Okay, so I got an email last week saying that there was a WHO polio vaccination campaign going on across all West Africa the upcoming weekend, and encouraging volunteers to go to their local health center (CSPS) and see if they could help. So, I did. And the majeur, the head of the CSPS, let me go with him and another worker to do vaccinations in some of the villages in Bagre! I didn't do a whole lot- just tallied the number of kids who got vaccinated and their ages, but I got to wear a super cool “kick polio out of Burkina” shirt (but in french, bien sur) and follow their moto on my bike (does a body good) and make children cry- both because of the vaccine, and because I'm a monster. Which is especially true in the bush, where they've definitely never seen a white person before.
The vaccine is only two drops, taken orally, which is amazingly convenient. And most of these kids have been vaccinated before, in shots they received as babies. But here people tend either to not know about vaccinations, or are reluctant to get their children vaccinated- just like in the US, there's a lot of misinformation about vaccines, and people blame them for any illness the kids get after receiving them. So campaigns like this are often a way to try to catch people who've fallen through the cracks.
Again, I didn't do much, but it was a fun kind of experience, and I got some pictures, and visited some compounds hidden way out in the bush, and hopefully I'll be able to work with the CSPS a lot more in the future. Although, the majeur asked me out afterwards- that complicates things a little. If I can navigate that cordially, then maybe I'll still be able to work with the CSPS in the future.
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