Everything is ticking over nicely in the community and aside a few massive thunder storms, nothing very exciting or out of the ordinary has happened.
The volunteer teams are now in full swing and really settled in their work.
Our agriculture team have had their proposal for a a community vegetable plot approved and their courgette seeds arrived from the uk. Their idea is to have a demonstration plot to introduce new vegetables into the usual crops grown here as a means to improve nutrition and boost farmers income. They plan to use the demo plot to show farmers and community members how best to grow their vegetable with the view to the farmer then starting up their own plots and the community members starting garden kitchens.
The health team have been continuing to issues sessions on HIV, Malaria and sexual reproductive health and have also been working along side the agriculture team on their veg plot (as nutrition is part of the health teams work. They have also been working hard on their health magazine which they plan to give out in schools.
The youth team have proposed to start a Balik (cloths dying) business with the female community youth volunteers. The idea is to teach the girls a skill which they can then turn into a business. They have joined up with the gender team on this task.
Environment team have been writing a mini curriculum for the schools here which uses the uk environment comic Captain Planet as the foundation. They plan to introduce and pilot their session plans and workshops during this cycle so that the next cycle of volunteers can continue with this.
As for me and Aive this week has been busy busy busy. Aside of supporting and advising the teams on their work we have been completing all our volunteer supervisions. We've also met with all our volunteers host families this week to see how they are getting on and thank god they are all very happy. It was funny listening to them all laugh and talk a out how rubbish we Europeans are at hand washing! (Glad it's not just my family who think we're useless at it).
The rain has been unreal this week, I've never experience anything like it before. Thunder that vibrates through your body and rain pouring from the sky like from a waterfall. It's raining now but I don mind as I'm inside, cosy just listening to is on the tin roof -very relaxing. Also it's a blessing when it rains as it means that we have water for washing clothes and ourselves and for cleaning as the only water we have access to is rain water.
I can't quite believe that in just over 3 weeks we will have completed the first cycle! I've learnt so much and feel so much more confident about the next cycle than I ever though I would. We've a 5 week break between these vols leaving and the next arriving so lots of time for me to have chance to really get to grips with the community, language and the program.
Tonight my friend Jodie is coming over to stay. She's my new favourite as she has found Nutella for me (small pleasures) so when she comes over tonight we're going to scoff Nutella and drink Zanzi (the TZ version of Baileys) - happy days! We're also going to plan a trip away in the next two weeks. Just need to decide where we want to go.
Tomorrow is our second community action day. We were hoping to have a drama group or choir perform but unfortunatly were unsuccessful securing either. However the volunteers have arranged to hold various stalls (workshops). One will be holding a talk about women's rights and gender issues. Another will be a colouring activities for the kids with a focus on nutrition and agriculture (the idea is that the colouring sheets have information printed on the back so that when the children take the sheets home to show their parents the parents will see the information and hopefully learn something new). Sneaky Beaky. Then we're having a did you know stall - the idea here is to have facts written on pieces of paper which will be placed inside balloons, the participants will pop the balloon then share the fact with the group and hold a discussion about it.
After all the stalls have completed their activities I have planned a sports activity (with the support of the volunteers) we re gong to run a limbo, long jump, relay, sprint, 3 legged race and if we get hold of some rope we're going to have a tug of war for the finale. I've made certificates as prizes for the 1st 2nd and 3 rd places and we will also be handing out sweet bananas and mangos to the participants - here's to hoping it doesn't rain!!!
Watch this space for pics and if I can videos from the day.
(I showed the lion king to my family thinking they'd like it - they didn't - and I had to go through that embarrassing experience of switching it off half way through. Oh well just need to get hold of some more ice age movies as they loved the last one!)
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