Last week in the village!!

Things are moving with breathtaking speed.

So our week started out early. VERY early. So like I mentioned earlier, we had met with the church leaders of the village. During that meeting, we planned four church teachings, 2 on each Sunday. So last Sunday, in order to get to church on time (10am) we had to wake up at 5:30 AM, taxi to the Moshi-Nairobi road, catch a Coaster heading out to Moshi and convince them to drop us off at Kikatiti, 45 minutes later arrived in Kik. So Kik is a 2 hour walk from Maroroni. By some stroke of amazing luck, we found a car that happened to be going that way. In exchange for Tsh 8,000, got a ride to Maroroni central, and then walked 1 1/2 hours to the church in Nazaretti and arrived 10am on the dot. It was a very rushed and semi stressful journey, and I can't believe we made it. Unfortunately, our teaching partners did not have the same luck, so it was actually all for naught, because our Swahili skills are not quite up to teaching par. But so it goes. Everything and everyone here seems to run on "Tanzania time." For everyone who knows me at home, it would seem that TZ time would be quite convenient for my schedule, as I always seem to be running late. But it is quite ironic, because I am actually the most punctual in my group right now (HAH everyone from san ro!). The most valuable thing I've learned here has been patience. The acquisition of that state of zen where you just wait and have to say hamna shida (no problem). For example, when our secondary school teachers are being uncooperative and forces us to cram 200 kids into one 40 minute slot because they are behind in their teaching. Or when we plan to leave by 7am to do our 1 hour walk to school to get there on time and mama doesn't bring out the chapati until 7:20. Or having to wait over an hour for a community teaching to start. I am slowly getting better at taking that deep breath and letting it go.

So one of the sustainable programs that SIC runs is called Peer Educators. We educate students to lead programs in their classrooms to ensure that HIV education continues in the schools after we leave. They are also a resource that their peers can use to ask questions, and the eventual hope is that they will stimulate behavior change in their generation. It has been a very frustrating program, because national exams started this week, so many of our Peer Educators cannot get trained, or since many of them have to go home to work on the shamba (farm) or make dinner, have only an hour to give after school (and we are supposed to work with them for 20 hours). Luckily, Upendo (field officer) will be training them after we leave, but I want to do so much with them, because they are the most important thing, since they are sustainable. We were working with them one day and we had them practice public speaking. For many of the girls, even saying their name is a struggle. They would hide their face, or look at the ground, or giggle a lot. I guess actually, it's not too different from when you were first learning how to speak in front of a group. They range in age from 17-28. (28 is the outlier, most of them are 17-20). But we have been working with them all week, and they have taken amazing strides. I am so proud of them. To teach, it is so important that they are able to be knowledgeable and an authority in their class. They will have to speak with confidence. They are the cream of the crop of their school (the two best students from every class), yet they needed so much work to encourage them to speak decisively and voice their opinions in front of their peers. We led them in a discussion over if men are better leaders than women. Immediately, the discussion shifted to leaders in the family. It is interesting because they never even touched on leaders in a different setting other than the family. Their vision of ultimate leadership is leading in the family. Or maybe that is because that is the only example of leadership that they experience in their day to day lives. We went in a circle and talked to them about what they would like most to be when they grew up. There were only four options that got repeated over and over. Soldier, pilot, police woman/man and teacher. I wonder if that is because those are the only options they know. Would there be a greater diversity if more options were readily available to them?

This week we finish teaching, and next week is only four days long (really, 3). We have Makiba's Community Day on Monday and then our Community Day on Wednesday. Tuesday will most likely be used to prep from Wed's community day. Since we are the central village, we are heading it up, and I am SO excited. We will be opening with our primary school kids (read: CUTEST kids EVER) singing the national anthem, TZ, TZ. And then we have our secondary school kids performing! We have two raps and two songs (completely originally made up by the kids) and then a skit!

Today is super busy because we are working on extra projects. We need to draw up information for the dadas group (for them to have new topics to discuss and have the info to bulk out their arguments) and we are also making a FAQ, Mother-specific pamphlet (talking about Mother to Child transmission) and a General Info pamphlet. Expect an update next week talking about how our Community Day went. Wooo!

- Stuff / Evie
(see below for an explanation)