Malaria Boot Camp; Moz 22 PST; 26th Birthday

Malaria Boot Camp X June 1-15:

I had a wonderful opportunity to attend the Malaria Boot Camp X in Thies, Senegal. I flew to Senegal along with 2 other PCVs from Mozambique. It was an intensive 11 days training from June 3-14 (6 days a week, almost 12 hours a day). There were 40 PCVs and staff from DC and 15 African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Togo, and Uganda. I feel lucky to have met such an awesome group of people to learn and share experiences with.

Stomp Out Malaria Boot Camp X

We learned about everything related to malaria in depth: the plasmodium lifecycle, treatments and prophylaxis, HIV co-infection, major interventions, malaria in pregnancy, M&E, behavior change, vaccines, health supply chain, and more. We got to skype with many experts in the field, visited an entomology lab and a health hut. 

We also visited Thieneba Seck to talk to El Hadj Diop. He is the leader of one of Senegal's most effective community based malaria prevention program. He was very inspirational and spoke with such great passion about malaria. In 1999, his 12 year old daughter died from malaria along with other village children and many pregnant women. Afterward, community leaders gathered to ask questions about what this disease was, what caused it and how they can stop it. After talking with local health workers, El Hadji along with a few others implemented a campaign to stop malaria. After a few years, they did it! Thieneba Seck and the surrounding areas are now free of malaria.

 One of my favorite part about the boot camp besides eating really delicious food is getting ideas and inspiration, and sharing best practices cross- country that we can take back and use in our own communities. It was an amazing 2 weeks spent learning all about malaria and what we can do to spread prevention awareness to reduce mortality since it affect all of our communities.

All the meals were delicious!

Moz 22 PST June 16-22:

Right after Senegal, I went to Namaacha for a week as PCV Trainer to help out with week 3 of Moz 22 PST [Pre-service training]. It's kind of crazy how I was in their shoes a year ago! Time went by fast :) We talked about malaria and youth development all week and even got a chance to visit an orphanage. It was a fun week spent getting to know the 32 PCTs [Peace Corps Trainees] and I'm excited to find out their site placements!

I also got to visit my host family and had dinner with them for 2 nights. It was great seeing them again and since my Portuguese improved greatly compared to 10 months ago, I was able to converse more and catch up with them.

Feira de Saúde June 28:

My org hosted a health fair in Salaue where I spent my birthday distributing a total of 330 mosquito nets to children under 5, pregnant women, and elders .. not a bad way to spend it right? :) 

After a long day of work, I came home and cried... To this awesome video!! Best present ever!! I love my family friends and boyfriend :)

https://vimeo.com/99396248

Birthday Party June 29:

I decided last minute to throw myself a birthday party earlier in the week. Luckily I have amazing neighbors that helped me with practically everything. Ancha and Tia helped me put together a list of food to buy to feed about 30 people. I'm so glad they helped me with it because I totally wouldn't have had enough food! Ancha told me "Moçambicanos comem MUITOS! Não como você!" [Mozambican eat a lot! Not like you] and then joked about how they're going to eat, go home to use the bathroom and then come back and eat more hahaha. The total only costed me around $120 which is nearly half of my living allowance but I hardly spend at site so it wasn't a problem. Some items on my grocery list looked like this: 25kg rice, 10kg potatoes, 5kg beans, 2lb xima, and 1kg onions. Tio helped me buy 7 chickens [originally 8 but 1 fell out of the box on the motorcycle on the way back.. haha] from another village on Friday. I was thinking of frozen chickens but he came back with live ones! I had to keep them in my kitchen until Sunday so now my kitchen is a mess! They pooped everywhere ): But Tio will help me clean too :)

Cooking took alll dayyy! Ancha and Tia pretty much cooked everything. The kids and I helped out whenever we can.

I invited everyone to come at 3pm.. of course no one comes on time but this time, it's a good thing! We didn't finish cooking everything until almost 4 pm. The party turned out great! My neighbors, coworkers, REDES girls and a lot of crianças came.. more than I expected but there was enough food for everyone. After dinner was dance party :) 

Hora das Crianças:

Instead of the usual writing and coloring, I got to play soccer with the kids with a REAL soccer ball that I received from Grassroot Soccer at the Malaria Boot Camp! We used to use strings of fabric scraps wrapped around plastic bags to make a ball.

Other updates:

-I finally reached 4096!! Spent a lot of down time & break time playing this game this past month hahah

-I went to Swaziland and got 4 more stamps on my passport :) [One of my bucket list item is to fill up a passport. 10 pages down, 7 more pages to go!] I had a few hours free during my last full day in Namaacha so I went to Swaziland. There wasn't enough time to chapa to a city so we just took a stroll for about an hour. There wasn't much to see or do ):

-The youth and health program that I'm supposed to start with my org is still a work in process.. finalizing plans sooonn hopefully!
-I'm working with the school director to build a library! I'm so excited! The students will love it.
-Grey caught her first rat!