Something New

It’s been a busy couple of weeks since I got back from Manakara. I finally have a project that is getting going, so that has kept me busy at site. 

I’m working with four other volunteers to plan and organize a girls camp to bring girls from our sites on the East Coast, to the capital. We’re going to focus on health and education through visits to the University the American Embassy and some health NGOs. Its going to be a really great project if we can pull it off. However, like everything in this country, things are complicated.  For example, timing. This was/is a huge issue because I had to start advertising before I knew if we had funding. So I crossed (and am still crossing) my fingers and hoping we get funding so the thing I’ve been advertising actually happens.

 Since each volunteer can only bring four girls, its very competitive. All expenses for the girls are paid, and to select the girls, we have an application that will be read by a selection committee. However the fact that its an application process is a new concept for many people at my site. Most things are decided in informal ways (i.e. the mayor decides, the people with money decide, anyone important decides…you get the point). The fact that girls are going to be chosen based on their essays is a new idea. When I went to talk to the mayor about the project he said, ‘So, you’ll choose a girl from my house, right?…’ and when I told the head of the village that the girls had to fill out the essays themselves he said, ‘but they have bad handwriting…can’t the parents do it for them?’ 

 I also made the mistake of telling a few girls about the camp before it was publicized in town…this backfired because within 5 minutes of mentioning a trip to Tana, all the kids in the neighborhood were saying ‘Corey is taking Litisia to Tana for free!’ I had Litisia’s dad come to my house (seriously 3 minutes later) asking when and why I was taking his daughter to Tana. Never underestimate how fast word spreads in a tiny village…

So that’s the news with my new project…I go back to my site in the next few days, and I’m interested to see all the rumors that have been started about the project in the week and a half I’ve been gone…