What I've Been Doing

I guess a good question to answer is- after being on vacation what does a Volunteer do at the beginning of the second year? And, the answer to that is: much the same as I was doing the first year. The most frustrating aspect is that before I went to go work at PST (training) I had wrapped up all my projects, and then I went home; so, when I got back to site and I started to think about projects again (that took a couple days) my first thought was, “What was I working on?” But seriously, it’s really easy to lose momentum on things you weren’t quite sure what you were doing. But, as I’ve been able to reconstruct my projects in progress so far:

1)      Tree Planting: Ironically, the project that I’ve scoffed at the most seems to be the one I’m poised to make the most progress on. I don’t understand it either. But, my counterpart is pretty motivated to do this (I think tree planting might be part of his yearly quota as well) and we’re already well on our way to getting seeds, dirt, sand, and compost.

2)      It’s Condom Time- and HIV/AIDS mural: This project came as a joke until I figured out that it was actually within the realm of possibilities. It basically consists of the Power Rangers holding different condom brands and saying, “It’s condom time!” I tried to think of something involving Captain Picard but I’m not quite sure if, “Make it so” translates well. This would involve some sensibilizations about preventing HIV/AIDS and using family planning methods as well.

3)      World Map- The principal at the middle school/high school in my village had a peace corps volunteer once upon a time who made a huge world map on a building, and he wants to do the same thing here. I told him that if he found the money (preferably by asking the Parent/student organization), I’d get the mural painted.

4)      Classes at the middle school/high school about health topics- Pretty self explanatory. Those don’t require much planning- I just need a schedule of when to show up. But it’ll probably be talking about things like family planning, malaria prevention, etc.

5)      Classes at elementary schools- like the preceding project idea. Only a little more simplistic. Probably more hygiene and less sex related.

6)      CPR- This is actually turning into an incredibly frustrating project despite its incredibly simplistic idea. It also went from completely free to really expensive in the blink of an eye thanks to a rule that I’m not even sure applies in this case. However, we’re moving along a little bit at a time. 
Every 3 or 4 months I have to write this up for the Peace Corps anyway- but this is a little more entertaining. Copy and Paste: here I come!