Breast Milk is the Best Milk

We are quickly approaching the end of our eight weeks of technical and language training and will swear in as new Peace Corps Volunteers on Friday January 8th. It is really exciting and also a bit surreal that this day is finally almost here and something I have wanted to be for so long is what I'm actually becoming. It is truly staggering how many great changes can happen in ones life so quickly and I am truly grateful that, much to my surprise, 2010 finds me as a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia.

One way that we have broken up the stress of the past 8 weeks was engaging in a "Battle of the Sectors" yesterday. My training group is made up of 35 people who will be serving as volunteers in two of Peace Corps the Gambia's three sectors: Health and Community Development (HCD) and Environment and Natural Resource Management (ENRM). Each group presented, creatively, three topics which they thought might provide opportunities for cross-sectoral work, i.e. things that are pretty easy to understand and that we could do projects together on.

My HCD group did a presentation on the importance of exclusive breastfeeding (hence this blogs title). To convey our message we did a cheer leading skit spelling out:

The first 6 months, breastfeed only
Immune system comes from Colostrum
The perfect food
Suckle, suckle; there's always more

Feed every 1-3 hours
Only breastfeed, it's free!!!
Remember Moms, eat lots of protein, fats and vegetables

Though formula is from America, it can cause infection
Other weaning foods can be introduced after 6 months
Take your baby to the RCH clinic
Solidifies the bond between mother and child
[In between each line we sang, "Hey yo breast milk is the best milk."]


Not surprisingly, based on our awesome cheer leading skills and creativity, HCD won the battle.
Later I was talking to my Dad on the phone, after scrubbing the be-jesus out of my clothes while doing laundry, I was telling him about our presentation. He told me that when he and my mom were Peace Corps Volunteers in Ghana, 30 years ago, a married couple who had beautiful voices and played the guitar made a song entitled "Breast is Best."

It was funny that 30 years ago Peace Corps volunteers in West Africa were dealing with the exact same development issues and addressing them in much the same way. This also got me thinking about development in general, the type of work I will do as a Peace Corps volunteer and what my overall goals are for my two years of service.

Many of the issues I will work on as an HCD volunteer are really basic but vital for successful development of the Gambia. There things that we don't necessarily think about everyday but when they don't happen, especially here, they have extremely detrimental effects. Some of the big HCD issues are hand washing, using mosquito nets and wearing Neem cream (a natural mosquito repellent) to prevent malaria, exclusive breastfeeding and environmental sanitation to prevent diarrhea. They are individually such small issues but their impact is huge.

Until my Dad told me about campaigns for exclusive breastfeeding in Ghana 30 years ago I hadn't really considered how long change can really take. I'm by no means discouraged by this fact but rather it makes me truly consider the impact of my actions, of every casual conversation I have with the people in my village.

I just finished reading The Tipping Point and if Gladwell's theory is true it is really important as a Peace Corps Volunteer to keep saturating Gambian society with these very basic messages. You have to hope that every additional person we teach, will in turn teach many others and that together we will move Gambia as a whole closer to the tipping point where these issues will no longer have such a powerful impact on Gambia's capacity for development. If a Gambian family doesn't have to worry about managing their children's diarrhea or a father isn't wiped out of working for weeks because of malaria than there is a much greater capacity for growth and development.