World Malaria Day!

This week we had a week of school vacation, marking the end of the first trimester.  Somehow I felt like I was more busy all this week and suddenly it's Sunday and I have to lesson plan and get ready to go back to class on Monday!  I spent most of the week working with my JUNTOS group at school which is an extracurricular theater group.  With my students' input, I had organized activities with them to commemorate World Malaria Day (April 25th).  For Friday the 20th, we invited another theater group to our school.  We had a theater technical trainer there who worked with the kids to better their theater skills and to give them ideas about communicating certain issues or topics to the community.  Each group came prepared with a skit about malaria and in the afternoon each group rehearsed their skit and received critiques and commentary from the other.  After a long day of activities, we ended and the participants stayed for a while and played soccer before heading home.
On Saturday, the groups arrived bright and early at the health center in Chongoene.  We were told to get their early to present so that we could catch people waiting in line to be treated before the hospital opened.  The theory was that no sick patient would sit and watch skits if it was their turn to see the doctor.  We were a little bit concerned about patients not wanting to move to be able to watch the skits more closely with the fear that they would lose their spot in line.  Two of my students decided to go explain to the people waiting that we would be presenting skits for them and the students handed out pieces of paper with numbers on them corresponding to each person's place in line so they wouldn't lose the order if they moved.  Surprisingly, the people waiting at the hospital caught on very quickly to this idea and there were a continuous stream of people asking for numbers so that they wouldn't miss out!  We didn't exactly start our skits on time ( I mean, this is Mozambique), but then again the health center didn't open on time either, which worked in our favor.  Each group entered and presented their skit and then a member of a third group gave a short informational talk about how malaria is caused, how to prevent malaria, and what to do if you get sick.  I didn't catch everything he said because it was all in the local dialect, but I understood enough to know that he got all of the main points right.
The skits presented focused on the use of mosquito nets when sleeping, clean living conditions in and around the house (i.e. no standing water), vulnerability of pregnant women and children under 5 to the disease, and the importance of seeking treatment at a hospital instead of by a traditional healer.
We had a pretty good turnout and even when the health center opened everyone stayed outside and watched until the presentation was completely over.
It was great for the kids to have an opportunity to present to members of the community and to work with youth from other communities on this project as well.  They are all so motivated and enthusiastic and I hope that we can work with other groups to reach out to the community many more times this year.
Malaria is the 2nd leading cause of death from infectious diseases in Africa, after HIV/AIDS.  This is a disease that affects so many people in Sub-Saharan Africa and so much can be accomplished by educating people about prevention methods and treatment! By giving communities the tools and resources to reduce malaria infection and deaths caused by malaria, we can save millions of lives.