Friday, March 1, 2013

Baking group and other February activities


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~