What's been happening lately...

03/30/2012

Hello y'all,

How are things going over there in the US of A?  I have very exciting news:  the internet is now

working at my provincial house so I'll be able to Skype and be connected once again.  While

it's not the most reliable connection, it's better than no connection at all.  I'm currently in Mansa because Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) begins next week (This was written about Camp GLOW in April, we’re now working on the GLOW for December), so we're just organizing and preparing for the camp.  Everything has been running smoothly, other than the donations aspect.  Last year, the people organizing the camp had a lot of community support and supplies donated, but we think that they assumed it would only be happening once because this year they don't have the ability to donate.  But, we're getting by and it's still going to be great. Since last time, not much has happened.  I've been working a lot (7 days a week) because I had to get things organized for the workshops and programs I have coming up.  I addressed all of these programs in my last blog, so I won't bore you with the initial details of them.  In terms of the malaria study, it's been quite time consuming and a bit akward, because me and a counterpart are asking to enter into the bedrooms of Zambians.  In their culture, this is a very private area, and no one other than immediate family is usually permitted within their bedrooms.  The other option is that the Zambians can untie their misquito net and bring it outside.  Surprisingly, most have allowed us in their homes. What else...termites ate my door frame.  One day I was getting home from sleeping over at my Peace Corps neighbor's house, I unlocked the door, pushed on it, and it fell into my house.  It was very similar to a scene shown in a cartoon.  At first, I was worried that someone had broken  into my house, but they hadn't.  (I think that termites are a large obstacle on the road to development...can a country truly develop if the buildings/anything made of wood are constantly being eaten?)  It then took about 3 days for the community to organize and fix my door frame.  During this time, I was simply putting my lock on the door and making it appear to be okay while doing my programs.

 

06/07/2012

Once again, it's been awhile since the last time I've updated this blog.  Many things that happen are difficult to describe.  This is the sort of experience you need to see to understand. The girl's camp that I had previously described came and went.  16 girls, 8 mentors, and facilitators attended. There were different sessions presented to the girls on topics such as HIV/AIDS (including testing), girl empowerment, and women's health along with many others. The program was an exhausting, but rewarding 5 days long.  The first day was spent getting to know each other and making t-shirts and other arts and crafts.  The other 4 days were full of sessions done by educated facilitators who came from all over Luapula to empower the girls whom attended.  We also played net ball, danced to Zambian music, had bon fires, and a talent show on the last night.  At the talent show, we taught the girls the chicken dance and the macarena.  We looked ridiculous but they enjoyed it...and we did as well.  The girls I brought did a great job: participated a lot, and were outgoing.  Even the mentor I brought did a great job of organizing things Since this camp, the girls who I brought (Lillian and Memory) and the mentor(Angie) have begun organizing GLOW group meetings without my help.  I attended the first meeting.  They recruited about 12 girls at the school to be part of it, we introduced ourselves, and we went over what the girls want to learn about, and what the reason for having a GLOW group is.  In this culture females are unequal to males, but this group is a time for females to get together and enjoy/embrace the fact that they are females.  These meetings will consist of giving health education and playing games.  As far as I'm concerned, if the girls were only taught 15 minutes of information and played basketball for 45 minutes, that would be a successful meeting.  They just need some time away from their homes (where they do all the chores) and together playing sports and other activities males usually dominate.  We're planning on having meetings twice a month: the first and last thursday of each month.  They said that with the more complicated topics, they're going to make sure I'm there so I can explain it but beyond that they'll be meeting by themselves.  We've already begun planning for the next Camp GLOW which will be in December 2012 at a boy's school (ironic, eh?).  We think it's going to be even more successful than the last Camp because the venue is great and the community has already donated a large amount.  If you're looking for an overseas program to donate to, this is the one.  The money doesn't get filtered through the different levels of the organization: It goes straight to Peace Corps and it's tax-write-offable. 

 Even small amounts are great.  For example, $5 can send a girl to the camp.

Hm, well that's my moment of advertising.  Let me know if you're interested and I can give you more details.  (All you have to do is go onto the Peace Corps website, look for projects, and then look for my name (Kelly DeVore).  Then you can use your credit card or pay pal.  Make sure to pick the project my name is listed under, because there’s multiple GLOW Camps looking for money.

The program Smile Train that I've mentioned in the past is coming up once again.  The two little boys I brought are well.

All of what you just read in this entry was written a long time ago, so here’s an update:  Another girl was brought to Smile Train and successfully worked on a month ago. 

09/09/2012

Hello again,

I have no good excuse for going this long without updating my blog.  I just seem to forget about it and have a lot going on. 

I have a living fence surrounding my house.  It’s made of a succulent but it doesn’t seem to stop children, goats, or chickens, which was the initial goal.

I also have a drying rack now, where I place my dishes after they’re washed.  It was built in front of one of my big windows, mostly just to stop the children from looking through my window all the time.

I’ve been working a lot with Nutrition and a PS Ishiko program.  I have a group of 8 volunteers who have gone through multiple trainings about nutrition, how to properly weigh/ record the weight of children (they’re not use to graphs.  While Americans grow up with these and we’re used, it’s not the same here so it takes some time to learn), and how to identify malnourished children.  I’ve been gone for about a week, but while I’ve been gone they have the responsibility of gathering information at Child Health Week, finding 3 malnourished children, finding 3 healthy children, and inviting the mothers to a 12-day program of cooking demonstrations.  At these demonstrations the mothers will bring all the food and see that they can have balanced meals with locally available food.  The mothers with healthy children will show the others that they can have healthy children, because they also have no money, but yet have healthy children.  That might sound a bit confusing but I don’t want to go into too many details.  But, I’m working on this with my Ba Mayo, or the woman who takes care of me, kind of like a Zambian mother.  She’s a great counterpart, very intelligent, and does great work.

In July I went to Lake Tangyanika (where we went on a boat, ate amazing food, snorkeled, and kayaked) and Kapisha Hot Springs (good local/organic coffee/food, pool, hot springs, hiking) with a good group of volunteers.

I attended an HIV/AIDS workshop with an amazing counterpart named Bridget.  She was doing HIV/AIDS health talks at Under 5 Clinics and was planning on being my counterpart for this upcoming Camp GLOW, but I went to Lake Tangyanika and Kapisha Hot Springs, returned, and called her.  She told me that she had some family issues and she’s moved to the Copperbelt, which is very far away.  I’m missing her already.

A couple weeks ago some of the new CHIP program trainees visited my site and did “2^nd site visit”.  Peace Corps gives them a list of things they need to accomplish at their 2^nd site visit so we did them in the first two days and then went to Ntumbutushi Falls for the last part of the visit.  We did health talks, visited a headman, met with a Community Based Organization (Malaria Control), talked with community members about malaria and malaria myths, had a cooking session (led by my Zambian mother, whom is an excellent cook), and then went to the waterfalls.  The girls that came to my site visit were great, and learned a lot, I think.

Tomorrow my parents will arrive by plane at 3:30 P.M.  I’m very excited and we have lots of events planned, including visiting Zanzibar.

Hey Friends and Family!

Hope all is well. As you may know, I am currently a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Luapula Province, Zambia. This year, a group of volunteers are planning a girls’ camp in December called Camp G.L.O.W. (Girls Leading Our World), a program done by Peace Corps volunteers around the world. Our camp will take place on December 3^rd-7^th and is aimed at girls in grades 7 and 8 and addresses issues such as HIV/AIDS, women’s health, female empowerment, leadership skills and career planning. We also incorporate fun sessions such as arts and crafts, playing sports, sewing sanitary pads and making camp T-shirts.

In addition to a small grant, the majority of our camp is funded by in-kind donations, both from in-country as well as abroad. We are kindly requesting donations from family and friends in the states in order to help make this camp a great success! Here’s a list of some of the supplies that we are looking for:

-Craft supplies (beads for bracelets and necklaces, elastic string, pipe cleaners, fabric pens, puffy paint, supplies for t-shirt decorating, etc.)

-Toiletries (soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, lotion, combs for curly hair, sanitary pads, manicure kits)

-Sheets (10 sets)

-Notebooks, notepads and pens/pencils (35)

-Fun accessories (headbands, hair clips, hair elastics, plastic jewelry, etc.)

-Small purses or makeup bags (35)

-Lip gloss or nail polish (35)

-Plain white t-shirts (35-mostly sized small and medium)

-Socks and underwear (size small)

-Anything you think our camp participants would enjoy!!

Due to the postal system in Zambia, you MUST send these packages out by the end of September at the very latest. Packages can be sent to:

Camp G.L.O.W. Luapula

c/o Ambrosia Kaui, PCV

Peace Corps Zambia

P.O. Box 710150

Mansa, Luapula, Zambia

AFRICA

If at all possible we are requesting that you also send a list of the contents of the package via e-mail so we can keep track of what is being sent and inform others of supplies that have already been donated.

In addition, we will also be accepting tax deductible monetary donations. Our grant is in the process of being approved by Peace Corps and should be available closer to the date of our camp. To donate, simply go to the Peace Corps website (www.peacecorps.gov), click on “Donate to Volunteer Projects,” and search by volunteer name (our project is under Kelly Devore). You can also view all the projects and search by country. As soon as our grant is approved, we will forward you a direct link to our project page.

Thank you so much for all of your support! We are looking forward to hearing from you and will keep you updated on all of our work here in Zambia.

Sincerely,

Camp G.L.O.W. Luapula

Vacations

Where to start?  Due to the fact that it's been more than three months since I've updated this blog, I have
plenty to write.  It's been difficult to stay connected because the provincial house is the
place that we volunteers have the much awaited experience of using the internet but we've had
a plethora of issues.  First off, our satellite was hit by lightning, then we needed to get a
new router and that took a couple months, then the router wasn't connecting so we're waiting
for parts from America to help this situation.  On top of all of this, the process is moving
in Zambian time, so a snail's pace.  We're just crossing our fingers and hoping that any month
now we'll have internet.
Since the last time I've written, I went on my first vacation in Zambia.  I spent a few days before Christmas at Lake Bangwelue (definitely misspelled) in Luapula Province, then made my way to the Provincial House to have a Christmas feast, and finally traveled along some horrible roads to visit a chain of waterfalls: Zambia is great because you can just never guess what's going to happen.
At Lake Bangwelue, another Peace Corps Volunteer (Meggie) and I were planning on spending a few days on the beach of this beautiful lake but on the first night we went to dinner and saw three other Peace Corps volunteers that I knew.  They were house-sitting for these Americans who owned this beautiful house on the hill over-looking the lake.  We were then invited to join them at the house, so instead of sleeping on the ground for three nights, we slept in extremely comfortable beds in a beautiful house with lots of American food, good company, lots of games, and a whirlpool bathtub.  Electricity and running water are such luxuries.
After three days of enjoying the lake and playing lots of Skip-Bo, we went to the Luapula provincial house for a Christmas feast.  It was great! I can only imagine how great it would've been if the electricity wouldn't've gone out while we were all cooking.  We ended up having to use brassiers to cook a roast and vegetables.  It was some good team work.
Then, Meggie and I went up north and went to a chain of waterfalls.  The first waterfalls are called Ntumbatushi.  They're beautiful and you can just keep hiking and following the river and you can find more.  Then, we went to Lumangwe Falls, which is difficult to get to.  We took a taxi (and definitely got overpriced) because it's about 1 1/2 hours into the bush of Africa, but it literally does look like a mini-Victoria Falls.  We camped at the top of the waterfalls and we were the only ones there.  It was amazing.  The second day, we were coming back to out campsite and there's a white family (we're always amazed when we see foreigners other than Peace Corps volunteers) with a pop-up camper right next to our tent.  They turned out to be a Scottish family who fed us and provided free transport for the next two days. They've even invited us to visit them in Scotland and brought us to another set of waterfalls...which I can't remember the name of.  It's amazing how lucky we are during our vacations.

I've recently been busy going to trainings and workshops.  These are great opportunities
because every volunteer brings a counterpart from the village who will help them on the
project.  For example, I just went to a malaria workshop in Mansa, Luapula where we agreed
to take on 3 year program where the mosquito nets are evaluated at 28 random homes in our
catchment area and every 6 months we return to the homes to see the wear and tear of the nets.
We'll be keeping track of how many holes, what size of holes, and the age of the net.  The
point of this is that there was a net distribution to most homes in Zambia and the government
is believing the nets should last approximately 2 years and 11 washes.  We are doing this
to see if the nets are truly lasting as long as the government thinks they should be.  Anyway,
as I was saying, This is a 3 year program but I'll only be here for two years, so the counterpart whom I brought will continue this once I've left the village.
Another reason that counterparts are brought to these workshops is for sustainability, so
they gain this knowledge and they can then pass it on to others once I've left.

I also attended a workshop called IST where my intake and our counterparts got together in Lusaka
to teach the counterparts about Peace Corps and behavior change and the volunteers learned
about perma-gardening.  It was very interesting to see the behavior  of all the Zambians who usually live
in the village ( no electricity, no running water, and they've never been in Lusaka before).  It
was a great opportunity and they were spoiled for a week or so.  We volunteers enjoyed ourselves
as well.  We went out dancing, had amazing food (there's a great Indian food
restaurant in Lusaka, and it might be better than most Indian food I had in the US), and had
the opportunity to see each other for the first time since Pre-Service Training.

After IST a few volunteers and I went down to Livingstone to see Victoria Falls.  It was
absolutely beautiful.  We stayed at a backpacker's lounge called Jolly Boy's which had a pool
and cheap lodging.  Also, there are lots of activities that can be done in Livingstone and
you can book any/all of the activities through Jolly Boy's.  It makes it really easy, and it's
nice to not have to worry about planning the activities yourself.  While we were there, I went
bungee jumping off a bridge right alongside Victoria Falls.  I've never done an activity
that was this extreme, but it was a great experience.  I was really nervous (of course) and I
didn't jump the first time when the men counted down for me to jump, but I did it the
second time.  Despite what I've heard, it was a very painless experience (I've been told that a person
usually gets whip-lash, but it was quite comfortable). 

Also while we were in Livingstone, Zambia's soccer team (Chipolopolo) won the African Cup.  This is a huge accomplishment for
Zambia because they've never won the African Cup and soccer is the sport that EVERY Zambian plays
as a child, so they're all very good at it.  They won in overtime (1-0) and it was a good game.  Afterwards,
people ran out to the streets and went running up and down the streets yelling and cheering.  We
joined them for a while and it was exhausting, but exhilarating. 

Another activity that I took part in in Livingstone was me and Meg went on a safari in Botwana.  We
went to Chobe National Park for 3 days and 2 nights. This was also booked through Jollyboy's and
all the accommodations, food, and travel were included in the package.  The food was amazing and
probably the most American tasting out of any food that has been found in Zambia.  We were also   The guides knew a
lot about the animals and they were also very friendly.  I definitely suggest a 3 day safari, but
any longer and it would've been too much.  We spent the first day on a large pontoon-type-of-boat going
around and seeing animals.  Then we drove into the park 3 hours to get to our camp sites.  Along the way
there were lots of animals.  The second day was spent going around the park in a typical safari jeep.  Finally,
the third day was spent in the safari jeep and in a smaller boat.  This was neat because we were
able to get extremely close to hippos and crocodiles.  We even saw a crocodile eating a red leechee
(an antelope type of animal) and lions sneaking up on giraffes.  We saw almost all of the African animals,
other than leopards, cheetahs, and rhinos.  Also, we saw all types of birds because it's rainy season.

After all of this excitement, I hitched my way back up to Central and stayed at Central's Provincial
House for a night (every province has a provincial house) and went to visit another volunteer's site.
Then, I made my way back up to Mansa, Luapula for another workshop where we met with people whom work
at our district health offices and at our clinics.  At this workshop, we made action plans so we could
all see how we'll be included and Peace Corps was explained to these people as well (it's a never-ending-
explanation).

After this workshop, I made my way back to my village for a week and then I had the malaria workshop which
I've already explained.  It was good to be back in the village.  Unfortunately, most of my garden had
died because there wasn't any rain the whole time I was gone.  But, some of my corn is still alive, 1 pumpkin
plant, and lots of basil.  I spent the week organizing things for up-coming projects and workshops. I need to have a counterpart for every workshop and I'd like to bring someone different to each workshop
so the knowledge is dispersed and it's more sustainable. Due to this, it takes some time to find someone
in the community who will take the programs seriously but yet have time to help.

A program that is coming up that I need to start working on some more is called Camp GLOW.  The point of
The aim of this camp is to empower girls.  Gender equality is a large issue throughout Zambia and this
will hopefully begin the change.  How it works is, each volunteer who is involved in organizing this
brings a counterpart and two girls in either grade 7 or 8.  At this camp, there'll be sessions in the
local language that will go over issues that the girls may encounter as they get older.  For example,
sugar daddies or dating older men, early pregnancy, and HIV/AIDS.  There will be professional women
there to inspire them and show them that it's possible to do anything.  These are women whom grew up
in the village and are now highly accomplished.  There will also be a session on starting a GLOW group,
which is the main purpose of the camp, because in order to be sustainable, the girls and the counterpart
must bring the knowledge back to the village.  They will be required to begin a GLOW group at their
schools where they'll talk about what they were taught in the sessions.  Beyond the information, the camp
will also include fun activities, such as bonfires, sewing, and dancing.  It should be really fun,
and it's happening mid-April.

Other than this, I also have a nutrition workshop coming up in May where we'll be learning how to identify
malnourished children and learning about a program that's be shown to help,
I've also been working at my village's clinic at the registry and attending meetings of various types.
So long for now.