Well I hope everyone had a happy and festive Christmas and New Years. This was my first Christmas and New Years without my family, which gave this holiday season quite a different feel. Nonetheless, I spent it with some wonderful friends and colleagues and we did what we could to celebrate in style! Several of us traveled up to Kumasi to stay at one of our sub-offices. We had a traditional Christmas BBQ, which was delicious.
But now it's time to get back to work. Next week I'll be officially starting my malaria project with the pregnant women. Our first meeting will be held a week from tomorrow, so there is a lot of preparation to be done before then. We have a lot of ideas and materials we want to use so it's just a matter of organizing everything and making a project plan. The final number of women signed up is 120, which is amazing! I couldn't be happier. In our initial meetings I continuously stressed the importance of attendance, so I'm hoping that the women adhere to this little rule. In order to receive a net at the end of the program the women must attend the meetings...but I'm going to give them a little leeway in case someone is sick or has to travel, so if they attend 80% of the meetings then they will still qualify for a net. Ideally, I'd love everyone to receive a net but I'm sure that won't happen, but I'll try my best to keep thinking positively!
Winter break is almost over for the students, so this coming week they will be resuming classes. Naturally I'm excited because most of my time is spent at the school with the students and teachers. This also means that I can finally start my English tutoring club. This was something I did in America so I kind of have a soft spot for these types of projects. However, in America, I was an adult tutor and it was one-on-one. But the general idea is still the same; I taught comprehension, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, etc. We'll be doing much of the same thing over here, except there is going to be a small language barrier, which is why some of the teachers have agreed to help me. There are about 15 students signed up, so this coming week we'll need to have a meeting with them to remind them about their choice to join and also to start preparations for our upcoming meetings. I'd like to have one-on-one meetings as well as small group meetings. Meeting with the students individually is important so that I can gauge everyone's level of English and their comfort level. Then the small groups will allow them to practice some dialogues with one another and also to learn from each other. They get the best of both worlds!
My snail club is up and running as well. Like the English club, since school is starting again, I'll be able to meet with the snail kids more regularly and officially start making snails! One of the teachers is really dedicated to this project and he has already been a huge help to me and the students. We've already met to discuss the importance and benefits of snails and how the students can learn from raising snails. The majority of them were still interested, but we'll be going back to check on interest levels and see what we can work with.
Not much else happening on the work front. I've been doing a lot of planning these past weeks so I'm anxious to actually set something in motion and actually DO the work. At least I can always go around town and do small lessons on nutrition, malaria, family planning etc. It makes me feel like I'm doing something! I'd really like to organize something where I go around and meet with the different associations in town, like the Tailors and Hairdressers for example, and talk to them about different health issues. Meeting the community members is smaller groups is a lot easier since my town is so large. It creates a better forum for question and answer sessions and discussions. Meeting and talk with over 100 people is not always a wise choice, so I rarely have community meetings. People don't pay attention all that well and not everyone even shows up anyways. Small groups is the way to go.
Next month will be my one year mark. One year in country that is, not one year of service. But still, that is quite the milestone. I can't believe how fast is has gone. I feel like I only just arrived. Although yesterday when I arrived home, I was greeted by someone saying to me, "You've been here almost one year and yet you don't hear the Twi." Well thank you. Sure made me feel like I'm making quite an impact here! But like I tell everyone...I'M A VISUAL LEARNER. And my town doesn't really speak Twi anyways, they speak Sefwi and Sefwi is not a written language, soooooo that works well for me. But I do my best, and I manage. In my defense, the person who said that from me is not from my town and is only visiting the area, so there. Come February I'll have to write a post that is filled with self-reflection and a lot of philosophizing.
Most importantly though, in 19 days I'll be leaving on a jet plane...to South Africa! I couldn't be more happier! I finally get to see my wonderful parents and eat delicious food and not live like a PCV for three weeks. I don't even know if I remember how to use a blow-dryer! Until that time I'll be hanging out at site working, cleaning, mingling. I've been reading a lot of books lately....thank goodness for Kindles. In the past few weeks I've burned through Freakonomics, Super Freakonomics, The Tipping Point, Obama's America, and now I'm starting Atlas Shrugged. Wish me luck with that one..it's looooong, but a very interesting read. I'm enjoying it so far.
Well that is all I got for you now. I hope everyone is doing well stateside. I am happy to say that I will be returning to America this coming August. One of my best friends in the whole wide world just got engaged! She and her fiancé will be having their wedding this coming August so I'm going to do my best to get back to California this summer and help them celebrate!
