It’s a strange time in my life right now. Many volunteers
experience a variety of emotions when they get near the end of their time in
village, and I can’t say that I am any different.
I am dreading leaving my host family and the other people in
my village with whom I’ve become so close. I’m excited to transition back to a
more connected world where I can have electricity, access to news, some basic
amenities, etc. on a regular basis. And honestly, I’m scared because
transitioning out of this life is going to be a major shock to the system.
A lot of volunteers also start to experience a lack of
motivation as they get close to the end. You just want to spend all of your time
hanging out with your friends in village drinking tea and relaxing. I’m
certainly in the period where I am trying to transition my involvement 100%
over to the people of my community so that they can continue on. My women’s
group just planted new vegetables with very little help from me, my health
workers are taking over control of our health hut, and we just finished a great
renovation project of said hut.
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| Outside view of entrance |
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| Front view from inside the garden |
The health hut renovation project was a major accomplishment
of my service! This project was something my counterpart, Sadio Ba, had
discussed with the volunteer in my site previously, but they didn’t have the
chance to get it off the ground. With grant money from an organization called
World Connect and funds that had been set aside from the health hut itself, we
embarked on a project to make our health hut more structurally suitable.
Some of the aspects of the project were super simple – ex.
We changed the locks on all of the doors so that they could actually be locked
with keys and not chains/padlocks. But we also gave the entire health hut a new
paint job, patched a leaky roof, fixed the wall where it had caved in and
raised it a few brick levels, installed a new door to the entrance, painted
health murals, and modified the maternity room so that it’s actually suitable
for births.
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| New door |
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| Getting cement on the roof to patch the leaks |
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| Taping off the paint borders - like I would trust anyone else with that job... |
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| Getting fancy! |
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| My counterparts taking an active role |
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| Our painter |
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| Fatou, our village birthing attendant and one of my favorite people in village! The door says "Maternity Room" in Pulaar |
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| Our modified birthing table |
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| Malaria mural courtesy of PCVs! |
The health hut in Sare Aladji was built in 2003, and since
that time had never been renovated. This was a big step in making the health
hut a better facility for the community! I personally learned a lot about
project management, especially in a culture where things don’t work the same as
what I know. My community counterparts were great and took a lot of ownership
in the project as well!
And of course, those of you that know me well know that
slowing down is not one of my strong attributes… So though I just wrapped up
this large project and have only a few months left at site, I’ve just begun
another project to dig a well in my village!
Access to water is a constant struggle here. In my village
of ~700 people, we only have 3 wells. We have a series of faucets that have
been installed and are connected to a water tower in a village about 6
kilometers away. However, the faucets have been dysfunctional since July, and
even when working turn off sporadically. So wells are crucial to our water
security, and thus I decided to write a grant and bring another well to my
site! Thanks to Water Charity, a USA-based NGO that funds water projects, my
well is already underway.
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| Drawing the well circumference |
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| Digging! |
One shameless plug – Water Charity. in order to speed up the
grant process, funds projects in full once they approve your application. They
then ask you as the PCV to help fundraise to replenish the funds they provided
for your project. Thus see below for the link to donate to my project on their
website!
I can only imagine that my blog posts will get sappier and
more emotional in the coming months, so bear with me. From the girl who cries
at holiday Folgers commercials, I expect leaving my village to become a very
emotional experience haha.
Thanks for reading! Peace & love,
Lindsay
