June Update: The Work Stuff

Now that I’ve got the political situation out of the way, on to the work front…

The last time I posted, I was in Mtwara town for super-regionals and malaria training. Super-regionals is a one day conference where Volunteers in neighboring regions get together to brainstorm ideas, share contacts and refocus objectives. It was far more productive than I’d have imagined had someone just explained the concept to me. Malaria training gave us a refresher on Peace Corps’ malaria initiatives, including a major partnership with Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, which is in the process of a major bed net rollout in Tanzania’s southern regions (Mtwara, Lindi and Ruvuma).

My counterpart during our first PataPata session.

Most of the work I did immediately after super-regionals and malaria training was related to the bed net rollout, namely holding PataPata sessions at the local primary school and distributing promotional materials around my village, neighboring villages and one of the neighboring wards. PataPata is a malaria education radio program that teaches about proper maintenance and use of a mosquito net, along with facts about malaria and other health topics. Each session involved listening to an episode of PataPata, me asking students a series of questions relating to the episode, an exercise lead by my counterpart followed by another series of relevant questions or a game designed by me. We did ten sessions overall, averaging 158 students per session – pretty nifty!

My counterpart working with the students on an exercise.

Johns Hopkins also offered to bring in a mobile video unit to the villages of interested Volunteers. Signing up was a no-brainer. During the event, hundreds of villagers crowded into the market to listen to music, watch the video and play a malaria-related trivia session afterward for prizes. After my video night, I spent a couple days riding around to other nearby sites to record the events. I’d say it was a wild success.

See? Someone actually got a picture of me!

May also saw me teaching sessions about malaria prevention to pregnant mothers at the zahanati, and I’ve been using June to teach nutrition, emphasizing proper nutrition especially for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. I intend to teach Life Skills (decision-making, safe sex, etc…) at the primary and secondary schools in July with my counterpart. And as usual, I’ve been teaching English to primary school and out of school children (still working on getting the secondary school to let me start an English club). I’m also working on little cards with information on nutrition and basic English, so students have something to reference (books are prohibitively expensive).

The front of my crowd for the video night.

And, finally, I’m still working on the market/pit latrine project with my village leadership. We’ve held a number of meetings, formal and informal, regarding the construction and maintenance of the market, how it will positively impact those living with HIV/AIDS, how much the community will contribute (I’ve got them to commit to 47% right now, nearly double the minimum). This is a huge project that should have a permanent, positive nutritional and economic impact on the community, and I’m hoping it will also open the door for my big (and relatively inexpensive) mural project later down the line.

Me with Jacob, who was in charge of the video unit.

That’s what’s keeping me busy on the work front. Other Volunteers in the region are working on conferences for girls empowerment and income generation, both of which I’d like to participate in, so we’ll see where that goes when the time comes.

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