Linda Marr gives a girl from the Samo village a Vitamin A capsule to boost immunity and vision.
Team member Linda Marr wrote this blog.
Greatings from Cote d’Ivoire! Today was a wonderful way to end the week. We went back to Grand Bassam where we had been all week and visited families’ homes to be sure they had hung their mosquito nets correctly. We started out in an area Austin (our interpreter) called the slums. Each alley opened into a central covered cooking area with homes surrounding it. The homes all had concrete floors and corrugated metal roofs and the walls were covered by what looked like posters. About half of the people had their nets up and those who didn’t were grateful to have us show them.
We then went toward the beach to a more affluent but still humble area where some of the mothers told us they had not been given any instructions at all. This was a little disturbing but we hoped that if we helped a few they would tell their neighbors how to hang their nets. There was one man who was anxious to show us his hung net. He already had one untreated net where his family had been sleeping and he told us that since he had only one child he was letting other children in the area sleep under the new treated net. What an example of radical hospitality!
A Muslim woman waits at the Methodist Hospital in Dabou to receive an insectide-treated mosquito net to protect her child from malaria.
In the afternoon we met with our host’s pastor and shared sodas and told him the ‘news’ which included a lot of pastor talk. Before we left our interpreter for the week, Juliana, told me that there was someone to see Susan Silvas and I. It was one of the Ivorian volunteers who worked with us for 2 days. This man was a dead ringer for Bill Cosby and was so gentle with the children. He saved us one day during a dicey situation concerning whether or not parents needed vaccination records. He had brought us each a vase that his brother had made that was triangular in shape and he told us that the 3 sides represented the trinity. He felt God had brought us to Cote d’Ivoire to distribute nets to the children of his country. He also said that a Muslim man came to get a net and told him that he was planning to convert to Christianity because of what the Methodist churches in the two countries had done to help the people of Cote d’Ivoire. I had thought from the beginning that this trip was God’s trip and I certainly knew it at that point.
Thanks to all of those from A&M United Methodist Church for supporting this great cause and for your prayers for me. I have many stories to tell and video footage of Aggie Yell Practice in Cote d’Ivoire so see you soon!
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