Finish your dinner, there are starving children in Africa

I’ve always thought this argument for making kids eat their food was silly. Whether or not you finish your food will make absolutely no difference to the starving children in Africa. They will remain starving and you will either gain weight or create more trash.

Enjoying  chistorra with my sisters in San Sebastian

This holiday season, I was lucky enough spend some time with my family in San Sebastian, Spain. Although the absence of my Abuelo Daniel was hard felt and difficult, I really cannot describe how wonderful it was to be with my parents, my sisters, aunts, and cousin, who I hadn’t seen in over a year! Of course eating jamon Serrano, enjoying three hour lunches at Barkaiztegi, and bar hopping for tapas around the Parte Vieja weren’t so bad either.

I have been told time and time again: the most difficult part of a volunteer’s Peace Corps experience is coming home. Instead of suffering from stress about un-sanitized meat and the swarm of people following you everywhere; you have panic attacks about the ridiculously large selection of cereals on isle 14 and why your Applebees order took five minutes, not three hours-- things that before a short two years in Peace Corps, were normal. 

My visit to Spain was too short to really deal with reverse-culture shock. Mostly, I just filled myself with good food, enjoyed family time and western plumbing. I was, however, seriously thrown off by one thing: kids and their rude, spoiled, habits.

Now I have said this before, and I will say it again: I’m not the most kid-friendly person. Africa has made me much, much better at interacting with kids. In fact, after a year here I really thought I was starting to like them, maybe want some of my own one day. Then I went to Spain.

Suddenly, I was yelling at my seven year old cousin: “Do you know, every day, I work with children your age who have nothing to eat? NOTHING! They spend their days carrying 20 liter water jugs on their head! They don’t complain! Do you understand how lucky you are? Eat your delicious fish! It’s delicious! What is wrong with you?! Behave yourself!”.

My cousin was seriously confused. It was unrealistic and rude of me to expect her to understand the hardships of children on a different continent who share nothing in common with her other than age. For a second, her inability to comprehend the struggles of my young Rwandan neighbors infuriated me.

In reality, I hope my cousin will never experience the hunger or strife suffered by the children I work with. But I do hope that she, and all the other picky eaters in this world, will in some way appreciate their luck. The luxury of walking through a grocery store with isles, the ability to be picky, to refuse food and not be hungry: this makes you part of a very, very small percentage of this world.

So I guess I did go through a bit of reverse culture shock. I don’t think you should finish your dinner just because my neighbors in Africa are starving, but maybe don’t complain about getting baked potatoes instead of mashed, regular instead of diet. Take a deep breath, enjoy the variety and the abundance. Life is good.

Girls Leading Our World and Boys Excelling

Campers & PCV Facilitators at BE Camp

Gender and Development is a priority among Peace Corps Volunteers worldwide. In the 1990’s volunteers in Romania conducted a girl’s empowerment camp they called GLOW: Girls Leading Our World. Since then, the camp has been adopted across the globe in countries where PCV’s live and work. In 2009, Rwanda held the first national GLOW Camp in the capitol city, Kigali. The following year, GLOW was repeated, and a boy’s version: BE, Boys Excelling, was also conducted. In an effort to be more sustainable and inclusive, Peace Corps Rwanda headquarters requested volunteers conduct regional camps in 2011.

When I first heard about the project, I wasn’t impressed. Flashy, expensive, youth camps that local communities never asked for and will probably never conduct on their own, are conducted by all types of international NGOs. It didn’t seem to me like the kind of project meant for a Peace Corps Volunteer: where was the community need, input, and participation? Besides that, I’m not so great at interacting with children or teenagers, and I have never been a camp person. (Thanks Mama and Papa, for never sending me to Camp Thompson). 

 

Then one day my counterpart, Mama Fis, asked me when the GLOW Camps would be this year. Her daughter attended the GLOW Camp last year and loved it. “She learned so much English, she came back so happy!” Mama Fis told me, “I want Fis [her oldest son] to attend this year too!”.

And that’s how I ended up organizing my district’s GLOW & BE Camps.

With the BE Campers & Community Facilitators from my town

Preparing for the Camps was a great experience. I wrote and received my first Peace Corps grant, and got a chance to interact with a lot of local leaders that I otherwise probably would have never met. I felt like my coworkers and supervisors at the Health Center, Hospital, and local government office were finally able to see me “do” something, which I hope will result in more people approaching me with ideas for collaboration. Finally, as those of you who have worked with me in the past know, I love to be in charge.

GLOW Campers during the closing ceremony

The camps themselves went pretty well. On November 27^th we began the training of trainers for the boy’s camp (a day and a half of just PCVs and community facilitators), followed by four days of fun with twenty-nine boys between the ages of 14 and 18, who all live and study in and around the district. The following week, we did the same with girls.

Activities focused on goal setting; leadership; communication; healthy relationships; decision making; sexual and gender based violence; HIV/AIDS facts and myths; women’s health/birth control; and everyone’s favorite—condom demonstrations. In between lessons we played lots of games, and with the support of a local health center we were able to offer voluntary HIV testing and counseling, which almost all the students participated in. A total of 11 PCVs, 42 students, and over 30 community leaders completed and/or assisted in the successful execution of the camps.

At GLOW Camp, trying the Human Knot

Of course we had some hick-ups along the way (mental note: never expect a government official to show up on the right date or at the right time), but the students all seemed to have a great time and learn something along the way.

Now that the camps are finished, I’m excited to have almost twenty students from my site eager to begin GLOW & BE Clubs at their school. These clubs will allow the students to continue the conversation about issues they discussed at the camps, and share information with their peers. So much for not being good with teenagers!