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Published: February 20th 2013
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2/9/13
This is going to be short and sweet. I’m really really sad. My closest friend here, Pip, quit working for Big Beyond. Everyone else here is great, but she was the person I most connected with and she left this morning for the UK. I’ll be alright, just need to re-group. This, like many other circumstances out here, are making me rely on God more and learn more about who I am and who I want to be. I needed that. I really miss my small group and the consistent spiritual support I received from going, but people are coming out of the woodwork to support me and it’s been really wonderful.
On another note, I found a HUGE spider in my bedroom. Like it’s body was as big as two dimes and it had thick hairy legs. Should’ve taken a picture, but I didn’t think about it while I was panicking. Luckily it was on the hooks and not in my bed…. Shiver…..
Last note- a retired doctor named Sherri is out here working with me, up through next week. It’s been really great to be able to work with someone. We’re bouncing ideas off of
each other, and my productivity has risen a lot. She was actually Big Beyond’s first volunteer, and was here last year around this time. As a result she is familiar with the problems in the area, and we’re working together on building a hand washing station at a local primary school. The school teachers told us that every kid walks down to a water spigot and washes their hands, but while we were there not one did. We also are teaching 2 sessions next week on hand washing, nutrition, and brucellosis (a disease from contaminated animal products that is endemic here.) We are teaching to a group of representatives from the stretcher groups, with the goal that they’ll teach their whole stretcher group in turn, and serve as the local expert.
Miss you guys! But not the snow! I just spent the morning tanning, looking out at rolling hills and banana trees.
2/11/13
Had a really fun weekend despite the sadness. Megan, a new volunteer, and I went to a really posh lodge on Saturday - $750 per person per night! We were going to just get drinks and look around, but an hour and half into
our walk there was a downpour, complete with hail, so we had to take shelter in another lodge. After a wait we made to the lodge, Clouds, and while it was very nice I can’t imagine that anything is worth that much money. We stopped and played pool with Emma and Vallence in a town on the way home, and after that we got caught in a rainstorm in the dark on the way home. It was a lot of fun and we ended up getting picked up in a 4 wheeler by a chairman of the community, Rubes, and driven the rest of the way home.
I am in a really weird mood right now about the fact that Pip left. The two guys that have been with us forever haven’t mentioned her absence yet, and a local guy here just said oh well, she’s gone we need to move on. She asked what was the point of her being here because when she left she just threw out her notebooks of her hours and hours of notes. She said everyone else had the info so there was really no point of her being there. It makes me
question why am I here. When the people who you think you are your friends don’t even really care when you leave? And you try to make your projects as sustainable as possible but they’re not going to last indefinitely. Ugh.
2/20/13
I’ve been really slow in posting because it’s been raining sometimes as many as four times per day here. No sun = no power. Sorry. Here’s a bit of an update on what I’ve been working on.
I've completed roughly 6 weeks so far, and have learned so much about community health. I've done a lot of informal research about the health of the population, and have discovered what they think their health needs are, what I think their health needs are, barriers, etc. With that information I'm working on several projects.
1. I've helped set up a pilot hand washing station at a community primary school. It's called a tippy tap, and it's a really easy to make, inexpensive project that people can construct at their own homes. We're working with the school to teach kids the importance of hand washing, ideally through more creative methods like songs. We're going to
work with them regarding covering their latrines as well next week, and nutrition if possible. I’m also going to be working with the school’s health club. At this point, the health club primarily cleans the school. They pick up trash and clean the latrines daily. Why a student would join, I have no idea. I’m waiting for a meeting to start now so I will find out why soon.
2. I'm working on establishing a health committee. I've taught several sessions, some solo, some with a volunteer MD who was here for a few weeks, about nutrition, brucellosis, and hand washing. (Brucellosis is an endemic disease here caused by consuming products from infected animals, or coming in contact with the feces of the infected animals.) The problem was that we were not holding people accountable for disseminating the information to their community, which is really the whole point. So I'm forming this committee to brainstorm through barriers to health, and how to best get information to the community. I will then set up a system of accountability with this small group of people to teach others.
3. My organization is setting up a demonstration farm for the community
the "health club"
aka all the kids that wanted to watch the mzungu to teach about sustainable farming techniques. At this site I'll be setting up a demonstration kitchen. So, basically we're going to construct a model kitchen on site and I'll be putting up a ton of signs (in Rukiga, the local language) about the importance of boiling water, safe food preparation, adequate kitchen ventilation, hygiene, etc., so that whenever people come up to the site they will learn about health as well. I'll be putting up signs in the latrine as well, and we have put a hand washing station on site already.
4. We're going to try to do a monthly mini health fair in town once a month on a Friday, the busy busy market day. I'll be having "booths," again concentrating on nutrition, hand washing, and brucellosis. We'll be as interactive as possible, showing people how to make the tippy taps, etc. We are going to get a local dance company involved as well to draw people to us and provide entertainment!
Things are consistently changing here, and as we figure out what can be done and what is not possible, or discover better ways to do things, the plans are evolving. This is the game plan at the moment though! I'm pretty excited about what has happened and what is to come!
In addition to community health, I’m really learning a ton about myself here as well. I’ve really had to lean on God to get me through tough times, and am actively growing in my faith. I have been able to talk to new people about it too, which is kind of cool because it’s something I’ve felt uncomfortable doing in the past. I’ve also learned not to be so naïve and trusting of people. I’ve learned that culture impacts people way more than I ever imagined. I’ve learned more about what I want for my future. I could write a novel about this kind of stuff but it’s more appropriate for a personal conversation than in a blog. Can’t get my pics to load off of my camera at the moment so I’ll put some another time. Love and miss you guys!!
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