Wow. I am back in Zambia, sitting in the really ritzy expat hotel in Solwezi with the 3 Project Managers from Meheba. It has been a really long 4 days getting here, but I could not be happier. It feels like we just left....
Boston to London was a tough flight because I couldn't really sleep...had a center seat and just couldn't relax. Landed at 8 am London time and met my friend Holly from FORGE at the Starbucks at Heathrow. We took the tube into the city to meet my friend Jamie from Boston for a bit on his lunch break. It was a nice sunny day, but Holly and I were exhausted from the night before. We ate grade-B Tex-Mex at a place called the Texas Embassy and then headed back to the airport. Another FORGE staff member (Susannah) was on our flight to Lusaka. I slept lots on that flight and also watched the Darjeeling Limited. Waited in a lonnnnng customs line for tourists only to be told once I reached the front that I actually had a 3-year multiple entry visa from the summer. Who knew?
Susannah and I ran errands around Northmead in Lusaka, then took a quick power nap. Then Holly and I ran errands in town.....got a cell phone, bought some project supplies, and got a bus ticket for my trip to Solwezi. Ate pizza twice and tried to sleep a little. The mosquitoes in Lusaka were vicious and I have a huge bite in the middle of my forehead.
Heard lots of news about Meheba and the projects Joe and I worked on last summer from various people....makes me very excited and happy.
Driving into Meheba tonight....I hear it is startlingly green and tropical right now. Can't wait to see some familiar faces. Being here feels oddly like being in the DR in January....muddy roads, humid weather, green green growth everywhere. The bike I brought made it in one piece--hooray! Excited to get going on some thesis and project research in the next two weeks.
Send me a text: 011260976603010!!!
xo
V
11.1.08
27.12.07
Part II
So I'll be returning to Zambia in January to check out the progress of some of our programs and to research possible linkages between microfinance and health in Meheba. I am excited to get back but also nervous about doing it without my awesome team from the summer. The fact that January is the height of the rainy season in Zambia should make for an interesting 3 weeks.
Anyways, another cool event is in the works for FORGE at the moment: the Facebook Causes Giving Challenge. If we can rally the most unique donors of any Cause on Facebook before February 1, we can win $50,000. Even gifts of $10 will help us win!!! It's a huge opportunity, so you can probably expect to hear more from me about it in the next month. Check out our page:
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/50555
I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season so far. I feel so blessed to have you all in my life.
xoxo,
Vaughn
Anyways, another cool event is in the works for FORGE at the moment: the Facebook Causes Giving Challenge. If we can rally the most unique donors of any Cause on Facebook before February 1, we can win $50,000. Even gifts of $10 will help us win!!! It's a huge opportunity, so you can probably expect to hear more from me about it in the next month. Check out our page:
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/50555
I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season so far. I feel so blessed to have you all in my life.
xoxo,
Vaughn
20.8.07
Traveling
Long drive to Lusaka....several bus breakdowns along the way. I forgot to mention in my last post that the previous Friday (our last day in Meheba), a few of our friends went to Solwezi for the day and checked the FORGE P.O. Box and returned that evening with the most AMAZING care package ever. My mom sent it way back in June and it barely made it before we left! Anyways, we were basically out of food at the compound, so we all shared the snacks Friday night and for the road trips over the next few days. Very happy.
Sunday in Lusaka people used internet, saw movies, shopped etc. I laid low and had an awesome lunch at the Indian food restaurant just down the street from the FORGE flat. At least, I thought it was an awesome lunch until about 3 hours later when I got really really sick with a very intense bout of food poisoning (?). My time in the bathroom coincided with one of the occasional water shortages that affect our flat.....lovely. I took some Cipro and drank a lot of water and made it through.
Monday morning we took buses down to Livingstone. It took about 6 hours and we were pretty excited. Stayed at a very fun hostel called Jollyboys. It was fun to spend a little time as part of the backpacker culture....I like meeting people from all over the world and overhearing their accents and stories. It was good practice for all of us to reduce our experiences in Meheba to 1-2 minute blurbs for strangers. We had a ridiculously delicious dinner and listened to some live jazz.
Tuesday we went to Victoria Falls. Absolutely beautiful. We walked around the 3 different trails in the park. Got some amazing photos. We ran into the head UNHCR staff member from Meheba in the park vacationing with his family. Small world. Went on a sunset cruise (booze cruise) on the Zambezi River and saw lots of hippos, crocs, drunk teenage French tourists. Very fun, although a couple people in our group were sick from the food.
Wednesday some of us went whitewater rafting on the Zambezi. You start in the gorge below Vic Falls....absolutely beautiful view. I was so excited about the whole thing when we started but things changed a little after a couple scary moments in the water. Our half day trip ran through rapids 1-10 on the river (excluding #9 which is class VI....everyone gets out of the river and walks around it). Of the 9 rapids we ran, 4 were class V, including the very first rapid of the day. My friend Tristan and I got caught at a pretty sharp incline in the raft and were unable to hold onto the OS line (the oh shit line) and we fell out into the water.....it was hands down the most intense moment of my life (thus far). The current was incredibly strong and it kept me under for what seemed like a really really long time...it was really hard to get up to the surface. When I finally made it up, it was chaotic and hard to see or breathe. A man in a yellow kayak rescued me. I climbed back in the boat but was really shaken up.....we hadn't made it through the first rapid, so we had to attempt it again. Our friend who couldn't swim chose to get out of the water at this point and head home. My mood had changed and I was admittedly a little scared, but we kept going. We made it through some HUGE rapids w/o too many problems, but on #8 our line was a little off and we capsized and everyone fell in....so tough on me...the water and swells were just huge and the rapids were really long so it took several minutes before things were calm enough to find a boat or kayak to save us. I definitely had a little PTSD for the next day or so. But the pictures we got were amazing! So are the bruises all over my body...
Thursday I took it slow and read by the pool at the hostel before we all got on a bus back to Lusaka. We watched some amazing B movies including a Craig David DVD.
Friday we had a final meeting at UNHCR Lusaka. Basically we all gave a recap of our project details and answered a few questions about our experiences there. Then we had lunch before our final FORGE meeting to determine the recommended project areas for next year's team. Joe was super sick and went to the clinic halfway during the meeting. Turns out he had malaria! Poor kiddo, he had to travel while feeling absolutely awful....Friday night I did a ton of final accounting to hand into FORGE mgmt and lots of paperwork to give to the Project Manager who will oversee our employees for the next year.
Saturday we woke up and went to the airport. Comedy of errors ensued, during which Joe, Michael and I were at the end of the line checking in for the flight to London. They were closing the flight just as we got up to the counter....as such, they only gave us boarding passes for the first of our two flights. Our flight was late into Heathrow and our 2 hour layover was reduced to about 75 minutes....then we had to wait on the plane on the tarmac for like 30 minutes while they tracked down enough buses to carry us over to the terminal. By the time we got into the airport, they had closed our flight to JFK and the 3 of us w/o boarding passes couldn't get them. Booooo. So the rest of our group went on and we waited in a very long line to get things sorted out. BA put us up in a hotel and gave us meals....but it was still sort of a bummer. We had meals at this cheesy restaurant in the hotel lobby playing really loud 80s music and then went to sleep. Was nice to take a shower with hot water for the first time in a while, though.
Sunday we had breakfast (obscene amounts of food at these buffets, I tell you!!) at the hotel and went to the airport. Checked in w/o issue and actually had a small upgrade to a slightly nicer type of seat. Watched movies and ate and checked on Joe.....so happy to finally land in NYC. Less happy to discover that none of our bags had made it through......BA is not sure where they are, either. Great. Went to Sage's apartment and spent a lovely evening with some of my best girlfriends. My first meal was sushi....so great. Met up with one of my roommies for this year for a drink. Then we got frozen yogurt at Pinkberry and came home to watch Entourage. NYC is crazy, and I can't sleep so I've been up getting my fill of high-speed internet for the past hour or so. Going to El Paso later today....hooray!
Sunday in Lusaka people used internet, saw movies, shopped etc. I laid low and had an awesome lunch at the Indian food restaurant just down the street from the FORGE flat. At least, I thought it was an awesome lunch until about 3 hours later when I got really really sick with a very intense bout of food poisoning (?). My time in the bathroom coincided with one of the occasional water shortages that affect our flat.....lovely. I took some Cipro and drank a lot of water and made it through.
Monday morning we took buses down to Livingstone. It took about 6 hours and we were pretty excited. Stayed at a very fun hostel called Jollyboys. It was fun to spend a little time as part of the backpacker culture....I like meeting people from all over the world and overhearing their accents and stories. It was good practice for all of us to reduce our experiences in Meheba to 1-2 minute blurbs for strangers. We had a ridiculously delicious dinner and listened to some live jazz.
Tuesday we went to Victoria Falls. Absolutely beautiful. We walked around the 3 different trails in the park. Got some amazing photos. We ran into the head UNHCR staff member from Meheba in the park vacationing with his family. Small world. Went on a sunset cruise (booze cruise) on the Zambezi River and saw lots of hippos, crocs, drunk teenage French tourists. Very fun, although a couple people in our group were sick from the food.
Wednesday some of us went whitewater rafting on the Zambezi. You start in the gorge below Vic Falls....absolutely beautiful view. I was so excited about the whole thing when we started but things changed a little after a couple scary moments in the water. Our half day trip ran through rapids 1-10 on the river (excluding #9 which is class VI....everyone gets out of the river and walks around it). Of the 9 rapids we ran, 4 were class V, including the very first rapid of the day. My friend Tristan and I got caught at a pretty sharp incline in the raft and were unable to hold onto the OS line (the oh shit line) and we fell out into the water.....it was hands down the most intense moment of my life (thus far). The current was incredibly strong and it kept me under for what seemed like a really really long time...it was really hard to get up to the surface. When I finally made it up, it was chaotic and hard to see or breathe. A man in a yellow kayak rescued me. I climbed back in the boat but was really shaken up.....we hadn't made it through the first rapid, so we had to attempt it again. Our friend who couldn't swim chose to get out of the water at this point and head home. My mood had changed and I was admittedly a little scared, but we kept going. We made it through some HUGE rapids w/o too many problems, but on #8 our line was a little off and we capsized and everyone fell in....so tough on me...the water and swells were just huge and the rapids were really long so it took several minutes before things were calm enough to find a boat or kayak to save us. I definitely had a little PTSD for the next day or so. But the pictures we got were amazing! So are the bruises all over my body...
Thursday I took it slow and read by the pool at the hostel before we all got on a bus back to Lusaka. We watched some amazing B movies including a Craig David DVD.
Friday we had a final meeting at UNHCR Lusaka. Basically we all gave a recap of our project details and answered a few questions about our experiences there. Then we had lunch before our final FORGE meeting to determine the recommended project areas for next year's team. Joe was super sick and went to the clinic halfway during the meeting. Turns out he had malaria! Poor kiddo, he had to travel while feeling absolutely awful....Friday night I did a ton of final accounting to hand into FORGE mgmt and lots of paperwork to give to the Project Manager who will oversee our employees for the next year.
Saturday we woke up and went to the airport. Comedy of errors ensued, during which Joe, Michael and I were at the end of the line checking in for the flight to London. They were closing the flight just as we got up to the counter....as such, they only gave us boarding passes for the first of our two flights. Our flight was late into Heathrow and our 2 hour layover was reduced to about 75 minutes....then we had to wait on the plane on the tarmac for like 30 minutes while they tracked down enough buses to carry us over to the terminal. By the time we got into the airport, they had closed our flight to JFK and the 3 of us w/o boarding passes couldn't get them. Booooo. So the rest of our group went on and we waited in a very long line to get things sorted out. BA put us up in a hotel and gave us meals....but it was still sort of a bummer. We had meals at this cheesy restaurant in the hotel lobby playing really loud 80s music and then went to sleep. Was nice to take a shower with hot water for the first time in a while, though.
Sunday we had breakfast (obscene amounts of food at these buffets, I tell you!!) at the hotel and went to the airport. Checked in w/o issue and actually had a small upgrade to a slightly nicer type of seat. Watched movies and ate and checked on Joe.....so happy to finally land in NYC. Less happy to discover that none of our bags had made it through......BA is not sure where they are, either. Great. Went to Sage's apartment and spent a lovely evening with some of my best girlfriends. My first meal was sushi....so great. Met up with one of my roommies for this year for a drink. Then we got frozen yogurt at Pinkberry and came home to watch Entourage. NYC is crazy, and I can't sleep so I've been up getting my fill of high-speed internet for the past hour or so. Going to El Paso later today....hooray!
Last week in Meheba
The Grassroot Soccer trainers were amazing! We picked them up in Solwezi. on a Sunday evening and they ran an amazing course for our Community Sports League coaches and FAAP (FORGE AIDS Awareness Project) employees on Mon-Wed. I have so much respect for their programming and the curriculum. It's all about teaching youth about making choices, planning for their future, developing support networks and focusing on education/health/soccer. A very cool organization. http://www.grassrootsoccer.org The refresher training course really brought our employees together and revitalized the coaches for the coming year. We're hoping to get as many youth as possible to participate in the curriculum this year.....without strong clinical and treatment options in Meheba at this point, it makes a lot of sense for us to put as many resources into education programs as possible.
On Wednesday we had a farewell party at the compound. We had a big bonfire in the courtyard and lots of food and dancing. Sad to be leaving, it really seems like the time has gone by incredibly quickly. I talked at length that night with my friend Taban, one of our CSL coaches who is just an all-around incredible person. He is a Sudanese refugee who Joe and I are interested in sponsoring to attend college. (FORGE provides formal sponsorship through its education fund for primary and secondary education for vulnerable students; it will occasionally connect sponsors from the U.S. with individuals interested in tertiary studies, but the system is much more informal) He would like to study medicine in Lusaka and then return to southern Sudan to work. I'll write more about him soon....his life story is very moving and he is a super intelligent person....
Friday the community had a very cool event called the Ubuntu Forum. It is an annual debate organized by the FORGE Women's Centre....the community chooses a topic and invites people to speak on both sides of the issue. Last year the topic was: can a man rape his wife? This year the topic was: is condom distribution beneficial to the community or does it promote bad behavior? I felt like it was the Super Bowl, at least for our project, and although I was pretty pumped up/anxious about the whole thing, I sat in the back and took notes on the debate. It was pretty impressive that the community came together for such a thorough conversation about morals, religion, health, etc. Afterwards there was a lot of hugging and exchanging contact information. Kind of emotional. Saturday morning we got up very early and drove to Lusaka.
On Wednesday we had a farewell party at the compound. We had a big bonfire in the courtyard and lots of food and dancing. Sad to be leaving, it really seems like the time has gone by incredibly quickly. I talked at length that night with my friend Taban, one of our CSL coaches who is just an all-around incredible person. He is a Sudanese refugee who Joe and I are interested in sponsoring to attend college. (FORGE provides formal sponsorship through its education fund for primary and secondary education for vulnerable students; it will occasionally connect sponsors from the U.S. with individuals interested in tertiary studies, but the system is much more informal) He would like to study medicine in Lusaka and then return to southern Sudan to work. I'll write more about him soon....his life story is very moving and he is a super intelligent person....
Friday the community had a very cool event called the Ubuntu Forum. It is an annual debate organized by the FORGE Women's Centre....the community chooses a topic and invites people to speak on both sides of the issue. Last year the topic was: can a man rape his wife? This year the topic was: is condom distribution beneficial to the community or does it promote bad behavior? I felt like it was the Super Bowl, at least for our project, and although I was pretty pumped up/anxious about the whole thing, I sat in the back and took notes on the debate. It was pretty impressive that the community came together for such a thorough conversation about morals, religion, health, etc. Afterwards there was a lot of hugging and exchanging contact information. Kind of emotional. Saturday morning we got up very early and drove to Lusaka.
5.8.07
Amakuru? Ni Meza
I am not even sure where to begin after almost two weeks away from this little blog-a-roo. Many many crazy things have happened and I am just going to brain dump quickly in no particular order:
Our project has been going very well. For the past two weeks, FORGE has held focus groups on HIV/AIDS and health care in all 7 zones of Meheba. Each day, we spend an hour or so talking to 5-20 adult women, then an hour or two with adult men. It has been incredibly insightful and also very sobering. Lots of cookies and candy handed out, lots of slow slow back and forth with translators, lots of amazingly informed people, lots of myths and misconceptions. These people have almost no access to health care services more sophisticated than painkillers. Transportation into Solwezi, the town with slightly better facilities, is erratic to impossible.It's tough. In retrospect, my other volunteer experiences all have involved close (or inherent) proximity to health facilities and as such I have never had to wrap my head around a set of challenges like this. It's hard to articulate and it's hard to not be utterly depressed every day and it's hard to understand if our project makes a difference at all. But I think it already has in small ways, and I think it will continue to do so in the coming weeks.
People in all zones were practically begging to learn more about HIV/AIDS, condom use, PMTCT, ARVs, etc etc etc. It feels good, on a small note, to have serious confirmation of what we anticipated over the past months. We've hired 4 men and 1 woman to comprise the FORGE AIDS Awareness Project (FAAP). They will lead a series of educational workshops in each zone of Meheba. The first phase is targeted at educating parents about ways to discuss sexuality and HIV with their children. Hopefully then they can target young married girls, religious leaders, youth, etc etc. The FAAP team is awesome....lots of collective experience working with other NGOs in Meheba on health education/outreach.
We had a big week with the Community Sports League, too. Yesterday was their big annual tournament. 140 youth players from 5 zones of the camp came together in Zone A for a day of soccer games. It was really cool! The teams were wearing the soccer jerseys we provided them, and everyone had a lot of fun. It was super stressful in terms of logistics....transportation almost ruined it....but we made it happen. Zone F boys and girls won the tournament....very cool. Got some great photos and video. The girls totally run around in a big cluster of flailing limbs.....hilarious. The whole event made me a little nostalgic for my days of youth soccer. Awwwwww....
FORGE head honchos have been around for the past two weeks. Nick and Kjerstin came to share details of their exploratory trip to southern DRC. UNHCR invited them there to investigate opportunities for FORGE expansion in the coming year. The details of their trip were incredible....the geographic and economic challenges to working with displaced persons or repatriated refugees in that area are staggering. No American NGOs are working in the Moba area
N & K also arrived with two documentarians working on a film project in Kala, Mwange and Meheba camps this summer. One of them, Jamie, is actually working as a Project Facilitator with FORGE in Kala Camp this summer. She is interested in cultural anthro/social justice through film, and her project involved hiring a cinematographer, Barney Bloomefield (sp?), to shoot footage in the 3 camps. So they are hanging out with us all the time, and they have identified a main character of sorts for their film here in Meheba. Good times. Except that their camera batteries eat all our solar power and we're having to ration a lot more now.
Nick and Kjerstin also decided to hold a Meheba wedding ceremony while they both were here in the camp at the same time. It was pretty awesome....they had a small ceremony on top of an ant hill at sunset. Very moving, very beautiful. Then we threw a very large celebration. Good times, until we all were sick the next day. Something weird in the veggies.
There have been major bummers in the past few days, too. We had a frustrating encounter with the one lab technician in all of Meheba who is trained to do VCT. We went to talk to him because several people (some of them rape cases handled by our refugee advocacy project) have told us that they have gone to the zone A clinic (the only place in Meheba a person can access HIV tests) to get a HIV test, but were unable to do so because the lab tech was out for the day. He basically told us he cannot commit to a fixed schedule (not even one day per month) because VCT services are not his primary job responsibility and he only can do them in his spare time. (Meanwhile we see an open notebook of his homework on the lab counter....he's not working THAT much) He could not understand why it is so important for there to be consistency in the availability of VCT.....it makes us sad, because if someone actually gets up the courage to walk anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours up to zone A to get the test, we would really like to guarantee that they will actually be able to get the test when they arrive. He indicated, finally, that if he were PAID for VCT services specifically, he would be more willing to do them. Booooooooooo.
Also, we were asked several weeks ago to give a talk about HIV/AIDS at a youth church conference organized by two pastors in the community who also work with FORGE Microfinance Institute. Joe and I were pretty excited about the opportunity, until the morning of our talk when we were informed that an elder pastor at the church does not believe that HIV is a problem in his congregation and did not want us to even mention it at all. So our talk was cancelled. The reasons for it really broke my heart, because we personally know HIV+ individuals who are part of the specific congregation. It's not that we were not anticipating opposition from religious leaders about certain aspects of HIV education, specifically condom use, but it just was really tough to know that some of the younger, more progressive leaders of the church were unable to communicate the importance of informaion to an older leader. Boooooooooo.
Okay, my chair at this internet cafe is not too comfy so I am going to move on. Tonight we are picking up two trainers from Grassroot Soccer in Solwezi. We're running a training course for our 11 Community Sports League coaches Mon-Wed this week. Should be fun. Lots of loose ends to tie up in terms of reports and craziness before we leave Meheba on Saturday for Lusaka and Livingstone.
Thinking a lot about my family and friends and how absolutely lucky we are. Lots of love to everyone.
Our project has been going very well. For the past two weeks, FORGE has held focus groups on HIV/AIDS and health care in all 7 zones of Meheba. Each day, we spend an hour or so talking to 5-20 adult women, then an hour or two with adult men. It has been incredibly insightful and also very sobering. Lots of cookies and candy handed out, lots of slow slow back and forth with translators, lots of amazingly informed people, lots of myths and misconceptions. These people have almost no access to health care services more sophisticated than painkillers. Transportation into Solwezi, the town with slightly better facilities, is erratic to impossible.It's tough. In retrospect, my other volunteer experiences all have involved close (or inherent) proximity to health facilities and as such I have never had to wrap my head around a set of challenges like this. It's hard to articulate and it's hard to not be utterly depressed every day and it's hard to understand if our project makes a difference at all. But I think it already has in small ways, and I think it will continue to do so in the coming weeks.
People in all zones were practically begging to learn more about HIV/AIDS, condom use, PMTCT, ARVs, etc etc etc. It feels good, on a small note, to have serious confirmation of what we anticipated over the past months. We've hired 4 men and 1 woman to comprise the FORGE AIDS Awareness Project (FAAP). They will lead a series of educational workshops in each zone of Meheba. The first phase is targeted at educating parents about ways to discuss sexuality and HIV with their children. Hopefully then they can target young married girls, religious leaders, youth, etc etc. The FAAP team is awesome....lots of collective experience working with other NGOs in Meheba on health education/outreach.
We had a big week with the Community Sports League, too. Yesterday was their big annual tournament. 140 youth players from 5 zones of the camp came together in Zone A for a day of soccer games. It was really cool! The teams were wearing the soccer jerseys we provided them, and everyone had a lot of fun. It was super stressful in terms of logistics....transportation almost ruined it....but we made it happen. Zone F boys and girls won the tournament....very cool. Got some great photos and video. The girls totally run around in a big cluster of flailing limbs.....hilarious. The whole event made me a little nostalgic for my days of youth soccer. Awwwwww....
FORGE head honchos have been around for the past two weeks. Nick and Kjerstin came to share details of their exploratory trip to southern DRC. UNHCR invited them there to investigate opportunities for FORGE expansion in the coming year. The details of their trip were incredible....the geographic and economic challenges to working with displaced persons or repatriated refugees in that area are staggering. No American NGOs are working in the Moba area
N & K also arrived with two documentarians working on a film project in Kala, Mwange and Meheba camps this summer. One of them, Jamie, is actually working as a Project Facilitator with FORGE in Kala Camp this summer. She is interested in cultural anthro/social justice through film, and her project involved hiring a cinematographer, Barney Bloomefield (sp?), to shoot footage in the 3 camps. So they are hanging out with us all the time, and they have identified a main character of sorts for their film here in Meheba. Good times. Except that their camera batteries eat all our solar power and we're having to ration a lot more now.
Nick and Kjerstin also decided to hold a Meheba wedding ceremony while they both were here in the camp at the same time. It was pretty awesome....they had a small ceremony on top of an ant hill at sunset. Very moving, very beautiful. Then we threw a very large celebration. Good times, until we all were sick the next day. Something weird in the veggies.
There have been major bummers in the past few days, too. We had a frustrating encounter with the one lab technician in all of Meheba who is trained to do VCT. We went to talk to him because several people (some of them rape cases handled by our refugee advocacy project) have told us that they have gone to the zone A clinic (the only place in Meheba a person can access HIV tests) to get a HIV test, but were unable to do so because the lab tech was out for the day. He basically told us he cannot commit to a fixed schedule (not even one day per month) because VCT services are not his primary job responsibility and he only can do them in his spare time. (Meanwhile we see an open notebook of his homework on the lab counter....he's not working THAT much) He could not understand why it is so important for there to be consistency in the availability of VCT.....it makes us sad, because if someone actually gets up the courage to walk anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours up to zone A to get the test, we would really like to guarantee that they will actually be able to get the test when they arrive. He indicated, finally, that if he were PAID for VCT services specifically, he would be more willing to do them. Booooooooooo.
Also, we were asked several weeks ago to give a talk about HIV/AIDS at a youth church conference organized by two pastors in the community who also work with FORGE Microfinance Institute. Joe and I were pretty excited about the opportunity, until the morning of our talk when we were informed that an elder pastor at the church does not believe that HIV is a problem in his congregation and did not want us to even mention it at all. So our talk was cancelled. The reasons for it really broke my heart, because we personally know HIV+ individuals who are part of the specific congregation. It's not that we were not anticipating opposition from religious leaders about certain aspects of HIV education, specifically condom use, but it just was really tough to know that some of the younger, more progressive leaders of the church were unable to communicate the importance of informaion to an older leader. Boooooooooo.
Okay, my chair at this internet cafe is not too comfy so I am going to move on. Tonight we are picking up two trainers from Grassroot Soccer in Solwezi. We're running a training course for our 11 Community Sports League coaches Mon-Wed this week. Should be fun. Lots of loose ends to tie up in terms of reports and craziness before we leave Meheba on Saturday for Lusaka and Livingstone.
Thinking a lot about my family and friends and how absolutely lucky we are. Lots of love to everyone.
19.7.07
Word of the Day: Cheembo
So cheembo is Meheba slang for "backwards" or "from the country" (or from the middle of the bush). We constantly refer to any broken item or silly behavior as cheembo. Cheembo is also the name of one of the two cats that live in the FORGE compound. Because I'm allergic, I was less-than-happy to discover we had feline pets, but we keep away from each other and they are actually pretty cute to look at most of the time. The second cat is called Eeway, which may or may not have a meaning in a local language. Eeway is a really smart conniving cat, but Cheembo is, honestly, incredibly slow....perhaps even a bit retarded. Recently Eeway got some mysterious cut on his neck, which is gross and refuses to heal because he keeps scratching it raw. So this past week has seen a number of emergency surgery attempts by our group to keep this wound clean and keep the cat full of painkillers. The last resort involved putting duct tape on Eeway's paws (to cover his little claws), as well as putting gauze and duct tape all around his neck. It is absolutely hilarious and ridiculous--I will send pictures at some point! It's sad for the cat, but pretty amusing for the rest of us.
Not everything has been 100% cheerful and sunshiney. Although our group is incredibly upbeat and energetic at all times, there are so many difficult situations that have been coming our way lately. A few weeks ago, Joe and I were in Solwezi and we ran into a Congolese refugee we know from Meheba who was returning from a trade fair in a nearby town. We all went to dinner together, and we asked a few questions about this man's plans to resettle to Norway next month. The conversation turned to how he had arrived in Zambia in 2003. He told us he had been involved in efforts to support peace and justice in the DRC and had been arrested several times. While in jail, he was tortured extensively. He rolled up his pants to show us some of the scars on his legs. When Joe asked if he was the firstborn son in his family, he told us he had two older brothers who had also disappeared in DRC along with his parents. He escaped from jail and took refuge with some Catholic nuns, who helped him later escape across the border to Zambia. There are more details about his family that were hard to hear. But as he told us, it was striking to realize that most of the people FORGE employs in Meheba have similar stories. I was really struck by the way he mentioned that he has no idea where his brothers and parents are. What's amazing about this man is that he is absolutely the most positive, upbeat person I've ever met. He is a pastor at one of the churches in Meheba and is just loved by everyone who meets him. Admittedly, I felt guilty later about what I consider to be problems in my personal life. There is just no comparison.
We had a medical emergency over last weekend, too. The mother of a FORGE employee passed away after some sort of weird "attack". The clinic staff in Meheba thought it was malaria (the standard diagnosis for anything non-diarrheal), but it sounded a lot more like a stroke to us. The ambulance that usually can run between Meheba and Solwezi was broken this past week, so we decided to use the FORGE vehicle to drive her to the hospital in Solwezi. There was no physician available in the middle of the night when she arrived, and she passed the following morning. It was really intense and sad on several levels. We attended the funeral and burial. I don't do well when males cry, so it was tough. All the headstones (well, wooden crosses) that were legible in the graveyard showed ages around 35-40. Intense. We're all still processing the past few days. It is impossible to convey the amount of need related to health care, transportation, and food rations in this community.
Wow. Sorry to get so heavy. I am still doing well, feeling great, sleeping a lot, getting some sun, reading a lot and thinking about life even more. My mom's birthday was on the 17th. Every time I think about my family I am overwhelmed with gratitude for how fortunate we have been and how lucky we are to know where each of us lives. Sending lots of big hugs to everyone.
As more details about the project are lining up, I am feeling incredibly motivated to use the remaining 3-4 weeks we have in the camp. We're conducting focus groups about HIV/AIDS knowledge and behavior among adults in each of the zones next week. I'm pretty excited to hear what the community has to say and am particularly interested in what variations might emerge based on nationality and/or tribe. Also, I think I mentioned earlier that one of the big Implementing Partners in the camp (CORD) just pulled out of Meheba. The UNHCR field officer approached us this week to see if we would be interested in overseeing the remaining months of the PEPFAR grant CORD received for Meheba--pretty cool. Should be interesting and might allow us to do a little more with the project than we had anticipated. Makes me (almost) believe that I am happy about what my tax dollars are doing in the world. We'll see.
The project managers (who will live in the camp for a year and oversee our projects) arrive this weekend! Will be fun to see them again and to have a full house.
Not everything has been 100% cheerful and sunshiney. Although our group is incredibly upbeat and energetic at all times, there are so many difficult situations that have been coming our way lately. A few weeks ago, Joe and I were in Solwezi and we ran into a Congolese refugee we know from Meheba who was returning from a trade fair in a nearby town. We all went to dinner together, and we asked a few questions about this man's plans to resettle to Norway next month. The conversation turned to how he had arrived in Zambia in 2003. He told us he had been involved in efforts to support peace and justice in the DRC and had been arrested several times. While in jail, he was tortured extensively. He rolled up his pants to show us some of the scars on his legs. When Joe asked if he was the firstborn son in his family, he told us he had two older brothers who had also disappeared in DRC along with his parents. He escaped from jail and took refuge with some Catholic nuns, who helped him later escape across the border to Zambia. There are more details about his family that were hard to hear. But as he told us, it was striking to realize that most of the people FORGE employs in Meheba have similar stories. I was really struck by the way he mentioned that he has no idea where his brothers and parents are. What's amazing about this man is that he is absolutely the most positive, upbeat person I've ever met. He is a pastor at one of the churches in Meheba and is just loved by everyone who meets him. Admittedly, I felt guilty later about what I consider to be problems in my personal life. There is just no comparison.
We had a medical emergency over last weekend, too. The mother of a FORGE employee passed away after some sort of weird "attack". The clinic staff in Meheba thought it was malaria (the standard diagnosis for anything non-diarrheal), but it sounded a lot more like a stroke to us. The ambulance that usually can run between Meheba and Solwezi was broken this past week, so we decided to use the FORGE vehicle to drive her to the hospital in Solwezi. There was no physician available in the middle of the night when she arrived, and she passed the following morning. It was really intense and sad on several levels. We attended the funeral and burial. I don't do well when males cry, so it was tough. All the headstones (well, wooden crosses) that were legible in the graveyard showed ages around 35-40. Intense. We're all still processing the past few days. It is impossible to convey the amount of need related to health care, transportation, and food rations in this community.
Wow. Sorry to get so heavy. I am still doing well, feeling great, sleeping a lot, getting some sun, reading a lot and thinking about life even more. My mom's birthday was on the 17th. Every time I think about my family I am overwhelmed with gratitude for how fortunate we have been and how lucky we are to know where each of us lives. Sending lots of big hugs to everyone.
As more details about the project are lining up, I am feeling incredibly motivated to use the remaining 3-4 weeks we have in the camp. We're conducting focus groups about HIV/AIDS knowledge and behavior among adults in each of the zones next week. I'm pretty excited to hear what the community has to say and am particularly interested in what variations might emerge based on nationality and/or tribe. Also, I think I mentioned earlier that one of the big Implementing Partners in the camp (CORD) just pulled out of Meheba. The UNHCR field officer approached us this week to see if we would be interested in overseeing the remaining months of the PEPFAR grant CORD received for Meheba--pretty cool. Should be interesting and might allow us to do a little more with the project than we had anticipated. Makes me (almost) believe that I am happy about what my tax dollars are doing in the world. We'll see.
The project managers (who will live in the camp for a year and oversee our projects) arrive this weekend! Will be fun to see them again and to have a full house.
12.7.07
TIZ
This week has seen a lot of small shifts and decisions regarding our project. In light of the fact that ZPCT will be coming into Meheba, we no longer will engage New Start to bring VCT teams in periodically. This is a blessing on many levels, primarily because ZPCT will bring a much more comprehensive and higher-quality program to the community. Additionally, it frees up several thousand dollars of our project budget. We will be working with GRS to train the CSL staff. We also will be supporting a small team called MAAP—Meheba AIDS Awareness Project. They will hold educational workshops for adults and youth in the different zones. We have found them a small office space and are building a small library of resource materials.
We were allowed to participate in ZPCT’s assessment meeting at the Zone A Clinic yesterday afternoon. The Zone A Clinic is the only site in all of Meheba offering VCT and also the clinic generally regarded as the best in the community. It was sad, frustrating and inspirational all at once.
There is one clinic officer, one nurse, and two lab technicians working there. The staff is not able to provide antiretroviral therapy due to resource issues and lack of training. There has been confusion over what “patient confidentiality” truly entails, and as such the staff has seen no need to track patient records or maintain counts of patients tested or currently receiving ART. There is no electricity or running water in the clinic. The staff does not offer any information or care regarding prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT). Joe and I had hoped for better, but are not surprised to learn that the rumors and anecdotes about the low level of HIV care have all been true. Comparing what we saw with the level of care in any facility in the U.S. is really powerful. We are so fortunate.
I visited the Meheba Friendly Library this week. It was one of FORGE’s first projects in the camp, and it is a really great facility. I paid 10,000 kwacha (US$2.25) for a year-long membership and checked out two books. I’ve been reading nonstop down here and it’s really great. At least, I tell myself it's really great (which it is), but there also aren't too many other options for free time. Ha.
What else what else....I got about 25 GB of music off my friend's computer last week. Very nice. Since our minibus broke down last week partially due to a dead battery, it's been a bit tempermental. It's hilarious, however, because in order to start the engine, about 10 of us have to go out and push it. The lack of battery (it's way too expensive in this small town) somehow means we have to get a rolling start going for the engine to start. Yes, it is straight out of Little Miss Sunshine. Pretty cute. We'll take some video of the process.
We were allowed to participate in ZPCT’s assessment meeting at the Zone A Clinic yesterday afternoon. The Zone A Clinic is the only site in all of Meheba offering VCT and also the clinic generally regarded as the best in the community. It was sad, frustrating and inspirational all at once.
There is one clinic officer, one nurse, and two lab technicians working there. The staff is not able to provide antiretroviral therapy due to resource issues and lack of training. There has been confusion over what “patient confidentiality” truly entails, and as such the staff has seen no need to track patient records or maintain counts of patients tested or currently receiving ART. There is no electricity or running water in the clinic. The staff does not offer any information or care regarding prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT). Joe and I had hoped for better, but are not surprised to learn that the rumors and anecdotes about the low level of HIV care have all been true. Comparing what we saw with the level of care in any facility in the U.S. is really powerful. We are so fortunate.
I visited the Meheba Friendly Library this week. It was one of FORGE’s first projects in the camp, and it is a really great facility. I paid 10,000 kwacha (US$2.25) for a year-long membership and checked out two books. I’ve been reading nonstop down here and it’s really great. At least, I tell myself it's really great (which it is), but there also aren't too many other options for free time. Ha.
What else what else....I got about 25 GB of music off my friend's computer last week. Very nice. Since our minibus broke down last week partially due to a dead battery, it's been a bit tempermental. It's hilarious, however, because in order to start the engine, about 10 of us have to go out and push it. The lack of battery (it's way too expensive in this small town) somehow means we have to get a rolling start going for the engine to start. Yes, it is straight out of Little Miss Sunshine. Pretty cute. We'll take some video of the process.
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