February has been one of the busiest months of my entire
service! I feel like I’m finally getting
things done that I’ve been wanting to do since I started my service over a year
and half ago. I’m so close to finishing
my second ovens project; only two more ovens to build and one improved
stove. I’ve been waiting for the
families to collect their portion of the materials (some take painstakingly
longer than others), but the end is in sight.
I hope the stove demonstration turns out well and the community becomes
motivated to buy their own materials for the stoves. I’ve told them I’m not going to be supplying
any more money from Peace Corps funds to pay for the improved cookstove
technologies, so if they really, truly want an improved stove to improve the
health of their family, they’re gonna have to pay for it. Stoves are much cheaper than the ovens and
honestly, I think, much more useful as well.
I’ve talked up the stoves quite a bit and word on the street seems to be
that there is a lot of interest in the community to make stoves.
I’ve started one baking group with 5 women who have
ovens. We held our first class last
week, starting with banana bread (this has become a popular recipe in my site
among the women who I’ve made ovens for).
I had each woman bring her own ingredients for one recipe, plus one
stick of firewood to contribute to heating the oven, and it was a success! The breads turned out great and each woman
took hers home to share with her family.
From what I’ve heard the bread didn’t last long once they got home. In the next class we’re planning on making a
pizza (also a very popular baking activity in my site due to the ovens). I have a second baking group scheduled to
hold its first class next week, and a third one pending (I’m still in the
process of finding a date that works for all of them). Between all the 20 ovens in the community I
hope to have at least 4 baking groups formed within the next month.
 |
| Baking banana bread |
 |
| My first baking group |
Two days ago I gave a charla (an educational talk) with a group
from another sector of my community about starting a community bank in their
part of the community. This is something
I tried to do over a year ago with no success.
But 11 people showed up to the charla yesterday and are all interested
in starting a bank. The next challenge
is if they’ll all show up at the next meeting to choose the committee and make
the official bank rules. This is the
step in which I’ve failed in the past.
It’s hard for people to take the next step in any project I try to start
and actually show up to future activities.
And a big problem I always encounter is that people will always tell me
to my face what I want to hear to put me at ease, but never actually make the
further commitment. I can’t tell you how
frustrating this is! But I have faith in
this new bank group. Most of the women
of this part of the community are also the ones participating in the second
baking group I’m starting. Also in
motion is the re-forming of the current community bank I’ve been working with
the past year and a half that had some major problems this past cycle. I’m working with them to start up the bank
again with some improved management techniques and behavioral changes.
I’m also moving steadily forward with the school materials
donation project from my aunt’s school in Lompoc, California. It’s been hard to coordinate time to visit
the local principle to plan the order of 30 new desks for the pre-school
classroom. But just yesterday he told me
he found a carpenter who can make us the desks for a good price and has placed
the order to have them made. Once the
desks are made and paid for I can buy the remaining items to be donated to the
school, which include a chalkboard for the pre-school classroom and various
teaching materials and cleaning supplies for the teachers.
My plans to start my own animal projects haven’t officially
started yet, but I have been working with a woman from an NGO who has already
started a laying-hen project with 24 women in my site. By chance this woman sought me out to discuss
doing an oven project with some women that she’d been coordinating with, and
during our conversation she mentioned she was working on this chicken
project. So I jumped on the opportunity
to participate in the charlas her group was giving to the community, and I’ve
offered my services to the women in my community participating in the project
to help them in their various activities, such as giving vaccine charlas and
helping to coordinate future chicken activities within the group. Hopefully by participating with the women who
are already receiving chickens from this NGO I can learn and plan how to form
my own chicken projects with other families in the future.
Yet another project I’m hoping to start soon is a girls
youth group. I sent 5 girls from my site
to two different camps earlier this month that were put on by other Peace Corps
volunteers that dealt with youth leadership and girl’s empowerment topics such
as self-esteem, making good life decisions, and other women’s health topics. When the girls came back they seemed to have
had a really good time and learned a lot of important life skills, and I’d like
to continue their education in the community through a youth group. One of the girls who attended the youth leadership
camp asked me to help her plan and give some charlas to the 4th, 5th
and 6th graders, complying with her promise from the camp to educate
others about what she learned. So yesterday we gave an HIV and early pregnancy charla for the primary school. This same girl and two others from my community
are also participating in another local project that teaches youth how to give
charlas, and I’m hoping to include them in helping me form a girls youth group
in the community where we can do various activities that range from women’s
health topics, life skills, games, dance, and maybe art or whatever else the
girls would like to do. I don’t want it
to be all serious charlas that’s going to bore them. I hope to make it a fun group that girls will
want to be a part of.
As if all that isn’t enough, I’ve also started the pen pal
letters between my local school and my aunt’s class in California again, and
English classes at my house with a few girls that live close by. I haven’t had the time to coordinate starting
the dance classes again, but maybe with the formation of a girl’s group I can
cover that area.
Whew!!! So that’s
what I’ve been up to the month of February.
I feel great and very productive.
It’s so much better to stay busy and feel like things are finally
happening. At this point I’m very happy
that I’ve been accepted to extend my service because there are obviously so
many things to work on! If I keep up this work pace this next year and a half
will fly by for sure. The hardest thing
is getting new projects started, but I feel like once they get going and take
hold it won’t be so stressful, hopefully.
More updates later!
~Sarah~
