Environmentally Responsible Mosquito Control
Trash Cleanup at Kamadhoo – Saturday, 14 September:
Trash Cleanup at Kamadhoo – Saturday, 14 September:
Trash Cleanup at Kamadhoo – Saturday, 14 September:
Trash Cleanup at Kamadhoo – Saturday, 14 September:
Aerial view of Kamadhoo – 15 September
Atoll view from Kamadhoo, Landaa in the distance – 15 September
A beautiful day at Dhonfanu.
Many people came together to clean the garbage from the house yards and streets!
We collected 5 and 1/2 jumbo bags of recycling!
And bags, and bags, and bags of trash.
A beautiful day in the neighborhood,
with some of my favorite mosquito control buddies.
So, we’re down to the last week. I’ve been working with Sean the past two weeks in Goidhoo and I’m currently partnered with James in Dhonfanu. They’re both really cool guys and they’re great people to work with. It helps to have good partners when your island is so challenging.
Let me start with Goidhoo. What can I say about Goidhoo? The people were helpful, the council, the healthpost and school were all very involved with the project but it was still very challenging. Mainly because of a couple of huge obstacles popping up in the form of huge freshwater lakes that they have. The weird part about the lakes is that even though they’re cut off from the sea, the water is still salty enough to kill most any fish we put in it, but not salty enough to kill mosquitoes. So it’s a huge breeding ground. Other than that, it was smooth sailing. We managed to even re-check the town twice and find more breeding spots. I hope Goidhoo keeps the project going because the people there seemed motivated to do it, but we’ll see.
And then James and I got assigned to DhonFanu. Let me say, this island is small but at first it seemed difficult to get the community to support the project. Starting Wednesday a bunch of kids and some of the women came out to help and they seem very motivated and I can see some potential leaders starting to emerge. Hopefully things carry on the same and we’ll be able to do some meaningful work in the island.
As for me, I’m actually kind of surprised that it’s the last week. The days have just been flying by and a part of me is sad that it’s coming to an end, but then again I look forward to going back home to family and friends. This has been an amazing trip so far packed with memories.
One thing is for certain, I’ll miss all the amazing people I’ve met on this trip and it’ll be hard to say goodbye. I definitely won’t miss the mosquitoes, though.
Till next time!
Working on the island with Mark and Piko has been really great so far. It’s about the same size as Hithaadhoo but it does have a lot more trash and coconut shells, which means more spots for mosquitos to breed. We started work on Monday because of the election, giving us one less day to get the project going but wasted no time in getting meetings and school presentations together. After meetings with members of the health post, island council, women’s committee, and the school we had gained support from several members of the community. The women’s committee stepped up right away and said they would like to keep working on the program once our team leaves. It was great to see that they are so eager in making sure the project continues!
By the second day on the island we had finished up presentations to most of the school kids and had a group of 12 boys join us for survey that same afternoon. They were all very helpful, hard workers who were more than willing to climb up onto tanks to check for larvae. We also had women from the women’s committee and Zumair, a representative from the Health Post help us on survey. Everyone has been showing up every day since and I hope that next week we’ll be able to focus more on breaking into smaller teams and getting more homes done because more people will have been trained to search for mosquito breeding spots.
The island trash clean up is tomorrow and I am sure that we are going to have a good turn out o both kids from the school as well as adult community members. Let’s just hope it doesn’t rain like it has for the last two clean ups.
So, as I was saying, the first week went pretty well! Dan and I were preparing to take a welcomed off day to explore Fuladhoo, when we got a request from Goidhoo to reschedule the island cleanup-to the next morning-due to political activities. Without a better option for the community, we decided to go for it and hold it on Friday. Wisham still managed to garner a lot of last minute support, and we found a large group of all ages when we arrived that morning! It was a challenge to keep organized with so little preparation, but in the end it turned out well, with the community finishing the town cleanup in just over two hours! Over a hundred bags of trash and four jumbo bags of recycling ended stacked on the jetty. (Shout out to man Chad “Ali” Oliver for giving up his day off to help our island cleanup!)
Some setbacks started, however. The constant storms in the area had prevented students from taking extra classes on other islands, people from shopping, campaigning, and visiting family. We ended up with a much smaller team of volunteers for the second survey of the town, and most of the thousands of fish we introduced into the swamp became sick from salt intrusion. Plenty of the people we were coordinating with were gone, and a lot of the student helpers stopped coming (and had tutoring). We tried our best to shore up areas surrounding town and fix all the mosquito problem areas we had found. We also worked to find a solution to the jungle breeding but felt short on resources and manpower. Finally, we worked out details for project sustainability with island administrators. Wisham took on the project director role, survey leaders were identified, and Lira even managed to get increased commitment from the school for student help!
I left the island wishing for a bit more energy at the end, but overall hopeful for the long-term prospects of survey and mosquito control. It was a great town to work with and somehow was an environment that always felt comfortable and welcoming. It helped to have a great team mate. Thanks Dan!