A Cute Puppy Always Makes My Day!

August 3, 2010

Great day! So I’ll admit, I’ve been slightly frustrated lately about lack of personal time and a jam-packed, totally planned schedule all the time and too much to do. But today was a very relieving day and I all of a sudden feel much calmer.

First great thing, finally made it to the post office. So the post office here is only open when I have class. It’s been an epic adventure trying to get to the post. I think I’ve tried at least 5 times in the past week and a half. This has also been a major source of the stress this past week. So this was a major accomplishment today.

Mail arrived today, which always makes life here awesome! It’s really funny when mail comes. You can feel the excitement buzzing through the training center as everyone lines up hoping to have something from home. Seriously, you have no idea the joy a letter from home brings. And no one pays any attention in the next class because they are consumed by letters or sorting through goodies in a care package.

Also had a really great day of classes. We did a sensibilisation this morning. (There’s really no good English translation for this. It’s basically an educational event or presentation.) My group presented on family planning to a group of women ages 18 plus. Not only was it great French-speaking practice, it also reminded how important it will be to work with my counterpart here. I think one of the greatest things about Peace Corps is its development philosophy. It uses a ground-up, find solutions within the community approach. That’s why integration and actually living in a village are such key parts of the Peace Corps experience. Anyways, especially when presenting on topics such as family planning, it is so important to work with your counterpart to bring more cultural understanding to the sensibilisation. The reasons why family planning is important in the US is completely different than the reason it is important here. Working with someone from the community makes sure you are relevant here. And it works. The sensibilisations were fantastic and I was really impressed with all of the creativity of the health stagirees. Really lucky to be part of such a talented, committed, and inventive group of people. We also had really engaging classes today on HIV/AIDS and positive deviance (a development theory based on using models within the community as solutions to community problems rather than looking outside).

My day got even better on my way home. So sometimes here you have to set small goals and be happy when you achieve them. Next to going to the post, another goal of mine was to buy something resembling Tupperware. Mission accomplished. It’s funny how my idea of accomplishment has changed.

My host family probably thinks Lindsay and I are totally crazy. The idea of having a pet here is very different than having a pet in the US. Pets are part of our family in the US. We buy special food for our pets. That’s not at all the case here. So all of a sudden today, this adorable puppy wandered into our room. Lindsay and I were so excited. (Have a picture, will post soon, forgot my camera cord today.) We picked it up and were ohhing and ahhing over it for at least 10 minutes. My family just laughed at us. There’s probably so many ways that we seem like complete aliens to my host family. Gosh, we can’t even eat like normal people here (although in our defense, cous-cous is hard to eat with your hands and not spill everywhere).

The night ended with us flipping through an American cooking magazine (courtesy of Lindsay’s care package) while the puppy slept in my lap. The kids loved the pictures and pretended to eat all the food. I was trying to remember what good food tasted like. Then my host siblings (2 and 8 years old) and their 7-year-old cousin danced to music videos on the TV while we talked to our Mom about living “en brosse” (in bush/in village) for 2 years. “Ca va aller” she said.

Highlight for tomorrow – cooking class! Learning how to cook here with equipment here (i.e. no microwave or refrigerator). So excited for good food!