Blog Oct. 17
Sorry. I read Brandon’s comment and realized that I haven’t actually told you all what I’m doing, or what it’s like here. I guess that’s the point of this thing.
So here’s one problem. I’ve adjusted.
Things that before surprised, amazed, astonished me; They’re normalized, I’m used to them. So my point is, if you think of questions that you want to ask please ask away. I’ll answer them as best I can.
Longside work:
Krissy and I have been at site for 2 months. It seems like a lot longer. Peace Corps Volunteers are supposed to enculture themselves into their communities for the first 3 months. We’re not really supposed to start working on projects until after three months, but yeah, that’s not gonna happen. First of all we’ll only be in Ekipe for 1 year as opposed to most other volunteers who’ll be at their sites for 2 years. And on top of it Krissy is an ass-kickin, driven, goal oriented worker. I’ve never seen anyone like it, so trying to convince her to hold off and wait is a futile effort.
After about 2 weeks we started a Community Census and Needs Assessment. These are tools to help us learn the village and also to help the village learn about themselves. The Village Health Worker, Krissy, and I went around to all the families in the village. Krissy designed a cartoon visual aid to represent all the possible projects that we could help with in our time in Ekipe. 95% of the Village was united in selecting water projects as the primary need for the village. So we have our work cut out for us. The census told us that there are around 350 people in the village. Over 40% of whom are under the age of 12.
Last weekend Krissy and I ran our first collaborative project. It was pretty cool to work on something so closely and directly. We always discussed theoretically how good of a team we make, Krissy working in Health and I in Education and Youth. But this is the first time we have ever fully teamed up with equal responsibility. I helped a little bit with her Captain Condom
program in LaX,
and she has given me lots of guidance and support for various projects I was heading up, but teaming up directly was exciting and encouraging. The project is called PACA- Participatory Analysis for Community Action and it’s a Peace Corps standard. Kind of a preliminary workshop to get your community prepped and open to work together towards Sustainable Development.
So we got together on our third try, two previous attempts were met with cancellations due to our Chief not being in town, and not enough people showing up. One of the bubu’s (grandpa’s) in the village helped us get people to the workshop in a creative way. He pulled out a scimitar, yes a scimitar, a pointy Arabic sword, not a bush knife/ machete (which would’ve been normal) and walked around to the houses shouting
“YU! YU KAM LO WAN WOKSOP HIA, YU NO STAP WITIM PIKININI, YU NO STAP MEKEM KAEKAE, YU KAM NAO” (Which translated means: Hey you get your ass over here to this workshop, quit playing with kids and making food, come here now)
So shortly thereafter we began our games and icebreakers which everyone loved. The laughing and clapping and cheering quickly caused our workshop population to triple. Over all we probably had about 60 people attend at least some of the workshop.
We presented our findings from the census and the needs assessment and led 4 projects: Community Mapping, Seasonal Calendar, Village Timeline, and Resource Appraisal. The villagers were enthusiastic and supportive, and the workshop was a great success.
From the workshop, all of us in Ekipe came to a clear understanding about what our needs are. Everyone wants us to help secure safe, regular access to piped drinking water.
In addition I have been asked by the chief to storian with some of the olfalas in our village and create a Village History book that each church can get a copy of.
These are two of the projects that are focused solely on our village. There are a number of others with a different scope and focus. Next week the village Health Worker Training for our province is being held in Ekipe, and I am teaching the new group of trainees in 20B how to run a Camp BILD and Camp GLOW (Boys in Leadership Development and Girls Leading Our World).
So, are you sorry you asked? There’s a lot more, but I’ll update other projects as I can.
This blog is going to be updated infrequently but thoroughly each time.
Hope this clears up a little bit what kind of stuff we’re working on.
Love
Javi and Krissy
Sorry. I read Brandon’s comment and realized that I haven’t actually told you all what I’m doing, or what it’s like here. I guess that’s the point of this thing.
So here’s one problem. I’ve adjusted.
Things that before surprised, amazed, astonished me; They’re normalized, I’m used to them. So my point is, if you think of questions that you want to ask please ask away. I’ll answer them as best I can.
Longside work:
Krissy and I have been at site for 2 months. It seems like a lot longer. Peace Corps Volunteers are supposed to enculture themselves into their communities for the first 3 months. We’re not really supposed to start working on projects until after three months, but yeah, that’s not gonna happen. First of all we’ll only be in Ekipe for 1 year as opposed to most other volunteers who’ll be at their sites for 2 years. And on top of it Krissy is an ass-kickin, driven, goal oriented worker. I’ve never seen anyone like it, so trying to convince her to hold off and wait is a futile effort.
After about 2 weeks we started a Community Census and Needs Assessment. These are tools to help us learn the village and also to help the village learn about themselves. The Village Health Worker, Krissy, and I went around to all the families in the village. Krissy designed a cartoon visual aid to represent all the possible projects that we could help with in our time in Ekipe. 95% of the Village was united in selecting water projects as the primary need for the village. So we have our work cut out for us. The census told us that there are around 350 people in the village. Over 40% of whom are under the age of 12.
Last weekend Krissy and I ran our first collaborative project. It was pretty cool to work on something so closely and directly. We always discussed theoretically how good of a team we make, Krissy working in Health and I in Education and Youth. But this is the first time we have ever fully teamed up with equal responsibility. I helped a little bit with her Captain Condom
program in LaX,and she has given me lots of guidance and support for various projects I was heading up, but teaming up directly was exciting and encouraging. The project is called PACA- Participatory Analysis for Community Action and it’s a Peace Corps standard. Kind of a preliminary workshop to get your community prepped and open to work together towards Sustainable Development.
So we got together on our third try, two previous attempts were met with cancellations due to our Chief not being in town, and not enough people showing up. One of the bubu’s (grandpa’s) in the village helped us get people to the workshop in a creative way. He pulled out a scimitar, yes a scimitar, a pointy Arabic sword, not a bush knife/ machete (which would’ve been normal) and walked around to the houses shouting
“YU! YU KAM LO WAN WOKSOP HIA, YU NO STAP WITIM PIKININI, YU NO STAP MEKEM KAEKAE, YU KAM NAO” (Which translated means: Hey you get your ass over here to this workshop, quit playing with kids and making food, come here now)
So shortly thereafter we began our games and icebreakers which everyone loved. The laughing and clapping and cheering quickly caused our workshop population to triple. Over all we probably had about 60 people attend at least some of the workshop.
We presented our findings from the census and the needs assessment and led 4 projects: Community Mapping, Seasonal Calendar, Village Timeline, and Resource Appraisal. The villagers were enthusiastic and supportive, and the workshop was a great success.
From the workshop, all of us in Ekipe came to a clear understanding about what our needs are. Everyone wants us to help secure safe, regular access to piped drinking water.In addition I have been asked by the chief to storian with some of the olfalas in our village and create a Village History book that each church can get a copy of.
These are two of the projects that are focused solely on our village. There are a number of others with a different scope and focus. Next week the village Health Worker Training for our province is being held in Ekipe, and I am teaching the new group of trainees in 20B how to run a Camp BILD and Camp GLOW (Boys in Leadership Development and Girls Leading Our World).
So, are you sorry you asked? There’s a lot more, but I’ll update other projects as I can.
This blog is going to be updated infrequently but thoroughly each time.
Hope this clears up a little bit what kind of stuff we’re working on.
Love
Javi and Krissy
Posts
3 comments:
Um, maybe I missed it, but where is the part about civlizing the savages?
In regards to the water projects you are heading up. What kind of budget and expertise are you provided with to accomplish this goal? It would seem to me that piping alone could cost a hefty chunk. Logistically, how do you even go about tapping into a clean water source and piping? What type of water system is available? Will you be required to dig a new/deeper well?
To Brandon, regarding work.
In terms of budget and expertise provided, Zero. There is a Water/Health Committee that is being re-elected in the village on Sunday. They will collaborate with us in all our efforts, but they do not have any budget; though some of them have limited experience with previous attempts to establish a permanent water system. Piping and valves and faucets, and everything else necessary could cost a shit-ton, but fortunately we are not at square one. The village has piping laying around above ground, kind of haphazard, all over the place. So we're hoping that they are in good enough condition to salvage some of them.
As for Logistics there is a government organization called Rural Water Supply that has already tapped a water source. This was all a part of Ekipe's initial attempt at securing water. So it looks like a lot of the preliminary work is out of the way. Next Saturday a Peace Corps Volunteer named Phil who works in a nearby village (about an hour walk)will be coming down to take a look at the source. He is a bit of a technical/mechanical wizard so we're hoping he can help us into a good framework of where the current setup has fallen apart. It's unlikely that we'll be doing any digging directly. Probably trying to formulate a plan of action with the community and helping to find funding sources will be our main purpose on the project.
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