Hey, All! I'm in Fada once again for a brief sejours from village, to meet up with some other volunteers. It's the first time since leaving for village that I'll have seen any other volunteers aside from my closest neighbor (it's been 1 month + au village!). I am excited to catch up, swap stories, experiences, frustrations, and the like...over some cold beers, no less.
La vie au village goes well. Each day I feel my status as 'l'étranger' a little less keenly, and feel a bit more habituated, a bit more comfortable, and a bit more knowledgeable. Regardless, it is impossible to leave my house without being met by stares as I am, for all intents and purposes, the only white chick au village. Granted, there are the European nuns at the mission; ancient, stooped, wrinkled - appropriately nunlike - but they rarely venture outside the mission walls, hence I am the living, breathing, blue-eyed American "nasara," the epitome of white and the ambassador of all things American in my African village.
It's currently nearing the end of the rainy season and the recult (harvest) will commence shortly, bringing with a host of fruits and veggies to my marché! School starts next week and the school faculties return this week in preparation. I'm excited for the return of the teachers and school directors as it will allow me to start discussing and planning possible school year projects with the primary school and high school students.
I've spent the last few weeks socializing lots, spending many hours au marché talking with all sorts of people. I've also commenced with my in-depth "étude du mileu" (literally 'study of place'). I've spent several days observing at the Centre Medicale in Diabo, talking to the nursing staff about village health needs and problems, what the most prevalent illnesses are and when and why they occur. I think that the health sector will provide ample oppoturnity for projects with students and villagers alike. My village is the administrative center of a department that contains 65 villages, which means that the Centre Medicale, not even close to hospital-like in scope and resources, serves more than 22,000 people. As you can imagine, this makes treatment a challenge, with little time or resources left over for health education and outreach. I've also started thinking about the possibility of facilitating a mentorship program between lycée students and the students at the 4 primary schools au village. I'm lucky to be in a village with a lycée and want to take advantage of having older students with advanced French proficiency.
There are certainly endless possibilities for work in village, but the challenge will be assessing real needs and finding sustainable, praticipatory ways to address them. If the past four months have taught me anything, it's that an idealistic approach to development is unrealistic, impractical, and largely impossible. Through my own observations and experiences, as well as countless conversations with other volunteers, I think that the greatest lesson I'll take from my Peace Corps experience is the true nature and possibilities of development, a hard but necessary lesson. My idealism has already been tempered and each day is a full dose of reality, which undermines a lot of the naive, bleeding-heart ideals I held so dearly growing up and through college. At the same time many of my convictions have been reaffirmed and hardened with concrete, substantive observation and evidence that no political science class or international affairs journal can provide.
Anyhow, back to la vie au village. My house is coming along nicely as I received the furniture I had made in village - a table for my "kitchen," on which my gas stove rests, a coffee table, a bookshelf, and some chairs. It's nice to finally be able to truly unpack and be surrounded by my books, framed pictures from home, and the general comfort of things in their place.
Aside from working on my étude de mileu, meeting new people each day, and visiting some of the administrative offices, I've continued to read voraciously and now run regularly, at least every other evening or morning. I'm finally starting to adapt to the heat, athletic-wise, which was a bit of a challenge. It's nice to feel some muscle mass returning and to posess more energy than I have since arriving en Afrique. I'm going to try to add a page to my blog with some comments on the books I've been reading. Most recently I finished "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" by Alexandra Fuller, an English author who grew up in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) during the war for independence, Malawi, and Mozambique. I can't recommend the book enough as Fuller's authentically British, biting wit lends a unique element to her description of the colonial/post-colonial life in the 1970s and 80s. It's a fascinating glimpse into family dynamics, the expat life, and the experiences and history of colonialism in Africa.
Time to sign off. 'Til next time!
Smiles,
Chrissy
La vie au village goes well. Each day I feel my status as 'l'étranger' a little less keenly, and feel a bit more habituated, a bit more comfortable, and a bit more knowledgeable. Regardless, it is impossible to leave my house without being met by stares as I am, for all intents and purposes, the only white chick au village. Granted, there are the European nuns at the mission; ancient, stooped, wrinkled - appropriately nunlike - but they rarely venture outside the mission walls, hence I am the living, breathing, blue-eyed American "nasara," the epitome of white and the ambassador of all things American in my African village.
It's currently nearing the end of the rainy season and the recult (harvest) will commence shortly, bringing with a host of fruits and veggies to my marché! School starts next week and the school faculties return this week in preparation. I'm excited for the return of the teachers and school directors as it will allow me to start discussing and planning possible school year projects with the primary school and high school students.
I've spent the last few weeks socializing lots, spending many hours au marché talking with all sorts of people. I've also commenced with my in-depth "étude du mileu" (literally 'study of place'). I've spent several days observing at the Centre Medicale in Diabo, talking to the nursing staff about village health needs and problems, what the most prevalent illnesses are and when and why they occur. I think that the health sector will provide ample oppoturnity for projects with students and villagers alike. My village is the administrative center of a department that contains 65 villages, which means that the Centre Medicale, not even close to hospital-like in scope and resources, serves more than 22,000 people. As you can imagine, this makes treatment a challenge, with little time or resources left over for health education and outreach. I've also started thinking about the possibility of facilitating a mentorship program between lycée students and the students at the 4 primary schools au village. I'm lucky to be in a village with a lycée and want to take advantage of having older students with advanced French proficiency.
There are certainly endless possibilities for work in village, but the challenge will be assessing real needs and finding sustainable, praticipatory ways to address them. If the past four months have taught me anything, it's that an idealistic approach to development is unrealistic, impractical, and largely impossible. Through my own observations and experiences, as well as countless conversations with other volunteers, I think that the greatest lesson I'll take from my Peace Corps experience is the true nature and possibilities of development, a hard but necessary lesson. My idealism has already been tempered and each day is a full dose of reality, which undermines a lot of the naive, bleeding-heart ideals I held so dearly growing up and through college. At the same time many of my convictions have been reaffirmed and hardened with concrete, substantive observation and evidence that no political science class or international affairs journal can provide.
Anyhow, back to la vie au village. My house is coming along nicely as I received the furniture I had made in village - a table for my "kitchen," on which my gas stove rests, a coffee table, a bookshelf, and some chairs. It's nice to finally be able to truly unpack and be surrounded by my books, framed pictures from home, and the general comfort of things in their place.
Aside from working on my étude de mileu, meeting new people each day, and visiting some of the administrative offices, I've continued to read voraciously and now run regularly, at least every other evening or morning. I'm finally starting to adapt to the heat, athletic-wise, which was a bit of a challenge. It's nice to feel some muscle mass returning and to posess more energy than I have since arriving en Afrique. I'm going to try to add a page to my blog with some comments on the books I've been reading. Most recently I finished "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" by Alexandra Fuller, an English author who grew up in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) during the war for independence, Malawi, and Mozambique. I can't recommend the book enough as Fuller's authentically British, biting wit lends a unique element to her description of the colonial/post-colonial life in the 1970s and 80s. It's a fascinating glimpse into family dynamics, the expat life, and the experiences and history of colonialism in Africa.
Time to sign off. 'Til next time!
Smiles,
Chrissy
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment