RUMPS (aka Re-usable Menstrual Pads)

I'm pretty sure I promised to post something about my RUMPS project a while back....but I never did! Sorry for the delay, but here's the update!

So, what are RUMPS? It stands for re-usable menstrual pads. Girls in Uganda often don't have access to disposable pads, since they're very expensive to buy in the markets. A pack of disposable pads costs about 4,500 Ugandan Shillings (about $2), and most families can't afford to spend this much for each of their daughters every month. Instead, many girls use dirty rags or even nothing at all, and they often stop coming to school during their period because they're embarrassed to get blood stains while there. As an affordable alternative, a PCV a few years back decided to teach girls how to make re-usable pads out of inexpensive, locally available materials. In contrast to disposable pads, using brand new materials you can make a re-usable pad that will last for 6-9 months for about 800 shillings (about 35 cents), and it can be even cheaper if you use fabric you find at home. According to older Ugandans, this is what girls used to use before disposable pads became available in the country, and they've all been excited to see this more sustainable alternative return. Not only will re-usable pads be more affordable for girls, it will also be more environmentally feasible, since there is no trash disposable system in most of the country. Often, girls will just throw their pads in the pit latrine. However, most schools only have a few pit latrines for hundreds of students, and the latrines can fill up very quickly with disposable pads, necessitating the digging of new pit latrines much too often. 

So, I thought teaching girls how to make re-usable menstrual pads sounded super cool, and since I didn't have much structured work at site, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to occupy my time. I decided to go to schools around my area (where girls are already mobilized!), teach them about the menstrual cycle (you would be shocked at how many ADULTS don't even know what the menstrual cycle is!), and teach them how to make a re-usable menstrual pad. Each girl would be able to purchase materials from me, at a subsidized cost, to make 2 pads: cotton fabric for the outside of the pad, towel inserts for absorption, buttons for attaching the pads to underwear, thread, and a needle.

My overly ambitious target: 3,500 kits of materials to prepare and give to girls. This entails cutting about 525 meters of fabric and almost 300 towels. Will I succeed? I've already made a lot of progress, but only time will tell :)

After much cutting of materials on my part, it was time to journey to the schools and spread this idea. 

A reusable menstrual pad

So many RUMPS kits!

Sewing some pads!

But madam, I can't sew!

Still sewing...

So far, I've gotten great responses from both school administration/staff and girls. I've also been able to dispel a lot of false rumors about menstruation and reproductive health. Here are some of the questions I've gotten:

• Is it true that if a boy urinates on my pad, I won't get pregnant?
• Why do I have more appetite for sex during my menstrual period?
• Can I get pregnant during my menstrual period? 
• What are my "safe days" (when I can't get pregnant)? 
• What if their flow is like a tap? (from a teacher)
• Will a menstrual pad help me prevent infections? 

All in all, it's been a really successful project! Within the next few weeks, I'm planning to expand my program to some women's groups in the area and hopefully a fellow PCV's primary teachers' college, so that these teachers can take the program to their new schools. Wish me luck! :)

Rain

So it rained yesterday. No big deal, you say? HUGE deal! It hasn't rained since I came back from Christmas vacation, and it's been hot and dusty and just plain miserable the whole time! Yesterday when the clouds started brewing, I asked my neighbor if it would rain (she's usually right about these things). She said no, but that I should just pray. Then, when the winds started to blow, my neighbor said "the wind is blowing away the rain." I screamed at the rain to come back. I jumped up and down around my house in a desperate attempt to lure the rain to me. AND IT WORKED. The rains came. I danced in the rain with my neighbor until she said it was too much and left me to dance alone. It was the most magical 20 minutes EVER.

Unfortunately, the rain water tank never got "fixed" after the party (my landlady was worried about running out of water, so she paid two men to carry jerrycans of water from the borehole and pour them in the tank until it was full. It took them two solid days to do it, and they took out the pipes from the gutters so they could easily pour the water inside), so the water flowed uselessly on top of the tank instead of inside it.

The kicker? Just the day before I had told my landlady to fix the tank in case it rains. Her response? Eh, does it look like it will rain anytime soon? IN YOUR FACE LANDLADY. So of course I had to call her and scream IT'S RAINING!!! Until she hung up on me.

So it rained, and it was glorious, but there's still no water in the tank. SIGH.

Graduation party, Ugandan-style

This past weekend I was invited to a “function” being held in the compound where I live. My supervisor/landlady’s daughter just graduated from Makerere University, and so a party was necessary to celebrate the occasion (sidenote: graduations here are in Jan/Feb, even though classes end in July/Aug. No one really knows why…)

So, the function was scheduled for Sunday, and I expected a typical Ugandan function: large tents, lots of speeches, a late lunch, and then dancing through the night. What I did not expect was a pre-party the night BEFORE the actual party. But of course, we had a pre-party on Saturday. Slowly throughout the night, relatives and friends arrived to enjoy/prepare for the function. Around 9:00 pm we had break tea, with milk tea and bread. About 10:30 pm we had an appetizer course of cow liver. At around midnight we had roasted cow meat (sticks from the trees were widdled down and stuffed with hunks of meat and roasted over a bonfire constructed in front of my house). Finally, around 1:30 am we had dinner (rice, matooke, and cow intestine soup). I’m pretty sure we consumed an entire cow that night. I even watched people cutting this whole cow throughout the evening. Even though they had hooked up a generator for the night, the kitchen was (of course) the only room in the compound without power lines strung through it, so the pieces of meat were laid on top of banana leaves outside on the dirt and hacked into pieces with an ax and machete. (Another sidenote: it was really weird to have generator power for once. My whole house was lit up at night! Crazy!)

Hacking away at the meat

They really wanted to pose with the meat :)

After all the food was consumed, the party continued with dancing and booze. Many beers were drunk, many hips were shaken (chisoga dance!), and lots of loud music was played. Of course, I was told this was not a “serious” party, since the REAL sound system and music would be coming tomorrow. Nevertheless, the party continued the whole night, the generator finally going quiet around dawn.

The next day I emerged from my house around 9:00 am (relatively late for me, but I figured it was justified given the late nature of the party the night before). As soon as I appeared, my landlady’s husband told me he was so worried that I slept so late that he was about to come and check on me to make sure I was still alive. By that time, the tents were already set up and the caterers were already beginning to cook the huge pots of rice, matooke, and meat for the party.

Giant pot of rice and giant spoon (kind of looks like a boat paddle...)

The function actually started around 1pm, and as I expected, it consisted of a lot of speeches, traditional dancers (including a very cute little girl, see below), and prayers. It also included 10 cakes, each in the form of a letter, which spelled out CONCS FIFIN. I assumed this was some sort of lusoga code for graduates (or that I was still tired from the night before and couldn’t read properly), until someone told me it was just an abbreviation for “Congratulations Fiona.”

The graduates (Fiona and her friends)!

After a speech declared to be a “mini skirt” by a local leader (not quite so mini, since he had 8 elaborate points to go through), we finally had lunch around 5 pm. After eating, the tents were taken down, and the dancing began. While everyone was still mingling about, an older woman stopped me as I was walking, wishing to talk to me. Someone had apparently told her I was a doctor (this happens way too much), and she wanted me to fix her “sick breast.” Before I could protest and tell her I’m not at all a doctor, she whips out her breast and starts waving it in my face. Now, I’ve seen a lot of Ugandan breasts since I’ve been here (breastfeeding is quite common), but I’ve never had one waved in my face so insistently at a function with hundreds of people around. It took about 10 minutes to convince this woman that I’m not a health care professional, and that she should probably talk to the (at least) 2 ACTUAL doctors and 3 nurses attending the party.

As the official guests left, the villagers streamed in to take advantage of the generator and music. As the night wore on, the numbers of strangers dancing in the compound grew, and I was told kids were coming all the way from Bufuulubi! (I know this means nothing to you, but it’s a really far village, maybe 20 minutes by taxi, and definitely crazy-far to come from for dancing). Dinner was at a more-reasonable 11 pm that night, but the dancing again continued until dawn.

The next morning was for cleaning up and saying good-bye to the few remaining visitors (and eating the rest of the cow, of course). By Monday night, it was back to life as usual in the village: me and my 4 neighbors, no power, and the peaceful quiet of the night, generator free.

ttfn :)

So fresh and so clean!

This year I got to spent the holidays at home with my awesome family! As much as I enjoyed spending the holidays in Uganda last year, I was so happy to get to go home for a bit, and especially to see my adorable niece and nephew! When I got back to Mayuge, everyone exclaimed that I was SO fresh and clean and smart. They said America had treated me well, but I told them to just give it a few days, and I would again be covered in the thick layer of dust that makes Mayuge home :)

The kids wanted to teach me how to play baseball... it was interesting

Adorable!

With the great dane puppy, who is now bigger than them both

Making rum balls! (rumbles, according to Vika)

Paddle boating on the lake

Sorry, I apparently only took pictures of the kids, and not of my aunt and uncle. I love you guys too! Now back to the dust...

P.S. I posted three entries at the same time, since I have good internet today. Scroll down to see the previous two new entries.

How I spend my time while waiting for a new home

As I mentioned previously, I'm currently in a state of limbo while I wait for a new site. I will (hopefully) be moving soon, so I'm not starting any new projects (which would inevitably take months to get running), and since the schools are still on break, things have been a bit slow lately. Here's how I've been spending my time:

Yummy pancakes!

Thank you to my wonderful aunt who sent me an awesome camping oven, allowing me to bake without burning holes in all my pots! It has given me even more ways to kill time while waiting around at site :)

Homemade pizza

Delicious!

M&M cookies! Thanks Hope for sending the M&Ms!

On a slightly more productive note, I have still been working with Soft Power Health to organize community malaria events around Mayuge, with the help of some awesome health workers. Here are some pictures from the latest event at Kaluba Health Center II:

With Sarah - the best malaria educator ever!

Teaching at Kaluba

So true!

I know I promised some pictures of my ridiculous adventure to create kits for 3,500 girls to make re-usable menstrual pads, but I keep forgetting to take the pictures! I promise to rectify this soon! :)

World AIDS Day 2011

World AIDS Day is commemorated on December 1st each year, with the mission of raising awareness about the HIV pandemic. This year, several PCVs around Uganda held World AIDS Day events in their communities, and I participated in two of them.

World AIDS Day 2011 - Soroti (Socks 'n Sacks!)

The event on Soroti was organized by the fabulous PCVs Chelsea Milko and Joanna Groepper. They organized a booth in collaboration with TASO (The AIDS Support Organization) within a larger event organized by the District Health Office. They made signs about HIV prevention in English and the local language (Ateso), which were placed around Soroti after the event. Ugandans educated others about creating sack gardens, an easy way for people sick from HIV to still grow some of their own food. In addition, we led condom demonstrations for the crowd and handed out free condoms, rice sacks, and seeds. It was crowded and crazy (like any Ugandan event), but it was a lot of fun.

HIV prevention sign

Preparing for seeds and rice sacks to give away

Condom demonstration co-led by a PCV and Ugandan

Sack garden demonstration

World AIDS Day 2011 - Lira

The event in Lira was organized by the lovely Liz Skeris and Jacqueline Demko. It started with a 5 km race and was followed by a health fair. Booths at the health fair included what is HIV, prevention, STD's and sexual health, condom demonstrations, and a quiz about HIV.

The race begins!

The prevention booth

Condom demonstrations 

Quiz time - what do you know about HIV?

Two great, successful events! Thanks ladies for organizing! :)

Thanksgiving 2011

This year marked my second Thanksgiving in Uganda. For both celebrations, I was lucky enough to have good group of friends to share the holiday with. This year we enjoyed chicken, mashed and scalloped potatoes, spicy pumpkin soup, carrots, homemade applesauce, and cheese (yes, just a block of cheese - and it was delicious!). Then for dessert we had spice cake and oreos! After eating, we continued the party by walloping a Thanksgiving turkey piñata full of "sweeties." So much fun!

Yummy chickens - the Ugandan turkey alternative

The Thanksgiving piñata: Sherman!

Bye bye Sherman!