Okay. I feel like putting my folks on blast. So I get to the Peace Corps office after two weeks thinking that I MIGHT have a package. Then of course reality sets in that my folks STILL haven't sent me jack S.uger H.oney I.ced T.ea the whole 7 months I've been here in Benin! I wanted to be pissed off then I thought about it and figured I shouldn't even waste anymore energy on hoping they'd send me something. I mean, can I at least get a freakin letter??? "Hey, just writing to see if you're alive and well." SOMETHING! This is getting ridiculous. How about anybody that enjoys reading my blog send me a letter/package/sympathy note because my folks apparently don't care about my needs over here. I know who sends stuff over here. Because I have become a vulture standing around when they're opened from time to time. Thankfully, some of the volunteers like to share. Sorry to complain but this is the only place where my depression comes from. I'm not very homesick, I haven't been ill here, and things are generally okay. But when you do not get correspondance from home, it really puts a shadow over my days. Of course this blog is not for the people that DO check up on me in the form of letters, emails, calls, and packages. I really do appreciate them. These are the things that keep me going.
On another note, I am planning an HIV/AIDS Awareness Kickoff in my village on March 25th. Former President Bush allocated money set aside for programs in Africa relating to the epidemic. Say what you want about the man, but the money will be put to good use. All the funds through this program needs to be used by March 30th. So of course, I wrote a grant to get some of that money for my village. The program will first consist of a two day crash training course about the virus to the nurses at the health center I work at. The nurses there told me they have not received training about the virus. They do not use gloves during injections. Only during births. They told me that blood is not touched during the injections. Yet I have seen blood touched a few times. I asked them what would they do if a women or a man comes in the health center WITH the virus and they KNOW they have the virus. They said they would wear gloves. Then I asked them, how would they know WHO has the virus if there is not testing in our village. They were silent.
After the two day crash course training the nurses will help me run the program, a film about the virus in the Fon language will be shown to the village, a person who lives with the virus will come to speak to people. Then there will be lunch. Afterwards with the help of the nurses, there will be two seperate health sessions, one for people 15 and older (how to put on a condom, fidelity ect.) and another for the children under 15 (don't touch blood, seperate razors for scarification, basic modes of transmission) so the messages will be understood according to age and experience. At the end of the program will be a game of soccer played by the children of the village.
I also will be doing a four day bike tour riding to different villages talking about HIV/AIDS with 10 other volunteers at the end of this month. All together we will be biking around 30 miles. I'm very excited about it. Also the first week in March I will be traveling to Burkina Faso for the African International film festival. I'm VERY excited about that too. I hear there are strawberries grown there. Like I said before, it's the little things that make me happy. Also in March I will be in a two day training up north to learn about moringa. Google it!! It is a MIRACLE plant for malnutrition. It's grown in the poorest conditions in the parts of the world most affected by malnutrition yet few know about the plant. Can't wait to start a moringa field in my village. Then following that, I'll be going to a Gender and Development fundraiser dinner. A married couple is coming to Benin in July for service and the wife went to my small 2500 student populated college!!! It's really a small world! I'm very excited about it.
So in conclusion, my folks suck, work is going well, and I'm doing pretty good.
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