le 5 novembre

I have (today mostly)...
- worn (grammar aside) my "dress shoes" (which by the way are not very comfortable...haven't worn them since staging), white pants, blue shirt (thanks girls!), and white tie. many compliments ensued, including a description of "snazzy"
- met the US ambassador to Niger (hence the dressing up)
- had my day made when one of the trainees asked for a picture with me...instead of the ambassador
- shaved...only to hear from the only male volunteer we've encountered for any period of time that it's actually better to keep some beard. shaving si no.
- helped orchestrate the singing of Stand by Me to the ambassador during lunch (our group is on a huge singing during lunch kick...love it)
- finally got my blue Ecuador pants and white linen pants hemmed!
- realized morning showers can yield "cold' as oppossed to evening showers when the water has been heated all day. Interesting.
- learned that people leave all sorts of stuff behind and we can never really know exactly what people left . To know that people left lots of stuff, many mad more than me, makes me feel better.
- appaently stepped on a nail in my Tevas. I felt something pointy and couldn't figure out where the stick was, but upon the fifth inspection, I realized it was tip of a small nail that had gone clear through the sandal. Glad I was not barefoot.
- understood (over the two weeks I've been here) the real power behind the gesture of feet washing (re: the bible). Every night (or whenever I take my shower), I scrub my feet pretty good, and for someone else to offer to scrub off all the sand and poss other impurities like poo and garbage I've walked through, is a pretty powerful gesture.


I have not...
- been exactly impressed by the ambassadors comments
- been exactly satisfied by the pants that were tailored for me from the material I brought from the marche on Tues (the material not was supposedly not actual pant material). They are gray. Look like wind pants worn by a 90's rapper. Will try these out next week.
- gelled my hair....but the soap that didn't wash out from the morning shower made my hair look gelled. whoops. i worked hard to clarify this throughout the morning.
- stayed in dress shoes and a tie and a tucked in shirt past the time the ambassador left (actually I went to causal mode after left when she was still here.)

So, these postings seem pretty peppy and hilarious (right? right?), but a hair superficial. Rest assured, we're doing some legit work and some solid thinking. But that's not as fun to report. But to give you a little taste...

Had a good few conversations with another trainee the past two days which reflects the tension between an emphasis on sustainability and an emphasis on maximizing palliative (the right word I think) care in the present. The emphasis on sustainabilty, with intergration and immersion as the precursor, was part of the big draw for me to Peace Corps (first time I've used the words...I can do that in this blog right? All of you read the disclaimer up top just to keep me out of trouble). On one end, I see as misguided the "hit and run" humaritation effots of many orgnaizations that drop some money, some buildings, some food without any effort at long term development. On the other hand, myopic focus on sustainabilty COULD be used as an excuse to justify lack of action in the present time. I have settled on thinking that the proper balance is to maintain an emphasis on sustainability, while NOT using this emphasis to justify palliative care in the moment. I am reminded of an article we read about care vs. cure. The author cautioned about an exlusive focus on cure, at the expense of care. He gave one example of glasses. We don't expect glasses to cure people (the article is dated; now we have laser eye surgery that CAN cure, but his general point still holds), we provide people with glasses because it improves their quality of life (though glasses are usually a sustainable solution as well). He described a meeting among some high level scientists debating whether an intervention to provide food to some underfed population would achieve the outcomes in questions. The author intervened that, if the intervention (whoops, overused this word in the last two sentences) would not make a "difference", would any among the group be willing to switch their children to the diet of the population pre-intervention? Of course not. His point was that, even if we cannot articulate the exact benifits or mechanisms, we can agree it is better to be healthy than sick, well fed than starving, and we should strive to provide these things despite question surrounding their exact effects. Here, the trainee talked about wanting to provide candy, vitamens, and food to the members of his village, regardless of whether these would carry on beyond his two year stay (which would be unlikely). Because during those two years, it will be better for the kids to be fed than not fed. I am super intimidated about what we will be able to DO in our host villages, but it is fun to think about these things in the comfortable setting of PST.

Also, we talked about how important it will be to select a really good counterpart in the village. The counterpart is the person who will be our liason to the village...our right hand person in the village. Or we will be their right hand person, depending on their perspective. Our counterpart could increase our rapport in the community, help bridge the language gap, and increase the odds of our project ourliving our stay. But my trainee friend told two anecdotes he got from past PCV's in which the counterpart 1) sold the books in the recently related school and rented out the room and 2) poss set up the PCV to be quasi kidnapped. These seem mad extreme circumstances, but finding someone you can trust to collaborate with is a super important step, and we decided this is something we should if not worry about, then spend time considering. The best advice he got on this was to look for someone who hasn't asked you for anything.

Poss will have internet tomorrow or Tuesday and can post all these bad boys! Woohoo. From Sat to Tues, we will be in small groups visiting current PCV's at their site. I'm excited for the change of scenery.

Lastly, a clarification. By "latrine", I mean the hole in the ground, which has been dug out a good number of feet, over which is some cement with a little hole (too little in my opinion) into which I try to aim. By "shower", I mean the concrete space with the "drain" (that just runs into the latrine pit I think) in which I use a bucket to scrub myself with soap (with my hands) and pour water over my body. THe shower and latrine are separated by a maybe five foot cement wall and the whole shebang is inclosed in a five foot cement wall. Really, I'm actually becoming a fan of the bucket baths. I am careful to scrub everywhere with soap, it's so hot, the water feels good (I was actually a tad cool this morning with the cool water), and there is not wasted time (not much fun to just hang out there for several reasons that I'll leave you to ponder).