Tech Visit

This previous Wednesday, the RCH (rural community health) volunteers all got to go on technical visits to current volunteers' posts, which we would return from by either Saturday or Sunday. Groups of 3-4 people were assigned each post, and we basically just got to be shown around the village by the current volunteer. Accompanying me on my tech visit were two other trainees named Tom and Maggie.

The volunteer I stayed with was named Louis and has been in Benin for a year. He has electricity and running water and a dog named Rex. He works at a health center that is only about a 20 minute zemi ride outside of Porto Novo, making our commute way less stressful than other volunteers whose tech visits were in Northern Benin (about a half-day commute). Despite its proximity, the village was very slow and quiet. We didn't really get the opportunity to see what it was like working at the health center because the workers were on strike so it was shut down. They did, however, keep open the maternity ward because they average about a birth a day. We swung by the health center on Thursday to get orientated, learn how to take blood pressure, do malaria tests, fill out baby weight charts, the works. We returned on Friday to find a woman already at 8cm as if she was waiting for us to arrive. We were invited into the birthing room in the heat of battle, only to discover several minutes later that this was a very rare birth. The  baby was breeching. Specifically a frank breech, as I would find out later, which is where the baby's bottom comes out first, with its legs extended so that its feet are under its head. That would have been enough excitement for one day, but there's more. The baby came out with an eerie-looking pale blue skin color. She wasn't breathing. The three of us volunteers watched in horror as the med center workers tried resuscitating the baby by massaging its torso. Minutes passed. They tried vacuuming her trachea to clear up any mucus. Hours passed. They put a respirator pump over her face to manually pump air into her lungs. Days passed as we stood motionless watching. Finally the baby began coughing, and I checked my watch to find out that only 4 or 5 minutes had passed. Wow, it felt a lot longer. Louis nonchalantly walked back up to us with some gloves on, apparently having just finished up some other work we didn't think to ask about. He mentioned that babies die in delivery a lot here. He's seen it before, and thought it was going to happen that day. The other 2 volunteers and I were able to move our mouths to start talking again, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say we were glad that we didn't watch a newborn baby die on our technical visit before we even got to post.

Later that day, we were doing a vaccination visit to a nearby community when me and Tom noticed that the queasiness from watching the birth had not worn off several hours later. Maybe it was progressively getting worse? Is that even possible? Turns out it is possible, provided the queasiness is not from watching a birth, but instead the symptom of an actual illness. A couple hours later Tom and I were "bed" ridden (and by bed ridden, I mean couch and Benninese-yoga-mat-thing ridden, respectively). He had a temperature of 36 degrees, and I was clocking in at 39.5. I guess we had 2 different illnesses. Both of which weren't malaria, which is reassuring, but makes the question of why Maggie didn't get sick too all the more mysterious.

During the night of my fever, I heard from afar a mystical spirit entity roaming around the forest/jungle of the village. Now I know what you're thinking: crazy dreams from a high fever, but you're wrong. Need I remind you that Benin is the home of Voodooism. The spirit of Oro (a secret society of important people, voodoo priests and other frat members) will come and go, appearing only at night. You can hear him whistling and whooshing around town, making a sound kind of like when you tie a piece of wood about the size and shape of a credit card to a piece of string a few feet long and spin it really fast over your head. As much as Oro's presence is made while you're sleeping, you're strictly not allowed to see Oro or you will be killed. For this reason, the Peace Corps Safety and Security Advisor has advised us that we should not look at Oro. Everyone in town is given ample warning as to when Oro will be out, not to mention you can hear him coming a mile away, so it is not an issue, but regardless sometimes volunteers will evacuate their village for a month at a time so as not to accidentally catch a glimpse.

We left Louis' post the next day with a few experience points under our belts, wiser about what to expect when we get to post, now knowing what Oro sounds like, humbled at what size a "big" spider actually is, and full of ideas for what we will do once we get to our post. It was overall a positive experience, and I'm excited to see what my house/post will be like in comparison.