
Lots of the little boys had on Boss jockeys for babies. A bit surreal. Both boys and girls wear numerous body ornaments like necklaces, earrings (the girls), bracelets, and sort of a chastity-belt looking thing (the boys). Given that the men here are anything but chaste, I asked Chelsea about it. She said it's to help the boys develop strong loins and a strong belly. The necklaces are to develop strong necks. Twins have string that connects from a bracelet to an anklet and the idea is for each twin to develop equally well. I don't quite get how the anklet/bracelet connection is symbolic of that concept, but okay. The jewelry is made of beads, shells, colored string, etc. Quite attractive actually! I wonder if they have multiple options and switch it up depending on Mom's mood or the rest of the clothing outfit (although often these kids aren't wearing much of anything in the way of clothing).

Back to the process. Arm measurement is first. Murray went around and did that. Then they could come to me for length measurement. Susan records the number on a little slip of paper. The mom then moved with that slip of paper to the scale where Grace weighed the child. The number gets recorded on the little piece of paper. John & Chelsea were the last stop for the recording of these figures into the binder. The measurements determine how many sachets the mother can receive. She takes this final piece of paper to the back of the van, shows the other nurse her empty sachets, turns them in, and receives the food for the next two weeks. Once all the kids have been processed and the food passed out, the ones new to the program stay to hear explicit instructions. They also have to feed the children some of the food. Those children who are unable to eat are admitted to the hospital. Another NGO usually arrives around this time to provide transport (but they haven't shown up for the past couple of times so it's unclear what's going on). This day arrangements were made for John to come back and pick up any children who needed to be admitted. He also is responsible for tracking down mothers and children who haven't come for 2 consecutive weeks. He has an interview with them to determine what the issue might be. It could be, for example, that they're afraid their baby will be snatched and eaten as part of a yearly initiation rite for a secret male society. Yes, I didn't believe it either. In this day and age?! Indeed, it's true. Attendance at one of Chelsea's other sites was so reduced for a couple of clinics that the situation was investigated. It turns out that babies were being snatched, so plans were made that the mothers would all leave at the same exact time and come to clinic in bulk so that individual babies couldn't be taken. In her work, Chelsea reports that is not altogether uncommon for children to just go missing and it usually corresponds to initiation rites. Great.

There's some sort of gnat attack happening...hoping it's gnat and not the deadly Anopheles...Annoying. But, back to the day. So, we wrapped it up at Kowama and headed to Hendebu, another 10 minutes down the road. A thatch structure has been constructed here as well in a central location near the well. Here, we had a much smaller group but the process was the same. Before we began, we went to greet the granny. She's really taken on this project and encourages everyone to attend clinic. The village has a chief but, according to Chelsea, he's not very "chiefly" (he's quite young) so the granny runs the show. She wasn't feeling well, however, so she didn't come to clinic and didn't make lunch (usually she feeds the clinic staff). We paid our respects at her hut then conducted clinic. When we were finished, we went to pay our respects again and she gave me a coconut as a farewell gift. It should have been me giving her something! Since Chelsea has been on holiday for the past month or so, she was passing out bags of gari (ground cassava) to select individuals, but I didn't have anything to contribute. I think it was my first time drinking coconut milk right out of the coconut - not bad! Although I wish it had been cold and frothed up as a pina-colada.... fun treat, though. I brought it back to Fudia who promptly chopped it up and ate it. I missed out on getting a piece because it was gone in a flash! That brings up to 4 the native fruit I have ingested right off a tree: coconut, papaya, tumbe (a nut that needs loads of sugar), and a "breast milk" fruit which a bunch of boys climbed up an incredibly high tree to get. It's slightly sweet but has a gooey consistency - not my favorite. As is common with me, I digress.

I was dying to explore this village so while Chelsea was oohing and aahing over a newborn (who it seems might get named after her!) I tried to look around without looking like I was looking around. It wasn't incredibly successful...
Random observations about the village include the fact that all the chickens have green ties on their wing feathers and that the village sells firewood and coal (the big bags with palm fronds folded across the tops). If you ever see a little smoking fire randomly in the middle of a field, chances are good that they're making coal. The goats were happy and healthy here. They get "goat fat" from them which seems to be some kind of milk product which gets smeared on things. The translation was breaking down at this point...They also eat the goats for meat. There were some incongruous moments such as seeing some young guys walking around in such clothing as Dartmouth T-shirts and bright pink Crocs. Ah, Africa.

Our time was up, so we headed back to Taima to drop off the staff and then headed back to Bo. After a fuel stop it was a mad dash to the supermarket for cold water and back to the MTC for a good hand-washing, some lunch, a nap (under the fan! The power was on..) and some reflection time. This experience needs to settle in my heart some more, but there were moments when I felt like my hands were the hands of Jesus; what an overwhelming privilege to lay my hands on those children and bless those precious ones in His name.

And hats off to Chelsea and Mike. It's amazing life-sustaining work they're doing. The network of NGOs continues to grow here and they seem pretty effective and cooperative with each other. Progress! Another food program is newly in effect in Taima which is more of an educational project that builds on the immediate intervention of Project Peanut Butter; they are developing the networks and workers to sustain it and I think soon it will move to the villages, too. It could be that an entire generation of Sierra Leonians will be healthy and well developed! An encouraging thought...