This morning, I dragged my sleepy self out of bed at 6:15 (or maybe it was 6:30....) to get prepared to go to the health center. While I was getting dressed, I heard ridiculously loud sobbing and screaming next door. I peeked out my window and saw a neighbor kid wailing. On my way out, I stopped by to see what the commotion was about. She had burned herself playing with the fire that the kids make every morning with the leaves that the amayis sweep out of the yard. Especially during cold season, everywhere you walk, you see kids huddled around smoky little fires in the morning before it warms up. She was still sobbing very loud as I checked it out. I ran back down to my house to grab an Aloe Vera clump and came back up with it. As I approached her to slather a little bit of the gel on her burn, she was absolutely terrified and her agogo (grandmother) legitimately had to hold her arm out so I could put some on it. Drama drama drama!
Performing dramas on how to say 'no!'
At our health center, Thursday is our ARV clinic day meaning that any and everyone in our catchment area of 15 villages who needs to get their anti-retroviral therapy medication comes. They are weighed, tested for a viral load sample, and meet with the doctor to discuss any issues they've had with their ART regimen and access family planning services (condoms, injections, pills etc). My counterpart and I have been conducting a survey with people who attend this clinic the past few weeks to try to better understand their needs and how we can help meet those needs. This morning, instead of doing a written survey (since we've learned that most people are illiterate), we did a focus group discussion. They told us that their biggest needs are learning about business and about food diversification and kitchen gardens. We encouraged them to join support groups in their villages in hopes that eventually, we can reach all of these support groups with programs (even if it's the groups teaching each other).
After we finished with our survey, I headed home to finally clean my house up. First though, I went to get water. As I walked up my uneven dirt steps to the main path, all the kids saw me with my bucket and insisted that I go back and get buckets for them to help. A sweet gesture for sure. My little band of iwes (what we PCVs calls the kids here but the literal translation is just an informal use of 'you') and I made the journey across the village to the spring and back to get water all together.
When we returned, Judy and Ester continued their dictionary practice- successfully finding 1 word all on their own! I busied myself cleaning up and organizing in my house. Kids kept coming to my porch, and I was starting to get slightly annoyed. When I heard an 'odi' (this is like calling 'hello?' when approaching someone's house) coming from around the side of my house, I thought it was another kid but then Tanvi's head popped out from behind my fence! She came with her counterpart and his family friend, so we sat on my porch drinking tea, eating mandasi, and discussing the problems of malawi, the approaching mango season, and how to make reusable sanitary pads. It was a morning full of chatting, and it was so nice!
After a yummy lunch of lentils and rice, my visitors started their journey back to Nessa village, and I met with more than half of our SOLID team about a variety of things. Three of them were administering a quiz today on the information we've taught thus far in our training and three of us were going to the school to continue with our SKILLZ girl program. We discussed upcoming plans, meeting dates, and how things would proceed while I'm gone for the next week and a half. Overall, I feel decent about where our group is at despite their inconsistent attendance at meetings (making it hard to get anything done) and occasional lack of dedication with projects. It's just such a different "professional" environment and structure than America. Things are so extremely organized and planned for in America and people don't miss meetings or show up an hour late with no excuse, commit to doing something and then not do it, or expect food to be provided if a meeting falls during a lunch hour. It's also way easier to coordinate in America because everyone has phones and emails, making it SO simple to communicate a message compared to here. Working with a group in Malawi can be incredibly frustrating, especially when you aren't offering anything to them. Malawi is extremely dependent on foreign aid, and people here have become so accustomed to allowances for attending trainings or meetings or for any work that they do that it can be very counteractive for PCVs who don't have money or food/transport allowances to give. Honestly, I get it though. They're living in extreme poverty and that extra bit of money is needed. Volunteering in your community is not something that is necessarily valued here and having the time to do that volunteer work is rare with the busy daily work schedule. Thankfully though, one of the benefits of SOLID programming is that it helps PCVs to identify and connect with those people who are motivated and who have the time. Our group is going to probably just focus on starting an IGA (income generating activity) and training this new group for now since we only have about 5-6 active volunteers currently.
The topics for our SKILLZ girl training today were a bit sensitive, and I was nervous about them. We talked about abuse (emotional, physical, and sexual including rape), how to say 'no,' and where/how to access services if you've been sexually abused. Although I couldn't quite understand everything that was being taught, I could tell that our male coach Martin did an excellent job being serious but also tried to make the lesson fun. The part about learning to say no can be surprisingly lighthearted as long as it's taken seriously too-we talk about clear language, body language, and walking away and demonstrate them. The girls got a kick out of Martin's demonstrations of comparing how not to say no and then a proper way of saying no. Then we divided them into groups and gave them a situation that they had to prepare a drama and act out to describe how they would say no in that situation based on the techniques we'd just covered. An example scenario: 'You go to a friends house, and he is the only one home. He tells you he wants to have sex, but you don't want to. He keeps pressuring you. What do you do?' The dramas were a fun way to get the girls interacting with the material and practicing. At the end of the lessons for the day, we discussed reusable pads. I handed out the materials, and we cut their plastic bags into the right shape. We did not have enough time to actually begin the process of sewing, but I'm really hoping that we can tomorrow. It's a time-intensive process that requires a lot of monitoring considering many of the girls do not even know how to sew and the process of making it can be a bit confusing if you've never done it before. They were all very curious and excited though about the idea of a reusable pad, so I know we'll find a time to make them. And I was so excited to finally teach about pads and use the materials that you guys who donated to our GoFundMe campaign helped us purchase!
On our walk back, Martin and I ran into various SOLID trainees who jokingly (maybe???) noted the difficulty of the quiz today! I took this time to compliment Martin on how well he was doing with the camp and how proud I am of him. He was all smiles! Tomorrow is his payday at work, so he can't come to finish the week with us unfortunately, but I wanted to make sure he knew how great of a job he'd been doing. I'm hoping it will inspire him and give him the confidence to do another intervention! When we parted ways, we did our typical 'pound it' with him commenting on how he'll definitely be able to teach the SOLID trainees next week when I'm gone and not to worry. Osadandaula...(don't worry).