Dancing Skeletons
Meagan Conrad
ANT-103
Rough Draft
March 16, 2012
Transfixed by Dancing Skeletons Katherine Dettwyler’s work in the field while she was in West Africa was exciting, filled with humor and even terrifying at times. She dealt with seeing various life-threatening diseases that affected the lives of children her daughter’s age, as well as adults. Dettwyler found that almost all of the people she came in contact with were completely oblivious and uninformed of the ways to prevent diseases such as malaria, Schistosomiasis, malnutrition and other infectious diseases unique to their region of the world. In her book, Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa (1994), Dettwyler discusses tons of the health problems she comes across, in addition to her personal life and the emotions that came with all of the horrible things she saw. The book describes Dettwyler interacting with the people of Magnabougou, Mali asking for them to do various things or asking them pertinent questions that she needed to conduct her research on traditional infant feeding patterns and their effects on children’s growth. She had gone there once before from 1981-1983 with her husband Steven and daughter Miranda and returned in 1989, and made it a point to try and find all of the children she had weighed and measured in her previous visit. She had to leave Steven and her four-year-old son at home because Steven had a “real job” and Peter had Down syndrome, so Miranda would be the only one joining her this time. Katherine made new friends and had the help of Moussa, her old friend, field assistant and interpreter, who she took with her at all times while conducting research. She had spoken the language of Babmara, which shocked the locals, however she could only talk about things pertaining to her research and a few other topics. (This is why she needed Moussa.) She had brought Miranda with again, which seemed a bit foolish to me, given all of the diseases and problems that could arise while
ANT-103
Rough Draft
March 16, 2012
Transfixed by Dancing Skeletons Katherine Dettwyler’s work in the field while she was in West Africa was exciting, filled with humor and even terrifying at times. She dealt with seeing various life-threatening diseases that affected the lives of children her daughter’s age, as well as adults. Dettwyler found that almost all of the people she came in contact with were completely oblivious and uninformed of the ways to prevent diseases such as malaria, Schistosomiasis, malnutrition and other infectious diseases unique to their region of the world. In her book, Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa (1994), Dettwyler discusses tons of the health problems she comes across, in addition to her personal life and the emotions that came with all of the horrible things she saw. The book describes Dettwyler interacting with the people of Magnabougou, Mali asking for them to do various things or asking them pertinent questions that she needed to conduct her research on traditional infant feeding patterns and their effects on children’s growth. She had gone there once before from 1981-1983 with her husband Steven and daughter Miranda and returned in 1989, and made it a point to try and find all of the children she had weighed and measured in her previous visit. She had to leave Steven and her four-year-old son at home because Steven had a “real job” and Peter had Down syndrome, so Miranda would be the only one joining her this time. Katherine made new friends and had the help of Moussa, her old friend, field assistant and interpreter, who she took with her at all times while conducting research. She had spoken the language of Babmara, which shocked the locals, however she could only talk about things pertaining to her research and a few other topics. (This is why she needed Moussa.) She had brought Miranda with again, which seemed a bit foolish to me, given all of the diseases and problems that could arise while