Chasing Hydration

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The heat is upon us!  One of my favorite things about living in my village is that I have known the words for “too hot” (ka-hisa ngopfu) and “cold” (ka-titimela) pretty much since my arrival.  The similarities to the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears has been a source of amusement for me, but I agree wholeheartedly with my neighbors…ka-hisa ngopfu!  I do my best to drink enough water, but sometimes it feels like I am chasing adequate hydration like a hamster on a wheel.

Things were pretty busy for me through August and much of September.  I implemented Zazi for a second time at the secondary school for grades eight and nine.  I asked three girls from grades ten and eleven to assist me as student leaders, and in exchange I would write letters outlining the work they had done so that they could include them with their applications to schools or jobs.  The leaders were so fantastic at classroom management and at explaining things in Shangaan for my learners when we detected confusion.  Overall the intervention was successful, especially since the student leaders are likely to be able to help with future interventions, but many of the girls failed to attend on the two most important days: teenage pregnancy and HIV/STIs.  I was disappointed by the low attendance for those sessions, but was happy that at least some of the girls were there to hear the message.  The worst part of the low attendance was that I had purchased over 50 bananas in town for condom demonstrations and dragged them back with me (50 bananas are extremely heavy) and only 10 girls showed up that day.  I sent the girls home with the extra bananas because there was no way I could finish them before they went bad.

I began teaching the caregivers at the Home Based Care on Friday mornings each week.  We used the manuals developed by the Aurum Institute in Johannesburg for layworkers on HIV and TB, doing a chapter each week.  I would then offer a lesson on an issue pertinent to their clients, based on their reports.  For example, I offered a side-by-side comparison of hypertension and diabetes, and when the heat hit suddenly I offered a lesson on dehydration, emphasizing the importance of watching the elderly people and young children for the signs and symptoms of dehydration.  The caregivers were really annoyed with me when I told them that water intake should be increased and soft drink (aka cold drink) consumption should be decreased.  Many of the caregivers were completely annoyed by my lessons and some asked me why I was not paying them a stipend to learn the material, but there were a few who would ask me questions and I would see a notebook full of notes and perfect copies of the pictures I had drawn to accompany the lessons.  I think this experience is a pretty good analogy for my service: often surrounded by frustrations, but then there will be that one shining moment when I am so happy that I am doing what I do.

Of course my favorite thing about my service has far and away been my work at the drop-in center.  The Explorers Club is ongoing, but lately the financial manager told me she wanted to teach the lessons.  She takes the lessons very seriously, and even kicks me out with the younger kids if I try to give the learners hints for answers to questions she asks.  Her desire to teach has made me so happy, as I hope this means that the program will be sustainable after I leave.  The creativity days are still a huge hit, and I absolutely love coloring with the kids.  It is great to see them grow more and more confident and independent through such a simple intervention.  If you follow my Instagram you may have seen a recent video I posted of the boys dancing while holding an unattached piece of playground equipment quite precariously (I usually have about five near heart attacks a week with them).  The spontaneous dance party came after I told them we would have a movie day.  We watched the cartoon version of Disney’s The Jungle Book.  I was laughing harder at the strange parts of the movie that had them giggling.  They were especially amused by Ka, the snake, which I found so strange as I always thought Baloo was so much funnier. 

It has been a busy, but satisfying term.  My mother will be arriving next week for a visit, so I will enjoy traveling around South Africa for a bit with her.  We will spend four days in the middle of her trip in my village so that I can do a Grassroot Soccer Camp with the kids.  She will depart and I will return to my village just in time to teach the kids at the drop-in center about American Halloween.  I am excited to help them decorate masks, teach them the trick-or-treat rhyme and pass out candy, and to show them the movie Hocus Pocus.  It should be a very fun cultural exchange!