one year in

Hello all!

I apologize if it seems that I have not posted in a while because, in fact, I have not. The last month and a half has been quite eventful.

First, it appears that I will be getting a neighbor, to come from the next group of trainees to land in country. It will be really nice, especially given that I have been the only person in my governmental department for the past year. I have been somewhat busy helping with the preparations for the arrival of the new volunteer.

I also have been busy with my work regarding the local healthcare facility. Today we are having a meeting regarding the formation of a health committee to oversee the running of the facility. Up to this point, the facility (health hut) has been plagued with problems regarding its stock of medications and its lack of equipment. A lot of this can be attributed to the fact that the hut has been overseen by the local religious leader without any assistance, and to be honest, it is a bit much for anyone to take on oneself. The hope is for a committee to step in, create a system for running the health hut and keeping it well stocked while responsibly managing its finances. When such a system is in place, I will seek out funding to purchase equipment and medications to get the hut up and running. Then it will be left to the committee to keep it running.

This is not even close to the type of work that I had expected when I signed up for the Peace Corps. As I said to my mother yesterday over the phone, my work has been a lot more "managerial" rather than health related. This is not to say that I do not do health related work- I do baby weighings and have begun to do health talks with the local women. But my primary project, and the one that I will judge my service by, is the functioning of our health hut. And most of the work with it has been trying to get a wide range of people, each with his or her own motives, to work together towards a common goal. I suppose the lessons learnt here could be applied throughout the rest of my life...

Another big event this month was the West African Invitational Softball Tournament and PC Senegal All Volunteer Conference, both in Dakar. As my friends and family in the states know, I have never played organized baseball in my life. Apart from softball in gym classes, my experience was close to nil. However, I can run and I do have pretty good coordination. So I played, first DH, and later LF. Contrary to my expectations, I did pretty well, and our team took 3rd place in our division.

The conference itself was both exciting and disappointing. It was exciting because it gave me the opportunity to see and learn from the wonderful work that my peers are doing here, but it was far too short to see everything that I had wanted to see.

Weather-wise, it seems like the cool dry season is in its dying throes before the entry of the hot dry season. Now cool and hot are relative. The cool dry season has daytime temperatures in the 80s or 90s- the hot dry season is considerably hotter. I could easily envision myself wearing a sweatshirt in the middle of june in Chicago. I suppose I've been conditioned...

It still boggles my mind to think that a year has already passed. It feels like only yesterday that I was leaving for the airport before dawn to head to my staging. Time certainly flies, and I hear that the second year moves even faster than the first.

Be safe.