(Not So) Short Update on the Past Several Months

Well, it is safe to say that even though I have had more internet access than even over the past year, I have completely failed at maintaining this blog. I finally logged back in and found a draft saved that I had written in February, but was waiting to add photos to. The draft is below, followed by an update for Feb-Present!

Wow! It's been a while! A lot has happened in the past few months. I was able to go home for my extension home leave in November, and enjoy Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, and New Years stateside! Spending time with family and friends was such an amazing gift. There is nothing quite like being in America for the holiday season. Nobody does Christmas with more glittery decorations and sugary treats, which is exactly how it's supposed to be! In the middle of my home leave I took a trip to Washington, DC for a Let Girls Learn Summit, which was a really amazing professional experience. I spent the week with a few staff members from my post here in Swaziland as well as with PCVs and staff from Comoros, Rwanda, Guinea, Botswana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Namibia! We bonded over the shock of coming from African summer to American winter, and really enjoyed learning together. It was also a great honor to have the opportunity to meet the Director of Peace Corps, Carrie Hessler-Radelet, and Michelle Obama's Chief of Staff, Tina Tchen.

Musa, Pam and me representing Team Swaziland during an (absolutely freezing) night tour of the monuments.

The whole Africa Let Girls Learn crew

Highlights of my trip home included homemade Nutella cheesecake, catching a glimpse of my BFF who lives in London, taking a night tour of the monuments on the Mall in DC, a chocolate-covered fruit basket delivered to my suite on my birthday, lots of cuddle with my dog, watching the Seahawks dominate the Rams at my first NFL game in a few years, drag queen brunch at the Unicorn, and lots of good family time.

Providing moral support while dad cut down a Christmas tree

SEAHAWKS

Nothing like a Drag Brunch with the DB's!

The Little Mermaid at 5th Avenue was incredible!

I've been back in Swaziland for a month now, and I have to say readjusting wasn't easy. I left in the midst of the worst drought in recent history, and I came back to bright green hills and flooded streets. Water restrictions have been lifted and the water supply is almost back to normal levels. It truly is a miracle. The rain has been holding off lately, and it's been HOT and humid. As a west coast girl, I have zero tolerance for humidity. Every day is a battle.
I had a few days off last week, during which I went to visit my host family. I brought some soccer balls and a baby doll for the kids, special American treats for the adults, and we had a party. My family went all out, braai'ing three kinds of meat, making popcorn, and even buying a cake. It was so wonderful to be reminded that I have a place that truly feels like home here, too.

I've been busy at work trying to navigate the transition between GLOW and BRO leadership from one group of PCVs to the next, and planning a lot of exciting events. GLOW Camp 2017 could really, really use some support in the fundraising department, so if girls' education and empowerment is a cause you're passionate about I strongly encourage you to check out the link here.

For more information about GLOW, you can visit our Facebook page.

I brought back Christmas gifts for my host family, including a little soccer ball for Wakhile

And Aphiwe LOVED her baby doll

And now for the current update:

The past months have been super busy with work. There was a GLOW training or event every single weekend in March, for which I was writing concept notes, managing grants, getting quotes, organizing logistics, inviting counselors, and developing programming with a team of other PCVs.

Early April was spent helping prepare things for GLOW Camps 2018, which were a huge success! I can't say thank you enough to those who  have supported this over the past three years I've been involved. Each week of camp is a truly transformational experience for Swazi girls, the effects of which are noticeable for months (even years) after they return to their communities.

At the end of April I went to Madagascar! My housemate and fellow G12 PCV Cody and I went on a two week adventure all over the island. We were met at the airport by Cody's friend Ananya, who is a PCV in Madagascar. She showed us around  the capital city of Antananarivo before we departed for her "shopping town" or Antsirabe the next day.

Descending into the marketplace in Antananarivo

Ananya, Cody and I at the Mada Peace Corps office

Experiencing public transport in Mada made be incredibly grateful for the public transport in Swaziland. Malagasy people are generally small in stature, and the amount of leg room on the mini-buses reflects that. We spent about 5 hours riding in one to get to Antsirabe, which is a super cute town with delicious pizza and lots of bicycle taxis.

It was so much fun to have Ananya show us around Antisirabe for a few days. We visited the public hot baths, hiked around a beautiful lake, toured the local market, and ate wayyy too much bread and cheese.

Pit stop on the long journey to Antsirabe

Our home in Antsirabe

STREET FOOD.

We got adventurous and visited the hot bath house

For the next leg of our journey we had hired a tour company, as Madagascar is really hard to navigate, the roads aren't the greatest, and neither of us speak French or Malagasy.
The drives were just as interesting as the destinations at times. It was fascinating to watch the landscape change completely as we move throughout the country. We pulled over to the side of the road and watched the locals producing eucalyptus essential oil, which was a process I had never seen before.

When we arrived at our first destination, Ranomafana National Park, we found ourselves int he middle of a lush, beautiful rain forest straight out of a movie.We stayed in a small cottage on the river and spent the evening enjoying the scenery. The next day, we went on our first hike. We spent the morning in the forest with several different types of lemurs.
That evening, we went on a night hike to spot the nocturnal mouse lemur and geckos.

View from the room

Brown lemur

Chameleon

Next, it was off to Isalo.  We stopped at a small restaurant for lunch of "zebu" meat (beef) with rice, a Malagasy staple. We also stopped at a small, locally-managed park to get up close and personal with ring-tailed lemurs. There were so many!

Isalo was SO different from Ranomafana! It was arid and rocky and dry. We arrived at our hotel and relaxed, preparing for another big hike the following day.
The first leg of our hike was through some large rocks and up mountains that are sacred to the local population. We passed tombs way up high in the cliffs and learned about the people's traditional burial rituals.

Next, it was up and down windy paths until we finally descended into a canyon. It was dry season, so we were able to walk along what sometimes becomes a river bed. There were waterfalls and beautiful rock formations everywhere, as we hiked further into the canyon. Finally, we reached natural pools and had a swim, before hiking back out and swimming again at a waterfall.

Finally, we had lunch in a grove of trees filled with lemurs who were (too) friendly. There was a delicious meal prepared for us, that looked so tasty one lemur thought I should be sharing with him.As soon as my salad was placed on the table, a lemur hopped up, grabbed the hard boiled egg and avocado slices, and ran off with them! Leaving me with just some lettuce and tomatoes!

I was exhausted by the time we reached our hotel again, and slept well before waking the next morning for the journey to our last destination in Madagascar, the beach town of Ifaty.

Words can't really describe any of the beautiful places we saw in Madagascar, and with Ifaty I'm intimidated to even try. It was literal paradise. Our tour had us booked in a beautiful little boutique hotel on the beach, complete with a ocean-facing balcony, luxurious cabanas next to the infinity pool, and swinging beds on the beach. It was magical. We spent our days here soaking up the sun and wishing we didn't have to leave.

Napping hedgehog!

So many baobabs

Roadside rum distillery

I highly recommend Madagascar to anybody who is interested! The airfare may be expensive, but everything once you're in-country it really affordable. If you're interested in nature/ecotourism, it is a must. I also have nothing but great things to say about Madagascar Natural Tours, which is the company that guided us around the country. The entire experience was truly wonderful!


So, back in Swaziland... Since returning from the trip in May I've been keeping busy with work. GLOW launched our first-ever Income Generating Project Workshop in early June, and I'm so excited to hear from the counselors and GLOW girls about their successes and challenges and lessons learned when we meet again in September!

Currently I'm studying for the GRE and making plans for when I return home. I've received my official Close of Service (COS) date, which is September 15th, and I'm beginning to plan the trip that I'll take before returning to Washington.

I am slowly beginning to process the fact that I'm leaving here for good...My heart is full of a million emotions! I'm going to soak up all the best of Swaziland in the last two months!

Bushfire festival in May

Kids from a few GLOW and BRO clubs dancing at an event the US Embassy put together with us

Two of my sisters, best friends, and inspirations at the GLOW Counselor Appreciation Gala in June

Let's Talk About Periods!

Today I'd like to share more information with you about a project that Peace Corps volunteers and GLOW counselors have been working on for a while, and that I'm really proud of.

In order to understand the importance of this project, its best to start with the big picture. Swaziland is a very small, landlocked country in southern Africa with an absolute monarch who rules over the approximately 1.3 million residents. Somewhere between 24 and 29% of Swazis are HIV-positive. Due to the devastating impact of AIDS on the country, the life expectancy of a Swazi is 52 years. Many children grow up in child-headed households, or with an elderly family member as their primary caretaker, due to the AIDS and Tuberculosis epidemics taking the lives of their parents. Patriarchy reigns here, and influences almost every aspect of culture. Recent estimates put the rate of women ages 15-24 who have sex with men who are 10 or more years older than them is over 15%, and has been increasing rapidly for the past ten years. This "sugar daddy" (or "blesser", as it is called locally) problem stems from young girls lacking access to basic needs and resources. Girls in rural communities struggle to obtain everything from food and toiletries, to school fees so they can pursue her education past a primary level, to wanting airtime for their cellphones and money to get their hair done. Early sexual debut, polygamous marriages, lack of parental or role model figures at home, and poverty are some of the reasons that women are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic in Swaziland. 31% of women are living with HIV, compared to 20% of men.

With statistics this grave, it is hard to know where to begin when approaching change from a community level. What we do know, however, is that girls who are given the opportunity to pursue education are more likely to avoid early pregnancy,  transactional sexual relationships, and HIV infection. With an education, a girl can have a direction for her future beyond marriage and raising children. She can pursue a degree, a career, and financial self-sufficiency. She can avoid becoming trapped in an unfaithful or abusive relationship, because she won't have to fear how to support herself or her children without a man.

The education system in Swaziland is full of high-stake exams that determine whether or not a student will advance to the next grade. If a student does not pass, they must repeat their current grade. That is an entire year of school fees that were "wasted", and have to be paid again. When you have five school-age siblings and an unreliable source of family income, as is the norm in rural Swaziland, the pressure is on to pass your exams and advance, so your education is no longer a financial burden on the family. Now imagine that you are forced to miss several days of school each month, when you should be learning algebra and practicing English and studying biology in order to pass your exams, due to your menstrual period. It is estimated  that 60% of Swazi girls enrolled in school miss classes an average of 2 days every month for this reason.

There is a certain taboo surrounding the use of tampons, which are extraordinarily expensive and not even available in stores outside of the few major cities. Disposable pads cost about 15Rand for a pack of 8. This adds up to approximately 45Rand per a woman's monthly cycle, which my seem affordable from a western perspective. At the current exchange rate, that's about $3.25 per month. Keep in mind, however, that the average household income in Swaziland is $269 per month, and that is when there are two full-time income earners in the family. This money is to pay school fees for several children, buy school uniforms, put food on the table, get the income-earners to their jobs every day, buy electricity and airtime, pay doctor's bills, etc. As a girl child, it is very unlikely that 1% of your family's monthly income is going to be spent on sanitary pads for you.

This situation leads girls to use anything and everything they can find when dealing with their cycles, such as old dishcloths, newspapers, and even grasses and leaves. Obviously these products are not safe, sanitary, or particularly effective, which leads the girls to skip school due to embarrassment and a lack of alternatives.
Sanitary pads are a human right. Education is a human right.

Recognizing this problem, a Peace Corps volunteer and her GLOW counterpart wrote a proposal to MTN Swaziland for funding for a project where the girls in the club would make their own reusable sanitary pads. The MTN Foundation primarily funds education projects, and saw the clear link. They liked the idea so much they asked if they could expand it. A few weeks ago, 35 sewing machines and material toolkits were handed over to GLOW counselors from around the country. Each toolkit contains templates, a guide book, thread, needles, snaps, scissors, pins, and all they types of fabrics necessary for the construction of over 100 reusable sanitary pads. Additionally, each kit has  50 bars of soap to ensure the girls can properly wash the pads before and after use.

Preparing the materials for the toolkits was a big job!

The items in each toolkit

Counselors were trained in the basic workings of their sewing machine, and then went through the step-by-step instructions for making a pad. Afterwards, they had the opportunity to practice making a storage bag for used pads. The way the pads are constructed, the snaps under the wings which secure them in underwear can also be used to secure a soiled pad shut, before it is placed in the bag and taken home to be washed, dried, and worn again.

Each GLOW counselor signed a contract upon receiving her sewing machine, in which she promised to conduct training with the girls in her club and send them all home with their own reusable pads and storage bags. Their progress will be monitored every three months, and materials will be replenished as needed, thanks to the continued support of MTN.

Counselors at the training

*Sidenote: Rural Swaziland is almost entirely without improved sanitation facilities, meaning people use pit latrines, or holes dug in the ground with a plastic porta-potty type seat on top, instead of toilets. These latrines are highly labor-intensive to dig, and they do fill up. Most families try to avoid putting trash in the latrine, because it takes up space and speeds the filling, and is also really bad for the environment. However, disposable menstrual pads (or whatever a girl or woman has resorted to using) are obviously very dangerous to be disposed of in the trash pit, since blood is involved and we are talking about a 24%+ HIV prevalence rate. Trash is usually burned in rural areas, but only on a weekly, or as-needed, basis. So a woman's choices when using disposable pads are to immediately burn them or to dispose of them down the latrine, neither of which are ideal.*

The materials used for the reusable pads, as well as the construction method were developed by textile engineering students from the University of Swaziland, and approved by the Standards Authority. The pads are comprised of layers of flannel, felt, and table cloth material.  Two layers of felt are in the middle for absorbency, followed by a tablecloth layer at the bottom to prevent leaks. These middle layers are wrapped in flannel, as a soft outer layer. They have wings with snaps to secure them in underwear. They are safe, sanitary, comfortable, and effective. If properly cared for, they can last up to 5 years.

Let's do some math for a second. If a girl is able to make 3 reusable pads to use and wash every day, those pads have the potential to last her though 60 menstrual cycles. If she had to buy disposable pads instead, assuming she could afford them, it would cost her 2,700Rand over those same 5 years. That is the equivalent of a full month's average household income in Swaziland, but more importantly, she did not have to worry about her cycle interfering with her daily activities or how she was going to manage it. She had peace of mind for those 5 years.

As excited as I am to see the outcome of this project, the counselors have my enthusiasm beat. Many have already started having workshops with their clubs. They have also recognized the opportunity in having a sewing machine as a resource, and are brainstorming income-generating projects for the girls in their clubs to put the machines to good use.

I wanted to write this post because I have heard a lot of commentary when talking about this project with "urban" Swazis and Americans alike, with people saying how "gross" the idea of reusable sanitary pads is. I hope this post can battle some of that ignorance. What is gross to me is the fact that Swazi girls miss precious days of school because of a completely solvable problem, and that people who have the privilege of never knowing that struggle can't see the bigger picture. These sanitary pads aren't going to change the world, but they are giving Swazi girls the chance to attend school every day, pass their exams, pursue their dreams, and become the people who will.

Girls already hard at work constructing pads in their communities!

Still Alive, Still in Swaziland

I am officially the worst blogger in the entire world, and for that I apologize.

A lot has happened in the past six months! I don't even know where to begin...

We'll start in April, when I was busy running around making final preparations for GLOW Camps 2016. The last week of April and the first week of May brought some of the most exhausting and rewarding days of my Peace Corps service. Two full weeks of games, talent shows, sexual reproductive health sessions, team building exercises, choreographing and performing a flash mob, making s'mores, singing songs, crowning camp queens, baking cupcakes, and attending PJ parties left my body exhausted and my heart full. I worked with my co-directors and our incredible Swazi counselors for over a year to prepare for these camps, and I couldn't be prouder of what a success they were.

For a lot more photos of GLOW Camps 2016, visit www.facebook.com/glowswaziland

Straight from camp (seriously, like 48 hours later) I was on a plane from Johannesburg to Bali! My friend Hannah and I planned a final vacation together before our 2 years of Peace Corps ended. I absolutely fell in loveeee with Southeast Asia. For ten days we ate allll the food and drank alll the cocktails and soaked up allll the sun on several gorgeous beaches around Indonesia. Highlights from the trip include: getting a fish pedicure, swimming with elephants, avoiding monkey attacks, drinking starbucks on the beach, and running away to a tiny island with no motor vehicles and watching the sun set from a hammock in the ocean. I can truly say I'll remember this trip for the rest of my life, and I'm so grateful to have been able to spend the time with one of my best friends from Peace Corps.

Then, immediately after Bali (seriously, like 48 hours later), I was on a bus to Group 12's Close of Service Conference. Here, the entire group of volunteers that I arrived in Swaziland with was brought together one last time to enjoy each other's company and prepare to finish our service. It was such a gift to have spent two years serving with this group of people, and I know for a fact I wouldn't have had the strength to stay here in the bad times without them. Saying goodbye was bittersweet, because I'm so excited for all the adventures everyone has planned, and so grateful to have 35 people I can truly call family spread out all across the globe, but I have always known that life in Swaziland during my third year extension wouldn't be the same without them. (Oh yeah, have I mentioned on my blog that I decided to extend my service for a third year? Well, if not, I'm still writing to you from Swaziland.. Because I extended!)

Immediately after COS Conference (like, 2 hours later...) we were all on our way to Bushfire Festival. Always a highlight, Bushfire is the one weekend a year when quiet little Swaziland throws a great party. Music, art, and people from all over the world transform Malandela's Farm and House on Fire into a wonderland. Also: Food Trucks! As always, it was a great time. So great that I didn't even remember to take any pictures. Oops!

June and July were slower months, as I made preparations to move out of my favorite little hut and into the capital city for my extension position. I said goodbye to almost all of my best friends here, who are all off in very different wonderful and exciting directions, living their lives after Peace Corps. Saying goodbye to my host family was hard. Even though I am still in the country and am able to visit them, it was difficult to take all my photos of the walls, pack up my stuff, and go. One of the hardest parts was saying goodbye to my best friends in the whole world, Wakhile and Aphiwe, because they are too young to understand. I have plans to visit in the next couple weeks, and I truly can't wait to see everyone again. My host family took such great care of me, and I am forever grateful for their hospitality, understanding, generosity, and love.

And just like that, I was living in a flat in the capital city, in the guesthouse of a compound with a pool, with house help and a washing machine and running water and cable TV. I had culture shock in the same country, just a couple hours down the road from where I had been living for the past two years. I absolutely love my apartment and town life in general, as well as my busier/more demanding schedule in my new job. I am the coordinator for all of Peace Corps' GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and BRO (Boys Reaching Out) clubs in Swaziland, and I have so many exciting projects in the works! This job is a really nice transition between being a volunteer and having a real-life job, as I still get to transition back and forth between roles sometimes. Its only been a month so far, but I'm enjoying it a lot!

In the near future, I have a trip to Cape Town planned to visit a fellow G12, shop, and eat Mexican food. Beyond that, I'm playing fantasy football and counting down the days (69!) until I'm back on American soil for my first real Thanksgiving and Christmas in two years!

I have more internet access, so I could try to promise I'll be better at updating this blog in the coming year, but we all know how that's going to end.
Love from Swaziland!