I sincerely apologize for
completely falling off the map blog-wise.
A lot has happened in the past three months and I will do by best to
give a somewhat succinct overview of what has been going on down here in the Swaz. December was filled with some form of social
gathering nearly every weekend…a week of in-service training, poolside birthday
parties at the country club in a community where one volunteer stays (this is
not characteristic of most communities…), Christmas at a hostel with about 15
other volunteers, Christmas day hike through the beautiful mountains around
Swaziland’s capital, and most importantly, New Years in Durban, a beach town in
South Africa. The few days I was at site
in December were spent decorating Christmas cookies with the neighborhood girls
and I quickly discovered that eating frosting straight from the tube is a
universal pleasure. December was a great
opportunity to get to know the other volunteers on a deeper level. I am continuously impressed with the
passionate individuals that compose our group of volunteers, each bringing
their own unique past and talents to the group.
Not to mention the fact that they are just plain fun to be around. On multiple occasions I had to pinch myself,
thinking, “Am I really a Peace Corps Volunteer?
Because this feels like a giant vacation…” In the back of my mind I did feel a slight
pang of guilt at having so much fun in the midst of a country filled with so
much pain and suffering, but I this is a struggle that I deal with constantly
and am gradually learning to cope with.
December was a season for enjoying the company of friends and we are now
working to discover our roles as volunteers.
As the holiday festivities came to
an end, I feared reentry into life in the community. During our integration period, we were
discouraged from starting projects, yet January marked the beginning of the
reality of my service. I spent about a
week thinking, “Hmm…now what?” For a
large part of January, I spent approximately seventy percent of my time lying
flat on my back on the concrete floor in my hut in an attempt to somewhat
escape the extreme heat of the Swazi summer.
The remaining time was spent sitting in a basin of cool water (which my
body heat promptly warmed) or turning my hut into a bikhram yoga studio. As miserable as it was to be continuously
sweating from 6 am until 3 am, the down time allowed for an abundance of time
to think through how best to address the needs of the community. How clearly I thought through some of these
ideas, it is hard to say, because for some reason I decided that the hosting a
community-wide health fair would be an easy first project. Why I couldn’t have simply started with
toting around my awkward black penis model and doing condom demonstrations
around the community, I don’t know. But,
in a state of heat-induced delirium, I decided to tackle the monster of
coordinating a community-wide event. The
inner council had come to my counterpart requesting that we arrange for a
mobile health clinic to come to the community to test for HIV. We decided to roll with the idea and turn it
into a larger event, inviting nurses from the Ministry of Health to come
educate about and test for diabetes and hypertension, which are developing into
larger health concerns in the community as community members are consuming
diets high in starch and sodium. We also
invited several local NGOs that are currently working in the community, as well
as a local HIV positive mother to teach about the importance of Preventing
Mother to Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS (PMTCT) and the PMTCT services available
at the local clinic. I spent the
majority of late January through mid February running around Swaziland,
travelling to various towns to meet with NGOs and region health directors to
coordinate the details of the event.
Peace Corps staff was extremely helpful in referring me to the right
people and I am continually impressed with how small Swaziland really is and
what a tight network exists here. This
made the coordinating aspect relatively easy as each person I talked to knew
exactly who to refer me to. While the coordination
with local NGOs and government health officials went relatively smoothly,
getting the community on board to host this event was a bit more
complicated. It was certainly a learning
process figuring out how to navigate cultural differences and follow the local
protocol for respecting community elders.
Additionally, we had to apply for a grant to get funding to supply food
for the event, which is pretty much the only way to guarantee attendance. However, in order to receive funding, the
community needs to contribute at least 25% of the requested funding. In the case of this event, this contribution
was large in-kind (i.e. finding women to volunteer to cook, arranging for the
support group to clean the area, identifying a volunteer to drive to town to
pick up the food, etc.). This provided a
whole new level of complications, organizing these contributions and then
quantifying them, yet as the community came to realize the importance of the
event, things slowly fell into place. Over
time, my counterpart and several of the members of the HIV support group really
took control and it was encouraging to see them taking the lead to coordinate
the logistics of cooking, firewood collection, cleaning of the land, etc. I am learning to be patient and realizing
that things that could easily be organized throughout the course of a week in
the US will probably take about five times as long to coordinate here. While I probably didn’t respond as calmly and
rationally to the initial setbacks as I probably could have, I am discovering
the importance of flexibility and learning to anticipate unexpected
complications. Hopefully, I will
remember these lessons learned as I approach my next project, although
sometimes no amount of mental preparation can ease the frustration of these
unforeseen barriers. The Peace Corps
motto is: the toughest job you’ll ever
love. As I begin the core of my work
in the community I am finding this to be increasingly true. As of now, all is in place for the Health
Fair to go smoothly this Saturday. Do I
expect some sort of minor disaster within the next five days? Probably.
I’m hoping in the end, the event will at least provide community members
with a chance to learn something about their bodies and health that they
wouldn’t have otherwise had the opportunity to hear. If nothing else, they will get a free meal,
which in the eyes of everyone qualifies the day as a success. It’s all about embracing the smaller
victories here.
