Recent Activities

I have done a few fun things lately that I thought I’d share with you all. My Girls Club continues to meet each Sunday. We play games, dance, chat, and I try to teach about a different health topic each week. We spent about the last two months covering reproductive health with specific topics on puberty, male and female reproductive anatomy, the menstrual cycle, family planning, and pregnancy. I was shocked at how little the girls new but happy to see their interest in learning more and asking questions. Over the weeks they started to put information together and relate things to what we had talked about early. I feel like this is so rare here where the school system asks for rote memorization and students rarely really understand a concept.

We’ve also been lucky to have a few guests come do activities with the girls. In January, my friend Yoshi, a Japanese volunteer, came for a project she is working on. A Japanese doctor that worked in Cambodia started it by asking youth to draw a picture of what is most important to them. He then compiled these illustrations into a book with photos of the artists and some background info. The project has grown and he is collecting pictures from around the world so Yoshi asked my girls to draw pictures. She kept the pictures but gave each girl a pack of crayons. I’ll try to post pictures later since I don’t have them here.

My friend and PCV neighbor Dylan also came one Sunday to teach the girls how to use a computer. This is something they had been requesting since the group first started but I had never gotten around to organizing. Dylan teaches IT at a high school so was happy to work with my girls as well. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before but the school in my village has a computer lab with amazing new computers that run off solar panels. They were donated by an NGO about 2 years ago but are rarely ever used for a variety of reasons mostly boiling down to the fact that it was not something needed in my community but rather an NGO coming in and saying “here take these.” I was able to get permission for our group and the girls loved having a chance to play on them. Dylan taught them how to use the mouse, find a program, and the very basics of Word. We realized they were struggling with the mouse so then had them all use the Paint program and they enjoyed making designs. We are hoping to do more computer programs this summer when Dylan doesn’t have classes to teach.

Back in February, there was a huge bike race in Tenkodogo. This annual event is put on by the Minister of Foreign Affairs who happens to be from my village so my community gets very excited for it. Before the big event, there are qualifier races in all of the towns in our region to find the top three men and top three women to compete in Tenkodogo. Last year I went with some folks from village and was told to sit with all chiefs so it was me and lots of old men watching bikes go back and forth. As you can imagine, it was a long day. This year I met up with several friends to watch the race so much more fun. In order to make the event more interesting there also are entertainers and musicians. A comedian from my community wore a crazy outfit and pretended to race along with the bikes. He also happened to be our soccer coach and dressed in drag for International Women’s Day. Also from my village is a group of girls that do traditional Bissa dancing. They are amazing and everyone loves watching them. I have wanted to get pictures and video for a long time but am never close enough or don’t have my camera with. I finally got my chance after the race when my friends and I went for lunch at a nearby restaurant. The girls and their musicians also came to eat and afterwards started dancing just for fun. Unfortunately the internet has been running really slow and I can’t get my videos to upload. Hopefully coming soon though!

This past weekend was very busy for me as you can read partially about in the 8 mars post but also because I came into Ouaga Friday for the twice annual COS party held in honor of a group of volunteers leaving in a couple months. This is the only time that almost all the volunteers come together so it really fun to catch up with everyone that I rarely see. This time the theme was Rubics Cube. I’ve never heard of a party like this before but it was a blast. Everybody comes dressed in 6 items of different colors—orange, red, blue, green, yellow, and white. Throughout the night, you are supposed to trade items so by the end of the night you are a solid color. Many people found crazy clothes and accessories at the market most of which is the stuff that Americans donate to Good Will or St Vinnies and end up getting shipped to Africa and sold. The party was a blast though I ended up getting to bed in the wee hours of the morning and had to be up at 5 am to catch a ride back to village for the second fete of the weekend.