Moving to Site- Take 2!

Lumelang kaofela!

So good news- I finally have a site! Only a little under three weeks after swearing in, which is amazing. Peace Corps staff has worked so incredibly hard to work on my site, and secure my safety after this unusual situation with a site falling through right before training was over. I am living and working in a small village in the district of Berea, which is very close to Maseru district in the North West of the country. I’m going to be working with the clinic in my village, which is government funded. This is great, because it means that I’m going to be able to incorporate contraceptive and family planning services and education into any programs I incorporate or engage with, which wouldn’t be the case if I worked at a Catholic funded clinic. I’ll be living in a rondeval with no electricity or running water, and I’ll be living with a host family! I’m very excited to finally start doing work and getting to know my community.

For the first three months of being at site, we are in what’s called “phase two”. The goal is to integrate into the community, and engage in a needs assessment. To integrate, we need to engage with the community, get to know neighbors and people who use the clinic, and take part in community events. The needs assessment is also very important to doing our work at site. We basically go door to door, go to community gatherings, and talk to community members about what they think might be lacking in the community, what they like/dislike about the clinic, or any programs they’d like to see. Basically, what do they think are the pressing needs related to health in the community? We also do a needs assessment in the clinic and talk to those who access the clinic, and observe groups of individuals who do not. During these first three months, we are also not allowed to leave our districts. We can go to our camptowns for shopping (urban areas close to our sites that have grocery stores and banks) but that’s the extent of where we can travel. Then, at the end of three months, we go back to our training village (where we had pre-service training) and have a week-long training session. After this, we are finally able to start projects in our communities and are allowed to travel! During phase two, there is a lot of down time. It is very hard to go from our intensive and busy PST to having relatively little to do. But this time builds a foundation for our work for the next two years. Life here is also just slower pace, so it’s important to figure out how to be okay with down time, and not feeling busy all the time. It’ll be a great time to read (I've been re-reading Harry Potter, obviously) and play my ukulele, as well as spend time with people in the community! Maybe get better at sewing so I can hem my pants my mom sent me (thanks mom)… we’ll find out!

In the meantime, I can also explore my camptown Teyateyaneng (nicknamed TY) which is a very urban city with lots of shops. There is a place called beer garden that serves cappuccinos and baked goods, hotels, fruits and veggie stores, thrift shops, and get this- a spice store with soy sauce! It’s about a 30 minute taxi ride from my village to town, which is so great. I have been to this city only once before, when we had our thanksgiving celebrations there. So I stocked up on soy sauce fully expecting not to be able to access soy sauce again for some time. Little did I know, I’d be living in soy sauce central. This might sound ridiculous, but honestly, it’s the little things in life. It just adds so much flavor to rice! What can I say?

So for now, things are going well. I’m really happy to finally be at site, and my village is really beautiful. I live in a rondeval on my host family’s compound. My host family are really caring and kind, and I can’t wait to get to know them better. I really love the space, and I’ve decorated and made it my own! Since I moved there pretty quickly, there are still a few things that I need, like a wardrobe, but Peace Corps and the clinic are working on that. I am currently sharing the latrine with my host family, but they are working on building one that I alone use. I also need to figure out what my work schedule is going to be like, and ensure that the clinic staff knows what I can and can’t do. For example, I shouldn’t be filling the role of a nurse or an extra set of hands at the clinic, because it’s not sustainable. The only problem is that the clinic is very short-staffed so many of them want an extra set of hands. So hopefully I can talk with my supervisor who is the head nurse at my clinic, and discuss some steps for the coming months, and see how to best navigate the situation.

Anyway, I will keep you all updated on new things that are going on in the village as I hope to observe a lot, meet new people, and get to know my community! That’s all for now, don’t hesitate to reach out whenever!

Sala Hantle!

P.S. This picture is from my Christmas leave. All the health volunteers in my cohort got together for the holiday! We took a trip to Semonkong and saw Maletsunyane falls, which this picture shows! Some of us hiked to the bottom, it was really beautiful. Way too hot though!!