As of last Wednesday, me and the other twenty PCVs in my training group made it through our first three months at site. I cannot say unscathed as that is definitely not the case but at least we are all, as far as I know, alive and mostly well. Next week begins our Reconnect training and we all come back together and celebrate our survival. Volunteers with a more competitive nature than my own might belittle the integrity and selfless of the Peace Corps and compare their respective first months at site to other peoples. I will, of course, not be partaking in this and condemn those who do.
During training, already established PCVs described these first three months as a test of a volunteer's mettle and if you get through it without going crazy than you survived the first test of endurance as a volunteer. My first three months was mostly painless. I did have a couple bouts of Nkrumah's revenge or whatever its called and what's been diagnosed by Adam (My friend/PCV neighbor) as heat rash. He has an economics degree. Seriously. Besides these hiccups my spirits have stayed rather high and I'm going into Reconnect training with a satisfied impression of my time so far in Bormase.
Before I continue rambling I think its necessary to clarify a point. When I say I am satisfied with my service so far I do NOT, I repeat, do NOT, want to imply that I've actually accomplished anything thus far. From what I've gathered so far no one in the Peace Corps actually does ever accomplish anything and those who say they do are either lying or are over-achieving assholes who are making the rest of us look bad.
That said, no one really expects us to do much, which is appreciated, especially during our first three months where we are, in fact, prohibited from beginning any projects and aren't allowed to write grants yet. Thus far I have spent considerable time wandering around Bormase with and without my counterpart. When he's not there conversations tend to lead to dead ends rather quickly. On the other hand when he is conversations soar over my head. By the way I am working on the language but its tricky. We have so far met with several communities in my area and formed project groups in them. These are formed around a common interest in an area that I cannot work with the group members on. So far these consist of water groups, poultry groups, and beekeeping groups.
Water groups are formed in communities that are in need of drinking water via a borehole. Members of some of these communities are forced to walk twenty minutes each way several times a day just to supply enough water for their family. In the dry season, which just finished, it is especially difficult as the water table goes down. Stupid ecology nomenclature. But I'll be facilitating the process to get a borehole, which basically means I bug people until they follow through. I truly feel this is what I'm meant to do. My whole life has been preparation for this. Limits that I believed constrained me are as nothing now. But I am really rather psyched that this seems to actually be happening and everyone necessary for the next step has committed to meeting at the local Water and Health Officer's office tomorrow. So optimism all around please. Keep things crossed!
On Thursday, I will be hosting the first Krobodan-run chicken training that we're doing. Again, I will be primarily filling the role of spectator (on my trimester report its read: facilitator) but I am equally psyched that it will be a good start and from here I'm hoping to spread the good word of Krobodan to the masses. My supervisor, Emmanuel Nartey, the farming guru (doesn't come close to doing him justice,) will be running a demonstration of pen construction for layers. For those poor souls not in the poultry business, layers are chickens that lay eggs to be sold. Thus they most be kept isolated from any of those nasty male chickens. Doing there nasty male things. My hope is that this will be a launch pad for these layers in the communities I work with as no one from them sells their own eggs. And also it would make my life significantly easier as I have lost about half the eggs I buy trying to transport them in a plastic bag hung from the handle bar of my bike. Not the ideal mode of transporting eggs.
As far as beekeeping goes, I have discussed with my communities the idea and their seems to be some very positive response. However, at this time we don't have the necessary equipment to get it off the ground, but we're on a grant to change that so I'll be hitting you lovely folks up for money again before too long. (Thats a subtle hint to give money to the GLOW Camp through the link on my facebook page. If you haven't already or are feeling particularly financially frivolous.)
All that said, I'm at the point in this post where I lose interest in writing and have forgotten anything else I planned to write about. If those forgotten things are actually interesting lets hope I remember for the next post (probably 3-12 months from now) or, more likely, in ten years I'm having a conversation with someone and that memory gets randomly jogged.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post do not represent the views of the Peace Corps. They only represent those of the author.
