Well, I am almost to the close of another week. It has been
a busy one, with lots of exciting things happening. The time ticking down leads me to be days closer to the
arrival of the new volunteers, and one more week closer to our mid-service
conference, and then the big festival here on the 24th. I am looking
forward to our new colleague’s arrival to their respective sites, and even more so to the Mid-Service
conference, where I finally get to see all of Moz 18 together (it has been
since November of last year). The festival that is happening here, August 24/25th
is the one I wrote about last year.
The Timbila Festival (M’saho) – a local tradition, which has
turned into a national event. Every August for the past 18 years, people travel
from far and wide to listen to the timbila’s in the central amphitheatre of
Quissico, located at the overlook for the lagoon. It is a fantastic, culturally
rich festival located in my gorgeous town, think breathtaking clear blue
lagoons, framed by rolling green dune forests.
The timbila itself is a xylophone made up of wooden slats of
the sneezewort tree called “mhwnjhe” in Chopi (the local dialect), and dried
masala fruit shells “calabashes” as resonators. In Chopi culture the playing of
the timbila isn’t just for the annual festival, it was traditionally used as an
initiation passage for boys into adulthood, and often the male children would
play alongside the village elders. Each orchestra of timbila’s consists between
5 and 50, of varying size and range of pitch. Accompanying each of these
orchestras is a group of two to twelve male and female dancers.
This year, similar to last, we are going to have a Peace
Corps booth in town. It is my idea to use this space for a few things; to
promote and or sell things from the secondary projects of JUNTOS and REDES,
while encouraging more teen’s to get involved in the programs, have mosquito
net demonstrations, make and sell the moringa smoothies while simultaneously
giving small informational sessions about the plant moringa I also want a small
space for Peace Corps itself, to explain who we are, the work we do etc. With
my organization with the hospital, I want to try and get a mobile testing
centre for HIV stationed in the town. And lastly, a spot for PCV’s to sell
anything from their organizations and such as an income generation opportunity.
I was given permission to leave Mid-Service Conference on
Friday morning after one of our sessions, so I can be here Friday evening to do
some prep-work, and set up early AM on Saturday. It is going to be a whirlwind
of crazy, but I feel that we can pull it off!
In my normal life of work here in Quissico, things are going
well. I am working on combining my NGO at the hospital with one of my CBO’s.
Which will hopefully provide my small community organization with some funding,
and help the NGO reach a wider client base in the field. We are really focusing
on the people who have abandoned treatment, getting to them, getting them back
to the hospital to re-start treatment etc. as well as a new initiative of
focusing on children under the age of 5. Starting them directly on medication,
and teaching the mothers about diseases, and treatment. It is exciting stuff,
and while I am working a lot “behind the scenes” doing the organizational
development stuff, it is helping to reach more people and provide some with
better opportunities.
With my REDS groups’ things are going well, we are coming
down from the high of having the Workshop here, but our sessions are still
going well. This week we are talking about self-esteem, and how important it is
to be supportive of ourselves and other girls/women. We are also working on
putting the final touches on our earrings – I need to find a place where I can
buy backs for them… like yesterday.
And with my other CBO, things are….. going. It's a huge
challenge with them because they mean so well. . . but don't have the
organizational skill or strength yet. And everything that I have proposed, they
shoot down with excuses, or agree to – and then nothing ever happens. Prime
example, the volunteer before me did this great “machamba” (gardening) project
with them. And while I set them up with a monthly calendar that defined who was
to care for the garden on what days- it has fallen into disrepair. The excuses
are numerous, and yet no one is stepping up to actually fix the issue.
They cant care for a garden, but have recently proposed the
idea of building an orphanage. . . . I sat in on this meeting shaking my head.
When it got down to arguing about the budget if we would need two ink toners
for a printer I had to leave. We don't even have a door or windows for our
office, we cant take care of a garden. . . but we are going to ask some big
international corporation for funding for an orphanage? Please, someone tell
me, does anyone know how to work a computer? Who is going to care for these
children on a day-to-day basis? Oh, and most importantly, where the heckkkk
would you like to put this structure? On top of our failed garden project?
Sigh…. Like I said, the best of intentions. . but they don't
really understand that you have to learn to walk before you can compete in the
400m hurdles I the Olympics.
Anyway, I have a meeting with said organization today (the
first one in 2 months) so we will see what happens. Stay tuned.
Other than that, things are good. I’m getting back to a
happier place. My neighbor and I celebrated our birthday the other day with a
chocolate banana cake I made for us (her bday is on the 5th). It was
a perfect afternoon spent with my “family”. . . I never expected to feel such a
connection with neighbors haha its really fantastic, and reaffirms my reasons
for being here.
-tay
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