June has been a crazy month. . .
- · I participated in a cross country relay run
The so I ran/walked 35k in the Benin sun.
Not easy work for a girl of my size and under the African sun but I did it for
the girls and to finance gender equality projects and I don’t regret one step.
- · Benin received 54 new volunteers
It was really great seeing the new
volunteer’s fresh off the plane in Benin. Through their questions and
enthusiasm I was brought back down and forced to refocus on why it was I set
out to do this journey a year ago. Welcome to Benin you all, enjoy the ride!
Words
of wisdom: The hardest thing to do at times is to
notice self-change. We change a little every day, and we never stop. Think
about where you are now and where you were 5 years ago. Note the old you and
the you today, congratulate yourself for your growth and accomplishments and
set out to change your faults.
- · I was chosen to be a one of the trainers for these volunteers
Training was heavy but definitely useful. I
tend to get along better with people older than me than I do with people my
same age. It was definitely helpful
getting a better understanding of why us people of the “millennium generation”
are the way we are .
- · I helped redo a training manual for other health volunteers
Long and hard work but paying it forward so
that the next group has it even a little easier than I have had it is always
worth it.
- · I celebrated one year in Benin
This basically means that good food is only
one year away from my grasp.
- · I was a counselor at a week-long girl’s camp.
Around 50 girls from the tops of their
classes were chosen to spend a week in the city of Djougou, for some it was
there first time ever getting a chance to leave their village. Seeing girls
come in at the beginning of the week shy and closed off and leave at the end
open and empowered made every second of this week worth it. Some of these girls
opened up to me and it is really heartbreaking when you hear what life has
thrown at them already in only 16 years of living. I felt honored to be a part
of this week, sorry Camp Ramapo, but one week of Camp Success made this my best
summer ever. And I was chosen to be one
of the two directors of camp next year. I said a BOOM CHICKA BOOM!
Unfortunately this all meant that I had to
be MIA from my village for four weeks. Time away from village is tougher for
some volunteers than others. I personally don’t like it and try to avoid it
when I can. For one, when your village doesn’t see you for a month they all
think you’ve gone back to America and when you show back up are all looking for
“les bons
choses de là-bas”,
or in English, presents. Also when you’re gone for that long you feel
overwhelmed with work, or at least I do. I feel like as the volunteer of my
village and I owe them a certain amount of work. It’s a really weird type of
guilt. The final thing that really sucks from being away from village for a
long time is that if you have a pet, like my sweet ball of fur Maggie, they
tend to go missing. There aren’t any places that babysit animals, hell children
for that matter. If you don’t live close to any Americans you can’t just leave
the animal in your house give someone a key, and expect someone to come in and
feed her and for nothing to be missing when you get back. So you leave your
animal outside but even if you give your neighbors food to give her while
you’re gone it doesn’t guarantee that your neighbors will do that or that they
won’t wonder into someone’s sauce before you get back. So my month was productive, inspiring, and an
eye-opener to too many things, but the downfall is that Maggie is goneL.
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