Summer 2015: Living Out of my Backpack
Hello!
I got back to site yesterday after 3 weeks away. If you keep up with my blog you're probably wondering when am I ever in my village and the answer is not enough! I've essentially been living out of my backpack for the past two months. This time around, pretty much half of my community thought I was in America-which I am pretending I am as I eat these cheez-its (thanks Grace!) My time away was all in country, which included the following stops: Kigali (Meetings)--> Rwamagana (Assisting at PST)-->Ruhango (GLOW/BE Camps)--> Kigali (Health 7 Swear in). Although I was looking forward to all of these events, I was a bit nervous about leaving site for that long-it was the longest span of time I'd been away since moving here.
With ongoing weekly projects like the WASH lessons and the community finance classes, I had to put all my trust in my counterparts to ensure everything would continue smoothly, which it did! On my way to the health center this morning I ran into two of the finance class members who told me they were enjoying class and saving a lot of money as a group, although they were wondering why I hadn't been there in awhile! My WASH counterpart also informed me that the lessons were running well and that he was able to visit a few of the classes every week since they started 3 weeks ago. The ultimate goal is for these projects function and continue without my involvement (and by involvement I really mean sitting in on the lessons understanding maybe 25% of what's going on....) once I leave next year. With WASH we're hoping that the hygiene clubs formed from the program will continue to teach different groups in the community and implement different activities by themselves. For the finance class we hope that the group will eventually use their group savings to start a sustainable income-generating project that will be beneficial to all members and the greater community as well.
In other project news, the USAID mobile library program delivered 850 books to the community library the week before I left so my library counterpart, some student helpers and I were only able to organize and shelf some of the books before I had to leave, but luckily they finished the job while I was away! Tomorrow I'll be there to start the tedious process of recording every book in the library
Having projects falling apart or abruptly ending is a challenge many Peace Corps volunteers face during or after service, so I hope that in my last year here the practices influenced by them can continue. Unfortunately the health center's kids club hasn't been as fortunate over the past 2 months. Because I teach and schedule that monthly program I haven't been able to have it since June, and the next scheduled one isn't until September. To ensure this program takes place every month, my goal is to recruit 2 secondary students to help me teach and translate the lessons, so that when I am unavailable they can still meet.
The bulk of my time away was to help facilitate the GLOW and BE camps. As mentioned in a previous post I was able to bring students from the boarding school in my village to attend this year. I didn't know the students that well before camp, but after spending just a week with them I was able to learn a lot about them and am very excited to work with them to start the clubs at the school! I'm especially proud that one of my girls won the camp scholar award and one of my boys won the BE boy award! For GLOW I was a facilitator, so I taught lessons on HIV, Peer Pressure, Nutrition and Hygiene. For BE I was a floater which mostly consisted of teaching the Junior Facilitators (students that help us teach and translate) about American Dance/Music and Workforce, running around doing random tasks, and dancing whenever/ wherever music was on. Theses camps were back to back which isn't the norm, so by the second week we were all exhausted and a bit grumpy, but we had to power through for the boys! I have to admit that I was definitely wiped out by the second week, but it was all so worth it. The students were a lot a fun and were extremely dedicated to learning and participating in all aspects of camp.
Before heading back to site I spent the weekend in Kigali to prepare about a million presentations (okay 3) with Melissa to present Health 7 with a guide to complete their Community Needs Assessment and also to prepare the presentations we will be giving at the Stomp Out Malaria Boot Camp next week in Senegal! Finally on Tuesday we attended the Health 7 and the response teachers swear in ceremony, where they officially became Volunteers! The Director of the Peace Corps, Carrie Hessler-Radelet, was visiting from Washington D.C so many of us were able to meet and chat with her! It turns out she spent some time teaching in The Gambia so she tried speaking to me in Wolof....which of course didn't go very far lol.
It was a successful 3 weeks to say the least. Now it's time to get back to work (aka watching a TV show and cooking spaghetti)
Until Next Time,
Vanessa
I got back to site yesterday after 3 weeks away. If you keep up with my blog you're probably wondering when am I ever in my village and the answer is not enough! I've essentially been living out of my backpack for the past two months. This time around, pretty much half of my community thought I was in America-which I am pretending I am as I eat these cheez-its (thanks Grace!) My time away was all in country, which included the following stops: Kigali (Meetings)--> Rwamagana (Assisting at PST)-->Ruhango (GLOW/BE Camps)--> Kigali (Health 7 Swear in). Although I was looking forward to all of these events, I was a bit nervous about leaving site for that long-it was the longest span of time I'd been away since moving here.
With ongoing weekly projects like the WASH lessons and the community finance classes, I had to put all my trust in my counterparts to ensure everything would continue smoothly, which it did! On my way to the health center this morning I ran into two of the finance class members who told me they were enjoying class and saving a lot of money as a group, although they were wondering why I hadn't been there in awhile! My WASH counterpart also informed me that the lessons were running well and that he was able to visit a few of the classes every week since they started 3 weeks ago. The ultimate goal is for these projects function and continue without my involvement (and by involvement I really mean sitting in on the lessons understanding maybe 25% of what's going on....) once I leave next year. With WASH we're hoping that the hygiene clubs formed from the program will continue to teach different groups in the community and implement different activities by themselves. For the finance class we hope that the group will eventually use their group savings to start a sustainable income-generating project that will be beneficial to all members and the greater community as well.
In other project news, the USAID mobile library program delivered 850 books to the community library the week before I left so my library counterpart, some student helpers and I were only able to organize and shelf some of the books before I had to leave, but luckily they finished the job while I was away! Tomorrow I'll be there to start the tedious process of recording every book in the library
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| Library Progress! |
The bulk of my time away was to help facilitate the GLOW and BE camps. As mentioned in a previous post I was able to bring students from the boarding school in my village to attend this year. I didn't know the students that well before camp, but after spending just a week with them I was able to learn a lot about them and am very excited to work with them to start the clubs at the school! I'm especially proud that one of my girls won the camp scholar award and one of my boys won the BE boy award! For GLOW I was a facilitator, so I taught lessons on HIV, Peer Pressure, Nutrition and Hygiene. For BE I was a floater which mostly consisted of teaching the Junior Facilitators (students that help us teach and translate) about American Dance/Music and Workforce, running around doing random tasks, and dancing whenever/ wherever music was on. Theses camps were back to back which isn't the norm, so by the second week we were all exhausted and a bit grumpy, but we had to power through for the boys! I have to admit that I was definitely wiped out by the second week, but it was all so worth it. The students were a lot a fun and were extremely dedicated to learning and participating in all aspects of camp.
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| GLOW Camp, Peace Hope Family |
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| BE Camp, all of the boys |
Before heading back to site I spent the weekend in Kigali to prepare about a million presentations (okay 3) with Melissa to present Health 7 with a guide to complete their Community Needs Assessment and also to prepare the presentations we will be giving at the Stomp Out Malaria Boot Camp next week in Senegal! Finally on Tuesday we attended the Health 7 and the response teachers swear in ceremony, where they officially became Volunteers! The Director of the Peace Corps, Carrie Hessler-Radelet, was visiting from Washington D.C so many of us were able to meet and chat with her! It turns out she spent some time teaching in The Gambia so she tried speaking to me in Wolof....which of course didn't go very far lol.
It was a successful 3 weeks to say the least. Now it's time to get back to work (aka watching a TV show and cooking spaghetti)
Until Next Time,
Vanessa
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