I just
spent two days at a hotel with 150 other Peace Corps Volunteers. It was a bit overwhelming at first – I
haven’t been around that many Americans in a long time. But I
finally met volunteers from the new group and reconnected with friends (from my
training group) who I hadn’t seen in months. :)
The purpose of the conference was for volunteers to lead sessions about successful
projects/activities at site and share knowledge with each other. There was also a general meeting led by
the Country Director about Peace Corps policies and another meeting with the
Peace Corps Regional Security Director about safety and security in Kampala.
In my
previous blog post I mentioned that I’m running out of ideas for work at
Kuluva. I talked to the other
volunteers who are nursing schools and it sounds like we’re all struggling. We’re stuck teaching computers because
only qualified nurses are allowed to teach health/medicine (and we’re not
nurses). But before I request a
site change, I’ve found a few potential opportunities for public health work in
Arua. I’ll check those out in
October.
Most of
the sessions I attended at the All Volunteer Conference were about camps. :) After
being a counselor at three camps, I’m probably not going to get picked to work
at many more – the new PCVs need to have those opportunities too. But my friend Aditi and I expressed an
interest in being the directors for the next Girl Tech Camp – and it looks like
that project is a ‘go’! We’re
going to start meeting and planning in October. The Gender and Development (GAD) Committee that I’m on is
making some good progress streamlining grant writing, timelines, and
operations for all camps. I always feel better
after a GAD meeting or camp discussion because that's the area of work where I’m
actually making a difference. :)
