I neglected last month’s update, so here we go:

We’re in town all this week for the Girl’s Empowerment Conference, a weeklong event that’s been in the works since the beginning of the year and put on by all the PCVs in Mbeya Region.  With Michelle and I are five 13- and 14-year-old girls from our recently-finished classes at the primary school, and one more girl who runs a shop near our house.  They’re joined by about 70 other girls brought by volunteers in other villages.  The conference is basically an amplified version of our Life Skills class – a lot of health stuff along with things like building self-esteem and setting life goals.  While Michelle’s busy teaching important, applicable things, I’m mostly reduced to playing the bad guy in a couple skits, where I hit on young girls or pressure kids to drink alcohol, that sort of thing.  The girls seem to be having a good time, though, and maybe even learning something.  It’s been particularly interesting to see village girls operate in a semi-modern setting:  Michelle had to show them how to operate the shower, because they didn’t believe that water would come out above their heads.  And they gave us blank looks when we told them that their room was on the third floor of the dorm – they’d never navigated a flight of stairs before. 

Back in the village, our group of 18 beekeepers underwent a two-day training last month or beekeeping basics, given by the district beekeeping officer.  It was really an excellent training – both Michelle and I were impressed, and I think the group was too.  At the end the trainer gave the group a beehive to get started, and we put it in a grove of trees behind Romano’s house.  We are still waiting to get the protective beekeeping clothes and hive smokers, so we haven’t been able to check, but judging by the sizeable swarm of bees that’s buzzing around the entrance, it seems like a colony has already successfully established, certainly an encouraging sign.  The rest of the hives – one for each group member – should be finished next week, and we’ll get those out in the field as soon as they come in.

Michelle, of course, continues her work at the clinic weighing babies, spreading the gospel of family planning, and giving her Friday mini-seminars.  This month’s topic: malaria. Unlike other areas of Tanzania, it’s really too cold here for malaria to have much of a presence outside of a few stray cases.  So it’s for the patients, yes, but it’s just as much a lesson for the clinic staff, who readily diagnose malaria when anyone comes in complaining of a fever and send them away with antimalarial drugs without checking symptoms or testing for the actual parasite, even though they have the capability to do both.  It’s interesting to see which things take root after Michelle’s prodding and which things don’t – a lot more people get tested for HIV now, but nobody’s very interested in washing their hands with soap, for example.  

We’re looking forward to a visit from my family, who arrive in Dar in a couple weeks.  From there, we’ll head over to Zanzibar, then down to Selous and Ruaha for some safari action, then continue down to the village, where Romano and Tukusuma are almost as excited for their arrival as we are (almost).

Hope all’s well back home, and hope everyone’s enjoying the summer!