Work Has Finally Arrived!

7-24-10

Hello All…Jarod again. I feel like all that we ever talk about are our awkward situations and funny predicaments we routinely find ourselves in here in Africa. I have totally forgotten to mention the nature of the work we are actually starting to do. Besides, I don’t want you to think the only we do here is play with the children and make blog stories produced from our daily weird situations.

As I mentioned earlier, a few of our bosses visited from America a few weeks ago. During that time we really began to see the nature of the work we would be doing. After they left, we sat down with our counterpart and supervisor and made out a list of things to start working on so that we would at least feel a little productive.

Side bar: During training we were repeatedly told that the first 3 months at site, you will be doing a lot of watching, listening, learning and pretty much being the target of weird stares as to why we are here. We were also told not to plan on having any big projects within the first 3 months and possibly within the first year. Rwanda is a very complex country yet simple at the same time. The life of the people seems simple but they seem tough to figure out on the other hand. The first three months at site are designated to integrating into the community, improving language skills, trying to understand the community, their way of life, learning about your communities needs, assessing how you might be able to help the community meet those needs and also allowing them to learn why you are actually there, a foreigner, in their land. And also to convince them you are not a spy (don’t laugh, many Rwandans think all white people are spies).

Anyway, some of the things we already are and will be working with include: tracking the progress of the malnourished children on the feeding program to see if the program is running effectively, updating all of the information for the sponsored children, conducting routine home visits of the sponsored children to see their status, new needs and/or concerns they may have and conduct an overall assessment of their condition, Sarah will be working ironically enough with the Kageno Nursery School for vulnerable children, one of the only 2 or 3 nursery schools in the country (definitely the only one for vulnerable children…I think). The school has 300 3-6 year olds (4 classes of 75), has only been open around 5 months and has no curriculum in place yet. She has already stolen the hearts of the kids and they much more hers. She will be helping implement a curriculum in assistant with the 4 teachers and 4 TA’s incorporating things like sanitation, environmental protection, nutrition and health into lessons and nursery rhymes. We will also be helping with surveying, selecting and enrolling the upcoming new class of 75 students that will start in January – all 3 year olds. We are also both teaching various health lessons at the community center several times a month; family planning and nutrition are big ones. The other day we met a lady that had 12 or 13 children and 5 have died of malnutrition, and she is pregnant again. It seems the average mother in Banda has 4-8 children, sometimes more, and they are trying to feed their family on around $1 a day…crazy! We are also responsible for updating the Kageno blog, teaching computer skills to our staff, collecting newsletter and grant related information, teaching English to the Primary school teachers so they will be prepared for the children who are more educated than they are used to coming from the nursery school, working with the crafts cooperatives and a few other minor things.

So, now I hope you can see that we actually do have some work to do and are excited about doing it. But I don’t want to leave you without at least one funny story. So here it goes, the other night we were walking back from the guest house, around 9:00pm, the night sky pitch black from the lack of the full moon and of course, street lights when we stumbled upon a man laying motionless in the road (a very eerie thing at the least). We were with another volunteer who was visiting and her boyfriend who just recently completed medical school. The man was conscious but barely. We tried to ask him what he was doing but he was clearing not responding to my sketchy Kinyarwanda. He tried to answer the questions but his answers had no relevance what so ever. Then, the doctor friend starts doing some doctor things on the man to see how he responds, like pushing on certain pressure points. After much concern and after one of our fellow staff members walked up, we determined that the man clearly had a little too much banana beer. We tried to help him up to his feet which was a chore in itself and we quickly realized that he could by no means stand up, let alone walk anywhere. We lowered him back down on the side of the path where he seemed very content and comfortable. He told our co-worker that he would just sleep there for another couple of hours and then get up and walk home…so we left him be…peaceful, quite and tucked away on the side of the road as we walked home and had a few laughs at the whole situation in the process.

Okay…that is all for now…oh wait, I killed another rat the other night…the end!!!