Ngepi?
I know I know, I promised I would have written pretty often but sometimes putting everything that I do, see and feel here is a bit hard but I will try just for you :).
Everyday when I wake up, I realize how completely in love I am with my life. It is really a special feeling that I hope you guys are able to experience and if you are not experiencing it now, I know one day you will. If you asked me one year ago, where I thought I would be today, their would have been absolutely no way for me to even begin to try to imagine that I would be here. Not just physically here in Namibia but also emotionally and mentally "here".
Yesterday on my way back home after a meeting as we were driving towards the sun set, all I could see how absolutely beautiful life really is. Despite everything that goes on in our lives, the troubles, the turmoil, the sadness and the pain...despite all of that there are soo many little things that were created to constantly remind us that life is beautiful. We have the power to ultimately take everything that happens to us and turn them into positives things. Everyday no matter what, the sun rises and sets and for me that is a constant reminder that even if I had a bad day, I am hopeful that tomorrow will be better.
As usual work as has been busy but I absolutely love it. I could not have asked for anything else. I always told myself I hope one day when I work, I hope that I will be happy to wake up every day in the morning even when I am tired. and yep by 5:30am/6am whether I am tired or not I wake up and go to work to try and help somebody somehow.
These days I am not seeing the students as much. They have been doing exams and now they are off for vacation or holiday as they like to call it here. However, some new opportunities for me to keep busy has presented itself. Last week, I was mostly helping with planning for a training for the members of the support group. The training came about because the clinic has been enrolled in a program that will provide support to kids infected and affected by HIV. Especially the kids that are on ART (anti retro viral treatment). This programs recruits volunteers that will be working closely with those kids and their caregivers as well. It is very important that all the needs of the kids are met. It is very good that they are always coming for follow up and for their medicine...but is that enough? I think that this program is very important because their is so much that kids have to deal with on a daily basis here in the village. However they are barely ever given the opportunity to express how they feel. What is also hard and complicated in that situation is that most kids do not even know that they have HIV. So that within itself is another big topic that needs to be addressed with the caregivers of these kids.
Planning for this training drained me mentally. I realized how hard this can actually be. Not doing the training itself but presenting this information and really trying to support these people emotionally. What got to me is that, I am presenting this information to people that are already living with the virus and that knows the hardship of that life. Now I have to try and explain to them how to deal with kids that are infected based just on what I have studied and what I have read. All these thoughts were going through my mind while trying to find best ways to present the information for the training. Thankfully, like I may have said in my previous post, I am extremely thankful for my amazing co-workers. Working with my co-workers and sharing my emotions with them is really helpful. I am very determine to never ever do anything by myself here. So every topic that I was coming up with, I was also presenting them and brainstorming with the senior counselor and the social worker. Being able to work with them to make sure that I am not just doing what "I" think is right is important. Together we are able to take cultural norms into consideration, we shared our ideas and decided what will work best for that group. So by me sharing my experiences working with kids in general and by them sharing their experiences working at the clinic we were able to finalize a program that will help those volunteers be successful when they interact with the kids and their caregivers.
So far the 4 people that we are training are a good group. They are part of the support group and very good to work with. They are very open about sharing their feelings and seem to be receiving the info that we are giving them very well. With that said the training went really well. For the month of may they will just be coming every day to do hands on training then will start their respective task in June.
So what else is new???I have to say this post above was written maybe 2-3 weeks ago and I am just now trying to wrap this post up. I have been in out of my village for workshops and Peace Corps business now for the month of work, I will just be here working...I am looking forward to next month because my social life is looking good because of some other great volunteers that I have met and I will be seeing one of my friend from my group :)
OOO! so I TOTALLY had a breakthrough yesterday with the group of youth that usually meet with twice a week. IDK if I have posted about that group before but I have had some serious sessions with this group that has left me completely defeated and that made me seriously question my purpose here in Namibia. I think what was hard is that when discussing certain topics like (why should a girl carry a condom, or why should a girl initiate sex or why is it ok for guy's to cheat), is that I just dint know what to tell them. I am not here to judge them or to tell them that their culture is bad, that really inst my place nor my purpose here but dang I just dint know what to say I was speechless because 1) one guy said that "yes it is ok to cheat on his girl friend as long as she never finds out then he is respecting her and he is not hurting her and 2) a girl completely and seriously told the whole group that she was only made for sex and if her husband/boyfriend wants to initiate sex and not use a condom then it is ok. so yea I was completely speechless. Ultimately I just repeated the fact that "I am not here to judge them or to tell them that their culture is bad, that really inst my place nor my purpose here but remember that no matter what, you always have a say in a relationship and just as the world is changing there also changes that you need to make for yourself, and if there are some things in your culture that can potentially put you at risk to HIV then you HAVE to take that into consideration and decide for yourself what is right. That day I felt like I was talking to a brick wall, the next couple of times I went...same things were being said, needless to say my patience and my positive attitude were being challenged alllll the time...but yesterday wowzers I HAD A BREAKTHROUGH with them...it was a great feeling. Last week, I started using an HIV teaching tool created by some other organizations and it worked really well. It is basically a movie called "Three and a half Lives of Phillip Wetu", which shows how this guy Phillip has many sexual partners. The good thing about this movie is that it is very interactive and there is a pause after each scene and the audience has to choose what they think Phillip will do next....anywhoo back to the breakthrough. At the end of the film we had a really good conversation about why they thought the movie was good. Some of the guys that were so set in stone about topics regarding sex and condoms, were bringing up the topic of girls carrying condom and were saying that yes it unacceptable for a girl and a guy alike (who has a significant other) to carry a condom and that it is ok for both sex to carry a condom if they are single. It was very surprising to hear them say that because I never thought in a million years that he would even consider the thought. Although some others were still a bit reluctant to completely say it I still think it was a breakthrough even if it was small. I have about one month left with that group so I soooo hopeful that every time they have sex they will think twice about what they are doing and they will choose to do the right thing.
ok I hope that this updates finds you well, i will try my hardest to keep up with it more...
I put some pics on facebook check them out now now!
ps. Hopefully I will start with Thimbukushu language classes next week so more vocab words to come soon lol.
in the mean time...Kare po thiwana
Peace & Love my people :)
...plz excuse my english... there are some errors in my writting lol
