Saturday, February 4, 2012

Sweaty

The electrician is at my house. He’s installing an outlet on my porch. It’s getting hotter and the hot/dry season hasn’t even begun (March-May).  Truly only being cool for a few minutes after a morning shower has motivated me to find him and get this done ASAP.  Preparing for when it gets worse and I’m forced to sleep outside.  This way I’ll have my fan ready to go, sleeping on my lit pico, draped in a wet cloth..and in an effort to avoid what may be one of my biggest pet peeves here- sweating trying to sleep. Oh this life.

These past two weeks have been interesting.   Last week we had a training for my stage (now 18 people) in Pagala.  Pagala itself is an interesting place.  The PC has a training center there—imagine an old summer camp set-up.  It can be cold (welcomed) but also buggy as it sits next to the river.  PC hires a staff for a week and they keep us well fed and our cabins clean.  I learned from my first Pagala experience that it’s not necessary to stuff yourself to misery at every meal just because it tastes so good and there’s plenty of food. Vanessa and I made a promise to each other we would treat our bodies better this time around!  Veronica and I had our morning runs before our long days of sessions began.  We had extensive training on behavior change in an effort to understand why some of our efforts and work here doesn’t stick.   It will be interesting to see how we implement the material, especially since Aposto ( and all of our counterparts) was there and heard the same thing I did.  The two of us drew up an example situation of what we learned and applied it to local shop owners here in LT; teaching them basic business skills, the importance of budgeting, saving, and accounting.  He’s been busy since we’ve gotten back and we haven’t had a chance to discuss if we will implement the plan.

The rest of our time at training was spent creating a permanent garden.   Our SED group and our counterparts worked for three days creating a decent sized plot from start to finish. Tilling the soil with a hoe and pick ax isn’t fun- especially since it hasn’t rained in several months.  Not to mention I didn’t change out of my dress and flip flops the first afternoon.  I’m sure my parents will chuckle at this but it was nice to get my hands dirty, sweat for a reason, and walk away at dusk being able to see what you’ve accomplished, with the blisters to prove it.  We learned how to fertilize the soil with ash, manure and sand so that it would withstand the heat that on its way.  Our group made a pretty good team and we planted corn, peanuts, soybeans and banana trees to anchor the corners of the garden.  Hopefully the PC staff will take good care of it and it will be blooming when I return to Pagala this summer for camp.

I stayed an extra day to attend the MAC training with a dozen other PCV’s who have been chosen to lead this new initiative to eradicate malaria in Togo.   How do you make sure the people have enough mosquito nets, convince them to then use the nets or put screens on their homes, make sure the hospitals and clinics are administering the right tests and medications when someone comes in thinking they may have malaria? It’s a ground-work kind of effort and we’ve got the volunteers in place (95 in Togo right now) and now it may be a challenge of motivation and inspiration.  We watched a TED Talk with Daniel Pink to try and spur some useful ideas to light a fire under our PCV team.  It’s quite a feat – we are truly creating a plan out of nothing… we’ve got our work cut out for us.  But we’ve got smart people on our team and I’m proud to be one of the few SED people in a group of health volunteers.  Check out our blog: mactogo.blogspot.com

I returned to LT on Saturday afternoon and while so many people were truly excited to see me and I felt very loved and welcomed, it still has been quite difficult.  I knew it would take a few days to get back into my routine here and that has definitely been the case.  Spending time with my devotional every morning, praying, and attempting to seek God’s voice, plan and peace each day.  Putting every  small moment that brings a smile to my face (like my super successful English Club on Wednesday afternoon) in the bank for the days when I question my purpose and efforts.  

It’s definitely been a busy week already; discussions with Aposto about next steps for his business and the ONG.  Trip to Sokode to catch up with Rebekah (so encouraging) and get some work done for Camp Espoir.  Baby weighing at the hospital this morning- encouraging (fat babies) and discouraging (many underweight little ones and mama’s who give birth at home) all at the same time.  Found a filp chart on family planning – something I’ve recently become excited about as Aposto and I went to a small session on the basic information at PDM.  One of my new hopes and goals to implement here within the village.

Met with Aposto, a female teacher and my French tutor yesterday to set up a plan to create a girls club for 5th-7th grade girls on basic life skills.  It went really well as all parties involved are on-board and motivated.  Everyone knows our girls struggle with self-confidence and believing they can be successful.  Using super helpful resources with step-by-step lesson plans from PC, I drafted a three month curriculum plan that we will present to the middle school director next week.  Excited and hopeful that we will be able to reach at least a few… reminding myself to have patience and be flexible.

Headed to Kara (north) tomorrow for a long weekend of training with other female PCV’s who will be conducting a nationwide women’s conference for the women of Togo.  It shall be interesting and I’m excited to learn from some of the best PCV women here in Togo!  More to come on that next week.