Together Again

The title of this post may just be my favorite song to do at Karaoke, just throwing that out there.

So the long awaited and sweet reunion between mother and child has accred. It was glorious. The longest span on time i have ever gone without seeing kay has now come to a close. But i really cannot believe how fast the 11 months have passed. It has been such an incredible year. the past few days have been fun catching up and sharing Lusaka with her, it's not the craziest city in the world but it has some charm and good places to eat. Today we are leaving for a week long trip to Namibia, where we will be traveling to the capital, Windhoek, then to the sand mountains, and to the ocean, ahh seeing the ocean will be good for my soul i believe. Don't worry i will be taking pictures and posting them as soon as i can!

The past few months have been really busy with workshops, activities, new comers, and of course work within my village. I have gone to a PEPFAR HIV/AIDS week long workshop which was really great, and it is always nice to see that the US governments money is going to good use! Then the Behaviour change work shop followed shortly after. It was incredible and more than i could even have wanted it to be! The bahaviour i have chosen is to prevent adolescent pregnancy within school aged girls, which is truly a problem in the village due to cultural norms, lack of anything better to do, and the lack of a voice that most young girls have. For example since the new school year started in January three 6th graders have been taken out of school because their parents have had them get married. Now to be fair, you can be anywhere from 10-16 in 6th grade, however, i don't think that changes the fact that the education level will not become any better, and that these girls are stripped from their childhoods in many ways. So through statistical surveying and analysis (thank you Dr. Schlichting! You have no idea how excited i was to get back to looking at data! so much so, that i wish i were joking) and dividing groups of girls into Doers and non-doers, i will, with my counterpart, Mrs. Bukole, be able to look at our target groups. We will also be starting girls empowerment clubs in 3 different schools. I am hoping to set up a slew of activities and presenters. so in other words i will be busy for a long time with this project, not to mention the other projects i have going on. My NHC, Neighborhood Heath Committee, wants to build an Women's Ward, attachment onto our clinic, when that happens, i have requested that we have a youth room or area, where kids can come in, ask questions, get contraceptives, and as we say in Zambia, "Be Free". When the NHC is done with their grant work, i may need some help from you all reading this with a few small donations, but i will get into that later.

I am enjoying life, and my visitor! The Bobfather and Julie will be getting into Lusaka a week from tomorrow and i am very very excited. It's nice that Bobby, my brother, didn't make it on this trip for the soul reason that i know i have another visitor coming sometime in the future! and on that note, before this gets too long, i am going to sign off, and will you all well!