What would you say you do here?

Hello Friends.  I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  Mine was nice.  I spent the weekend with 19 other volunteers at the Popa Malaria Camp in Divundu.  I think it’s an indication of how I’ve gotten used to things here that it didn’t faze me that I was having Thanksgiving dinner at a malaria camp.  My Christmas dinner last year was at a snake restaurant outside of Hanoi.  I guess that still wins the odd-holiday-dinner-location award. 

I often get questions about what exactly it is that I do here, so here you go…

Accounting training at local schools: 

Money is a big issue for Namibian public schools.  They get some government funds, but that only covers a portion of their needs.  If you ask any government official, they will tell you that school is “free” and that “school fees” should not be charged.  However, all schools charge school fees as the support received from the government is inadequate to support day-to-day operations. 

It’s up to each individual school to manage school-fee funds.  I’ve begun working with one of the larger schools in Rundu to help them address their accounting issues.  This particular school has been plagued with money issues including a large embezzlement situation last year.  The school has over 900 learners and, constructively speaking, zero accounting procedures.  The only thing they really keep track of is who paid them what.  Expenditures are not tracked and school fee money is always long-gone before the end of the year, meaning there isn’t money left for basic needs such as paper for tests and light bulbs.  I, and another volunteer, are currently developing some accounting procedures and tools that we’ll begin training the school staff on in early January.  If the project goes well, we’ll try to get other schools in Rundu to adopt the procedures.

Rundu Hospital Tuberculosis Clinic:

My prison project was a quick one (I hope).  It seemed to only require a few phone calls and some clarification of expectations.  However, I’m skeptical.  The fact is that people will often say “yes” here when what they really mean is “we’ll see” or just plain “no” or “I would do or say anything that would result in us ending this conversation”.  I’ll follow up with the clinic in a few weeks to see if things have improved. 

My new project at the hospital is working with the tuberculosis clinic.  The clinic is spilt into two wards.  One ward is for normal tuberculosis, and one for multi drug resistant tuberculosis.  Regardless of the ward you are in, your inpatient stay will be between 1 and 6 months.  It’s similar to prison in a lot of ways.  The wards are small, the only outside area is a tiny courtyard, and they are not allowed to leave.  The hospital social workers and I decided that we would try to introduce some training programs in the TB clinic to address the issue of boredom while simultaneously providing skills that the patients can use to generate income once they’ve been released from the hospital.  After interviewing some of the patients, we found that sewing was the skill they were most interested (followed by basket weaving and jewelry making).  They already have a women that does some sewing training on site, but she only has one sewing machine and there are no materials available for the patients to practice with.  She hasn’t been paid yet and is losing patience (with a “c”).  My goals are to significantly expand the project and to make is sustainable.  I’ll need to work with the hospital administration to get an outlet to sell some of the products produced by the patients to generate revenue so that materials can be purchased for future patients as well as to pay the trainers.  I have a project kick off meeting scheduled with the hospital administration and social workers next week.  Hopefully, I’ll have good news to share on this project in the coming months. 

Nyangana water tower

I mentioned in an earlier blog that my friend, PCV Mary, had a set back in her garden project when a stand holding a 10000 liter water tank collapsed.  Her garden is meant to support persons living with HIV/AIDS in her community.  Our original plan was to just rebuild the single tower that collapsed, but then we realized that the other towers weren’t in much better shape.  So, we’re now getting a large 4-tank tower built.  It won’t be cheap, but the contractor does good work and I’m confident this tower will be there to support the garden for a long time.  I managed to get the price down by begging and offering to write a business plan for the man’s company.  It helped, but we’ll still need every penny of the money that we have and I’ll have to beg, borrow, and steal the rest.  Work on the tower should begin in the next week or two.  I’ve done some workshops and trainings and business plans here, but this will be the first project that involves actual construction.  I’m looking forward to that.

Odds and ends:

Then there are my day-to-day activities of working with various aspiring entrepreneurs in Rundu as well as small business owners.  I work with people on business plans, product pricing, marketing, accounting, and other typical small business challenges.  These meetings vary from fun to excruciating.  I get some very level headed aspiring entrepreneurs and sometimes I get people demanding thousands of dollars because they were born to act and I have to help them make a movie (this has occurred twice now). 

I had been working on a expanding a local school to include a tailoring program.  It seemed like the project was going well but then my counterpart lost interest.  I tried to encourage him to follow through, but it wasn’t getting me anywhere.  It’s disappointing because I’d already done much of the footwork for a grant application and I think the project had a good chance of being sustainable.  Failed projects are a fact of life in the Peace Corps.   

Down time:

Down time is a big part of the Peace Corps experience.  Try as you might, you will only ever fill up a few hours of most days with actual work.  When I do have some real work to do, it’s a treat that doesn’t last very long.  There are some great, super busy days, but they typically take weeks of planning and phone calls and frustration and sometimes begging to get to them.  Sometimes I look for ways to help during my down times, but often I just turn to a book or exercising or texting friends to pass the time.  Socializing with people in my community is fun and it's part of why I'm here.  It’s also a way to pick up a bit more Rukwangali, though nearly everybody in Rundu speaks English.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that while I do my best to stay busy, there are often days of boredom and questionable productivity levels.  This is a common theme in many PCV’s lives.  This down time will increase over the coming weeks as everything in Namibia shuts down in December and early January.  Learning how to deal with that down time in a constructive way is a challenge, but I’m doing pretty well at it.  However, I’m at a point now where I can understand why some volunteers quit and go home.  It can be tough, particularly as a health/business volunteer that doesn’t have a prescribed job.   You have to be a self-starter or you will sit on your ass for two years.  Even when you're really fighting, real productivity can be hard to come by.  While I don’t want to quit, and have never considered it and never will, I can understand now why some do.  It takes a lot of work to be a little productive here and if you measure yourself by your productivity, as I do, it can make you question the value of your presence. 

So that’s it for this week.  I hope you are all well.  Take care and thanks for reading.