Family Planning Bike-a-thon--Pedal for a Brighter Future!

I feel like these last few months have flown by. Work wise, all of my projects are coming together and I feel great. I just finished a Family Planning regional bike-a-thon with two other volunteers. I had a great time and we were able to educate individuals on why practicing family planning was important. However, hot season just began so most days—no, no make that all the days-- it was awful to bike. Lol. We thought that by planning it in late February we could just miss hot season but it began early this year. In the shade it was 107 degrees. Ick. At the peak of hot season it can get up to 120-130 degrees. Anyway, back to the bike-a-thon—it went well and 19 people participated--3 volunteers, 12 theatre troop members, 2 health board members, and 2 women from a local NGO. We visited ten villagers and educated more than 2000 people. Family planning or lack thereof, is a really big issue in Burkina. I think less than five percent of people in rural villagers practice it. The average women here has 7 kids but I have seen women have as many as 15. The issue with having that many kids is that they do not have means to properly raise the kids. Often the families do not have the means to feed or clothe their children or even send them to school. From time to time at the maternity I will see women who are so malnourished themselves that they are unable produce milk for their babies. Moreover, it is part of the Bissa tradition that even if one is currently breast feeding, if she become pregnant again, she has to stop breastfeeding immediately(not good—if a child is weaned to quickly or before the time that he/she should be, it can cause severe malnutrition). During my last two week nutrition workshop a couple of months ago with a group of women I posed that question. Hearing their response that they would stop breastfeeding and then asked why is it part of their Bissa tradition. The women told me they did not know why but that they just practiced it because it was tradition. I then asked says who? The women said the elders said so. I was then like, “But why is it tradition? I do not do something unless there is a rationale behind doing it. What happens to the women’s body that she cannot breastfeed while she is pregnant?” Finally after asking this for about five minutes one woman finally understood the question and was like, “When a woman is pregnant her body becomes hot so if she breast feeds she will then transfer her fever to her child and he/she will become sick and die.” When I heard this I thought two things: A) I was happy I got a response as to why they do this practice and B) What The &%^#?!? Where and how do I even begin? Oh Lordy. I collected my thoughts and explained that that was not the case and that a woman should continue to breastfeed her child to avoid malnutrition. I then asked if they became pregnant while they were still breast feeding if they would continue to breast feed. They said no. I then asked, “Okay, if the head nurse at the clinic, not necessarily myself tells you the exact same thing that I just told you, who are you more apt to believe---the head nurse or the elders? The women were like, “Well regardless, we have to follow the elders because if we don’t and they child becomes sick they will tell us that is not their problem and that we are on our own. At this point, my finger nails started to dig into my thighs. Religion is also a big factor as why people do not practice family planning. Another factor is that having lots of kids as seen as having security/insurance for when the parents get old and cannot provide for themselves (they also need the children to work in the fields). One question raised by the one of the men during the sensibilizations was the following: “If specialists only recommended having 4 children (any more and the health risks to the mother increases—especially in lesser developed countries/rural areas), I have 4 girls and no boys. I want boys. What now?” We tried to explain that if they even if they have 4 girls they can take really good care of them and make sure they attend school/university and in the end the girls can take care of the parents just as well as having boys. Even though we may say this, it is not always well received because the status of women in Burkina doesn’t exist—they are seen as physically and mentally inferior. They do not have many rights. Also, the issue of family planning is complicated because men want their family name to continue. Girls are married off and are forced to live with the husband’s family—often times in a neighboring village. Without boys to continue on the family name in the family village, the legacy ends and it is assumed that people will forget about the family and their contribution to society. I once asked the head nurse at the clinic if a woman could be happy if she has so many kids that the family cannot provide for them? He replied that here children are seen as a gift from God and that even if they children are not provided for, the woman is still happy. I think a certain part of why people do not practice family planning is due to ignorance or the families think that they do not have the money to buy contraception. I get frustrated when people tell me they cannot afford family planning. The different methods of contraception are heavily subsidized here so that families can afford them. For example, the pill is about 20 cents a month, injection (every 3 months) is one dollar, the implant that can last up to 5 years is 5 dollars. It is not a lot of money. The frustrating part is that I see these same people buying dolo, the local beer, every day spending between 10-30 cents a day on it. I try to explain to them that I am not telling them to stop drinking dolo or buying snacks at the market, for example, but that if they normally buy 20 cents of dolo a day then maybe buy 10 cents of dolo. Hence, if you save little by little you can easily afford the contraception or even to send their sick child to the clinic. I tell them they need to think about the future and prioritize what is important to them. I also tell them good health is an investment and that if you practice it—whether it is buying soap or practice family planning—you will ultimately end up paying a lot less in hospital fees than if you don’t practice it. Even when it is explained to them, their response is still “We are too poor. We cannot afford it.”—that is most frustrating part. During my Etude de Milieu (my community analysis that I conducted when I first arrived at site) I would ask families why children die in the region and lots of people would respond “God wills it.” So I would try to explain that you can easily prevent them from dying by buying simple things like soap and they respond, “Nope, God willed it. We could not do anything to counter his will.” Also, when individuals just accept the deaths of their children because it was God’s will and they aren’t very concerned about the health of their children, one often wonders if children here are seen as property or individuals to be taken care of. I cannot answer that question. Family planning is a multi-faceted and complicated issue. I love my village and I love the people dearly. I just become disheartened because I do not know how to reach them. In the end, the bike-a-thon went well and I hope we reached at least some individuals.