Hey Hey,
Hope everyone’s January is winding down well. It’s almost February, meaning it’s almost my birthday! My first in Africa, and I’ll finally be a big kid Peace Corps volunteer! ;) Except once I finally hit 22, everyone else will be 23+, and I will never catch up! Oh well.
Well things are just moving along so well here! I have had a few meetings with my counterpart about our Health Project and we’ve settled on some dates for the trainings, the topics of the trainings and who will be the presenters. Then we met with the RHMs (Rural Health Motivators – bogcugcuteli in siSwati) who will be trained by nurses and NGOs and then teach to the community. My counterpart said she was concerned that they would not want to partake in this project because they would think it was too much work. I was nervous too because, frankly, it is a lot of work for them, doing surveys, attending the training, teaching three two-day sessions to the community. And it is a lot of work for my counterpart, as I am hoping that we do the planning together and/or she does it, so she can do this when I’m gone. But during the meeting I was so impressed with everything and everyone. My counterpart conducted the whole thing without any prompts from me (which was nice but at the same time I had to struggle to follow along as it was all in siSwati… story of my life here) and the RHMs were so engaged and discussed the topics they thought would be most beneficial to the community and even suggested that their training be three days instead of two. Then before the meeting closed, they said they wanted to thank me for involving them in my project about 200 times and that it was clear to them how much I loved them and wanted to work with them. I was so touched, especially because I was the one who should have been thanking them a million times! They said the two previous volunteers in the community came and went and never worked with them or invited them to help with projects so they were ecstatic when they heard I wanted to meet them. And I was ecstatic when they wanted to participate in my project so it is a definite win-win. : ) So February will be busy writing the grant for this project to submit by the end of February so that the project can start at the end of May!
I also had a meeting at the Primary School today. Schools started almost two weeks ago now and I hadn’t heard anything from the head teacher about teaching Life Skills so I assumed it had fallen by the way side as the schools were already in session, and I was alright with that as my Health Project was going so well. But as soon as I sit down in her office today she says she is giving me three periods (1/2 hour each) a week for Life Skills. Apparently they still haven’t made a new timetable for this year, two weeks into the year. But she says it should be finished by Monday and I will begin teaching next week! So things are really starting to pick up here, which I am very thrilled about. Seven months in, it’s about time huh? Ha.
Also, an update on my half marathon adventures (for those of you not on Facebook and Twitter who haven’t seen my rantings), the TwoOceans Half Marathon filled up in record time this year, all 13,500 spots. And we weren’t registered! : ( But we signed up for a 10K Trail Run instead, which should be equally fun. So we’ll still be running in Capte Town over Easter weekend. Maybe we’ll hit up the actual half marathon next year; pending COS (Close of Service) Conference dates.
Well that’s about all for now. It’s almost 9, way passed my bedtime! I don’t know if I’ll get another update up before the Super Bowl so everyone make sure they cheer hard against those pesky Packers for me! Especially those of you going! ; )
Love you and miss you all!
Megan
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