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!

I'm baaack!

Well, any hope of being a better blogger has been lost. It’s been five months since my last post, so quite a bit has happened! I November I was busy at school, working with my librarian counterpart to get things up and running. We celebrated my friend Hannah’s birthday at House on Fire, and all the volunteers got together for Thanksgiving at our Country Director’s house. This was kind of our farewell to him, as he left in December to be the CD at another post.

November-January is winter in the southern hemisphere, and is usually the rainy season in Southern Africa. However, this year El Nino has drastically affected the weather patterns and has left us in a state of severe drought. Cattle have been dying, there are very few crops still alive to speak of, and the rivers that still exist are more like mud puddles. Water has been formally rationed on and off in the cities, and is naturally rationed by is unavailability in the rural areas. More recently, in the past couple of weeks, there has been some rain, but it is impossible to make up for the severe deficit at this point in the season. The lack of water is an immediate problem still facing us, and the lack of food/affordability will be the next major issue, due to low crop yield.

Back in December when talks of the drought were just beginning, I had already planned to have an inflatable waterslide at my birthday party…which obviously became an issue. In true Peace Corps fashion, we came up with an alternative, and we set up the slide next to the pool at the backpackers. Everyone jumped in the pool, then jumped on the slide, and things worked out just fine. We also had a bouncy castle and an impromptu tattoo artist on site, inking people during the entire party. I turned 24 covered in glitter, exactly the way it should be.

Shortly after my birthday, my mom and grandma came to visit me!!! I had SO much fun showing them around Swaziland, and seeing it all through the eyes of first-time visitors. We did all the touristy things in town, visiting the cultural village and Manzini market, Mantenga falls and Ngwenya glass-shopping, of course! Then we travelled north to visit my host family and I got to shoe them my community. It was surreal to have my American family meet my Swazi one, and it was a really cool moment. Mom and grandpa even tried to stomach my family’s offering of (what I can only guess was) goat meat from the braii, although unsuccessfully. We stayed at the gorgeous Phophonyane Falls Lodge while we were up here, in a giant beehive hut with a spectacular view down a valley full of greenery.

After that, we visiting Hlane Royal National Park for a safari. Our first outing was the rhino game drive. We saw many animals, but when we spotted a group of rhinos, our guide pulled over and shut off the vehicle. He told us to get out, and then asked us if we knew what to do when a rhino charges. We stared blankly and he proceeded to inform us that you should hide behind a tree (after which he looked around, and said “But there aren’t any trees in this area…) or lay on the ground like a log, and the rhinos won’t trample you. After that reassuring pep talk, we followed him into the bush to get closer to the white rhinos. He paused when we were around 10 yards away, and we bean snapping photos, thinking this was so cool, to be this close to the rhinos out in the wild! Then he began to move closer, motioning for us to follow. When we were about 10 feet away, he had us crouch down. For the next ten minutes we sat crouched in the bush, watching a herd of rhinos eat plants and roam around, sometimes within arm’s reach. At one point a rhino was getting too close, and the guide picked up a stick and drew a line in the dirt in front of it. The rhino paused and then turned around and walked away. Our hearts were racing. Later that evening, we took another game drive. This one had the goal of seeing lions, which we did spot veryyy distantly. But the highlight was getting up close to an elephant.

Our accommodations that night were out in the middle of the reserve, in monkey territory. We had to leave early in the morning for our journey to Johannesburg to catch a plane to Cape Town, and on our drive out of the game reserve we saw just as many animals as we did on our tours! Giraffes, zebras, impala, baboons, and warthogs were all waiting along the road to bid us farewell from Swaziland.

I love Cape Town! We had an amazing week in the sun, exploring this beautiful city. We visited Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and several other political prisoners were held during Apartheid in South Africa. We were all pleasantly surprised that we survived the terrifying ferry ride there and back. We spent a lot of time at the V&A Waterfront, taking in the views. A visit to Boulder Beach to watch the penguins was a highlight, as was the day that Mom and I took the cable car to the top of Table Mountain and enjoyed spectacular views of the cape. We also took a tour of the area in a vintage motorcycle sidecar! I highly recommend spending Christmas in the sun, by the beach or the pool, with plenty of wine and good food. We enjoyed it immensely!

Mom and grandma returned home to the cold and I returned to Swaziland just in time for New Years. I went to House on Fire with some friends and rang in 2016 pretty low-key, compared to last year’s beach party extravaganza. January was a slow month, with school not starting back up until the end. Recently, we’ve been doing a lot of work to prepare for GLOW camps, which will be happening the last week of April and the first week of May. There have, of course, already been some minor logistical emergencies and headaches we’ve been working though, which has kept me busy along with tending to the library. Our librarian also coaches the dance team, so I try to be at school during sports hour to keep the library open for students who don’t participate in sports. In other library news, the students who do metal work in the shop built a wall-mounted cage to house the DVD player, which I was very impressed by. We are basically finished with the project, barring a few final touches. In my remaining months at site I plan to establish a reading club, and I finally have a counterpart willing to start a GLOW club here, too. I’m not allowed to start any new projects after May, which is approaching rapidly, so I’m trying to get these things off the ground quickly.

I took a long weekend at the end of February to go to Johannesburg for Ultra music festival. I got to see some of my favorite DJs from all around the world, and I had a lot of fun. Bonus: I ordered delivery from Pizza Hut and watched Netflix while I was there…little things that are impossible in Swaziland.

The past few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time at my site with my family. The babies are now toddlers, running around speaking more SiSwati than I know how to comprehend. I still remember when I first visited site, and met Wakhile when he was seven months old. He’s so big now! It really puts into perspective how long I’ve been here. Last weekend I went to Durban, SA for….. wait for it…... a Nicki Minaj concert! This was a truly a dream come true! Hannah and I arewent down there a day early to enjoy the beach, found some good Mexican food (every PCV’s #1 craving), and explored a new city!

 I truly, honestly, will really really try to update my blog more frequently, especially since if I wait another five months, my service will be ending! But just in case I don’t get around to it and you’re curious about what I’m up to, April will be a lot of preparations for GLOW camps, with the ages 14-19 camp being the final week of the month, immediately flowed by the 9-13 year old camp the first week of May. As soon as that camp is over, I’m heading home to repack my things for ten days in Bali! Drinks with umbrellas, white sand, yoga mats, and food covered in peanut sauce await me! After that its home for just a day or two again, before attending out Close of Service Conference, where Peace Corps staff prepares us for life after service. It is the last time my whole group will formally be called together, so it’s also a bit of a farewell party. This week of conferencing is immediately followed by Bushfire music festival, which was the highlight of my last year in Swaziland! So exciting things are ahead!