Northern Camp GLOW

This past week I had the privilege to participate in a Camp GLOW in northern Uganda. Camp GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World, and the idea for such a girls’ leadership camp began in 1995 in Peace Corps Romania. Since then, Peace Corps Volunteers all over the world have held GLOW camps to empower girls and teach them valuable life skills.

All of us!

The Northern Camp GLOW in Uganda was held from April 24-30, 2012 in Gulu. During the camp, girls learned about HIV (including voluntary HIV testing and individual counseling), income generating activities (IGAs), teamwork, domestic violence, communication skills, and self-esteem.

The girls learned to make small purses as an IGA

Learning to make sack gardens with Karla

Learning to use condoms!

The week was exhausting, but extremely successful! I facilitated the HIV sessions, which included some structured activities and unstructured Q&As while the girls waited for their counseling sessions. I also got to work with some amazing Ugandan HIV educators and counselors for the day - thank you Jane and Simon!

Since Camp GLOW was held in the same town where we had Peace Camp last summer, we also got the opportunity to take the girls to The Recreation Project again, a ropes course with very active team-building and motivational exercises. Some of the facilitators even remembered me as the girl who greatly feared heights but conquered the zip line! This time around, I led a reflection for the girls before and after they completed the zip line, to put the session in context and relate it to overcoming fears and challenges throughout their life.

The course has changed a lot since my last visit, and in particular they’ve added a completing terrifying new activity called the Leap of Faith. This involves climbing a narrow tree (very high up, I might add), standing on top of the narrow tree, and leaping to try and catch a trapeze-type bar. See the pictures below to understand why my heart started racing whenever I looked at it! However, the girls are much braver than I am, and nearly all of the girls overcame their fears and attempted the leap, something the project facilitators say is very rare – usually only 60% try it!

The leap of faith - so scary!

Leaping with grace :)

Teamwork!

More teamwork to conquer the impossible wall!

Tae Kwon Do!

Twice during the week we linked-up with the boys’ leadership camp (BUILD – Boys of Uganda in Leadership and Development) for some field day activities and domestic violence discussions. Having almost 200 campers in one setting was a bit overwhelming, but the activities were successful!

Just having fun!

Me and my friend Karla

GLOW and BUILD - a great team!

At the closing ceremony, some of the campers read poems inspired by their experience at GLOW. We thought they were so awesome that Karla asked for a copy after the ceremony:

About Domestic Violence
______________________
Women! Women! Women!
The mothers of the nation
Beaten and tortured by ruthless men
Whipped and raped by strangers
Crying with the poor child on her back
Digging from Dawn to sunset
With little to earn from the harvest
No food, much work
The ribs seen from a kilometer

Never! Never! Never!
Shall it happen again
You hit me, I take you behind bars
When sad lean on friends

Women! Women! Women!
Suffering no more
No more sorrows
Because we are strong and beautiful
And proud to be a girl
And I am the future leader of my country Uganda,
The Pearl of Africa
Women! Women! Women!
……………………………………………………….
By Dr. Irene and Jacque
Camp Glow Closing Ceremony
April 29th, 2012 Gulu Uganda

______________
Proud Glow Girls
______________
Proud are we the Glow Girls
Beautiful we look, eloquent we speak
The bright zebras! Calm crocodiles!
Elegant giraffes! The humble Ugandan Kobs!
Gallant Rhinos! Cheerful Lions! Assertive Elephants!
Cherished Monkeys! Royal Hippos and the fastest Cheetahs!
All focused to be leaders of Uganda, The Pearl of Africa

Proud are we the Glow Girls
So useful to nations, our communities,
The world at large.

Proud are we the Glow girls
To have our nice and loving counselors, staff and co-directors.
We are proud of you.
Thank you Camp Glow
For teaching us.
-------------------------------------------
Camp Glow Closing Ceremony
April 29th, 2012
by Aete Claudys Komakech,
Ocer Champion Jesuit College, Gulu, Uganda


Thanks for a great week everyone! :)

Oh, by the way: my new home!

So in all the excitement of the past month, I've forgotten to blog about my new home! I'll admit, I was beginning to think it would never happen. Due to a crazy number of hurdles along the way, it took about 5.5 months to make this move happen.

So what is my new organization? It's called Medical Education Resources Africa (MERA). It's an NGO that, among other things, runs a college of health sciences. Of course, the college isn't yet officially registered, but that doesn't seem to stop students from attending the school anyway.

The new org

Unfortunately, my new organization didn't seem to understand the point of having a Peace Corps Volunteer at first... The job description they sent in with their volunteer application listed a whole host of things that don't quite fall in line with the "capacity building" aspect of PC. For example, they wanted someone to get textbooks donated from Europe or the US, to solicit for monetary and materials resources, and to write grants for the expansion of the organization.

You might be asking, well why can't you do these things? It's the difference between teaching a man to fish and just giving him a fish. For details on how foreign aid (including foreigners who come to African countries for a few weeks/months and do exactly those tasks outlined above) has actually been detrimental to the development of Africa, I'd recommend Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo.

Less curb appeal than my old place, but still nice!

Kitchen/sitting room

Where I try and work

Bedroom/more sitting room

A big plus to my place is that it's in Bugembe, a town 5 km east of Jinja town. This means that I have much better access to power and internet than I did in Mayuge. It also means that I'm close enough to town to have pizza delivered TO MY HOUSE. Now, this might not seem like a big deal to those of you back home, but it's a HUGE deal here! I didn't even think such a thing was possible! So the other night, my friend (who lives just a few more kilometers east of me) decided that we had to take advantage of this new miracle.

Delivery woman showed up on a boda!

Mary enjoying our pizza! It had feta cheese!

My house is also right next to a radio station, Baba FM. One day I decided to go and check out their offices and make some new friends. Well, since it's a radio station and can't afford to go off the air every time the power goes out, they have a huge generator that turns on immediately when the power goes out. They also have AIR CONDITIONING. It was heavenly! As I was leaving, I was asked to record a quick advert in Lusoga for an upcoming concert in June.

I'm famous!

Next to the radio station is the Busoga Kingdom headquarters, where the cultural leader for the Busoga region is supposed to work. Unfortunately, Busoga has not had a king for 3 years. When the last leader died, a new one was supposed to be elected from among 11 elders. There were two main contenders, one who is supported by the government and one who is supported by the people. Apparently every time they meet to elect a leader, fighting ensues. I found all of this information out when one day half a dozen police vehicles parked themselves all around the compound near my house to prevent fighting from occurring during the most recent meeting. It sure took me by surprise to all of sudden be surrounded by policemen every time I left my house, but after 4 days the threat had apparently diminished, and they all left. That is, until the next meeting.

Baba FM (reddish building) and Busoga Headquarters (white building)

So as you can see, life in Bugembe is anything but dull! Farewell, until my next adventure!

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! :)