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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Thoughts at the halfway point...

So, it has indeed been one year (and a week) since we left Minnesota one chilly March morning. I have to admit I've been feeling homesick and down-in-the-dumps recently, but everyone assures me the second year just gets better and better, so hopefully I'm due for a revival of enthusiasm and purpose! 

Here are a few things I've been up to: helping a group of nursing assistant trainees work on their health education skills, helping out at reproductive/child health clinics (a.k.a. - the place where we make babies cry) and doing health education there, trying to help out the peer health education club at the senior secondary school, as well as the youth group at Gambia Family Planning...and trying to see more of the country and visit other volunteers when possible.

Two days ago our host sister, Bintou, got married. The first I heard of it was only about 3 days before that, when she casually told me that the lucky guy was headed to the other compound to give her mother kola nuts (a highly significant act here in the Gambia!). Pa, her new husband, is a police chief...and a very nice man.

Women watching health talk while waiting to have their babies vaccinated.
Students giving health talk on prenatal services.

An excellent class of nursing assistants!

Students demonstrating proper handwashing technique as part of a presentation to people waiting in the hospital's outpatient department.

Cows relaxing on the beach in the village of Kartong.
-Mama Suso (Colette)