10-18-11
Keeping up with blogging is harder than I thought it would be. Time is just going by and life is feeling somewhat normal and routine and so Im not really sure what to write about and what would be interesting for people to know. Somehow time has been going by pretty fast but I know it wont feel that way once my roommate leaves at the end of the month. I will be sad to see her go L
The end of my observation period is coming to an end and I will be going to my reconnect conference at the end of this month as well. It is a conference to review how the first 3 months have gone and to share what our orgs are like with the rest of the group. And the best part is to be able to see everyone from training but unfortunately it will probably for the last time we will all be together for the next two years! We each have to give a 10 min presentation on what we will be doing with our org. And we get to have a Halloween pool party at our bosses house, so that should be fun! Our group is really close, basically I am amazed at how well 30 people get along and we are all really excited to see each other and catch up.
Right now I am working on my SWOT presentation for my orgs, which is their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. So as you can imagine that is not always the easiest thing to tell someone but I think it will be a good starting point for the work I will be doing. It gives me an opportunity to tell them what I think needs improvement and what we can work on together. I think it will be really helpful for the preschool but Im not sure if I will even get a chance to present for ICAP.
ICAP is going to be closing all of their offices in my province at the end of December and they are being replaced by Elizabeth Glacer. I have yet to hear this information directly from ICAP or Peace Corps yet so I am not sure how the transfer will go. I am not sure if I will still be working at the hospital and if the peer educators I am working with will still have their positions. But either way I hope to be able to start an independent association with the peer educators or other HIV positive people in Chokwe. That will be much more sustainable and a step in the right direction to start getting people to help themselves.
My neighbor, Julia, is one of my peer edu and she brought her husband over to our house last week because he wanted to know more about the association we are trying to start. He seems to really understand the process and the reasoning behind forming an association and said he wanted to help and that he knew more people in Chokwe that might be interested as well. I am really excited about this opportunity to work with them because they are an HIV positive couple who is still together and seem to have a good relationship, which means they are a great example for people to talk about their positive status with their spouses. Julia has worked with a former PCV when she lived in a different province, so she understands why I am here and wants to work with me. She worked on a perma-garden with the volunteer and it was very successful, from what she told me. I just feel really lucky that she is my neighbor so I see her all the time and it will be easy to coordinate our time together. She also has a son and a daughter that might be interested in working with me on the youth clubs so that is exciting too. I hope that I build a close relationship with both her and her family throughout my time here.
The preschool is going well. We had a meeting with the teachers about treating the kids with respect and I think the information sunk in and was applied which is really great. The school system is just completely different here and the children are humiliated for not knowing the correct answer. Im sure the teachers were treated this way as children and therefore do not know another way to treat children in the class room. You can imagine this is a hard behavior to change and it will take a very long time im sure but this was definitely a start. I sat in on a monthly financial report last week as well and I plan on helping with some organizational skills and budgeting. Today I had a little meeting with 3 staff members about local crops, what time of year certain vegetables are planted, what the months are for each season… I found out some good information and talked to them about helping me start and work on a garden at the preschool this upcoming planting season. They seem willing to help me so I hope that all works out and we can start adding some more nutrition to the children’s meals.
I have been traveling a lot on the weekends, mostly going to the beach with my roomie and other PCVs. It is really nice to be so close the beach but I have yet to go to a beach with real waves cause every location has been a lagoon or a lake. But it has been fun to stay busy and get to meet new people and see new places. Summer is starting which means it is starting to get really hot here which I am not looking forward to but I have a fan an a cold shower so I think I will be okay J
