First of all, we are at the 1 year mark!! Can you believe it? It's crazy to think that the new volunteers are already here and have been in home stay for at least 2 weeks by now. Speaking of home stay - Paul and I are headed there after our Community Theater training here in Morogoro - the training focuses on using theater in teaching about and addressing issues with HIV.
Ok so jumping a few months from February..
The big news though is on May 31st Paul and I were officially married here in TZ so I am now Mrs. Francis :) We did it in the District office, Paul of course had on one of his hiking shirts and jeans, I borrowed my friends summer dress, however, the hair was nuts - it's in the awkward growing out stage. We did the whole ceremony in Kiswahili, but thankfully ours is at the point where we understood it all. It was beautiful though and fits us well I think, we are having a celebration wedding soon for all our friends here in TZ and plan on having another for our family and friends back home.
Two weeks ago Paul was OFFICIALLY moved into my(our) village. We had a meeting - even though everyone already knows him and he's been there quite a bit but TZ's need everything to be official or it doesn't really count. He had to go back to his village just for a day to have a meeting and explain why he's been gone and is leaving for good, but they all took it well.
So looking at work.. Paul and I have started a toilet building project with the dispensary and have been going house to house all over the village to know if there is a toilet or not. If there is we look at it to see exactly what we're working with, and if not then we find out why there's not a toilet and what they are using. It's a big project but at the same time great because other TZ's
We have though already ran into the issue of TZ's going to other TZ's homes for the survey and because they want to help the other person out they automatically write No Toilet. But we know there is a toilet because there's no way a whole section of the village there is not a single toilet. This may cause a hiccup in the project but I think they just got carried away with the survey because before we even started we stated all the criteria the house and people living in the house had to meet before receiving a toilet.
are helping us and VOLUNTEERING their time and their efforts to get this project done. When we return after our few trips we'll start training people to be able to build the toilets. For this we will pay 1 or 2 people who already know how to build them and have them train others so the others will get that training. Then those who have learned how to build them will get all the tools for building but will then volunteer their time for the actual work. As of now everyone is in agreement and it seems to be going great - but who knows what might happen later.
School has been out of session for the past month so in that time we had our Girls Empowerment Conference which went incredibly well without a hitch!! All the girls seemed to really enjoy it and according to the test scores actually maybe got something out of it. It was 5 days long, the first day just getting to know each other playing games, doing introductions, and taking the pre-test. The 2nd day consisted of HIV/AIDS education, woman's health, periods, pregnancy, STDs, we had a nurse come and she answered any and all questions from the girls, also Kihumbe group came and taught about HIV and they did drama, acrobatics, and such to really get the girls engaged. The 3rd day was all Life Skills which we did on a rotation with lessons about relationships, communication, gender differences, self-esteem, how to say no, how to use condoms, etc. Another volunteer, Linda, also taught self defense which was great!! The 4th day was about future goals, so we had the girls do goal planning and had women from various jobs come in and talk about their work, what they had to do to get there, and how it has benefited them thus far. The remainder of the day they made pads for their periods and bracelets to keep track of their periods. The girls were also taught about business skills for the future. The 5th day was wrap up, going over what was taught, taking the post-test, and of course a talent show. All the girls sang or did something and all the volunteers got together and made up a dance to Single Ladies by Beyonce. It was amazing all the girls got up and where shouting for us!! Something we all did not expect.
Paul and I have also held a tree seminar in which we taught about the importance of planting trees, the benefits of planting trees, and the characteristics and job of a specific tree - the one that we gave to all the people that came to the seminar. We taught about 6 different times and each time about 15 minutes, and after each person completed the seminar they received some seedlings. It was a great mixture of men, women, and young adults, it also allowed them to see some of the work we've been doing with the Environment Committee and we also explained some future projects we'll be working on - although seeing how time flies I don't know if we'll get to most of them.
I've also been continuing my work at the dispensary and helping weight babies, counseling, and teaching. I've been teaching a lot recently about diarrhea and next it will be about water borne illnesses then nutrition. I would say the worst thing I've seen so far is this mother came in with her twins and they were both obviously malnourished suffering from marasmus - they were 2 years old but looking about 3 months old - I tried to explain what was wrong with them, what she needed to do to help them, and explained the importance of the intervention. Well you know I thought maybe I made some sort of impact - but she came back about 2 months later and on of the twins looked horrible was starting to have edema in her feet and legs and on her face. We made the mother send her to the hospital and as far as I know she went and the baby is doing well.
Well that's it for now - the training starts tomorrow so it'll be great to see everyone! Talk to you all soon~
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