Grassroot Soccer

Yeah! Grassroot Soccer!! Ever hear of it? No? Unitl a few months ago, I hadn't either. Now, I am their biggest fan!!!

Grassroot Soccer is an adolescent health organization founded in 2002 by four professional soccer players in Africa, all of whom had seen the affects of HIV and AIDS in their communities. Their mission is to use the game of soccer to educate, inspire, and mobilize the youth to overcome health challenges, live healthier, more productive lives, and to be agents for change in their communities. They use enjoyment and the power of play to get essential health messages to kids who would otherwise live uninformed lives.

Overlooking Lake Victoria

In 2011, they started a partnership with the Peace Corps and have incorporated their lessons and methodology to countries around the world in which the Peace Corps serves. This year they came to Uganda! I have been priledged to be one of the first 20 PCVs in Uganda to receive the training and to be appointed as a Grassroot Soccer SkillZ Coach. I am now charged with starting the program in my community, making youth teams, and trainnig future coaches. If all goes well, year after year, long after I'm gone, kids will be learning how to live healthier lives while having a good time. Rather than droning on and on about using condoms and being faithful to your partner, I get to play games. I am so excited!



I was able to take one person with me to get the SkillZ Coach training. This is Safari Benson. He is the supervisor of one of the nine labor camps on the tea estate. Now we will work together to enlist more coaches and create soccer teams. My vision is to have a team in each village. Then at the end of the program (there are 12 health lessons after which we practice a little real soccer) we can have the teams play in a competition. We'll see how far I get. It's all in fun. The teams are meant for youth age 12 to 20, both boys and girls, and no prior soccer skills are required. Ha! I'm out there kicking the ball around and Lord knows I cannot play soccer!

By the way, culture lesson... in Uganda, hand holding is for everyone and means nothing more than I am your friend. You see two men holding hands all the time and it is not a sign of intimacy.

Safari with one of the GRS trainers, Nicole

With two more of the trainers, Rosie and  Ilana

The hotel we stayed at for the training was overrun with these adorable little monkeys. All of the Americans were facinated by them, and as you can see, the locals paid them no attention. They treated them as we would treat squirrels, I suppose. I wonder if a Ugandan came to America, if he would gawk over squirrels in the same manner we gawk over the monkeys?

The day after we returned to the tea estate, an outside health organization partnered with our clinic to do onsite HIV counseling and testing. It was a perfect opportunity to use our new coaching skills to help mobilize the residents and encourage them to get tested. 

Back Home

The day after I returned from Rwanda, I spent a very relaxing afternoon sitting on my friend's porch watching the baboons. Her house is also on the tea estate, but closer to a natural stand of trees where the baboon live (my house is on a hill surrounded by tea bushes so I don't get baboons in my yard).

Even though I love watching the baboons, I know they are pests, carry diseases, and destroy kitchen gardens. I'm told that even the vegetables they don't like to eat, such as cabbages, they will destroy. They eat the good stuff and pull the rest out of the ground and throw it around. They love the avocados and mangos too, so during the rainy season they strip the trees bare before the residents can pick and enjoy the fruits. They are similar to raccoons, I suppose, cute but very much hated.

This guy was in my yard! This is the Colobus monkey, and he is sitting in the tree in front of my house (that's my bamboo fence you can see behind him). These monkeys are quite large but very timid and don't mess with the gardens much. I think they eat leaves and berries, not veggies. He was alone and the only one I have seen in my yard in the entire year I have been there. This leads me to believe that he was on a scouting mission for his family group and since I had no berries for him, he moved on. 

This girl is named Peace. She is the little sister of Alex, the nursing assistant that goes on many of the outreach program with me to help teach and translate our health messages. She comes over occasionally and we do silly girl things like paint our nails. I enjoy the company and she gets to practice her English, which is actually good considering her age.                                                                                       

This picture is also taken in my yard. My bamboo fence is very rickety but I love it. I'm also happy with my blooming aloe plant. My veggies aren't doing so well, but the aloe is growing amazingly fast. 

Kigali, Rwanda

Happy 4th of July, Everyone!

I know, the message above and this blog post are very much delayed in reaching you. I am still having internet issues at my site so when I'm in town, I post. This week I'm actually in Entebbe at an HIV training conference so I have awesome connectivity.

Last year, on the 4th of July, I was chased by a cow in Uganda. 

Flashback to the scary Ugandan cow.

This year, on the 4th of July, I ate sushi in Rwanda (a land-locked African country ranked the 22nd poorest country in the world). Either activity could have turned out quite badly but ha, I'm still happy and healthy! I'll try to play it safer next year... or maybe not.

Me in Kigali. Sorry, I did not have my picture taken actually eating the sushi, so you'll have to trust me. It was awesome; some of the best food I've had since coming to Africa. We found a very swanky oriental place on the outskirts of the city.

Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, came as quite a surprise. I have never thought much about this country and admittedly, knew very little of it's recent history. A fellow volunteer wanted to visit so I was just along for the ride. Wow, did I learn a lot and am so thankful that I went.

Kigali, Rwanda, as seen from the north. In my opinion, it looks like many US cities.

It has architecturally cool buildings
with glass elevators.

It has beautifully clean, paved, tree lined
streets with wide sidewalks.

And it has wonderfully ornate statues and botanical arrangements in front of its government buildings (ya, ok, it was a gorilla statue, maybe none of our US cities has that).

The history I was referring to was the ethnic government-sponcered genocide that occurred in the mid-1990s. It is estimated that 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by dominate Hutu forces in 100 days. We learned that Hutu neighbors and friends turned against the Tutsis just because of their ancestry. Families that were intermarried were killed or tortured. We visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial where the remains of 250,000 people have been laid to rest in a mass grave. Even though the violence committed was shocking, the memorial was respectfully done, very informative and temperate. I recommend that anyone in the region go, if for no other reason than to learn from the tragedies of other's past. The country has been praised in its efforts to move beyond this horrific event, though the judicial proceedings are still in progress and many suspected perpetrators are still living in exile. I worry that hate crimes occurring around the world could escalate into a similar fate.

List of names of those killed
in the genocide.

Mass grave at the Kigali Genocide Memorial.

For our second day in Kigali, we took the bus to the opposite side of the city to visit a local market. The transport system is much nicer and more civilized than what I have been dealing with in Uganda for the past year. The buses are proper buses, not mini vans, and every person gets to sit in their own seat, not on their neighbor's lap (hahaha, I'm not exaggerating, in Uganda they will stuff 24 people in a minivan designed to seat 15). Rwanda also has motorcycles for hire to get around town, similar to Uganda. Except in Rwanda the drivers are all licensed and wear a helmet stenciled with their license number. Plus, all drivers carry an extra helmet that their passengers must wear. They are only allowed to carry one passenger at a time and no sitting sidesaddle or carrying babies. They don't drive like maniacs either. Everyone on the roads (which was not many, I didn't see any traffic delays) seemed to be following logical rules of the road... Uganda is just a chaotic game of how many people can you cram into the same space at the same time. 

Ugandan taxi park

Rwandan taxi park

Ugandan boda-boda (motorcycle taxi)

Rwandan moto-taxi (motorcycle taxi)

Can you see the difference? Uganda is just soooooo crowded!!!!

Off to the market.
From where the bus dropped us off to the market, was a long trail of steps between a lower class residential area. It looked very clean. Unfortunately, it smelled awful. Under those steps was an open sewer. Everyone's pit latrine just dumped into the gutter and flowed downhill. 

I discovered a new-to-me fruit at the market... or maybe it's a vegetable? The locals could not tell me the name in English and unfortunately, I cannot remember the name they told me in their language. While I was pondering this strange piece of produce, the vender told me to bite into it, see if I liked it. Of course, I am an "adventurous eater" so I bit right in! It was good. Kind of like a cross between a nectarine and plum. When we got back to our hotel, we searched the internet and discovered that it's English name is Tree Tomato or Japanese Prune. Once I read the name and ate another one, it actually started to taste a little tomato-ee. Weird how the mind works. Once I read the name it tasted like a cross between a tomato and a plum. Ah, it was okay. I liked it better when I thought it tasted like a nectarine.

Genevieve at the Hotel de Mille Collines poolside bar. Not that
stayed at such a fancy place, but we did visit their posh
facilities.

So that was my worldwide weekend in Kigali, Rwanda. It took us two days on a bus to get there, we spent two more days enjoying the city, then another two days to get home. Great trip! A big thanks to my friend Genevieve for recommending the excursion and being such an awesome travel buddy.

My Pads Program

My latest project is the My Pads Program at two of the primary schools near the tea estate. The My Pads Program is comprised of seven lessons on reproductive health followed by the making of reusable menstrual pads. The lessons cover life skills, puberty, the menstrual cycle, adolescent pregnancy, STI's, and HIV. The sad truth is the girls over here do not have enough money to buy disposable pads so they either stay home from school during their menstrual cycle, or they use unsanitary things such as rags, paper, or banana tree fibers. An even sadder truth is that some girls exchange sexual favors for money so they can purchase pads. Young girls are constantly the target of older men and fall victim to their advances since they see no other alternative to their daily struggles.

Some of the girls from one of the primary schools that will take part in the My Pads Program.

This program has the amazing potential to change the lives of these children (yes, both girls and boys sit through every lesson and make the reusable menstrual pads... which is kinda funny to watch since the boys get super embarrassed... we tell them they can give the pads they made to their sisters or their girlfriend, but who knows where they actually end up).

The program opens with Life Skills, which teaches about empowerment, decision making, consequences, the importance of confidence and self-respect, and how they can control their future. Giving the facts about pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases has been proven to NOT be enough. The rate of teenage pregnancy and the rate of new HIV infections is still on the rise in this country. So in addition to information, we are encouraging them to make smart choices for themselves.

Then we teach the facts about the reproductive system, no secrets. I've even told them that if they are too embarrassed to ask a question in class, they can write their questions down and the following day I will return to read and answer all of them. Oh boy, I opened a serious can of worms there! My most embarrassing... why do boys have wet dreams. Yes, I'm explaining wet dreams to Ugandan teenagers. I wonder if this is part of the Peace Corps mission?

Lastly, we teach the kids to make the reusable pads and we provide the materials needed to make one pad each. Hopefully they will be able to take this skill home, find the required materials, and make more pads for themselves. This is the part I hate, but... we need money to buy the initial materials to make the pads. I applied for a Peace Corps grant, thinking the money was available within the organization, but have since learned, it is not. They are hoping my friends and family will contribute. When I first came here I promised myself I would not solicit funds from those back home, and here I am breaking that promise.

So, if you want to donate to this program you can online at:
https://donate.peacecorps.gov/donate/project/my-pads-project/

It seems like a relatively small amount of money needed, but it's a huge amount for these people. To put things in perspective, the parents of these children make about $30 a month if they are tea estate employees. If they are from the neighboring villages, they make nothing, they are substance farmers just trying to survive. So, the tea workers are considered well off with an annual salary of $360. Unfortunately, I'm told it's the single men from the company that target the girls. I don't have the power to change those men, but I'm trying my best to get the girls to say no and to stand up for themselves. I'm also hoping that by including the teenage boys in this type of training that I will get them to respect women more and not grow into the nasty men they see on the estate.
 
Just in case you are wondering what a reusable pad looks like, here are a few pictures from a previous lesson I gave at a Girl's Empowerment camp. It costs less a dollar to make two of them and you wash and reuse it. A girl may need a few to allow for drying time (you gotta wear one while you are washing and drying the others). With proper care it should last a year. In addition to saving a ton money, you are saving the environment from all of that horrible plastic required in the making and packaging of disposable pads.

Malaria Training and Mosquito Net Distribution

For the last two weeks I have been busy teaching lessons on malaria and distributing (and hanging) mosquito nets in our labor villages on the tea estate. We started this project with the simple idea that we would teach a few malaria lessons at the local primary school, Hamukuku. Before each lesson I asked the children to raise their hand if they slept under a mosquito net the night before. On average, only 20% of the students raised their hands. For a country suffering from deaths due to severe malaria, this is a very sad percentage... especially when the government had distributed free mosquito nets just over a year ago.

By talking with the teachers at the school, the clinic staff where I work, and the village leaders on the tea estate, it seemed that most people who were given nets by the government were either not using the nets for the intended purpose (bed nets apparently make good curtains, dish drainers, chicken coops, and tomato guards), using the nets for the adults and babies in the house (leaving the school age children we were addresses with none), or they had moved away and taken the nets with them (leaving new employees and their families without nets in their residence).

The peer educators and I thought we could help the families in the labor camps by giving the same classes that we gave in the primary school to the parents. Maybe, just maybe, when the government gave out nets they did not explain the purpose and importance of these nets in the fight against malaria. Maybe if the parents had some information about bed net use we could reduce the number of malaria cases coming into the clinic, and maybe if we educated them on the seriousness of the disease, the symptoms to watch for, and treatment to expect if malaria was contracted, we could reduce the number of severe cases and hopefully see a reduction in deaths.

Me with a few of the older kids that were following us from home to home hanging nets.

Well, that was our hope. I got a grant to purchase 110 nets (which is just a drop compared to the need) and the peer educators and I have been moving through the labor camps teaching and hanging nets. This is the real work that I have been sent to accomplish. However, I would be much happier if I could have just stayed in the schools and pretended all was well with the world. But now that I have spent hours after hours in the camps and have entered the homes and I'm dumbfounded at how these people live. In school, of the most part, the kids are clothed and clean and well behaved. In the camps they are not any of those things. I suspect only a small percentage of the kids I saw in the camps actually go to school.

The village supervisor in the middle with two of the peer educators.

The village supervisor with the recipient of a net.
 

Granted, I have been in the camps before now. I have taken tours and met the village leaders and have even given a few classes. But now my eyes are open. Once you spend a few hours there, and the residents are over their shock of seeing a white person in their camp, the truth becomes evident. The little ones that are not yet potty trained do not wear diapers (or pants or any kind of clothing below the waist) and they just poop and pee where ever. None of the kids wear shoes, so I watched a toddler poop in the middle of the walkway and another kid walk right through it barefoot. Then that toddler, obviously no one came to clean him up, crawled over a few other kids, dirty bottom touching everything. I was shocked. But before I could wrap my brain around that incident, I saw a group of kids, around 3 or 4 years old, eating mango peals out of the garbage and picking them out of the dirt. They just wiped the dirt on the their shirt and put the peal in their mouth. Other kids were taking plastic wrappers out of the garbage and licking them. I made a comment to one of the peer educators that was with me and he shoed the kids away. I asked where those kid's parents were, those are the people we should be addressing, not the kids themselves. Ha, a few words were exchanged in Rotooro which I could not understand and the adults looked at me like I was insane. Nothing changed. Makes me wonder if malaria is the worst of their worries. They need parenting classes, adequate clothing, and food.

Kids in the camp.

Oh boy, I better stop this post here because... well, you know. This job is beyond frustrating!

Pakwach

On my way home from Arua, Genevieve and I stopped in the small town of Pakwach. One of Genevieve's coworkers had an Aunt living there who graciously offered to put us up for the night. Turns out her house is right on the Nile River! Truthfully, when I heard the plan, I was a little worried we would end up in one of the thatched roof huts that dominate the area, but we were lucky; the aunt had a brick house. It was terribly hot and humid, and there where lots of mosquitoes, but we were treated well.

The Nile River as it flows by the western border of Murchison Fall National Park. We did not go into the park, but were able to have an evening walk along the road that cuts through.

We saw many elephants as we walked! This guy was just moseying along the main road. For the locals, this is a common sight, but Genevieve and I were thrilled.

Fishing on the Nile. This was taken from a bridge that crossed the river. The guy on the back of the boat was fishing with several lines tied to a central rope, no pole. The kid in the middle of the boat was in charge of scooping out the water when it got too much. Yes, they were leaking and thought nothing of it, just another day for them. And yes, crocodiles and hippos are in the Nile! We didn't see any but we could hear the hippos barking/grunting (whatever hippos do).

The Nile River, as seen from the Aunt's back yard. The local girls fetch water from the river every morning for use in their homes (the thatch huts). Just the night before we sat on the porch and listened to the hippos... this water cannot be clean or safe! But again, just another day for them.

Arua

I visited a fellow volunteer in Arua last week. Arua in the northwest corner of Uganda, affectionately referred to as West Nile (because it’s west of the Nile river). It is much flatter, hotter, and drier than my location, but still very nice. Thankfully, we are in the midst of rainy season, so it was not too unbearably hot.

These thatch huts are very common in the north. They are the traditional homes of the tribes in that region. Thankfully, none of the PCV's are required to stay in them, and it seems as though the wealthier Ugandans are opting to build modern structures for their future homes. Of course, wealthy Ugandans are quite rare so thatch huts continue to dominate the region. I have yet to learn why the tribes in the west do not build similar houses. I can only guess that the building materials are not as readily available, not to mention the suitability of these type of structures to hold up to the heavier rains we get in my location (the village people in my area mainly live in brick structures with metal roofs).

This picture was taken in the downtown area of Arua. In the city there are nice wide sidewalks! They also have bike lanes!!! Nothing like that near my village. In the picture I am wearing a head wrap made of Katange fabric that is popular up there. The perfect answer to a bad hair day. Ha, but all joking aside, the wrap kept my hair off of my neck and actually made me feel cooler. I guess the Katange blocks the rays of the sun better than a ball cap can... who knows.

Here I am with my friend Genevieve. She is a global health volunteer and Uganda is her third country of service. She is originally from the Philippines but became an American after meeting her husband during his Peace Corps service in her country (he's been to several countries to volunteer as well). So, this picture was taken at one of the education volunteer's houses where we were celebrating Cinco de Mayo. Quite a nice gathering since there are several volunteers that work in and around Arua. Of course we had Mexican food and drinks... awesome feast that came surprisingly close to actually tasting Mexican considering what we could find in the local market. The Ugandans were very confused by our celebrating the Mexican Independence Day :)

Arua has a hotel with a pool; a welcome relief from the heat and humidity. It's the first time my thighs have seen sun in almost a year! Ops, I forgot about my dip in the lake, so it's the second time my thighs have seen the sun in nearly a year.