Northern Volunteer Conference

After 3 months at site, life has become pretty routine: I go to the nursing school from 8:30-4:30, Monday through Friday.  As of January, I'm only teaching 1 class per week because the students are doing more shifts on the hospital wards.  When I'm not teaching, I'm researching sociology/psychology in Uganda, management/healthcare in Uganda, and creating lesson plans.  I'm really working 40 hours a week (because I research at home on the internet too).  And I'm also trying to create the databases for the school office, but the lesson plans have to be done first.  (Once they are completed, I can use them over & over for each new set of students.)  It's just A LOT of work to do RIGHT NOW.

My weekends are spent riding my bike to town, shopping in the market, hanging out with the PCVs in Arua, washing my clothes, cooking at home, and watching movies/reading books. 

Everyone says the Peace Corps experience is what you make of it.  And if (the paragraph above) was the outlook for the next 2 years, I would be kind of disappointed (and this blog would get very boring).  Last week I went to the volunteer conference, in hope that I would find a secondary project to get more involved in the community and enhance my Peace Corps experience.

There were about 25 volunteers from the northern regions at the conference (many from my training group).  But there were also several volunteers who are close to the end of their service and I found their stories/advice the most useful.  We discussed a variety of potential side projects, e.g. grant writing, literacy programs, village savings & loan associations, soap making, working in post-war conflict areas, health education for women, and more.  It was interesting to hear the stories of PCVs who were not successful at their primary assignment but had their secondary project take off and is completely sustainable now.  There was a community health volunteer (with no financial background) who started nine savings & loan groups in her village – it was inspiring to know that I don’t have to be an expert to be successful.  I haven’t committed 100% to any projects yet, but I'm leaning towards participating in sessions for women empowerment and working in post-war conflict areas (trauma healing).  And I can tell you that I’m much more excited about those projects than creating databases (even though the databases are definitely needed at the nursing school, it’s not very engaging).

Towards the end of the three-day conference, we were all getting kind of burned out from the sessions and opted for a game of softball on the last evening.  :)

 

Peace Corps Updates

The holidays are over and school has resumed.  (If you would like the story of my holiday break, email me @ lauracmeyer38@hotmail.com.)  Here are a few pics.  :)

There have been a few developments in the Peace Corps administration and volunteer service that I'd like to share.

• The Peace Corps Office in Kampala had a retaining wall collapse, now the office (including medical) is inaccessible.  The country director and program manager are looking for a new office space.  This means that the PC staff do not have access to their emails, and yet that is the way we are supposed to keep in touch with them. (?)  Communication breakdown.
• Because the staff are busy dealing with the collapsed wall, our 3-month In-Service Training has been postponed until March.  We were supposed to have more language training and workshop courses to develop more outreach skills.  The PC administration has cut the training down from 2 week to 4 days.  Kind of a bummer.
• Because the In-Service Training has been postponed, I'm going to a volunteer conference in Kitgum (north of Gulu, near the border of South Sudan).  A few PCVs put together this conference for volunteers who live in the north/West Nile.  It's a great chance to meet everyone that lives in nearby regions.  And they've put together some great sessions about secondary projects.  I'm really excited.  :)
• My PCV training group is setting a record pace for people quitting their service.  We've been at site for 3 months now and lost 5, possibly 6, volunteers.  One was sent home for being mentally unstable; another quit because he didn't like his site; one of the older couples left because they didn't like their site either; and my good friend Brady (from the West Nile group) just got medically evacuated to the states.  He has been sick since training and is not responding to any medication.  The doctors don't know what's wrong with him and sent him to the states to see a specialist.  He has 45 days to get better or his Peace Corps service is over.  And there is one more person who will possibly be sent home for breaking numerous Peace Corps rules (i.e. making money off his site).  Craziness.

That's all for now.  I'll post again about the PCV Conference in Kitgum.  And I'll take lots of pics.