March 2004 - Six Months In This Wonderful Country
Bon jour beautiful people of America! This is a special 6-month anniversary edition of my update. As of yesterday, March 17, 2004, I have been in country for 6 months. Half a year. Wow. Also on this big day, my group is no longer the freshmen of the country. The newest training group arrived this morning therefore we are now sophomores! Someone figured out that there are in fact 2 trainings a year, therefore 4 trainings throughout our 2 year service...it's like high school all over again!
I'd like to take a moment to reflect over the last half a year. It certainly doesn't seem like that long. It feels like I just got here yesterday. I've gone through many changes since being here, at point I can say most of the changes are for the better. In general I'm calmer, have less stress, am much more laid back, more compassionate and generous. I was afraid of the changes I would face; I thought the ideals I brought with me would stay with me forever. This has not been so, and yet I'm glad and grateful for the stretches I've made mentally. It'll be interesting going back home. For example, many of you are very familiar with my moods of ranting. Well those are few and far between here, I'm learning to take more things in stride and just relax. I've gone to a whole other level of "Pick your battles". Some of the battles I was picking back home, just don't seem important now. I'm shedding the petty things I harbored. I'm also becoming more girly, I wear make-up and dress up here more then I ever did back home. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, that's yet to be seen!
And as if to help me celebrate my 6 months here, this week work finally started taking off. I've had a hellish week of meetings and running around and phone calls and trying to get organized. I'm always happiest when I have projects on the table. My next big personal hurdle will be to actually follow through on them!
I've made contact with the local middle school, which has a beautiful computer lab. Well beautiful in comparison here. We discussed programs for getting cheap computers and cheaper Internet access. We also discussed ways of getting kids to use the Internet for educational value, not just amour.france! I also sat in on an EVF Club meeting (Education de la Vie Familiale: Family life education). This group does peer to peer AIDS education, reproductive health, and general family education. It's totally voluntary and I was truly surprised at the number present, and the participation.
We discussed activities they could do to educate the school and the rest of the city. And we appointed a new journalist club to revamp the school newspaper. It's going to be completely student run. The teacher in charge of this group is amazing. He is someone I would have wanted as a teacher back home. He's totally giving the students all the power, while acting simply as a guiding force. His opening monologue for the group went over how the club should be work without him, it should be that organized. He then opened the floor for activity ideas and one student said, "What do you think sir?" His response, "Oh I have plenty of ideas, but it's not my club, I want to know what you guys want to do." There was a flurry chatter and some ideas were brought forth.
After the order of the day was finished we moved on to a practice AIDS education session, with true/false questions. I was incredible impressed with the amount of knowledge these kids had. Now keep in mind there were kids there ranging from ages 10 up to 16. Of course there were some holes in their info, but in the peer network we got those sorted out. They kept turning to me to see if I knew the answers to things, I would just say yes, I do...do you? And let the kids answer. One kid even knew the dates of the first AIDS case found in America and instead of just spouting the info, asked me if he had the right info. It was a very exciting night. I was also impressed with the openness both the teacher and the students felt with each other. All in all I feel like I'm finally getting to know my community.
I'm also going to be helping the students with a green project at the school. One of the teacher's missions is to make it a prettier place, his idea is if the students have a comfortable environment they'll learn better and be more relaxed. People have barely figured out that back in the States. I think this teacher is going to become a valuable partner, he's very progressive. I'm seeing an entirely different side to my town then the previous volunteer told me about.
I'm also working on doing some low cost computer classes for women's groups and poor youth, working with this teacher again. We'll see how that pans out.
On the personal front, I have truly fallen in love here in Senegal. He's adorable and funny and smart and short (like me) and loves to have fun...and he's only 3 1/2 years old! I have grown quite fond my little host brother. He's also my language partner because I can actually talk to him in Wolof and I can understand what he says. So the family life is going quite well, my mom is almost fully recovered from her illness. In fact she went back to work this week. And I'm getting to know some extended family who are here to help.
Miss you all still very much! And keep the e-mails coming! :)
Much Love, Paige
Journal #9
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