My Favorite Time of the Year

Hi everyone! As you obviously know, it's October and this has always been on of my favorite months of the year.  Back at home its usually starting to get that crisp fall feeling in the air, I break out my sweaters, and of course everything I eat or drink somehow has pumpkin in it.  Being on the other side of the world now, I have to say besides of the lack of pumpkin spice everything, it isn't too different.  The rainy season has actually started up here finally.  At my site I wake up to a freezing cold house after having to bundle up to sleep comfortably.  Also, a "rainy day" here is very different than a rainy day back home.  Rather than it being grey and gloomy for days at a time what happens is everyday I'll see or hear the big rain clouds moving in and as it gets closer you start to hear the rain hitting the banana tree leaves and then it hits, the rain is falling harder than I've ever imagined making it so the banging on my tin roof is so loud I can't even hear my music anymore.  This lasts anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour.  The next thing yo know its sunny and blue skies again.  I've learned from experience to be careful walking out into your dirt compound after the down pour (dirt turns to mud and is quite slippery, that is all I will say...).  So far during rainy season I see rain at least once a week but usually it's everyday.  I wanted to share what this second season of Rwanda was like because I'm really liking it.

What kind of work have I been doing?

Happiness.

So, it's now been officially 2 months since I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer.  I've been at my site for about 7 weeks and currently I am in the second week of my 2 week In Service Training (IST).  Prior to IST I finished my Community Needs Assessment and wrote up my report and presented it to the Health Center Staff.  Writing the report gave me a little flash back to college, it turned out to be about 20 pages and even included graphs and statistics!  In short, the report took all the information about my community I had been gathering over those 7 weeks and established what the biggest needs are and how I plan to try to help make a difference and improve the overall health of the community.

The main issues within my community are hygiene and poor nutrition.  Hygiene is the most basic disease prevention so without proper hygiene practices the doors are open for anything to enter a persons system.  There is a large problem with people not treating their drinking water by boiling or chemical purification with bleach.  This leads to intestinal parasites which often cause horrible illnesses and even death in both adults and children.  Also, not having access to water in general  causes many people to skip laundry day or a shower in the morning which leads to many skin diseases, another common issue seen in the community.  I could continue on but the main point is when people aren't washing their hands at the proper times, or not drinking clean water, etc. there are horrible consequences that can end up being debilitating, expensive, and even fatal.

Some Beautiful children who requested to get their photo
 taken at the most recent malnutrition screening

The second big issue that I will be focusing on at my site is poor nutrition.  Every month the Community Health Workers in all of the villages measure and weigh babies and children under 5 years old to determine whether they are malnourished or not.  Currently the malnutrition rate in children under 5 in my health center's encatchment area is about 1.6%.  This may not seem high but this isn't taking into account the many children not screened and even though they may not be categorized as severely malnourished, when you hear that the average child within your community is only eating 1 or 2 times a day and a diet of mainly starches makes you realize that it really is a bigger issue than the statistics say.  The big issue is people having access to food.  There is so much different food in the market, but due to lack of money and education on balanced diets people just aren't able to utilize the resources that are right in their community.  

When I get back to my site this next week I am finally going to be able to start implementing projects rather than simply observing my community.  Look out for the next posts because as I do projects I'll definitely go into more detail and (hopefully) be able t show you the impact of my being here which I'm very excited for.

Some fun things about my Rwandan Life

So besides working and writing my community needs assessment I've been integrating into my community and then starting to see different parts of the country slowly but surely.  One thing about integrating is there are definitely some days I'm really in the mood and some days where sitting in my house drinking coffee all day sounds a lot better.  But there have been some awesome moments which I will share.  So first, I have mastered the art of holding a conversation with people in the community without saying more than a few "yegos" (yes) and different inflections of "mhmm".  My understanding of Kinyarwanda is improving but the responding part is lagging behind a bit so it is starting to be comforting knowing that my lack of response is still enough to make the old woman at the market so happy by the end of our "conversation".

SOFT SERVE ICE CREAM!!!

Finally, as I mentioned earlier in the post, I am in the last week of my 2 week IST.  Currently I am in the capital Kigali, but last week I got to travel to the southern province for the first time to the the city of Butare.  This city is nothing like the rest of Rwanda.  The one commonality is that it is beautiful just like everywhere in the country but being there I just felt like I was in a completely different place.  Also I had Chinese food (your quality greasy americanized and in this case rwandaniized Chinese food) and I had soft serve ice cream.  After being in the village for 2 months I felt like I was living the high life.

Working hard building a perma-garden.

Well, this is what I've been up to lately.  This is my everyday life and being here is starting to feel normal so sometimes it's hard for me to think of things that you all would like to hear about so if there is something you're really wanting to know about or hear about let me know and I'll incorporate that into the next post.  And, like I said as I start projects, I'll be really focusing in on them.

I hope you all enjoy a pumpkin spice latte for me and I'll continue to take in all the scenery I get to experience everyday for you.

Learning how to carry things the Rwandan way!

                                                             Take care!