Imagine waking up everyday without hot water, wondering if the electricity will work today. As you step to the street you’re greeted by young children crying because they have never seen a white face, but grasp onto your hand anyway.

Then as you enter a small village of Nigerian farmers, you’re surrounded by malnourishment and disease.

For Marieta Deming, a health studies professor at Eastern, these conditions became a way of life. She had a desire to make a difference in the lives of Nigerians, but the difference she ended up making was not the one she originally intended.

In October, when Deming arrived in the small village of about 10,000 people in Jengre, Nigeria, she expected to educate the people about AIDS prevention, but just three days into her trip, she realized it was too complex of a problem to stop because of cultural patterns which existed.

“I saw one man who caught AIDS after being shaved with an infected razor at the barber shop,” Deming said. “There were children with AIDS whose parents were negative due to traditional practices.”

It is a village custom to remove the children’s uvualas from their mouths. Oftentimes, the instruments would not be sterilized, which can lead to the spread of AIDS.

Deming noticed another epidemic which she had data on from the World Health Organization. It was malnourishment, and for the next eight weeks, she began talking to women in church groups about how to weigh their babies, read their health cards, and show their mother’s how to prevent malnutrition.

Although the predominant language in Nigeria is English, many women were illiterate, which required Deming to have a translator for her sessions.

I told them simply, she said, that their children are not getting enough beans. Their main source of protein was from peanuts and beans. I taught them how to add corn nuts in the baby’s corn meal mush.

Before returning home in December, Deming ensured her work would be continued.

“I wanted to keep future children from becoming malnourished, and there is someone there carrying on what I taught,” Deming said. “I know this because a doctor’s wife e-mailed me from the city of Jos and told me so.”

Deming lived in a guest house and ate at the medical director’s house during her visit. She gathered women from different churches and taught them how to teach their neighbors about malnourished children.

“Most villages had a school, but some did not, and the children would just lurk around me,” Deming said. “They would greet me by saying ‘good morning Madam.'”

This wasn’t the first time Deming had been in a country in the Third World, she had previously spent eight years as a missionary in Asia.

Deming left for her trip on October 1 and came back on December 20.

“I did not know until the Friday before the Sunday I was going for sure, because there has been violence there,” Deming said. “People there were quite aware of what happened on Sept. 11 and they would get CNN from a satellite in Jungary.”

Deming said the people also knew when the war began in Afghanistan. Approximately half of the population in Nigeria is Muslim. She saw signs supporting Osama Bin Laden, but the people were as nice as can be.

“It was very hard to leave, the people there were the friendliest people I have ever met in my life,” Deming said. “It is a feeling of self-satisfaction to know that someone is there carrying on what I started.”