Its beginning to look a lot like christmas

What to say, what to say….it hasn’t been a particularly eventful couple of weeks in meheba, and that suits me just fine. Jeremy is feeling much better, which is quite good because his birthday was the 19th and no one wants to be sick on their birthday! Alice, our amazing super woman housekeeper, helped me bake a cake (no small feat over coals) for his birthday and we made (soy) tacos, one of our favourite meals here. We had a good old gin and tonic to ward off malaria and ring in his 22nd year in style. All and all I think it was a good celebration! I’m pretty excited that I’ll be celebrating my birthday here this year as well. My second birthday in Africa...woot!!

My friend Sara is coming to visit next week and I can barely contain my excitement. She is busy shutting down FOGE operations in Kala right now. FORGE is moving out of Mwange and Kala as UNHCR is shutting down Mwange entirely and Kala population has dropped more than 60% since Sara got there in July due to repatriation. Sara is moving to the Democratic Republic of Congo to work for FORGE there in January and is coming to Meheba to study how some of our projects run. She’ll be here a week and then is taking a much needed vacation with her good friend, ME!! We’re leaving December 13th and heading to Lamu Island and Malindi Beach in Kenya, then down to Zanzibar for Christams, and finally ending on the lake in Malawi for New Years before heading our separate ways. I’m not sure when I’ll get to see her again, so I’m pretty pumped about getting to spend so much time together and doing such a fun trip. Lamu island is supposed to be amazing; there are no motor vehicles allowed on the island so the only transport is donkeys! Malindi Beach is a town with a thousand year history and is most recently famous for their Italian food of all things! Hopefully I’ll get to see some old friends from my first trip to Tanzania when I’m in Dar and Zanzibar; Zanzibar is one of my favourite places on earth and I’m excited to be getting back there. I hear Malawi is just gorgeous and hopefully Jeremy will be hopping a bus to come meet us for New Years. We’ll see if he can make it, the bus ride is about 10-12 hours.

As for life in Meheba, the rains are starting to make things a bit more difficult, and a lot more green! I feel as though I live in a completely new place now that everything is so green and lush. Its a far cry from the dried grass and dead trees we arrived to. Its really gorgeous, but I had such an odd feeling the other day when one of my staff members remarked that everything being so green and lush reminded her of Christmas and New Years. Funny, because I was having the exact opposite reaction! I heard Christmas music playing the other day and was shocked. My first reaction was ‘Why on earth are they playing Christmas music this early!?!’ until I realized that its almost December. Holy cow, its almost December. This will be the first Christmas I’ve spent away from my family, and I admit thats pretty hard for me to swallow. Of course, sipping pina coladas on a gorgeous beach in Zanzibar will probably help ease the pain a bit…

Women's Work

One of my projects is the Women’s Centre. I am privileged to work with some amazing women on this project and am pretty much in awe of them. Not only do the three staff members work full time at the Women’s Centre, they are also still responsible for taking care of their children, cooking, washing, and running their houses. They each have three or four children, one each who is young enough that they come to the centre with their mothers each day. One of the women is pregnant and she still walks an hour to work each day. They’re passionate about empowering women in Meheba and take their jobs very seriously. These women kick ass.

One of the things the Women’s Centre does is hold outreach classes in different parts of the camp that run six to eight weeks and teach women how to hand sew and knit, along with teaching on SGBV, nutrition and childcare, and reproductive health. The workshop teaches women skills to use at home or to start small businesses to earn their own money. The sewing and knitting outreach finished in October and a graduation celebration was held for the thirty women who finished the course. This was a party. The women sang songs and performed dramas they worked on during the outreach that taught about topics such as SGBV and HIV/AIDS. They showcased the items they had made during the workshop and it was amazing to see all of these beautiful hand sewn baby dresses, school uniforms, adorable knitted baby hats, sweaters and pants. To think that a couple of months earlier these women had no idea how to make these, and to look at their perfect creations that they would surely use or at least be able to sell to make some money for their families, it nearly brought me to tears. Their excitement was contagious.

The Women’s Centre also runs saving circles. Many of these saving circles start as a result of the sewing and knitting outreaches where women want to continue meeting together. A saving circle is a group of ten to twenty women who meet weekly for one year to save a fixed amount of their own money. The money saved is loaned out to the members of the group and repaid with interest. The saving circles provide a safe place for women to keep money outside of the home and allow women to have control over money and lessen their dependence on men. This can begin to address gender inequality issues at the household level. Saving circles also provide access to loans when emergencies arise and give women access to loans for use in business. As well, perhaps one of the most crucial aspects of the groups is that saving circles serve as a kind of support group where women share ideas and encourage each other in business and in life.

One of the saving circles recently finished their year of saving and divided the money. The women in this saving circle ranged from age 16 to 45 and had varying levels of participation. When they split the money, many of the women took their savings (with interest) and purchased female goats or chickens to begin raising and selling as a small business. Others bought fertilizer and seed to begin a farm, and still others paid school fees for their children that they wouldn’t have been able to without saving. The group was so pleased with the results of the saving circle that many of them want to reform the group to continue saving for another year.

I love seeing women take control of their own future. I love seeing women learning skills that can generate income for themselves and their children. I love seeing women saving money, having access to loans, and starting small businesses. I love seeing practical ways that women can step towards independence and equality, ways that give women a choice besides marriage as a survival tool. We’re working on registering a new intake of women for the next knitting and sewing class, as well as forming new saving circles. The staff at the women’s centre are excited to reach more women and have devised a strategy to reach out to new arrivals in Meheba. I can’t wait for the next graduation!

Tricks are for kids

Take it from me, malaria is not fun. Oh sure, it may sound great, “You get a fever and chills and aches and pains everywhere!!” but trust me, its not all its cracked up to be. Those aches and pains are really a pain. And the chills? Be careful what you wish for: even when its 95+ degrees outside and you have been praying for the day you get to wear a sweater again, chills are not the reason you want to don that sweater.

Unfortunately, malaria parasites have no manners at all. They feel it is perfectly acceptable to attack at any time, including a lovely Halloween party at the Peace Corps house. Halloween isn’t celebrated in Zambia, but lucky for us my fellow Americans in the Peace Corps seem to share my affinity for childish holidays and dressing up and making the ever so difficult decision between trick or treat. They hosted a Halloween party at their provincial house in Solwezi and invited Jeremy and me along for the festivities. I spent the entire week making wings out of the tall reeds that grow behind our house, and I made a Tinker Bell dress out of a green mosquito net (did I mention there’s not much to pass the time when you live out here?). I got to wear my costume for all of an hour at the party before the fever and chills and the aching like crazy started and the realization hit that the parasites had decided trick not treat this year. I went to bed early and had one of the worst nights of my life. Next morning I got tested and low and behold the dreaded malaria parasite.

Of course, if you MUST get malaria, Zambia is a pretty good place to get it. They don’t have an abundance of the nasty “drug-resistant-hide-in-your-liver-and-kill-you-three-days-later” version of the parasite common in some other parts of Africa, and they’re so used to seeing malaria that they know exactly how to diagnose it and exactly how to treat it. A little finger prick here, a blood slide there, and boom, they know what you’ve got beyond a shadow of a doubt. Then its just a matter of a series of pills and some pain killers to get you through the first couple of days, and before you know it you feel like new. I was amazed that in less than a week I went from feeling like I wanted to die to feeling like the world was made of roses. Very effective drugs. And luckily, we caught it early before it moved on to complicated malaria.

Just as I was starting to feel better, Jeremy started to feel worse. We were afraid it might be malaria for him as well, but we took him to the clinic in Meheba and the malaria test came back negative. Honestly, that was more disconcerting than if he had malaria. At least a positive malaria test would mean an easy treatment and speedy recovery. This illness was unknown, and thus untreatable by anyone in Meheba. After a few days of him being unable to eat I loaded him up into the car and took off for Solwezi to find a doctor who could diagnose him. One of the clinics in Solwezi, the very one that had treated my malaria, has this great Nigerian doctor who is extremely friendly and very knowledgeable. After spending some time with Jeremy he diagnosed a stomach problem due to diet...apparently too much spicy food, coffee and other acidic foods have deprived Jeremy of a stomach lining. I think we have those stomach linings for a reason, and when you don’t have one anymore, its a problem. SO, now he’s not allowed to ingest any of those tasty things and is on a series of other pills and injections. I’m pretty happy with my malaria diagnosis at this point. At least I can still have coffee...that is, if we could find it. We have a beautiful French press but I would dare anyone to try and find anything other than instant coffee in Solwezi or Meheba. Shoprite used to carry it but has stopped for some godawful reason. Its a travesty. Almost as bad as having no stomach lining. Sort of.

So the moral of the story is: well I don’t really know. I’m sure with that much pain there must be a lesson in there somewhere, but I’m just a little fuzzy without my morning coffee.

Shameless Fundraising Plug

I mentioned in my previous post that I have decided to extend my contract another six months. While I’m unbelievably excited about this opportunity, there is also the added burden of additional fundraising. To come for the first six months I needed to raise $3,500 for FORGE, and through your generosity I did! With the addition of six months to my contract, my fundraising obligation goes up to a total of $5,000, or an additional $1,500. I know times are tough around the globe and I know that many of you already made donations to FORGE and have other charitable contributions you make, especially around the holidays, but I would sincerely appreciate your consideration of a donation to FORGE this season as well. FORGE is a lean organization and you can track every dollar you donate. On their website you can even chose which project you would like your donation to support, although unassigned donations are always appreciated as well since they can be directed to the most urgent needs. If you are considering a donation, all I ask is that you please include my name so that the donation counts towards my fundraising goals for the organization. You can find all of the information you need to make an online donation at www.FORGEnow.org or of course you can mail a check to 1904 Franklin St. Suite 701, Oakland, CA 94612. FORGE is a non-profit organization and all donations are tax deductible.

Thank you for your commitment to me and to FORGE. I know I don’t update this blog often enough and your commitment to reading and following my bumbling accounts of life in Meheba is a testament to how much you must truly care :) Or at least how board you are at work…

I spent my morning weighing babies

I spent my morning weighing babies. Our health project has partnered with the Block ‘B’ Clinic to offer the under five clinic services to the residents of Block ‘C’. This is where the FORGE Health Services is located but there is no clinic in this block. Its important that children are weighed to make sure they are gaining enough to be healthy as they grow, as well as making sure they receive their vaccines. The ‘B’ Clinic officer brought and administered vaccines while myself and our FORGE workers weighed the children. After this, Mary, an FHS employee, gave a talk on proper child nutrition. I can’t even begin to describe to you what an amazing program this is.

This morning I held in my arms a set of tiny baby girl twins. I snuggled them into the carrier and weighed them on the hanging scale; they weighed four kilos and four point five kilos each. I held them gently and marveled at these new lives. They were the tiniest most beautiful little girls. And then I found out they were six months old.

Of course there were plenty of children who were at the correct weight or at least very close, but I have never been so faced with the reality of malnutrition in my life. I have also never so fervently prayed that people were listening as I did before Mary gave her talk on nutrition to the waiting mothers outside. And believe me, when Mary talks people listen. Mary is an Angolan refugee and she has this way about her that shows how much she truly cares and also how important the information she gives is. She is friendly and passionate and extremely intelligent, and she’s darn good at her job. And still, I prayed that everyone listened, as if their child’s life depended on it.

Looking at the faces of the women gathered with their babies, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them were under 18 years old, and how many of those already had at least two children. I couldn’t help but wonder not only how many could not afford to properly feed their children but also how many just didn’t have the knowledge to know what was necessary. At 16, would I have known? What other knowledge might they be lacking access to? Are they being taught about early marriages? Are they being taught about their rights as women? Are they being taught about STI’s and HIV/AIDS? Are they being taught about saving for their future and learning skills to generate income to send their children to school? FORGE is teaching all of these things. The refugees I work with every day are there, first hand teaching and training and changing lives. Every. Day.

And so you see, I need more days to be here. Not because my presence is so important, but because I need more days to be inspired by the refugees I work with and live amongst. I need more days to see refugees teaching refugees about issues and skills that will transform their lives and the lives of their children. I need more days to feel useless as I watch these brilliant people empower their communities.

So I’m staying a few more days. I know many of you were expecting me back in January, but FORGE has offered me the chance to extend my contract until August of 2010, and I’ve decided to humbly accept. I have more to learn, more knowledge I need to access that can only be found here, and more mornings I need to spend weighing babies.