Up until Thanksgiving when we had our week long In-Service Training, I had been working on my community assessment. In my report, I talked about the history of my community dating back to when the Zulus were fighting the Nxumalo Clan coming from Zululand, and how a banana plantation owners’ great great great grandparents came here from Europe during that time to hunt elephant. My report focused on education, surveying high school students and grade 6 primary. I also interviewed a nurse, NGO worker, Rural Health Motivator and the headman of a subcommunity. I just received feedback on my report and it was all positive and has motivated me to want to find out more in certain areas, especially in regard to community member’s beliefs about medicine and student’s attitudes towards HIV positive people that may indicate stigma.
During the last week of November, group 8 volunteers met up in Mbabane for a week of training. We had workshops on teaching business practices to community members, a book review session on an easy to read book I would strongly for anyone who wants to know more about HIV or just for an enjoyable read called The Heaven Shop, an NGO fair, and we talked about how to apply for grants for projects. Group 7 volunteers met up with us for the last few days of training. It was great to be back with everyone after not seeing many of them in months!
I can now officially start projects! Too bad there’s not much going on in the community during the heat of December, especially since school is out until the end of January. My next post I'll talk about Christmas Vacation in South Africa!
In the meantime, here's some pics from the homestead...
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