For the price of a coke or a smoke you could...help people stop dying from a ridiculously preventable disease

I've been in Senegal for over a year now and I haven't asked for any money from you all, my generous family and friends, the entire time.  Well, that was fun while it lasted but all good things must come to and end.  

AgainstMalaria.com has agreed to sponsor Peace Corps Senegal for 6,500 bednets.  On Monday I got the exciting news that my village gets to be a part of this distribution!  So, with the help of AgainstMalaria.com's generous price-matching program, we are getting mosquito nets at the bargain price of $2 each.  My village needs 138 mosquito nets, which means that I am responsible for raising $276.  And that's where you all come in.

Did you know that nearly 3,000 children die every day in Africa from malaria? Three thousand kids! That's a 9/11 every day!  How much money would it take to stop a preventable 9/11 from happening every day in Africa?  I think I can safely say that it's way more money than you or I or anyone we know has.  But if all of you can get behind this cause and give what you can to it, the aggregate amount and its effect will be significant.  Nets are a simple, life saving solution, but we need your help to provide them to those in need.  $2 to buy, distribute, and educate...so little to save a life, and you can help.  

You can donate directly at www.AgainstMalaria.com/AmberPatterson

If you all can help me raise the $276 for my village, there are other volunteers who could use your help, too.  We are all grouped together and you can make a general donation at www.AgainstMalaria.com/PCVs6500.

Thank you in advance for your help! 

The Past And The Pending...aka updates from my life

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!! 

The things I will do for ice cream...

So it is still technically the "cold" season here and guess what the temperature is? 100 degrees. Awesome. Not very cold, right? That's what I said.

With that in mind, some friends and I are biking to The Gambia today for soft serve ice cream. It's about a 40 kilometer bike ride from my village to The Gambia, but if all goes well, it will be worth it. However, nothing is really going as planned. I was supposed to meet 3 other volunteers in Velingara, a town 20 kilometers from my village, this morning at 11. From there we were planning on biking the remaining 20 kilometers to Basse, The Gambia. However each of the 4 of us have had some difficulties getting here.

As for me, as I was biking out of my village to the school this morning to meet my French tutor, I got a flat tire. Great. So, I walked my bike about 3 kilometers to the school and was very late for my French lesson. After the lesson I was planning on bikng here (Velingara) to meet my friends, but instead I had wait on the side of the road for a car to take me and my broken bike here. When I finally arrived, I paid someone to put air into my tire and happily went to meet my friends. About 15 minutes later, though, I realized that in my absentminded rush to meet my friends, I left my backpack at the bike place. So, I turn around, walk all the way back to the pike place, get my backpack, and go back to meet my friends. Unfortunately, however, as I was walking away, my tire immediately went flat again. I was very annoyed and very hot at this point. I met one of my friends, who told me that she had forgotten her passport in her village and was contemplating biking back to get it. The two other people we were waiting on were having transport difficulties and said they wouldn't be here until this afternoon. So, to make a long story short, we had time to kill. At the present moment my bike is being repaired and will hopefully be fixed by the time we all are ready to leave here.

As for the ice cream, aside from transportation issues, we also have to hope that the electricity came on today in Basse for the guy to prepare it. Apparently the electricity only comes on from 6am-10am and 6pm-10pm there. So, yesterday we had to call the guy and tell him that we were coming and make sure that he knows to prepare the ice cream. Additionally, we called him this morning to remind him again, because apparently he has to prepare the ice cream in the morning when the electircity is on and then wait for the electiricty to come back on in the evening to serve it. The elctiricty often doesn't come on at all here for no good reason, so we are placing a pretty big bet on the fact that the electircity comes on both times today and stays on long enough for this guy to make and serve the glorious ice cream.

Since we have to wait until the evening to have the ice cream, we are going to have to spend the night there. Luckily there is a Peace Corps house there that we can stay at for free. Tomorrow, after biking back here, Im going to go to my friend Holly's village to help her with a mosquito net project we are doing here. Unfortunately my internet time is running out, but I will write more about the mosquito net distribution project we are doing next time I come to the internet.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Pictures instead of 1,000 words

Hello all!

I've been really busy lately and haven't had much of a chance to write any new blog entries.  In lieu of a blog, here are some links to pictures I have recently posted:

http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/December2008

http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/Christmas2008NewYears2009

Enjoy!  PS if you are reading my blog and would like me to continue writing it, please let me know. Thanks and hope everyone is having a very happy new year!

Happy Thanksgiving

I know it's a little late, but I just wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving! I also would like to write a little about my pilgrim-style Thanksgiving experience here.

So, there were 3 main options for big American-style (what other style there is, I don't know) Thanksgiving celebrations here in Senegal; the Peace Corps regional houses in the North and in Kedougou were both were planning big dinners, or we were all also invited to dinner at the Ambassador's in Dakar. I was planning on going to the one closest to me in Kedougou, but the day before just didn't really feel like making the journey and honestly just felt indifferent about the whole Thanksgiving celebration here. My friends Josh and Tracy also felt the same way, so
we decided to stay here and cook our own Thanksgiving dinner.

The cooking was interesting; we didn't have much to work with as far as making "traditional" Thanksgiving dishes with ingredients from the market. Also, Tracy and Josh are both vegetarians, and I'm not a pilgrim, we didn't have a turkey. I lack the know-how and desire to go through the process of "live turkey in the market" to "Thanksgiving feast turkey on the table." Those skills are required here just as much as they were for that first Thanksgiving, and I'd rather just go without.

The celebration of Thanksgiving is not just about eating good food, though. It's also about giving thanks and being with people you care about. With that in mind, we decided to invite some guests to our celebration: Sara, a woman who is doing research for a Fulbright here and her husband, our favorite guard El Hajj, and two other Senegalese men, Pap and Ibrahaima, who are not only great friends but also very helpful to Tamba volunteers in a variety of ways.

I've never really done much of the "lets all say what we are thankful for" in past Thanksgivings, but this year I was all about it. I began the giving of thanks by saying how thankful I was to be surrounded by so many great friends: thankful to be in the same region as Tracy and Josh, thankful to learn about and be able to help Sara's Fulbright research, and especially thankful for the special relationships I have formed with the Senegalese people we invited.

I then went on to say that I'm thankful for this entire Peace Corps experience- the highs and the lows- and for the personal growth phase I am going through right now. I'm thankful for friends and family that haven't forgot about me and make sure that I know it. I'm thankful for so very much, I could go on and on, which is also something to be thankful for. Eventually I stopped being sentimental and let everyone else have their turn, and it was just such a touching experience to go around the table and hear what everyone was thankful for. Spanning nationality, religion, and culture, and so much more, there were general things that we all gave thanks for- the families we were born in to and the families we have made, health, food on the table and love in our hearts.

This was my first Thanksgiving away from home, and I expected it to be hard for me, but having dinner with so many interesting, dynamic people from such different backgrounds really felt like the true spirit of Thanksgiving to me. What I want to say is that this Thanksgiving was the first time that I have seriously thought about how much I have to be thankful for. It's taken me almost 9 months, but I am finally becoming energized and engaged and comfortable here. What I've learned recently is that the frustrations, disappointments and heartaches I experience here will eventually be made up for by the fascinations, euphoria's, and revelations. I'm in the fascinations, euphoria's, and revelations stage right now and couldn't be happier.

Much love to all of you, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Girls Leadership Camp: An Attempt To Tip The Scales

So far, any health work I've done in my village has been very informal and not very well received. Even if I have helped educate people in my village about health topics, I really haven't ever felt like I've made that big of a difference in their lives. I recently was able to do some very fun and fulfilling work outside of my village, helping my closest neighbors Sara, Sharon, and Erin do a girl’s leadership camp in Koumpentoum, the departmental capital of Tamba. The three of them had written and received a grant for this camp and subsequently planned most of it all before I even arrived to Tamba, but even though I wasn't a part of the initial planning stages, but I was able to help with its implementation and it was very gratifying, to say the least.

The idea for doing a girls leadership camp stemmed from The Michele Sylvester Memorial Scholarship Fund program, which is funded by friends and family of Peace Corps Senegal who are committed to girls' education in Senegal, many of which have experienced the real circumstances when it comes to girls education here. In short, there are many economic, cultural, and social barriers that keep girls from attending and succeeding in school. UNICEF estimates that almost two-thirds of women age 15 and up in Senegal are illiterate, and that only 16 percent of Senegalese girls finish elementary school and go on to secondary school. With that in mind, scholarships are awarded at the middle school level only and are based on the girls' GPA, motivation, need, and location. Each girl receives a grant of 25,000 CFA (app. US$ 50) to help with school supplies, uniforms, and other school-related costs. The whole application, interview, selection, and awarding of scholarships process is done exclusively by Peace Corps volunteers. Approximately 30 scholarships are awarded annually throughout Senegal, enabling the recipients to have access to continued education and all of the possibilities that come along with it.

After the scholarships were awarded, Sara, Sharon, and Erin were looking for a way to further interact with the girls who had been nominated but didn't win. They chose to do a girls leadership camp to motivate and encourage all of the girls involved in the nomination/scholarship process in their studies. There were a total of 20 girls invited to the camp; 12 girls from Koumpentoum and 8 girls from Kuchaba, a town 30K into the bush from Koumpentoum. The broad goal our camp was simply developing and encouraging life skills such as communication, decision making, thinking, managing emotions, assertiveness, and self-esteem building.

Special thanks to:
Sara's parents in America for having 50 shirts made and sent for the camp.

Front: Girls Leadership Camp, Koumpentoum 2008

Back: Girls Education: To Give Them The Power To Pursue All Of Their Dreams

Thanks also to:
-Some of Sara's previous co-workers for sending 2 whole boxes of notebooks for the girls.

-Katherine Suri and members of The First Presbyterian Church of Mountain View, CA for their generous donation of pens, pencils, and stickers.
All of these donations were greatly appreciated by all involved and allowed us to make gift packages for all of the girls. Thanks for your help!)

On the first day of the camp, the girls arrived and received their gift bundles of t-shirts, pens, pencils, stickers, and notebooks. We then introduced our panel of successful women, which included a midwife, teacher, leader of the girl’s academic excellence club in Koumpentoum, and radio station technician. These women then each talked about the obstacles they had faced, how they were able to overcome them in order to get to where they are now, and their plans for the future. After that, we had a question-answer session with the girls and the women on the panel. I think this discussion was really motivating for the girls because the women on the panel were all from the Koumpentoum region and had similar upbringings. Their success showed the girls that they too have the same chances for personal liberation of unprecedented dimension and opportunity.

The next session was basically an introduction to the topic of gender and was led by Erin, a volunteer whose drive and dedication to the development of Senegal makes her not only a great role model for fellow volunteers (aka me), but also for the girls at our camp. She began by describing the difference between "sex" and "gender roles". We then handed the girls "gender cards" with words such as: control, strength, caring for the sick, violence, work, money, cooking, religion, intelligence, leadership, ect. We told them not to look at their cards until we said "go!" at which time they were to tape their cards in what they thought to be the appropriate area on a board we had made that had "Female" and "Male" on different sides.

She then asked the group if everyone agreed on the placement of the cards, which sparked debate among participants regarding how the culture views certain activities in terms of gender. After asking the opinions of all participants, most of the cards were eventually moved to the area in between "Male" and "Female," an area that nobody had even originally thought to be an option when they originally decided where to put their cards.

Erin ended the session by having the girls list some of the gender roles expected of men and women in Senegal. They then discussed challenges to current gender roles and ways to foster change within the community and culture. I think it was a really great session and helped the girls to realize that gender is determined by culture- it is how the community wants you to behave and think based on whether you are a man or a woman. Complete changes in attitudes about these issues probably didn't happen from this session, but it at least formed a base for the beginning of the girls' thought processes around these issues and how they affect their lives and futures.

After this session, Michele, Sara, and I went to pick up lunch and made were laughed at by all of Koumpentoum as we walked from the cook's house to the community center we were using for the camp. White girls with bowls on their heads are always an entertaining sight for Senegalese people.

For the last session of the day we showcased Elle Travaille, Elle Vit! (She Works, She Lives!), a documentary produced by Peace Corps volunteers highlighting achievements made by five women from poor families. The objective of the film is to promote, among young Senegalese girls, the idea that it is possible for everybody to succeed, regardless of their family’s financial situation. USAID loaned us a projector and it was so amazing to watch the girls- many of whom have never watched or seen a TV- see this documentary. It is very well put together and interesting and I would highly recommend it to any of you all who are interested in this topic. It's in French but there are English subtitles, and the website is http://www.peaceonlyproductions.blogspot.com/.

After the video, we had dinner and then had a dance party, which was lots of fun for all involved; Senegalese people love to dance and also love forcing American's to join in, and then laughing at/with us for our lack of rhythm.

The second day was amazing because Awa, who is the culture/homestay trainer for the Peace Corps in Thies, came all the way to Koumpentoum to lead sessions for the day. I cannot explain how much I personally love Awa.

We have a special bond; she helped me through some issues I had during training, installed me into my village. But my love for Awa is beside the point. She is one of the women featured in Elle Travaille, Elle Vit! , and it just a great role model and motivator for young women.

She led sessions on developing life skills such as good communication and negotiating, making appropriate decisions, thinking through the consequences, and delivering assertive messages. She split the girls into groups and gave them hypothetical situations- a father refusing to let his daughter continue going to school and arranging an early marriage, rape by a family member, ect. - and had them perform skits based on how they would deal with the given problem. These skits and following discussions really helped the girls develop critical thinking skills and taught them a number of alternatives in dealing with difficult situations.

After Awa's sessions, we had a recognition ceremony for all of the girls at the camp. We invited their families, gendarmes (police), teachers, principals, religious leaders, and other community members. Erin led most of the ceremony and began by thanking everyone for their support and talking about the importance of girls’ education and empowerment. She then recognized each of the girls, and then two of the groups with the best skits preformed their skits for the audience, followed by all the girls singing a song about women's empowerment. After all of that, some of the teachers and community members made brief speeches and thanked us for our work with the girls and just thanked us over and over again, then thanked the Peace Corps, then thanked America, and one teacher even ended his speech with, "viva America! Viva Obama!" which I thought was a nice touch.

It was just really nice to hear all of these important people say thank you to us and that they appreciated our work. It's just not something you hear very often here, and even though I didn't even play that big of a role in the whole camp, it was still the most heartwarming, "maybe I am doing some good here, after all" feeling. I can't really explain it but I really think it's true that as a volunteer, you get just as much as you give out of your work.

The rest of the photos from the camp are posted here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/GirlsLeadershipCamp#

Hope all is well with you all and keep in touch!

Learning To Live With What I Am

So. I shaved my head, as many of you know. Contrary to what some of you may be thinking, no, I haven't completely lost my mind. I know, I know, the odds aren't exactly in my favor: remote village in Africa, no electricity/running water/cell phone reception, nearest white person/person that speaks English 45K away, ect. BUT, for the time being, I am clear headed and in touch with the real world. Well, most of the time. Anyway, since it is kind of a radical thing to do and some of you may be interested, I thought I would write a little bit about it on here.

First off, I have no idea why, but ever since I found out I was going to be coming to Africa, I always joked that I wanted to shave my head. I really can't explain why that idea ever came into my mind, but I never seriously thought about it more than thinking it would be cool to do.

In May of 2007, 3 months before I was originally supposed to come to here, I cut 10 inches of my hair off for Locks of Love. My hair was really long at the time, and I figured it was a good idea to cut my hair off before I came here. Anyway, I absolutely hated my hair that short. The great thing, however, was that any time I got upset and felt ugly, I just reminded myself that I cut my hair for a good cause that I really believed in. Here's the basic info about Locks of Love from their website:

Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis. We meet a unique need for children by using donated hair to create the highest quality hair prosthetics. Most of the children helped by Locks of Love have lost their hair due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure. The prostheses we provide help to restore their self-esteem and their confidence, enabling them to face the world and their peers.

So, even though I hated how I looked then, I just kept telling myself that my hair will always grow back, but for the with alopecia areata, theirs won't. So, I got over it. As an added bonus, a few months later, my mom donated her hair, too.

Fast forward to Senegal. For the first few months, as many of you know, I really wasn't happy here and came very close to ET'ing (et = early termination) on several occasions. I always said, though, if after IST (in service training) in August, I went back to my village and was happy and felt confident that I would be able to stay for the full 2 years, I would shave my head. Well, I had some ups and downs and plenty of "am I doing any good here? is this worth it?" moments, but I got through all of it and feel stronger because of it.

The biggest contributing factor to me shaving my head was simply because here in Senegal, my hair was a hassle and nothing more. This is what washing my hair in the village would entail: rationing water for a few days and saving up enough to wash my hair (no way was I going to pull and carry more water on my head just to wash my hair: that's hard work), then shampooing and conditioning it via bucket bath, and then beginning the battle that was combing out the various knots/dreds that had formed since the last time I had washed my hair. Oh, and to add to the fun, being naked and thus a huge target for mosquitoes, flies, bees, and the like during the whole ordeal.

The other reason I wanted to shave my head was the fact that I have only attempted to wear my hair down on two occasions in this country, and have only succeed once because it's just way too hot to have hair on your neck here. Yes, some people with long hair do wear it down here, some even on a daily basis, but for me, I would just rather be a little bit cooler and have my hair up than sacrifice my comfort in order to feel pretty and have my hair down, you know?

So anyway, the other day I was washing my hair and being grumpy about it, when I had a brilliant the brilliant idea to shave my head and be Britney Spears for Halloween. I mean, I needed something to motivate me to turn thought into action, you know? I thought about it for a while, and then the thought came to me that my hair was probably long enough to donate to Locks of Love. When I came to Tamba, I measured checked the Locks of Love FAQ and measured my hair, and sure enough, my hair was long enough. So, with a lot of moral support and a little booze, I made up my mind to do it. That night my friends took turns cutting my hair off (and into a mullet, then a rat tail, just for fun, too), and then the next day two of my good friends went with me to the barber shop to buzz the rest off.

Everything happened so fast, I didn't really have time to freak out about much of it. I did cry when I looked in the mirror after my friends cut it all off. I freaked, felt like I had just made myself so ugly, and was really angry at myself for doing it. That had to happen at some point though, right? Anyway, I eventually got it out and that was the end of the tears. The next morning I woke up and my first thought was that I didn't want to look in the mirror. I then proceed to have a pep talk with myself and promised myself that from that point on, I wasn't going to say or think anything negative about my hair. It wasn't easy and I definitely slipped a few times, but I have really been making an effort to stop beating myself up so much in my head about my hair, body, competence, ect. Sometimes I really can be my own worst enemy and it has got to stop. One of the main reasons I joined Peace Corps was to work on myself, especially my self confidence.

It's crazy how hair affects not only our appearance but also our identity. I am trying to find my true self, and not being confident in my looks or who I am is not going to be part of that true self. I finally have come to realize that there is no duality in life, there is no separation, only the whole. I can't be strong and independent and still beat myself up about my appearance. Slowly I will rebaptize self-inflicted negativity as self-confidence.

I read this quote recently and it really rang true to me:
“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?”

So, that about covers everything. Only one person so far has asked me if I'm a man or a woman, so that's a plus. At the end of the day, hair is just hair and I'm happy I did it.

Here's the link to the pictures of it all:
http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/ShavingMyHeadHalloween2008#