Espionage-Health worker style

"Enjoy hell!" I texted to my teammate who lives in Ansongo with me. He texted me this morning saying he just got off the phone with the director and they are sending two PC vehicles to evacuate team Gao. I was swearing, I wanted to throw up, I even woke up James!! Tensions were rising between the rebels and the government again…so I believed him! Of course, it was April Fools. He ws proud he got me, and the rest of the PCVs around, until Sean realized what day it was. I was still shaking to go to ACF for a meeting. Now how do we get him back?

I took a tour—or as Dr. Diallo joked, I was spying—of the expat-run CSCOM in the 8th quartier of Gao. It is impressive because it is clean, the infants have everything they need (diapers, clothes, blankets, toys), and therefore it is well-frequented. But staffing still poses a problem because they don’t properly fill out charts and document the treatments they give. They do give the proper treatments—of course it helps that all the necessary drugs for nutritional rehab are available—the treatment just goes undocumented. They have a/c in the office and you have to take off your shoes to go into the maternity. As far as hygiene goes, it was really impressive for Mali. Why couldn’t all the CSCOMs be like this? Well, they aren’t financed like this one is. The rehab room for the babies had toys and beds for each baby—ah, I had resource envy compared to what we have at the CSREF in Ansongo!!! And this CSCOM is actually Gao’s CSREFs UREN instead of housing it at the CSREF because this expat has access to such great support. But now, if only they could start documenting we could see if they have fewer abandons than we do or less deaths and more recovered kids.