Matt’s Typical Week
Monday through Wednesday I am mainly working at the Shakawe
Clinic and around the village. Monday and Tuesday morning usually involve
assisting the Health Education Technician (Mphande) with the Child Welfare
Clinic (aka baby weighing). This involves weighing children 5 years and younger
to track the weight-to-age of the children. A couple months of the year the
length of the child is also measured. Then food rations of enriched porridge,
sunflower oil, and dried beans, if available are given to the mothers. Wednesday
morning I attend a weekly all-staff meeting at the clinic. After baby weighing
and weekly meetings, I typically do stuff throughout the village. This involves
giving/assisting in a health education talk, attending Kgotla (tribal
government meeting space) meeting, giving computer literacy training to clinic
staff and whatever else comes up (usually quite a bit). The remainder of the
week I spend at Pabalelo Trust in Samochima (~10 km south of Shakawe). Pabalelo
Trust is a conservation agriculture and permagardening NGO. Here there is a
combination of manual labor, research on sustainable farming techniques, and
planning. In the near future we will start training local farmers on the
conservation agriculture techniques. These techniques, although slightly more
labor intensive, produce greater yields, are more sustainable, mitigate human
and wildlife conflict, and are
environmentally friendly.
Bridgette’s Typical Week
Monday: I spend most of my day at the Shakawe Library. In
the morning, I meet with a few women to talk about general health topics such
as menstruation, sexual health, breast cancer and nutrition. In the afternoon,
I meet with the Shakawe Youth Environmental Club. This is a
small group of youth ages 14-18. They are interested in learning
about environmental issues, doing service projects and learning how to become a
natural scientist. After the environmental club leaves, I play with some kids
using the King’s Foundation Base Pack. I also read to kids throughout the day.
Tuesday: This is my “community day.” I meet with people,
research and try to get things arranged. I hope to use this day to start up a school
garden at one of the primary schools. I also plan on doing a pre-natal yoga and
nutrition class on Tuesday afternoons.
Wednesday-Friday: I spend these days working with Pabalelo
Trust. My work includes researching funding opportunities and working at the
permagardening plot. This includes activities like weeding,
planting, and harvesting. We have created a record keeping tool to help us
track what plants grow well at different times, how we’ve built up the soil and
what pests are problems. This also helps us to determine which plants to rotate
the beds with. We will soon be training local farmers in more sustainable
farming techniques, named conservation agriculture.
Saturday & Sunday: Weekends are wonderful, but still
busy. We do laundry, which is an all day affair since we do it by hand, clean
the house and relax. We usually have bonfires at night and listen to the frogs,
birds, bats and hippos.
