A summary: the first five months at site

Hey all,

I thought I'd update everyone on what I've been doing work wise for my first five months at site. I know that I've said multiple times that my work during the first three months is integration, and that's true, but that being said I've also done some other things.

For example, the major (head nurse and my supervisor at the Health Center) decided to do a string of sensibilisations (health talks) in the surrounding villages of our larger village. My homologue Tychique acted as the translator for us, while the major and I talked about different basic health topics. The relais communautaires (volunteer health workers) from those surrounding villages would make a schedule with me each month and name their topic. For example, we talked about malaria prevention, treatment, and symptoms; nutrition and the three main food groups that should be in every meal for all members of the family; hygiene, for example the 5 essential times you need to wash your hands throughout the day; water safety measures you can take to avoid diarrheal illnesses; family planning and birth control options available for free at the health center; and most recently complimentary feeding, specifically when and what should you be feeding your children under 2 years old. These health talks went over well, often lasting between 15-20 minutes for the talk, and then 30-45 minutes for questions. I was grateful that the major was there for the questions portion because he was able to answer questions I would never be able to answer, for example, what dietary changes can we make to avoid hypertension in pregnant women? Or why aren't the health care workers nice to us when we come? Why are medical costs so expensive all the time? Why don't you have mosquito nets available for purchase? As you can see a lot of these questions are systemic and therefore difficult even for my major to answer. The health talks have been put on pause for the moment, because my homologue Tychique and I will be attending a training in February to start our new project, Care Group. I'll get more into that later. 

The second project I've started at my site is my Girls Soccer Team. Unfortunately the PE teacher was not able to come back to the middle school/high school in my village this year, due to budget cuts. There has never been an exclusively Girls Soccer Team at my school, so I decided to champion that cause. It's been difficult to say the least. Because there are no PE classes, the field is no longer as maintained as it has been in the past. The majority of the girls on my team don't have tennis shoes so they go barefoot, which means they have to stop every few feet to pull stickers out of their feet. We also only have one soccer ball at the moment, so when we have 22 girls show up, practice is a little slow. Not to mention the extremely varying levels of play that we have on the team. The girls range in age from 11-20, and all different levels of experience with soccer. Anyways, equipment is one challenge I'm working on with the help of some Peace Corps grants and friends and family back home. The other issue is that the girls are not always available to come because they have to help out their mothers at home. This is a problem across the board in Benin, boys can go play but the girls have to stay home and help clean and cook. It's tough, but I'm hoping that once we have more equipment and uniforms, families will start seeing this team as more official and therefore maybe important. There is a national soccer tournament in July that I'm hoping to take my girls to, but we have a lot of work to do before that. 

Anyways, those are two projects that I've been working on these past five months at site. Projects I'm hoping to start in the next few months include a mural at the health center with images about malaria prevention, danger signs during pregnancy, and good hygiene practices and also a moringa (miracle plant that cures malnutrition!) garden at the health center with associated cooking demonstrations in the surrounding villages my site. Stay tuned! 

This is my poster on complimentary feeding. I do a new poster for each health talk, I was particularly proud of this one because there are almost no words, which is good for crowd who doesn't speak French. 

This is Tychique and I at a health talk getting ready to open up my poster. I always wear tiss when I give a health talk because I want to seem as integrated as possible. I also greet everyone in local language, Yom, which hopefully puts them at least a little bit at ease. Tychique is a wonderful translator and is the one who really makes these talks possible. 

This is my friend Jacquelyn (also an RCH volunteer) and I giving a talk on menstrual cycles and family planning options to a Girl's Club at a nearby village. 

This is a passing drill on our field at the CEG (middle/high school). As you can see most of the girls don't have shoes, but we're in a good spot on the field so the stickers aren't too bad. 

The first practice after break, only three girls showed up for practice. These three have experience with soccer, so we were able to push through the passing and dribbling drills quickly and move onto to shots on goal. It was a fun day, even though having only three girls turn out is always discouraging.