How monsters are affecting women’s health in Afghanistan

Qaraghage is the second of the four regions in Charkent District and the farthest region, 167 Kilometre from Mazar city, with nine big villages each divided into three to four sub-villages, and two basic health centres.

There is a doctor and a midwife in each of the two health centres but few women come to the health centre for maternity care and childbirth. When I discussed it with Sharifa, a midwife in Qurban Quduq health centre (where we have just started to work with), she said that there have been just two deliveries since January 2011.
She also said that the villagers were not interested in going to health centre; they were more interested to go to Mullahs and remedy workers.

The villagers believes that it is the monsters who kill the women during childbirth and the women need to be kept at home to be protected against monsters during childbirth.

The Story of Shokrai

           I witnessed the case of Shokria from Dashti village when we were in Qaraghage for training community health workers. It was very strange for me.

Shokria, 18 years old, Iosuf Ali's wife, in her first pregnancy .  She was living just 15 minutes walk from health centre but they were not willing to go to health centre for childbirth.
She gave birth at home and was bleeding after delivery. They tried home remedies like inviting Mullahs to recite from Quran, pushing the dog to bark and burning straw to make smoke the monster go away.

But these remedies did not work and she fainted and they asked the midwife to go to their home then we sent the vehicle to bring the patient to the health centre but they rejected it.

We talked with the headman and Mullah to tell the husband to let her be transferred to the health centre. It was strange when we saw Shokria was arriving in health centre with the husband pulling her ears to protect her from monster.

            Shokria was transferred back to her home after nine hours of recovering in health centre and she had no bleeding and the husband and all her family, the grandfather and Mother was very happy and thankful for the transportation and treatments.

            The husband said “I was about to lose my wife just because of having wrong beliefs. I understood now that it is the bleeding which kills the women during childbirth, not the monsters and also our home remedies makes the situation worse we should take the women with bleeding to health centre instead of keeping at home”

From the left Iosuf Ali the husband pulling his wife's ears to protect her against monsters and Shokria the woman with bleeding after childbirth and the grandmother, on the way coming to health centre. 

Distributing Chickens to the Villagers in Charkent

We aim to improve nutrition and enable women to earn by selling eggs. They don't have any money but chickens are usually a woman's business and they get the money from eggs.

We had to follow their priority of giving first to poor, widows and disabled.Not all of these are the people we are aiming to help most, but they have all agreed to provide ten chickens each next year for other villagers and those will be mothers with young children. 

After we trained the women in Poultry Production, helped them to build chicken's houses and gave feeders and drinkers, we distributed the chickes.The Balkh Agriculture Department helped us technically. The following pictures shows when we were distributing Chickens for poors, handicaped and widows.

This picture shows the chickens distribution, from the right the chicken seller, Sayed Arif the animal specialist from Balkh Agriculture, Irrigation and Animal Husbandry department and Zahra the a woman from Shangir village. 

This picture shows a village man on the left with me on the right, receiving the chickens. His name is Adina, he is 48 years old. Adina said "I didn't think that the delivery was so dangerous for my wife, because she has had several deliveries, all at home but she died of severe bleeding after delivery in 30 minutes that we couldn't have time to find a vehicle or donkey to take her to the clinic. The baby also died after two months because there was no one to take care of him". He also said that he had no land of his own and he was working on others land to feed their children but this year he hasn't been able to harvest enough to feed his children.

The following three pictures shows when we were distributing improved food for chickens

We provided each chicken with the improved food for two month, it is the time then the chickens can eat the food found locally.  

 

Training Village Women in Poultry Production

To improve the women and children’s health by nutritious foods and to make the women somehow financially independent with a role in decision making, we are going to provide poor and handicapped women and widows in the villages with chickens.

The picture below shows the women in Poultry Production Training in Sharshar, they were trained by a trainer from Balkh Agriculture Department. The women were drawing pictures of chicken houses, the pictures of selecting proper egges for breeding and all the training was in pictures.

Since all the village women are illitatrate, so we were training them in poultry production by showing and drawing pictures and working on models.

The picture below shows a model of chicken house that the trainer we hired from Balkh Agriculture Department was showing the women how to make it.

The picture below shows when the trainer was showing village women practically how to make a proper house for chickens.

Villagers dispute over water in Shashkhana village

The pictures below shows the villagers from Yakatal, Karmaglig, Boriabaf and Shashkhana carrying sticks with themselves when they were disputing over the water in Shashkhana villages.

The four villages are getting water from the same spring. I got the head men to thumbprint an agreement to pipe the water in Shashkhana village and other villages would go there for water.  But when the piping was finished the other three villages started dispute and wanted to destroy the tank and pull out the pipes. But Khalil the assistant for the project midiated and asked both sides to sit and talk he has said “If you find that it is bad I will destroy it for you”. Ther reason for this kinds fo disputes has root in the past years of fighting which they have fought in different groups.

 

The water reached to Shashkhana village

 The villagers have access to clean drinking water and they have enough clean drinking water and the water to save apple tries from dying.

The following pictures shows the villagers were laying pipes

The picture below shows the two children were very happy because the water has reached to their village and were saying ” It was very hard for us to go on the mountain to bring the water specially in summer when the donkey was busy and we had no water for drinking sometimes for weeks. When the piping is finished we will always have access to clean drinking water”.

Another villagein severe need of water

Shahngir is the biggest village in Charkent district, with 300 families.
Only one spring in this village has not dried and this spring does not have
enough water for all the 300 families and their animals.

The weather is hot and it is Ramadon and the Mullah says not to drink any water, the thirsty boy just reached to the water and is drinking water with the bucket. He was relaxed after drinking the water and said “Our home is very far from the spring and we had no water all night”.

The above tow pictures show a man taking water in tubes. He said “I walk one and half hours to get to the water but some times when I came here there is no water and I have to wait four to five hours to get water. If it dries we have to leave our homes and move somewhere else”

The reason ,we as a health organization, are providing water, that it reduces diarrhoea and deaths of children from drinking dirty water. And it also creates much good will for co-operative work with villagers

Work on Water in Shashkhana village

Two Weeks ago I wrote about planning to provide water , now the work on piping is started and after one week it  will be finished and the villagers will have access to clean drinking water.

The above picture shows the men are building a small tank on spring to start piping