SATURDAY STUDENTS

Operation HOPE was asked to do the new adult curriculum for a group of young adults who are attending numerous courses on Saturday mornings that is sponsored by a religious organization to help them achieve a better life.


I presented to twenty-eight 19-20 year olds, covering the first three modules of the program:  Dignity, Values, and Goals; Wants vs. Needs and Trade-offs; and Money and Budgeting.  They were a great group of young people and it was such a pleasure to do Peace Corps' goals on a direct basis!

ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL PILOT

Stop Hunger is a local NGO that provides food to needy, including day care centers.  Tshidi has been doing some financial literacy sessions for many of the owners/teachers in a township, and they asked for a training on NGO Management Basics, the other program I designed but not yet tried.

There were 12 women participating, and after they warmed up to me and the content, we had a pretty lively session, ending with their desire to have us return to do more in-depth training on some of the areas we skimmed over and/or didn't have time to cover.  Always leave them wanting more, right?  It was rewarding and I hope to be able to go back in November.

Otherwise, it's been pretty "quiet" (aka boring) both at work and play.  In the evenings and weekends, I watch lots of movies/TV programs stored on my computer, read on my Kindle.  I think my social life/friendships is pretty much with the characters in my stories!  Am seeing some good movies at the theaters for about $4 and don't mind going by myself.  Knowing I'm getting to be a short-timer helps curb my loneliness.

I tend to walk 8-11 hours a week, which is a good thing.  The yoga studio where I went to classes (on a great Groupon deal)  was supposed to have moved and hence closed for a period of time, but sadly, she never re-opened.  I rather enjoyed it and felt it was beneficial to my aging body.  I do have some yoga videos so need to get motivated to do it at home on my own.  My eating during the week is pretty minimalistic and healthy, then I indulge in treats on weekends, same as in U. S. Gotta have some sort of pleasures/rewards here besides good workshops!

Enough mundane stuff for today!  We have a big training on Saturday for a NGO for about 36 young adults.  Will report on that next week.

EIGHT YEARS AGO

On 9/11/2006, I was headed to Morocco for 27 months with the Peace Corps. The plane was fairly empty, and it was a strange feeling to be going to a Muslim country on that day.

As part of that experience, I was involved in training new PCVs and made several trips to Ouarzazate (near the Sahara)...a 90 mile drive (from my village) that took 3 hours in a passenger car...longer by public transportation.  There was a recent article about this road that showed up on FB yesterday.  Here tis:

TO BEE OR NOT

As I have not a lot to do at work, I offered to help Kai, my landlady who has contracted with the Department of Ed to help run the Spelling Bees, for a few days.  Here is a photo the three top finishers (out of 39 sixth-grade competitors), along with a couple of officials, and Kai at the podium.  As always, it was fun to see the wide variety of physical sizes of this age group.  It was very exciting when it got down to the elimination round. The short little black girl was the winner.

It was very cool that she introduced me as a Peace Corps Volunteer from America who was also a volunteer with Operation HOPE.  Nice when both of those orgs get publicity for what they do.  This is the first ever for South Africa, so there were some glitches but it ran pretty smoothly. Next is the Nationals in October but I'll be on holiday with my American friends at that time.

STROLLIN'

Although I make it a point to walk about an hour a day, it became very clear to me yesterday that my walking was not what it was back home...that is, it's been more like a stroll here!  I did a 10K with a friend, and with her encouragement to go my own speed, walked faster. I met my goal of doing it in 90 minutes, but discovered that now the 15-minute mile is quite  hard work, which it hadn't been so much a year ago. And, I am sore today, primarily in my hips.  So I guess competitive walking is likely no longer in my future.  What's the point if it makes my hurt?  However, there were a lot of older walkers ahead of me, so not sure I'm ready to give  up the ghost yet...(who?  me?  competitive?!)   I'll be posting the official results of the walk when they get them online to see just what the outcome was.

Otherwise, at work I have made the revisions to the adult curriculum except for the case study, which I'll complete this week.  Am trying to set up a week in Limpopo (where I did research) with PCV Gilbert to do the program at the adult learning center there with him either this month or in November.