Tailoring, diabetes, and the Principal's Office

Last week Mark had some pants and jeans altered. Our friend Daniel in the cluster of shops at the crossroads took in the waist of 2 pairs of pants and shortened my new jeans, all for US $5. Services in this country cost nothing. Daniel took just over 24 hours, because he was very busy preparing the gowns for the pre-school graduations, which are a big deal around here. Here is his shop.

We have been struck by the prevalence of diabetes in our communities, both during initial training, and here at our permanent site, especially among women over 50, and we had wondered whether some targeted health education might bring big returns. When we heard that one of the PCVs whom we like a lot from the previous group (now 17/27ths into their 27 month service) had organized a day of instruction and demonstration on preventing diabetes, we took an early morning series of bus, khumbi, and hitching rides 30 miles back to the west and attended the days event.

90% of the diabetes here is type 2, resulting from excess body weight and physical inactivity, similar to what is found in some inner cities in the US. So the focus was on nutrition and exercise.

The event started with a march, complete with drum majorettes from the local primary school, and then a session of aerobic exercise. We helped prepare a healthy lunch of locally sourced healthy foods that are within the Swazi food preferences.

We may try something like this in our community, although the “counterpart” (Swazi involved in the project) for the event we attended is the daughter of the president of the nascent Swazi Diabetes Association, and was extremely enthusiastic; we do not know of an equivalent counterpart for us in our community. We are learning that the best projects are ones originating from the enthusiasms of the counterparts, not the volunteers, because the counterparts will work on and bring their friends into projects in which they are interested, and those projects meet the PC “sustainability” goal. We are now at the stage where we are planning our work for the next period, and we are exploring what we will do. We know we want to teach at all 3 local schools, one affluent primary, subsidized by the railroad, and another primary and the high school, the latter 2 severely under-funded and lacking in many areas. We plan to teach “life skills,” including goals, decision-making, self-esteem, nutrition, and sex and safety information. We are having a lot of success, we think, with team teaching, and this enables us to separate a class into boys' and girls' groups, get and give candid answers and information, and then sometimes compare for the whole class what the different groups were thinking.

Here is a picture of Katherine waiting outside the High School Principal's office. No, she hasn't been bad; we are waiting to see him to try to pin down exactly what we will do at the High School next term, starting in January; we need to coordinate subjects and schedule among the 3 schools – they are several kilometers apart, and we walk everywhere. We also need to get his authorization to bring a “counterpart” to training in December.

 

sorry, I think the pix got all mixed around, but this connection is so slow, and I forgot to bring the wireless mouse Martha and Tyler got us with the computer, and I can't get them straightened out.  Sorry.