EmaProjects

Sanibonani!

We just had some PC training for project design and management ("ema" is a siSwati prefix denoting a plural, so Swazis sometimes throw it in front of English words -- emaProjects). My counterpart and I attended together to try to make a plan for what I'll be doing for the next year and half. We had some success, but it sounds like the project we focused on might not be what we had in mind. So ... back to the drawing board.

PC is interesting in ever so many ways. They tell you when you're applying that you must be flexible. They also tell you that you must be self-motivated and able to do self-directed work. They aren't kidding. There are tons of people in my community who want to improve people's health. The challenge is figuring out the top concerns and how to address them. But the real key is to make sure that the community is 100 percent invested in the project. I can't come in and say, "I want to help women in this community get better access to family planning by doing X, Y and Z that I learned in public health school in America." OK, I could, but I wouldn't get very far. My job is to help members of the community find ways to meet their own goals.

This, it turns out, is easier said than done.

But don't despair! My counterpart is lovely and motivated, and she and I already have had a good brainstorming session with plans to create a club for orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs). And my amazing tutor, who teaches at the high school, also has a ton of ideas for us to start working on with her students. Additionally, I have a couple of clubs planned with the career guidance office at the high school.

I'm also joining a PEPFAR conference this week in hopes of meeting people from some organizations that do family planning work. We'll see if I can't get a little bit of master's-related experience.

So rest assured, I'll figure out how to keep busy and stay out of trouble. I've also heard that you don't really get working until you've been serving a year. So by my calculation, I've got, like, four more months to figure it out before the hard stuff starts. Right?

Oh, and I think I told you I've been working as part of a three-person team on our newsletter. If you're ever reeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaally bored and want to check it out, you should be able to find it here.

Oh, and speaking of my master's, I'll be "graduating" from JHSPH on May 23. Pour one out for me on that day, bangani! (Bangani = friends.)

Keep fighting the good fight!

Salani kahle.

Moooooore photos

 This is a shot from a hike Jack and I took in Pigg's Peak, which is in the northern part of Swaziland. It wasn't a great hike, but there were a few nice views.

 Stove-making lesson at the Peace Corps office. You build the stove around the cooking pot, leaving space below for wood and room for ventilation. It also has an opening on the side to put in fuel.

 This is the beach at Durban. Not bad. Typical beach stuff!

BULL FIGHT. The white one eventually won this turf battle in the krall. My host brother is observing from the corner. This got intense, actually, and we were afraid they were going to run through the fence. Exciting times on the homestead.

Photos! (Take two)

 Sanibonani, y'all. I spent E25 and 30 minutes trying to upload these photos last week, and the post somehow didn't save. Not cool, Internet cafe. Not cool.

So here we go again.

This photo is of cows leaving the dip tank, where they go each week to get dipped with chemicals for fleas and ticks. The cows have to swim through it, which they do NOT love. 

 This kiddo was loving my sunglasses. Walker and I were at their homestead to make cookstoves that use less wood than open fires.

 The same homestead. This kid is swinging on a mosquito net swing. Malaria isn't a big problem here, so people use mosquito nets for all kinds of things.

 Durban penguin! This guy was eating the plastic lining on the tank. Probably not great.

 Cows in the dip tank!

 My host babe with his cows in the krall.

 SHARK FACE!

Awesome worm things at the Durban aquarium. I loved these little guys.

My sweat is sweating

Sanibonani, bangani! (SiSwati lesson of the day: bangani = friends.)

It's nice and toasty in the SWZ these days, though it could be worse. We're not that close to the Equator, being at about the 30th parallel. If you go to the Northern Hemisphere, that matches up roughly with San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans and Jacksonville. Sounds about right. It's gross in the summer, but winter happens. During staging in Philly, we were at the Holiday Inn with the group going to The Gambia. Those kids are on the 15th parallel and are probably sweltering most of the time. My first Peace Corps assignment, which I had to decline because the timing didn't work, was in Uganda. I'd be reeeeeeeally hot right about now if I were there.

I want to post photos soon, and I promise I will. I've been lazy in that regard. Heat'll do that to you. It's also been getting busier as the holidays end and schools start up.

I've got a few things brewing with U.S. government agencies here, and I'm hoping they'll give me the opportunity to do large-scale public-health work. One is a survey project countrywide. If I could get in on the ground floor for some data collection, I'd be a happy camper. Corpser?

Jack has successfully completed Week Two of teaching. I'm sure he's changing lives and molding young minds. One class is reading Twain, which I of course appreciate. I like to be smug about my favorite Missouri natives. Jack adores it, obviously. One challenge for him is that the school library has very few books of which it has enough copies for a whole class. His classes are 10 or fewer students, so they don't need that many, but they still don't have enough. That could force him to change up his lesson plans as the year progresses.

He's probably busier than I am. As I've said, the Peace Corps life is really flexible. Some days I do lots of stuff; some days I do very little. I plan to start spending some time with the World Food Program at the clinic in addition to the time I spend working on the HIV testing and counseling side. We'll see where that leads. In the meantime, I'm reading a ton. I need to get in gear as far as writing goes. Jack brought me the beginnings of my second "Haunted Library" manuscript, so perhaps you'll see a second children's novel from me at the end of my time here. No excuses, right?

The mother dog on my homestead is suffering from some sort of neurological disorder. I heard a commotion outside the other day, and it was her, running in circles until she lost her footing and then trying to run in circles more. Her nose has been dripping, and she was drooling. I haven't seen her much since then, so I suspect she wandered off to die. Swazis in general don't think of dogs as pets the way Americans do. My family felt kind of sorry for her, but death happens. When you see a lot of human death, I'm sure dog death drops way down on your list of concerns. Still, it's sad. She was a sweet dog. Her puppies are skin and bones, so we'll see what happens with them.





Pictures soon. I promise!

Keep fighting the good fight, amigos. Salani kahle!

January!

Sanibonani!

Sorry about the time between posts, amigos. It's been busy and not busy, if you know what I mean. I haven't had anything earth-shattering to discuss. Jack got a teaching job! That is actually pretty earth-shattering. He'll have to move out of the capital, so we'll see how that affects our ability to spend time together. The teaching job itself will have an impact, of course. He's teaching English to grade 5, 6 and 7 kids at a primary school. These roughly correspond with the same grades in the U.S. He started Tuesday - the whole hiring process took less than a week - and is managing to stay a step ahead of the game. I think it'll be an interesting adventure, for sure.

I've spent a bit of time away from my community and am looking forward to getting back in the swing of things. There was an article in the national paper about problems with drinking and drugs at my high school, and I hope to meet with the guidance counselor to see how I can help. I am, after all, a hell of a role model.

I'll be talking this week with the Swaziland office of the CDC to see if I can help them with their mission in country. I would loooooooove to get some hands-on experience with them. It'll be a matter of how they can incorporate me into their existing work. We'll see how we go. Wish me luck!

We've had a few group members go home, at least temporarily, for health reasons. A lot of people have had trouble, and I feel extremely fortunate to have had zero health issues (almost zero, anyway). I think I am the exception.

I've been working on the newsletter for PC, which I was elected to at In-Service Training (did I mention that?) It's a lot of fun. I made drop caps! And pull quotes! I'm enjoying making things pretty.

OK, back to work. I just wanted to let y'all know that life was still grand in the Kingdom.

Salani kahle!

Holidays!

Sanibonani, Team America!

I never know how to answer the phone here. People keep cell phone conversations extremely brief because we're charged by the minute. I don't want to say "sawubona" because it means "I see you," and that certainly isn't accurate. I'll let you know if/when I solve the mystery. Usually I just say hello. That seems to work fine.

Jack and I enjoyed the Christmas holiday on the homestead. We had a long adventure with a gravel road when we decided to hit up the Simunye Country Club. The town is parallel to mine in the country, but the paved road would have led us either up and around or down and around. My host dad gave us directions on the gravel road. It ended up being almost disastrous (we had to turn around because of high water over a bridge; it took 2.5 hours to get there), but we made it. That meant a Christmas spent swimming and eating grilled meat. A barbecue is called a braai here. It was lovely. On the way there, we saw a baboon cross the road with some sugar cane in its mouth. On the way back, we saw a giraffe chilling and eating leaves along the road. Productive day!

My homestead is bustling with family. Now (just after 6 a.m.), two of my host brothers are starting the process of building a new hut for one of them. I'm excited to see it go up, and I hope I get to help. Also this weekend, one of my sisters has part of her wedding. It's a long process, getting married in the SWZ, and this part will involve dancing and her moving to her new homestead. The women go to live on the man's family's property when they marry. That's part of the reason for paying lobola, or bride price: The bride's family loses her to the husband's. Busy weekend.

Jack should have his car soon. He has a loaner now, and it makes our lives pretty different. I'm sure I'll still spend plenty of time on public transport, but it's so much easier when you can decide to drive to breakfast.

OOOH, breakfast. That reminds me: I recently had my best breakfast (possibly my best meal) since being here. It was at Swazi Candle, and it was called the Hangover. Eggs, chorizo, bacon, tomatoes, peppers, beans and cheese all in a bowl and served with salad and an amazing soft, warm pita. It was phenomenal once I added some spice to it. AMAZING. Y'all will have to check it out when you visit.

That's it for now. Nothing earth-shattering to report. Things get pretty slow around the holidays when the schools are closed. I hope to have some more photos very soon.

Happy New Year!

Salani kahle.

Christmastime in Swaziland

It is decidedly not beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Swaziland — that is, if your Christmas typically occurs in the Northern Hemisphere. The sunny days and high temperatures take the sting away from not being home for the holidays, I think. It’s easy for me to forget ‘tis the season at all.

“Ube ngakhisimusi lomuhle” is have a nice Christmas in siSwati, when speaking to one person. Plural, it’s “nibe ngakhisimusi lomuhle.” That “kh” is a hard “k” sound, so it’s easy to see the parallel with the English word.

It is nice because more of make and babe's children are home. That means grandkids, and I like having the small ones around. I haven't been playing with them much yet, but I'm thinking of either getting out my crayons or having them help me decorate a "Christmas tree." Maybe the mango tree? Oh, and there's a super tiny one. My host sister had a baby four days ago (!). Very cute.

Jack is settled into his new place and seems to be adjusting well to the Kingdom. His biggest challenge, I think, is Swazi time. You sort of just have to get used to that. It sounds like he’s going to be able to do a lot of excellent work for the organization he volunteers with. I’m excited for him, though he’ll have a lot of downtime during the office’s monthlong holiday break …

I had a week of training and then spent two days teaching journalism to kids at a children's home near Manzini. I'll have to write more about that soon. Then I was in Mbabane for three days working on the Swazi Sojournal, PC Swaziland's newsletter. I was elected to it at training, along with two others. It's a monthly newsletter written by PCVs and PC staff. It goes to all volunteers but also to the embassy, and it requires quite a bit of work. I just couldn't stay away, naturally.

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Today was an interesting exercise in the flexibility of being a PCV. As I was walking to the clinic in the morning, I passed what is called a kagogo center. These were established to serve as meeting places in communities where health information could be shared. They’re also meant to meet the needs of OVCs, orphans and vulnerable children. The one in my community has been less active because there hasn’t been food available to feed the children. Today, I saw three bomake there with a fire going.

“What’s happening today?” I asked.

“A white man is coming,” the center manager told me. “I want you to talk to him.”

She thought he was from South Africa and wasn’t sure if he was with an NGO or what. I asked the manager I the OVCs would be coming to eat, and she said yes. I texted my counterpart at the clinic to let her know I was going to hang around the center to see what transpired.

Pretty soon, a local woman who works with the NGO World Vision arrived. She’s excellent, and I love working with her. She started getting things ready inside the kagogo center, a cinderblock building with a concrete floor and a tin roof. Children started arriving and unstacked preschooler-size plastic chairs in lime green, blue and red. They sat clutching the dolls that live at the center.

The woman from WV led the children in songs. I joined when they were in English and went on long enough for me to catch the words. Suddenly, she stopped everyone. I had been engrossed and hadn’t noticed the crew of NGO folks arriving outside. It turned out that the group was from the World Food Program and USAID. The WFP provided food for the children for the day. I chatted with the NGO people for a while, and they were lovely.

“What were you doing in there? Were you teaching?” one asked me.

“No, I mostly was just hanging out,” I said. I explained that I’ll eventually be doing projects but am still figuring out the lay of the land. On a related note, I can’t believe I’ve been at site almost four months. I don’t have a lot of tangible work to show for it. Intentional relationship building, y’all.

I knew WFP worked with my local clinic. They’re part of a program called Food as Prescription, through which people who are sick and malnourished receive food parcels at clinics. I think the participants must have HIV, TB or both to qualify. A challenge, the WFP folks noted, is that people are put on the program until they reach a certain BMI and then are discharged. They’re finding that people often return a couple of months later because they can’t acquire adequate nutrition on their own. To combat this, they said, WFP is working with livelihood NGOs that teach people gardening and agriculture to promote self-sufficiency. Makes sense to me.

The NGO peeps stayed for a bit, talking to the community members and photographing the children as they ate. After they had gone, the children received two bars of soap each and a pair of Toms shoes before leaving. I probably contributed to the chaos of this affair, tickling children and throwing them into the air. I realized I should be more careful — I didn’t want any kiddos vomiting up their WFP meal. We cleaned up (“You are a real woman,” I was told as I swept the floor), and I moved onward toward the clinic. It was noon.

I had received some ambiguous information about a health event planned for my community today. I didn’t have a lick of detail about it and was unsure that whatever it was would come off. All I knew was where it was supposed to be held. As I headed in that direction, I heard people speaking into microphones. A crowd was gathering as children performed a drama.

From a couple of women I knew, I learned that the Clinton Health Access Initiative was in town to kick off the creation of youth clubs focused on health. This event included the drama, a lesson about hygiene and sanitation, food and a performance from an adorable 8-year-old gospel singer. I met a gentleman from CHAI and a woman from an organization that promotes male circumcision (have I discussed the benefits of that for HIV prevention? Yes? No? We’ll get there). I enthusiastically offered my services to the youth club, and I hope to get involved in whatever they have going in my village.

Finally, I headed to the clinic to finish out the day. I’d left home at 8:30 a.m., and it was after 2 p.m. I stayed at the clinic until we shut down the HIV Testing and Counseling side around 3 and then headed home with my counterpart. We stopped by her father’s nursery on the way, and he gave me more red onions, garlic and maize than I’ll be able to eat all alone.

All in all, it was one of the more rewarding days I’ve had as a PCV of late. It’s great to just make connections with people in the community and with members of other groups who are doing work here.

On an unrelated note, I received a wonderful packet of letters from a first-grade class at my former elementary school. I look forward to responding to each one, painstakingly addressed to “Mr. Terrell.” I would say that’s my father’s name, but he prefers to go by “doctor.”

Salani kahle, everyone, and nibe ngakhisimusi lomuhle!