Boarding the Peace Train (as Cat Stevens might say): August 2008

I just got back today from training the new Education, Health, and Municipal Development Volunteers. It was surreal as this time last year I was in their shoes. It really showed me how far I've come in this service, but also how far I have to go. I guess I thought I would have accomplished more by now (as far as projects go), but instead what I found I have accomplished the most is the ability to communicate and form relationships with the people here. Not half bad if I say so myself, but I want to focus on doing more concrete work in the village I think now. Anyway, training went great. Good group of people. We are getting maybe 12 people added to our team in Zinder which will change the dynamic drastically. We are doubling our numbers with just this stage. Also, a good friend of mine from my stage, Stephanie, has decided to end her service here and go back to America to pursue other things. Pretty sad, and it leaves the number of people from my stage in Zinder at just 3. I will also be the only oldest reigning Health volunteer in Zinder. Our supervisor, Gaston, pulled me aside with a worried look on his face and was like... "you aren't leaving are you?" I was like, "No, no ofcourse not." And I'm not. The year mark hit July 25th and I feel it is downhill from here (in a good way!). I look forward to this year to come and hoping the benefits of my hard work this past year will pay off, and I can really start to do some good work.

What else has been going on...well, I've been non-stop sick lately, which is kind of annoying. My village nurse was doing polio rounds in surrounding villages, and I accompanied her on the three day voyage. We spent the night in different villages for these nights, and I ended up drinking unfiltered water, which always spells trouble. Ofcourse I end up getting amoebas, but it was so worth it to see different areas of my region. I helped administer the Polio vaccine and I must say, Niger is coming close to erradicating Polio. Was glad to be a part of it. Anyhow, so I end up getting Amoebas and then during training I get this awful cold (thank you new stagieres with your American diseases, haha). I'm starting to get over that now though so hopefully I can just relax these next couple of days.

Been working on radio quite a bit. Turns out we have to start going to the studio to do our segment (before we just used a digital recorder and just turned in tapes to them, but the quality they said was too bad). I did a live show with another girl from the Agricultural stage before me and it was tons of fun actually. I was really nervous but it turned out really well. I also busted out some scripts before training, all in Hausa, which was exhausting, but pretty awesome that I could pull it off. Now, I think I'm going to try to conjure up some old scripts people have already done as doing four shows a month, all new shows, is pretty much impossible if I want to keep my sanity. The two I recently wrote were about malaria and importance of using mosquito nets and the other was on the recent polio vaccination campaign. I'll be taking on more and more responsiblity as coordinator of radio in Zinder, especially with Noah leaving pretty soon (the other radio coordinator). Hopefully I can handle the workload, and some of the new people will want to help out.

Well I go back to Zinder on tuesday, hopefully get some radio shows recorded, and then get back to the village on the 16th, I think thats friday? I've been out of the village for a while now, which I feel guilty about, but I am working so can't feel too bad. Hopefully they haven't forgotten about me, haha. Maybe I'll get another update in before then, but if not, take care everyone and I'll write again soon!

Here are some pics from some of my happenings...