Heatin' Up!

The past couple months since vacation have been such a whirlwind! I really don’t know where the time has gone since I got back from vacation. It blows my mind that its now December and my mom is about to arrive!

We traveled straight from vacation back to Pretoria for Regional Training, a week long in-service training for health volunteers and their South Africa counterparts and supervisors. It was the first time I had been reunited with my cohort since May, and it was really good to see everyone! We all stayed in a hotel in Pretoria and MJ was my roommate, so we spent a lot of our time just messing around in our room, talking, watching movies, and hanging out with other volunteers!

I can say I was pleasantly surprised not only with how smoothly the training ran, but also with how organized and inspiring the resource partners were who presented to us. We got a lot of information on young men’s and women’s empowerment programs which I look forward to taking back to site and implementing, I cannot wait.

Aside from the presentations, we worked out at the hotel gym, went swimming, and had dance parties in our room. I loved being reunited with the other Americans who I started this journey with, it was so nice!

As much as I enjoyed vacation and training, I also really missed my host family! I was so happy to come home and get huge hugs from all my host siblings and unpack to spend some quality time with them! A month away from site is a really long time.

Many of you ask how my work is going, so I figured I would give you a picture of exactly what I am working on over the course of the next 18 months. This term, so Oct-Dec, I really had to hit the ground running. I am still preparing all of my materials and supplies to start my girls afterschool dance club this coming January. I had to finalize applications, pass them out, and collect/evaluate them to choose which learners I wanted to participate! Reading those applications made me so happy and it was so refreshing to hear from young motivated women who wanted to do something I was making possible for them. Everything here takes a LOT of time. I have been talking about this club since March and it will be starting 10 months later, crazy! But I can only hope that all of my hard work will pay off!

Next term I will continue to teach in local schools but will be attempting to teach English rather than Life Skills. If it goes well, I will stick with that. Teaching is a small part of my service in my community, but I want to make sure that what I am teaching and how I teach is of the most possible value to my learners.

I have also started an after school homework help program at the local primary school, where grade 5 and 6 learners come every Tuesday and Thursday and work on homework or a specific task given to them by their teachers. It is kind of a mix of math (yikes), social science, and English assignments depending on what they are struggling with. I know it’s a small chunk of time, but I am happy to stick around in the afternoon if it means giving kids extra time to work on their homework and perfect their skills.

Boiketlo, the organization I am paired with, has a spare room that is being used to storage now. With the help of a couple grants, I am in the process of building a reading room and study lounge for local children. We are redoing the roofing, installing shelving and tables/chairs, and it is my hope that kids will come to study or read for fun from time to time. Although the organization cannot feed local kids like it used to, I want to bring Boiketlo back as a central institution in the community where people can go for some sort of resource. Hopefully this will be completed soon!

I also am in the process of applying for grants for a couple sleepaway camps in the near future. The first camp will be based on gender rights and unity among young South African men and women. We will have about 50 young boys and girls in grades 8 and 9 participate in individual workshops during the mornings, and by afternoon we will do trust building exercises all together. My hope is that this camp will happen around late June or early July 2014. I absolutely cannot wait!

Near the end of my service in September 2014, MJ and I plan to do a young women’s wellness camp, a similar timeline and format to the one I just explained except based on mental and physical health of young women. We want to incorporate yoga and dance into women’s sexual and reproductive health issues and gender rights here in South Africa.

The projects mentioned above are my main goals, but I also plan to do a few side projects over this course of time, so stay tuned! Its so difficult to do everything you want to in such a finite amount of time.

Over the next couple weeks I will just be prepping for my girls club and packing for when my MOM visits!! She arrived December 16^th and I could not be more excited!

Anyway, I think that is about all I have to report for now, but I hope you all enjoyed my updates. I will attach some pictures of my host family, Halloween celebrated with local PCVs, regional training, and my host sisters kindergarten (or as they say here grade R) graduation. I miss you all so much, and you’re all constantly in my thoughts! I hope everyone had a truly wonderful thanksgiving.

All my love,

H