My Cotton Anniversary – Two Years in Ethiopia

Two years. Two very long, very short years. Two years of what the hell? yes, I’ll eat that, don’t you dare, oh shit, this is fantastic, can I hold that baby? no I don’t want your baby, just 1 spoonful of sugar, you want more injera? No, that chicken won’t give you HIV, what are you doing here? are you Israeli? you are fat, you have good Amharic, you disappeared!, how much? no contract please, this is a work phone, did I get a package? I’m proud, I’m so frustrated, was that a gunshot or a car? that’s my window seat lady! WOW! and I think I need a nap.

So what did I do over two years? Now that I’m coming to the end of my time I finally sat down and looked at every project, mentorship, relationship and “program” I did. But how do you measure two years? In daylight? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee? (Yes, Rent, that last one would probably work for Ethiopia). Well, here is my last two years – by the numbers:

I worked with 1308 beneficiaries and service providers, four organizations (3 NGO, 1 government), two educational institutions (University and Teacher’s College), trained 230 Peace Corps volunteers, and wrote a Master’s Thesis.

Here’s a short breakdown:

HIV- Reached 244 students with prevention programs such as Grassroot Soccer (4 interventions) and ARC awareness programs. Trained 12 HIV + women in income generation activities such as soap making and product marketing. Many of my nutrition programs also covered Orphans and Vulnerable Children and HIV+ beneficiaries.

Malaria – Reached 555 students with bed net demonstrations, 86 girls and 91 boys with targeted malaria behavior change communication (C-Change materials) and trained 230 volunteers in malaria work (bed net transformation, Audacity software, and malaria science). Served as Amhara Regional Stomp Out Malaria Coordinator.

Nutrition – Set up daily meal programs for 26 adults and 10 children through a soup kitchen and day care.

WASH- Trained 13 service providers working with school aged youth on WASH practices and youth-oriented trainings.

Gender Empowerment – Reached 170 women, 40 men in targeted interventions including Camps, Clubs, University lectures, and higher education women’s leadership programs.

English Language Improvement – Mentored 10 boys and 22 women in English improvement through clubs and newspaper editing.

Organizational Capacity Building – Worked with three non-governmental organizations and one government organization on topics such as project design and management, monitoring and evaluation, communications, fundraising (including grant writing), and marketing.

Communications and Videography – Produced three videos for NGO use, and produced other communications for a this blog.

Over two years in Gondar, I was able to attend two Timket ceremonies, one Meskel ceremony, countless coffee ceremonies, family events, and celebrations. I was a bridesmaid and witness for my sitemate’s betrothal to her local fiancé. I summited Ras Dashen, the highest peak in Ethiopia and introduced my visiting family and friends to the ancient wonders of Lalibela and the source of the Nile. I heard the stories of HIV positive friends, mentally and physically disabled, and the elderly. I had challenging conversations with local doctors and university professors, hung out with street children and got doro wot stains on every piece of clothing.

So that’s two years. That’s what I did. But no amount of numbers or anecdotes or photos can really express the amount of change I have seen in myself, and the community around me. No number of blog posts, emails, or phone calls can really show the amount of beauty and despair I have witnessed living here. So I am finishing. I am coming home. Some in my group left early. Some are staying longer. But I feel finished. I feel I have done what I came to do, and it’s time to move on. I may come back to Ethiopia one day (it is a magnet for those of us working in International Development), but I will come back older, wiser, and for some different purpose. A big part of my job over these past two years was simply living here. Sharing my culture, my thoughts, and learning and sharing back home the culture and thoughts of Ethiopians.

I may come back for work, but I will probably never again experience the intense immersion of the past two years of Peace Corps. It is a unique job. It is about serving others, but it also about sharing experiences. Living in the community, at the level of the community, with and among and integrated with the community. I knew what I signed up for. And I had no idea what I signed up for.

Would I go back in time and apply again? Absolutely. Will I do this again in the future? Probably not. Though Peace Corps Response does look tempting for when I get wanderlust again in 10 years. But I probably won’t sign up for a full 27 month commitment again. This is, as they say, the toughest job you’ll ever love.

Meskel, or Why are People Burning Crosses?

Ah Meskel, a holiday that celebrates the toil of St. Helena who traveled to Jerusalem to follow a bonfire towards the true cross. A cozy family holiday where people eat meat dishes, pick yellow daisies… and burn giant effigies to the ground!

lighting the compound meskel

The day started at 6am when my compound family knocked on the door to let us know that they were ready to burn a cross! Gathered outside of our houses, we watched and took photos of the meskel (cross) as it went up in flames, then sat down to a typical breakfast – coffee (of course), mutton bits with injera, popcorn, and holiday bread.

Later that day, we dressed up in our Habesha best (white embroidery) and headed up to the center of town to watch the big celebration. UNESCO just designated the Ethiopian Meskel Celebrations as a World Heritage event last year, and considering how many people came out to see a giant cross on fire, I can safely say I’ve never experienced anything like it. Using our “ferenji power” we just walked past the line of police and national military towards the priests. Sometimes it pays to have a nice camera. But once the prayers were said, and the cross was ignited (yes, they doused it in kerosene), all sorts of chaos broke. Chanting, young men grabbing burning embers and running through the crowd, mobs and riots and blessings? It was crazy, and we were in the middle of it! I just kept clicking my camera. Here are the  results:

… reasons why I can never run for office

the cross fell towards my house! I think this means something

if you needed proof of how tall I am

a two year struggle – EAT! NO!

gathered for Meskel

the cutest gorsha ever

no, no, I can talk…

a typical family photo

Priests and their umbrellas

#selfie

Meskel Square, Gondar

small riot

To Morocco with Mom

I just spent the last 10 days gorging myself on feta cheese, olives, and lots of hugs from mom. Can anyone say best vacation ever? We met up in Morocco with two other Peace Corps friends and a set of parents and toured around the Northern cities – so. many. medinas.

Here’s a rundown of our awesome trip, more photos than not (cause I know what you like). And if anyone is wondering, we booked with an Intrepid Tour, and I would HIGHLY recommend them.

Casablanca:

We arrived in Casablanca one day early to acclimate ourselves, and recover from a 10 hour layover in Dubai. Went to the Hassan II Mosque, ate a delicious lunch a Rick’s Cafe (hey, we’re American), and wandered through the old part of the city (called the Medina) before meeting up with our tour.

Lora and I in front of the Hassan II Mosque

intricate detail

It can hold up to 25,000 worshipers

Rabat:

Took an early train to Rabat and spent a half day walking around the Kasbah, which is the old part of the city. They were also filming an action movie where motocycles ride up stairs into the tiny Kasbah alleyways – pretty cool. Then we headed to the Hassan II tower (he’s a popular guy) where there was a mausoleum for some ancient kings (because I paid attention).

A cemetery outside the Kasbah

she’s a giant!

a bunch of doors

the foundations of the old mosque and the Hassan II tower

I was helping him guard

Moulay Idriss:

A small village nestled in the mountains near Meknes, Moulay Idriss just opened to non-Muslim visitors a few years ago. Many people treat this village as a pilgrimage to see the tomb of Moulay Idriss, and it is said tha 5 times here is the same as 1 time to Mecca… We stayed in a family’s home, converted to a hotel and ate a traditional Moroccan family meal with kefta tagine (meatballs), Moroccan salad, lots of olives, and fresh melon. OM NOM NOM.

can’t get a car up these tiny roads #stillinAfrica

tea time

a rooftop view

Sunset over Moulay Idriss

Olives. I am a fan.

Kefta tagine

Volubilis:

The next morning we drove to the Roman ruins of Volubilis. A well preserved city, it was the Southernmost point of the empire. It was inhabited until the 1700s where an earthquake destroyed most of the city. Considering I had never heard of it before this trip, it was pretty amazing, and I would even say gives Pompeii a run for its money on how much was preserved.

Lebanese cedars

proof we went on the trip together! Peace Corps Ethiopia!

crazy bird’s nest

a preserved mosaic floor

all roads lead to Rome

Meknes:

The fourth largest city in Morocco, we stopped by Meknes for an afternoon of sightseeing and meat eating. Meknes is known for its silver metal work, where they inlay silver thread into iron. We also stopped for a camel burger – pretty delicious!

an ancient granary

The hand of Fatima – to ward off the Evil Eye

Colourful tagines in the Meknes Medina

because this picture is hilarious #MoCroInMorocco

Camel Burger

Meknes metal work

Fes:

We spent two nights in Fes. The first night we had dinner at a family’s home in the Medina, good thing we had a guide! You could get lost in there for years. Fes is known for a sweet chicken pastry called pastilla. It was sooooo goooood. Have I mentioned how good the food was? I was a little bit in heaven over this trip. The next day we wandered the Medina (with a guide-necessary) and saw artisans making pottery, carpets, scarves, and leather. I splurged and bought myself a good quality leather jacket. I mean, I need something to go home in when it’s December!

a family meal – pastilla for dinner

The Jewish Quarter, more open

soap for the Hamam (Moroccan bath)

Prickly pear are sold on the street – they are a cross between a kiwi and a melon.

Fez hats in Fes

Fes panorama

kick wheel pottery

cutting tile for a mosaic

leather ottomans

Tannery pits – dye and phosphates and urine. Sexy.

carpets by hand

ready for the Sahara sandstorms

Chefchouen:

The little town of Chefchouen is nestled in the Riff Moutains, but what it is really know for are its blue doors. Well, blue doors, windows, walls, streets and stairs. Everything was blue! This was one of my favorite stops on the tour. Here Lora and I went to a public Hamam (Moroccan bath) and got our henna done. The bath is styled like a Roman bath (not Turkish) where there are three rooms: hot, medium, and cold. You spend most of your time in the hot room, where neighborhood ladies will scrub you down, whether you asked them too or not.

We also went on an early morning hike into the Riff mountains, and got a little lost on our way down. But we ended up in a random village and skimmed down on our butts to get off the mountain. I couldn’t get out of Peace Corps if I tried.

traditional hats with pom poms 🙂

The old Kasbah

Early morning Chefchouen with fog

Got my henna on… still visible! though fading

Tangiers:

We spent the morning in Tangiers, walking around the old city and staring at the ocean – you can see Spain! Not much to report here, though a lot of European tourists come through on the day ferry. I did learn that Morocco was the first nation to recognize America’s independence though!

American Legation Museum

You can see Spain in the background!

just chillin on the beach

Marrakech:

Our last stop on the tour, we started with a walk through the medina and spice shop demonstration. Saffron here is very cheap, if you’re interested. We saw the Saddien tombs, and the Bahia Palace. That afternoon we walked to the Majorelle Gardens (a lot of cactus) then had a last night dinner with the group (lamb, yum). The next morning we had a cooking class where we went through the market buying ingredients, then learned to make chicken lemon tagine at a local home. That evening we went back to the main square (Jemma al Fna) where the market comes to life at night (it was 43+ degrees  Celsius in the day!). The open area is covered with food tents and juice carts, and snake charmers, lantern sellers, acrobats, and drummers. The energy was contagious.

 

Saddien Tombs – 3 Kings

cars should not go through medinas

a traditional berber tent

so. many. spices.

lanterns in the market

sweets!

Majorelle Gardens – crazy cactus

buying spices for our tagine cooking class

personal tagines

us two chefs 🙂

before

after! yum

couldn’t resist… too cute

yes, that is a snake charmer

panorama of Jemma al Fna at sunset

Dinner in one of the tents

Night market

The Terrible Awful. Getting Sick in Country.

I have the Goonfahn.

Now before you get all Ebola outbreak crazy on me and try to find the local equivalent of 911 (there isn’t one, sorry mom!), you should know what the goonfahn is. It’s terrible. It’s awful. It’s the common cold.

Tropical diseases tend to lend a sort of street cred: Malaria (ooh!), typhoid (ahh!), shitting your pants from amoebas or bacterial dysentery (3 times!). But the common cold? Buck up, Sarah. But seriously, I am going to prove to you that getting sick, just normal sick, nothing fancy, is automatically 12.3 times worse than it would be at home.

Here’s what I would do with a cold in the States: shoot some DayQuil and go on my merry way feeling about 75% normal. Here’s what happens with a cold in Ethiopia: shoot some DayQuil (courtesy of a care package), and stay bed ridden for three straight days cursing the gods, nature, and all things beautiful.

I’m thinking I got this bout of death from the mass of teenage girls I spent time with just about 2 weeks ago (suspicious!). One of the cutest, and most disgusting, parts of Ethiopian food culture is the gorsha, or feeding someone with your hands from your plate. Three gorshas are a charm, and mean someone loves you. I got a lot of love that week. I think next year they need to enforce a hand washing rule.

Good thing I didn’t have anything productive planned this week (sorry thesis). Here’s how this one snuck up on me.

Day 1 – I start to get a sore throat, but I’m already out and working so I order a ginger tea. A fellow volunteer is staying with me that night to catch a flight in the morning and we talk late into the night. Mistake.

Day 2 – I wake up unable to speak. My family calls at the usual time and I whisper through 12 minutes of conversation (normal talk time 30-40min) probably causing them to think I’m dying, hang up and go straight back to bed. Wake up and make tea, watch Vampire Diaries, nap, repeat. I feel guilty because at this point I only have a sore throat and I have zero energy.

Day 3 – Sleep in until 11am. No more guilt. Full blown achey, heachache, stuffed up, feel like an elephant with my head in an aquarium vengeance. I muster enough energy to head the 15 feet across the street to buy some bread. The store owner asks the typical Anchi dehna nesh? “Are you fine?” and I respond that “No, I am not fine, I am exhausted and I am sick with the goonfahn!” With a confused look, he continues to repeat the question until I finally answer appropriately. “I am fine!” cough cough. He hands me my bread with the parting words Ayzosh yaine lij  “Stay strong my child.” The conversation is so stereotypical I have to laugh/cough my way back across the street.  You could be literally dying in this country and someone would still answer that they are “fine.”

Day 4 – Progress! The cold has moved from my nose back to my throat, and I am in the super sexy phlembot tuberculosis coughing stage. Overnight however, my sinuses have conspired to attempt to push my eyeballs from my skull. A fellow volunteer calls to check up on me and I tell her to go to hell, her and her perfect health (she has a staph infection). I continue my trend of tea, nap, repeat.

I decide I need to actually make some food since I don’t have any stomach issues (knock on wood!) and my energy is awful. My daily ration of DayQuil, bananas, and crackers isn’t really sustaining… and I’m out of bananas and crackers. I opt for soup, also known as throw a bouillon cube in boiling water and call it a day.

Day 5 – Ok. Today is the day. I have dinner plans with some friends, and I have to at least attempt energy. I haven’t moved more than 15 feet from my house in three days, and tonight I have to extol the virtues of Gondar tourism to a Bradt Guide writer who is coming through town. I put in my contact lenses to at least pretend like I feel normal, though I’m pretty sure my bright red nose gives me away.

Day 6 – Feeling much better kas ba kas “slowly”. Though I still use the goonfahn as an excuse to get out of attending a fundraiser for a leadership group I have worked with. Hey, I might as well get something useful out of this cold.

Getting sick in country sucks, but I’d venture to say that sometimes the cure is worse. I have been lucky enough never to have to go to a clinic for personal reasons, but I also probably push the envelope on “I’ll just wait it out and see.” I’ve been generally fairly healthy during my two years here, minus a few nasty goonfahns, and some normal GI issues. But with the recent death of a volunteer in China, I’ve come to realize I probably should be a little more careful and honest with my medical team. When I came to mid-service conference about a year ago we had to have a meeting with the Peace Corps doctors. My chart was empty. Even though I had had multiple bouts of vomiting, shitting of the pants etc over 12 months, I had never bothered to call. I know that if I was ever in real trouble I would say so, but sometimes I understand the worry that going to hospitals in these countries is scarier than waiting it out.

A Partnership Project

So my friend Sally from Bonga down south, has started a fundraising campaign for a project that involves Gondar. It’s basically a training program for environmental tourism. I’m a co-signer on the grant and have helped her with contacts in Gondar and the Simiens. Please send it along if you want/and donate at the link.

Bonga, Kafa Zone, Ethiopia

Here is her/my project:

Hello friends! I send my best regards and hope that you are well. I am
writing to ask for your help and support. I need to raise funds for a
sustainable development project as part of my Peace Corps service.
Please find details below, and the link to my project here:
https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=14-663-028

“Whenever we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to
everything else in the universe.” -John Muir

We are one world. Try as we might to preserve one little corner of it
– a national park here, a bird sanctuary there – that effort is lost
without thousands of similar efforts far away from us; we are all
connected. Many of us who work in environment-related careers remember
a formative experience as an intern or volunteer, learning both love
of nature and the skills to communicate that love to others. This
project intends to provide such a formative experience to promising
young environmental leaders in Ethiopia, by sending interns from the
newly formed Makira Tour Guides Association in Bonga to  learn with a
more established tour guide operation in northern Ethiopia.

Bonga is a developing town of around thirty thousand in the southwest
administrative zone of Kafa. Nestled in breathtakingly beautiful cloud
forests, Kafa Zone was recently declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
This designation recognizes Kafa’s complex ecosystems supporting
natural coffee and abundant wildlife; it also aims to provide means
for sustainable development and poverty alleviation for Kafa’s one
million inhabitants. As the population here grows, there is more
demand on forest resources; work is being done to promote sustainable
use of these resources, as well as to introduce alternative
livelihoods such as ecotourism. Well over a hundred thousand hectares
of forest here preserve millions of tons of carbon dioxide, besides
supporting unique biodiversity and a landscape known as the
“Birthplace of Coffee.”

Members of the Makira Tour Guides Association here were trained two
years ago through a project run by Naturschuzbund Deutschland and the
Ethiopian Wildlife and Natural History Society. However, while these
and other organizations have been working hard to promote Kafa as a
tourist destination, the new guides have not had much practice. A
refresher training I ran this year as a Peace Corps Volunteer shows a
group of eager, but untried guides, with little knowledge of how to
structure a tour, provide for customer needs and comfort, or market
their product to the world. By contrast, Simien Mountains National
Park in Ethiopia’s north has been welcoming tourists for decades. The
leader of Simien Trek Tour Company (www.simientrek.com), Shiferaw
Asrat, has an easy command of the tools of his trade. He has agreed to
accept two representatives of Makira TGA to intern with him for four
weeks, observing and apprenticing with him, then drafting their own
two-year plan to bring back to their association in Bonga.

So many fundraising efforts by charity organizations in the developing
world involve acquiring stuff: food, construction materials, water
filters, medicines, supplies. This effort aims to spend money on
building capacity, by forging connections between Ethiopians
themselves. It is a relatively small investment – the total I need to
raise is under $2000. But this small amount could get this business
off the ground and help these rising leaders to benefit their local
community in a sustainable way.

Thank you for all that you do for the environment and the development
of our world.

Camp GLOW Gondar 2014

Some photos from my second Camp GLOW and Gondar’s 6th Annual. Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is a worldwide Peace Corps program. Gondar, Ethiopia was the first Camp GLOW in Ethiopia and continues to be the longest running thanks to hard working volunteers in the region. This year we had five themed days: Gender, Education, Environment, Health, and Leadership, with lifeskills, volunteerism and just general awesomeness making their appearance. Here are some photos from the week.

 

Some Goal 2 – teaching the girls how to throw an American football

morning sport

Girls Bill of Rights. From the girls themselves

Strong women gallery walk

Learning about Michelle Obama

Vision boards

Brittany leading an energizer

We had guest speakers throughout the week

reading her strong woman statement

breaking the pinata with her “strong woman” statement

Permagardening

giving nutrients to the soil through charcoal, eggshells, and compost

fertile ground

Working in Katie’s yard

getting their hands dirty

Vision Boards

Hyena and Sheep game

Malaria Freeze Tag

I was a mosquito

Condom demonstration

RMPs – Reusable Menstrual Pads

Talent Show- Injibara dance

“What is a leader?”

blind leading the blind…

The group at the Gondar Castles

I Am a Strong Girl. Statements from Ethiopian girls.

Last week Peace Corps Volunteers around West Amhara hosted the 6th annual Gondar Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). Over the week the girls bonded, learned, grew more confident and shared their stories.  Two of my favorite/inspiring stories came from one of my Gondar girls who I had brought back in a leadership position and one of the girls I lead through small discussions through out the week.

Tigist, one my campers from last year, who I brought back as a junior counselor this year, shared her past during a “Personal Tree” activity. The activity uses the life of trees as an analogy to think and share about our pasts. She revealed that she had been born in a small town near to Gondar (Tikil Dingay – another PCV’s site) and ended up in Gondar as an orphan after she was put in jail in 8th grade for attacking a man who was harassing her. She was able to put her life back together through a local NGO orphanage program and now rates as one of the top students in her class.

The other girl, really a woman, Asmira is an 18 year old girl in 8th grade. She revealed that she had been married off as an 8 year old girl by her parents. They were married for a few months before the boy’s parents decided she was too young and they should get a divorce and then the family would come collect her later, when she was “older.” Once she was divorced she started going back to school and expressed that “now I am educating myself, I have the confidence to say no! That marriage is over!”

These are just two of the stories form girls in this region. See below for some of their “Strong Girl” statements.

 

I am a strong girl because I can participate any activity. I can learn in the class.

I am strong girl because first strong me was born female sex. After I learn sometimes then I teach my family. Now I come to Gondar and teach some things so I said I am strong.

I am strong girl because to participate to education. I have confidence in my self.

I am strong girl because I have good behavior and I am special girl.

I am a strong girl because I can make a thing which can make me happy. Also I have a strong families which are making me to be strong. Based on that I will never give up. Finally I am helping people who have no chance to be strong like me & I am voluntary to make good things to others. No one can stop me to achieve my dream.

I’m a strong girl because I have a self reliant.

I am a strong girl because I believe in myself.

I am a strong girl because I hopefully for anything and I never give up.

I am a strong girl because I am studying anything in a book. I love you.

I am a strong girl because I achieve my goals. I know myself. Anything I do it as my self confidence, my self reliant.

I am a strong girl because I have self confidence to make a decision and I love it.

I am strong girl because I am self acceptable and I know my self.

I am strong girl because I believe myself.

I am a strong girl because I have confidence and I am not hopeless.

I am strong because I am the one can change the world.

I am strong because I never give my hand to my problem.

I am a strong girl because I do what I want.

I’m a strong girl because I say so!

I’m a strong girl because I’ve a big goal & self confidence.

I am a strong because I believe self confidence.

I am a strong girl because I have self confidence.

I am a strong because I believe in my self.

I am a strong girl because I have self confidence.

I am strong because I am a confidency girl. I being myself!

I am a strong girl. I have appreciative self and self confidence by education group participation, also I have goals.

I am a strong girl because I have a self confidence and I do everything on myself.

The Programs of Menna

Over the past few months I have helped a fledgling NGO set up some communications (website, brochure etc.) Their main program is a daily meal that is really one of the first soup kitchens in Africa. The group started as a bunch of university friends who wanted to make a difference in their community. While they are still quite small, their passion has really made an impact.

Here is the video I put together highlighting their programs, their beneficiaries and some of their info. Check it out to see the type of work I’ve been doing, and some interviews with people in my city.

Sorry for the crappy quality – not much I can do with a flipcam and 5 hours of uploading.

Soap Bubbles and Birr – Income Generation for HIV+ Women

There is a group of women that get together every two weeks to sit, talk, make toys for sick children in the hospital, learn about health issues, and create beautiful scarves, baskets, and other items for sale. These women are all HIV positive.

The handicrafts they make either go to a local NGO store as income for their family, or as donations to orphans living within the hospital compound. While they are making these items, they catch up on each other’s lives, talk about health issues, and about living and coping with HIV.

I have worked with this group off and on over the past year, and they finally asked if there were any other products they could make for the store. What could I teach them that would diversify their products and make them unique? I thought back to our Environment day at Camp Glow last year and remember the girls loved learning to make soap!

So after talking with the NGO, the women, and some tourists, artisinal soaps sounded like it would fit for both the women (easy to make) and their customers (who doesn’t want herbal soaps?). I am lucky to be in a town with a tourist economy. Honestly, locals would not buy cute, herbal soap. But foreigners do!

So I brought in my resident experts: Ag/Environment volunteers Ronny and Kirsten, who had lead the soap making activity last summer. With my organization/logistical work, and their knowledge we put together a 2 hour soap enhancement for income generation training.

Kirsten talking about how the different herbs affect the body.

While we can’t actually produce soap here (lye is incredibly difficult to find), we can do “soap enhancement.” Taking basic soap, melting it down, and adding different herbs for different features. Bad circulation? Try cinnamon or black pepper. Want to exfoliate? Add salt, sugar, or something very available here – coffee grinds!

After explaining the purpose of different herbs, we went through the process of how to cut, melt, and then add the ingredients to be set in a mold. The women were able to choose their own “recipes.”

Ronny helping with grinding the herbs

shaving down the soap for easy melting

Using the Kindu Trust stove to melt the soap and add ingredients

Getting the temperature juuuuust right, or knowing when to stop adding water simply takes practice. We left all the equipment, herbs, and extra soap for the women to try over the month. We also went in to packaging and labeling techniques for the store. The women were already trained on basic financial planning – to sell their baskets and scarves they have to make a item list of individual cost. Here’s what came out of the molds the the first time (to be carved and packaged later):

different mold techniques and sizes – this batch was a cinnamon, black pepper mix

Income generation does not have to be starting a company. One person, learning a skill, and marketing that skill is enough to generate basic income. Here we diversified a product base, but income generation schemes can be as simple as jewelry making to as complex as setting up a mill or breeding goats for sale. For many HIV positive people, especially women, they must be able to support themselves or make their own money since after diagnosis the availability of work drastically decreases. Basic IGAs (income generating activities) improve the livelihoods of people who want to more than simply survive their illness.

The Group

The training/planning team

 

When It’s Hard

The past few weeks have been hard. Yes, no water and electricity hard. Yes, harassment hard. Yes, procrastinating on my thesis hard. But those are normal. I’m talking one of my best friends going home hard. Two of my other best friends encountering one of the scariest moments of their service hard. And having moments where all you do is count the months, days, and even minutes down hard.

It’s hard because these things aren’t happening to me. If I actually sit and think about my past few months, some amazing things have happened: friends from America visited, my sitemate got engaged!, I was in India for chrissakes. But coming home to a lot of uncertainty, melancholy, and old fashioned frustration brought me down fast. And now I feel guilty for feeling blue, which also makes it hard.

It’s hard because I can’t talk about it here. Events that have unfolded that caused some of our best volunteers to choose to go home were out of their control. They were political, and violent, and scary. And because they are political, and violent, and scary they are secret and we are told to keep it so. I had grown used to daily life, and I forgot how close to the edge this country can be. And then we go back to daily life- so quickly, nothing happened, don’t talk about it.

My town was “unaffected” by some of the larger issues. That’s why I’m still here. But protests still happened, bullets still flew, and people still died. Over a housing issue. Had those other events not happened, would the police in my town have been so quick to pull triggers? Had a student not been killed last winter, would our town’s university joined in? Is there a point to asking hypothetical questions? Not really, so we go back to daily life – so quickly, nothing happened, don’t talk about it.

When I lived in Jordan, I worked at the Center for Defending the Freedoms of Journalists. A mouthful, I know. But it was about giving people the right to mouthfuls. We worked to defend freedom of speech. Remind politicians what international laws they had signed. Represent journalists in court. And encourage good journalism, reporting on the issues. I personally worked on putting a grant together for election coverage training. But, y’know, that’s the Middle East. There’s an election coming up here next year. But I’m told I probably shouldn’t mention my former job.

One of the projects I’m most proud of has been setting up a student newspaper at the university. It’s really more of a literary magazine, with student and administration submissions. It is nowhere near objective or free, the administration must approve each and every copy, but at least it’s one space where students can submit at least fiction and basic events coverage and start to think about how powerful information can be.

As volunteers we love the communities we are in. We have created friendships and working partnerships that only living somewhere for two years could forge. Clearly we want our towns to be stable. But being American, you get caught in a philosophical hard place. One of the Peace Corps goals is to share American culture – what is more American than free speech?

But it is hard. And the more it goes on, it makes it hard to care. I wasn’t born here. These aren’t my issues. Keep your head down, your job is health and behavior change. Stick to hand washing. Stick to HIV testing. Stick to girls empowerment? Stick to leadership skills? You see how this could grow sticky.

So I stick to two years. What I can do, I’ve tried to do. What I can’t do, I’ve tried a little to do. But then I can leave. My neighbors can’t. So I get it, change is slow. It’s hard. But when it’s hard, we go back to basics. Work with young girls, work with health, work with education. If these things grow, so will the number of people willing to engage the tough issues.