Host Family & Malaria

I have now been in Kaolack for a full week and so far my experience here has been very positive and self reflective. I really like my host family, which is smaller than my host family in Dakar, although many times it doesn’t feel like it. I think it is because here in Kaolack my host mom has visitors throughout the day because of her positioning as the Director of APROFES. Oftentimes I feel like our home is a meeting place of the community as all are welcome at all times of the day. My interactions with the visitors are always fairly limited to French/Senegalese greetings because I am often too tired to sit outside in the living room and talk with them.

Front Yard/Drive Way

Main living room

Usually at lunch time I return home from work and go into the salon to sleep until Xadit or the maid wakes me up for lunch time. My living situation in the home is nice though as I share a room with my host brother Amadou, although it’s actually his room during the year. I didn’t know this at first as I thought it would just be my room, like I have in Dakar. There I had a key to lock my room so there was a sense of security as my family always reminded me to lock my door. Here I thought it would be the same but after the first day I noticed Amadou kept going in and out of the room to get things from a drawer and then he explained that this was normally his room. I felt bad because I know felt as though I was intruding on his space but he explained that sharing was the way of the Senegalese. Here I have a large bed to sleep in although the mattress is extremely thin though so when I sleep in the middle I can feel the boards and I end up having a lot of back pain in the morning. So now I sleep on the edges of the bed because the mattress isn't as worn down as it is in the middle. This is a very small inconvenience as I am in a developing nation with 46.7% of the population below the poverty line and a 48% unemployment rate. Also my home has a bathroom with a toilet, sink and shower which is nice in comparison with the homes of other students in the villages where they have a whole in the ground for a toilet. 

My bed

My room

The actual people who constitute my host family here (as I finally figured out this week) are my host mother Mama Binta, Louise, Amadou, Djalia, Raki and Xadit. Louise is a French-Canadian woman volunteering for APROFES until January. Amadou is a cousin of the family and Xadit is a family friend. Djalia and Raki are my mom's actual daughters. They also have a brother who is currently in New York studying English and a sister who lives in Paris with their father. Raki is the youngest sister and she has only been living with us for the last few days because she has malaria, as I found out yesterday. She lives in the village for her work/internship and she became sick with malaria on Thursday so she came to Kaolack to get the necessary medications. She usually returns home on the weekends though because the village she works in is only 45 minutes away. I asked her if it was her first time getting malaria and she laughed. She explained that she usually gets it every 2 years or so, similar to how one gets the flu in the United States. She said that initially she was very weak and could not walk or eat, but after 5 days she is feeling much better. We talked about how for the Senegalese they do not take medication for malaria until it is necessary because their bodies are used to the mosquitoes here in Senegal. For me however I take a malaria pill everyday and I am constantly wearing mosquito spray because my body has never been exposed to malaria or the mosquitoes of this country.

After doing a bit a research I recently learned that according to my genetic makeup I am to a large extent malaria resistant. If I do get the malaria, the symptoms are much less pronounced and are not as long-lasting as with someone who does not have my genetic makeup. This is because my Dad had Sickle Cell Anemia, a disease that causes ones red blood cells to be sickle shaped, affecting the flow of blood and oxygen throughout the body which causes severe complications throughout one's life. When my dad was born and growing up doctors told him they didn't expect him to live past the age of 20; in 1994 the average life expectancy for males with diagnosed with sickle cell disease was 42. Due to advances in medicine in the US and the medical attention he was able to consistently receive whenever he had a sickle cell crises, he lived till the age of 60; I’m grateful and happy to have had him 17 years of my life. When I spoke with my host mom about sickle cell she I told her that my Dad lived to be 60 which she was shocked. She explained to me that Sickle Cell Anemia is a huge problem here in Senegal and many die in their 20s here because they aren't able to receive the necessary medical attention

I do not have the disease myself because to develop the disease a person must inherit the trait from both of their parents. However, my Mom is not a carrier of the trait, so I only inherited the trait from my Dad. When you are only a carrier of the trait you don’t have the disease, but you are malaria resistant. This is why sickle cell disease occurs most commonly in Africa where incidence of malaria is high because sickle cell anemia imparts some resistance to malaria; three quarters of sickle cell cases occur in Africa. Compared to non-carriers, sickle-cell carriers have approximately 1/10 the risk of dying from infection by the most deadly species of malaria parasite. It is also most prevalent among the African-American community. In the US one in every 500 African-American births and one out of every 1,000 to 1,400 Hispanic births is affected by Sickle Cell Anemia. Another two million Americans carry the sickle cell trait. While carriers of the trait benefit from the resistance to malaria, those who have the disease suffer from its affects.

We discussed Raki's case of malaria while sitting out in the front of the house drinking tea, Ataya, which is an extremely common past time among the Senegalese, especially young Senegalese men. My host brother made Ataya very often in Dakar, as well as Gallo and the other young men in Mermoz during the nighttime. Although here I have noticed that I do a lot more tea drinking with Amadou than I did with my host brother in Dakar. This may be due to the age difference or perhaps I have just been more present here during the times when Ataya is consumed. Amadou’s tea is very good and he likes to make it very sweet, which Louise doesn't like, as she commented on the amount of sugar cubes that he placed in the kettle when he was preparing it. I told Amadou that I really want to learn how to make Ataya because it is so good and I want to make it when I go back to New York in the winter. I will try to learn and put up a tutorial/explanation of the steps for preparing Ataya.

While sitting outside Djelia and Raki also asked me which aspect of Senegalese culture I enjoyed the most. I said that I really enjoyed the strong sense of community that I felt everywhere I went in Senegal. I thought this was a fundamental difference between the Senegalese culture and American culture. I told my host sisters how in Mermoz the whole community seemed to always be out on their doorsteps constantly greeting one another and our home always kept our front door open during the day. At night I would often go over Yousou and Brittany’s home after dinner and I always felt welcome; Yousou would always extend an offer to eat dinner with them if they hadn't eaten yet. Here in Kaolack I explained that I have experienced the same sense of community. My host home was a meeting place of the community and it seemed open to anyone and everyone who wished to visit. I told them I was very confused at first about who lived in the house and who was just visiting because we had so many people here throughout the day and during the nighttime.

I also mentioned how the pace of life here in Senegal is much slower than the pace of life in New York, a feeling I know that I have expressed in my blogs before. She said that this pace of life was the reason that the Senegalese were behind in their development. Babacar, my co-worker and friend from the Chamber of Commerce, expressed the same sentiment when we were walking to our homes after work. As we walked together I noted that he walked much slower than I normally do and I had to make a concentrated effort to walk at a slower pace with him. I explained how New York is extremely fast paced as everyone is always in a hurry to get somewhere and he appropriately quoted “Time is money”. This notion that Senegal is behind because of the “laziness” of the people here is something which was also expressed by one of my classmates when were in Dakar. In her home her brother was often around the home during the day, which she was not used to. He had a small job as a vendor selling clothes but nothing in comparison to the American standard 9-5 job which we find respectable. She took this as evidence of the laziness of the Senegalese and their lack of discipline, which she then concluded was the reason for the economic state of the country, and likely for the state of other countries throughout Africa. 

However I explained that to accurately and fully asses the reasons behind the current state of a Senegal, we must look at the political and economic history which proceeded it , a history which was undoubtedly impacted by French colonization. I believe this is the case for any formerly colonized country in Africa, although the effects of colonization are different for every country, there are undeniable affects that we must always keep in mind. I also do not mean to create excuses for the continuation of the state of affairs in this country, but I find it hard to believe that the main reason behind the state of this country is a personality trait which she generalized as being applicable to all Senegalese people. However I was now hearing the same rationality from Senegalese people themselves, which I found even more troubling than when I heard it from the girl in my MSID group. Although I interpreted it immediately as a colonist sentiment which had been internalized by the formally colonized; the colonist sentiment being that slow paced "Time is people" Senegalese mentality is not the right frame of mind and that the faced paced "time is money" mentality which commands the lives of those in America is the ideal.