Today is officially the one year mark of my Peace Corps service.  (I could be totally cliché and write a half way point reflection journal entry, but I’m not feeling that deep at the moment.)  We swore in as volunteers on August 17 last year, and the new group of Health and Environment volunteers swore in just yesterday.  In about two weeks we will have 6 new faces around the Deep South.  I got to meet them all during their Pre-Service Training in Kilosa and I’m really excited about everyone who’s coming down! 

Now that I’m back into the swing of things, and mid-way through the second term of school I’m realizing that I have a lot to do in just less than a year and I can’t put off any more projects since there won’t be a “next year”. 

Just to keep you up on what all I’m doing these days…Jen and I will start the Peer Education/Sports Tournament we wrote a grant for in two weeks when one of her secondary schools in Newala will travel to Mahuta for the first in a series of football, netball and Femina Club competitions among the three secondary schools we work with.  Students love to travel to other schools and rarely get the opportunity so we thought we could put our resources to use and not only provide the kids with the opportunity to travel, but also let our health clubs share the information they get every week from us about HIV/AIDS by teaching the members of the sports teams as well as the fans who come to watch the games, through debates and short plays.  We even managed to get a set of uniforms donated from ReproGTZ, another NGO, to award to the winning school! 

We recently got VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) again in Mahuta so I’m working with the hospital to encourage people to test by offering a Si Mchezo! health magazine to everyone who gets tested on Mondays from 8:00-10:00 a.m. You’d be surprised how well it works. 

My adult community health group right now is my favorite group to work with.  They show up to meetings every week (believe me, that’s rare), and are really motivated!  We sat down last week to outline what our goals for the group were and what we would like to do to help out in the community.  They decided they wanted to do something everyone would be able to see, and agreed that sign boards warning people about HIV/AIDS, encouraging them to unite as a community in the fight against AIDS and teaching them how to protect themselves was the way to go.  So this week we came up with the perfect messages, designed the boards and I’ll send in the grant proposal next week!  They also decided they want to start an income-generating project to help the orphans in the community pay for school uniforms and supplies, so we’re meeting with the agricultural specialist in town to get all the details about raising chickens, and I’ll be writing up another grant proposal to start a chicken project to sell eggs and meat.

Other than all this, I’m still teaching biology, meeting with my Femina Club each week and Jen and I are trying to put the finishing touches on the Newala AIDS Day grant and get it in by Sept 4^th to be approved. 

On a more exciting note, I have another visitor coming to Tanzania!  Kate is stopping by after her season finishes up this September in Italy.  It’s not going to be the posh vacation I had with my parents but I think she’ll be able to hack it.  We’ll be going out to Songea, a trip I haven’t made yet but I hear is quite an adventure, and probably a day or two on Zanzibar, but mostly we’ll be hanging out in the village.  I can’t wait to have her here, and I can’t wait to have a real catch.  I play with my neighbors pretty often, but throwing with a candy arm just isn’t cutting it.