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| Goats grazing |
Here I share some experiences from my trip to the Sahel where I spent three months in Mauritania a country that is situated just on the fringes of the Sahara desert in Africa.The official name of the country is The Islamic Republic of Mauritania and has an estimated population of about 3 million inhabitants.
I spent two weeks in the Gorgol valley about 400km from the capital city- Nouakchott where I was conducting an epidemiological field survey on Schistosomiasis- a neglected tropical infectious disease.
The landscape in Mauritania is mostly desert with sparse vegetation sprinkled across a vast sea of desert sand. Temperatures are highly variable ranging from as low as 20 degrees at night to about 40 degrees Celsius during the day. Kaedi is the regional capital of the Gorgol region, and is situated at the confluence of the Black Gorgol and the Senegal river which represents the border between Mauritania and northern Senegal. It is considered one of the poorest regions in the country with estimated poverty rates in excess of 60%.
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| Mauritanian Landscape |
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Short plants like these are found sprinkled all across the desert landscape
the region |
There are two seasons in the region, a dry season that extends from November to May and a rainy season that lasts from June to October. There is hardly any rainfall during the rainy season with an average annual rainfall of about 350mm. Despite this sparsity of rainfall, the region experiences occasional torrential downpours that result in flooding of the Senegal and Gorgol rivers. In 2010, after experiencing in ten days the equivalent of an annual rainfall, about 300 households were displaced when the rivers became flooded resulting in a humanitarian emergency. The area has experienced about 4 catastrophic floods in the last decade- a sign that extreme climate change events are likely to become more frequent with devastating implications for locals.
In spite the harsh environment this region is blessed with some of the most resilient plants and animals as well as some very breath taking landscape. Most notable is the camel which can be seen in many places.
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The camel- a very resilient animal found commonly in the region. It is used
as a means of transport and a source of meat, milk and hide for making
many different items |
The Senegal River is to the region what the Nile is to Egypt- a life
line! This beautiful river that marks a transition zone between the
Sahara and the open Savannah is the source of all livelihood in the
area. Women engage in agriculture along the fertile banks of the river,
men fish and tend their cattle along what is a fertile strip of land with grass
for their livestock. Some locals use water from the river for
household consumption, bathing and washing. The the banks of the Senegal river has a breath taking sunset.
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| Sunset on the banks of River Senegal |
Albeit all this, the river is infested with snails that transmit the chronic debilitating disease called Schistosomiasis- the transmission dynamics of which I am currently studying in the area. The disease is transmitted to humans when they are infected by larval stages of the worm which are shed by snails . The snails are incidental hosts as they are also infected when we
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Fertile strip of land along the Senegal river serves as grazing
grounds for goat and sheep |
humans urinate or defecate in along the banks of the river where eggs excreted by either route hatch and give rise to other larval stages that infect snails in the river. It is not an acutely deadly disease but it can cause long term debilitating blood loss and anemia as well as liver, kidney and bladder damage. Ever heard of 'swimmer's itch'? Well the itchy reaction you get when you swim in lakes or fresh water rivers is a result of the 'larval' form of this worm penetrating your skin and eliciting an allergic reaction. So anytime you find yourself in an endemic area (most parts of sub-saharan Africa, middle east and south east Asia), it's good to avoid swimming in fresh water bodies- salty water is okay as the snails cannot survive there. Anyway, enough of boring medical lingo, and back to the adventure!
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| Tukleur men in their traditional outfit |
The main tribes in the area are Tukleur, Pulaar, White moors and Soninkes while the main language spoken is Hassaniyya which sounds like Arabic but is slightly different. Being Gambian afforded the privilege of speaking Wollof- one of the common languages spoken just across the border in Senegal and in the Gambia. Though the Wolof tribe is not common in Mauritania, I found that some people speak it there and it was extremely helpful.
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Mauritanian woman dressed in the traditional 'Mulfah'
(or Mulaafah) |
Most of the residents there are traders and cattle herdsmen. Women engage in petty trading in the market and small scale farming of vegetables especially in the rainy season. I found the people there to be very hospitable and welcoming, the strong Islamic culture is pretty obvious from the start with women covering their heads and sometimes their faces. The traditional outfit in the region for women is the
Mulfah also called the
Mulaafah'. This is basically a piece of cloth intricately wrapped around the body in a very beautiful way. The material is usually quite light which makes a lot of sense considering the temperatures in the areas. Men traditionally wear garbs and a turban, though I noticed that younger men tend to wear western style shirts underneath the garb.
Kaedi itself is made up of neighborhoods or communes that look like villages or hamlets. Those that I visited include- Niti, Tinzah, Touldeh-Tantadji, Jedida and Sinthiane. The people are very hospitable and welcoming, the strong Islamic culture is pretty obvious from the onset with women covering their heads and sometimes their faces while the men are dressed in garbs and a turban. I made the mistake of attempting to shake hands with women in the area forgetting that it was not the cultural norm but I was pardoned.
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| The horse cart is a common mode of transport in the Region |
The residents live mostly in tents made from cloth and can house entire families; however many people sleep outside, which is what I did during the two weeks that I spent there. It is a lot more comfortable because indoors can be extremely hot at night and there are almost no mosquitoes outside (or at least they didn't bite me). The main forms of transport in the area are minivans and taxis- mostly Mercedes Benz 190 series. It is quite similar to other countries in the region where the taste for German cars is quite high. There are the more traditional modes of transport which is commonly used in small villages and in remote areas where cars cannot go- the horse cart. These are used for transporting family members, farm produce you name it and its environmentally friendly as well- no carbon dioxide emissions.
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| A family tent in Niti |
The diet is mostly rice, and goat or camel meat and bread but also consists of goat and camel milk which is very nice. I must confess that the milk was unpasteurized and so along with all that sweetness I ingested a healthy dose of bacteria. An everyday activity that you cannot miss is the green tea: you are bound to be offered almost everywhere you go. This hot beverage is served in small cups with a lot of sugar in it and can be quite strong. Families eat as a group with their hands, usually men eat separately while women and young children eat together.
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| Lunch time |
It is said that water is the essence of life, and that is especially true in this region where despite the presence of the rivers, households do not have access to clean potable water for consumption. Diarrhea accounts for the second most common cause of disease in health centers in the region. During a household survey we conducted in the area, more than one third of preschool children had diarrhea in the two week period preceding our survey. Among these children, two thirds of them need further assessment implying that the severity of diarrhea among those cases was severe enough to necessitate further evaluation.
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Communal tap in the Niti commune: locals come here to fetch water
for household consumption. It is transported in the characteristic
yellow containers which are themselves contaminated because they
are not cleaned frequently |
Traditionally water is obtained from the river, and sometimes from wells but the water table in the region is very deep and not all areas have access to wells. I came across a few communal taps in the area and these are usually very busy with women and children queuing up to fetch water. Even though I was very happy to see these taps in the area, I wondered why children were still suffering from diarrhea. Of course there is an issue of personal hygiene, but I felt that at least access to pipe borne water should have an effect on the occurrence of diarrhea in the area. My questions were answered when I visited households in the villages.
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Contamination at point of storage: water fetched from communal taps are stored in goat hide like
these in households. While it keeps the water very chilled even at temperatures in excess of
40 degrees Celsius, the water is contaminated and full of debris. |
I discovered that when people fetch water from the taps, first of all the container where the water is stored is not clean, hence contamination of water occurs at the source. Secondly, some house holds do not have the yellow plastic containers that are used to transport and store water, but instead they store them the old fashioned way- using goat hide (see picture above). In one household, I encountered a very welcoming host who offered water (as is the case in many African villages). I was intrigued by the storage of the water in these hides, but when I looked in the container, it was full of debris! Not sure of what to do, I pretended to drink the water so that I don't offend my host. I was able to see first hand another source of contamination in the household- at storage. So in these areas, providing taps will not be sufficient to curb the occurrence of diarrhea among children, we must tackle the contamination at the three points- at source, during transport and at storage.
This was a very interesting trip for me because I learnt a lot about the way of life of these people and their adaptation strategies to the harsh environmental conditions in the area. Despite what I read about the country, my experience was a good one.
