By now it's no secret; I'm not so great at this whole blogging thing. I keep saying that I will start writing posts more frequently and apparently that is just one big lie. I'm working on it, I promise. I will write more often. Inschallah.
Anyway, here's what interesting/productive things I've been up to since my last post:
-> In early February, I assisted Laura, my site-mate -aka the volunteer who is my closest neighbor- in 3 day sexual education training, unofficially known as "Project Combating Unwanted Teenage Pregnancy in Middle Schools using Peer Educators." Basically the teachers at the middle school selected the best and the brightest students from each class to attend the training and then act as peer educators and thus pass on their knowledge to their fellow students. I wish I could say that this was my idea, but it was all Laura. Sustainability is a big concern for all of us as Peace Corps Volunteers. The great thing about this project is that instead of Peace Corps Volunteers individually doing trainings, the peer educators will, thus hopefully creating a sustainable situation in which students can train students every year, even after Laura and I are gone.
Anyway, the training covered the following sex ed topics: adolescence and puberty, the menstrual cycle, family planning, STDs and AIDS, techniques for leading a health talk, and parental responsibility. We implicated the health post nurse in the project by inviting her to teach certain sessions and bring condoms; the other sessions were led by teachers and Laura. For the rest of the school year, Laura and I will meet with the peer educators to plan sensibilisations (trainings) for their own classmates. We assigned one sensibilisation topic and a date each month.
All in all, it was a really successful training. Honestly, Laura deserves most, if not all, of the credit for this entire project. My role during all of this was not as much to relay information but to make sure that the sessions were participative and inciting discussion. Also, I really just wanted to be there so that I can plan another training like this one by myself next year.
->Mosquito net distribution project.
To make a long story short, for some reason, incompetence is my guess, when mosquito nets were distributed to health centers in Senegal last year, the entire region of Tambacounda just got left out. What that translated into was that during the rainy season, one of my main jobs was to encourage people to buy and use mosquito nets. Well, even if I did manage to convince people to use mosquito nets, it didn't matter because they couldn't by them anywhere. Not the best situation.
So, Trever, who is an urban health volunteer here in Tamba, took matters into his own hands and somehow got connected with an NGO in America that is going to send us mosquito nets for next year (for free!). In order to get numbers, though, we all had to do community surveys to get exact numbers of beds/sleeping spaces for each household in our villages. I got the numbers for my village in, and if all goes according to plan, my entire village will have brand new mosquito nets in time for the rainy (malaria) season. I'm pretty excited about that.
->WAIST (West African Invitational Softball Tournament)
Lots of great pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/WAIST2009#
February 13-16 was WAIST in Dakar. It was pretty much spring break for Peace Corps Volunteers from all over West Africa. It was really fun because the volunteers from each region in Senegal had their own team, complete with ridiculous themes. Our theme was “Peace Corporate” and just about everyone, myself included, looked preposterous. Volunteers from other West African countries had their own teams and themes too, also mostly ridiculous and/or inappropriate. In case you’re wondering, team TambaGou (our team) didn’t win a single game. Our priorities were more along the lines of having a good time...It was a lot of fun, as you can probably tell from the pictures, but it was kind of a culture shock to be around so many Americans for so long. I can't express it, but by the end of the tournament, I was just ready to go back to the solace of my village.
Judging from the pictures, one might get the impression that it was just a week of out of control partying and a break from any "real" development work. Though that's a fair presumption, we did manage to combine having parties and raising money for SeneGAD, the gender and development organization of Peace Corps Senegal Volunteers. One night the US Marines in Senegal hosted a date auction/party at their house; we auctioned off several of our more brave Senegal volunteers, and the bidding wars that ensued raised hundreds of dollars for SeneGAD. The next night, the Dakar region volunteers rented out a great club in Dakar for all of the West African volunteers to attend. They charged an entrance fee and worked the bar, with all profits going to SeneGAD. It was such a fun party. So many people were there, and everyone was drinking heavily, and though it sounds weird to say, the money raised from our excessive drinking at that party raised more than $2000 for SeneGAD. All of this money will go to help funding things like girls scholarships and leadership camps. At least now don't feel as guilty about leaving my village for a week long drinking binge. =)
->HIV/AIDS Life Skills Workshop
This workshop was really amazing. I have pictures posted http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/LifeSkillsAIDSWorkshop# and I just don't have it in me to write any more right now....I will write more later, inschallah.
That’s about all I can muster right now, but I hope that everyone is healthy, happy, and safe. I love and miss you all!
PS Jilliann is coming to visit me in approximately 2 weeks and I couldn't possibly be more excited about it!!
