We are about 3 weeks from being back in Canada so things are really being crunched at this point. We have been asked by the government and CWY to do a bunch of assessments from the members of the whole community for the next 2 wks. This means that a great deal of our time will be filled with interviews with various groups split into married/not married, men /women, and different age groups. Since the program is supposed to have a health orientation now and in the future, these assessments will give useful information to future groups. the gov't here has been "trying" to do them since Aug. so that we could have benefited from it but instead put it off until now. We had a workshop on how to do these assessments which involve asking the community members about what their health issues are, where facilities are, etc. While it is a good idea in theory, and may save some time in the future, there are some fundamental flaws and general problems that we are having with them. One of the main flaws is that people don't like showing up at the chosen time, usually a half hr to an hr late. We knew this from doing the environmental meetings with the same basic mission. Another is that we are getting responses like coughing and diarrhea which could all have a half dozen causes, or people who think you can get typhoid from eating too late. We aren't exactly happy because these are eating up a lot of time and they tend to be booked after our work placements in the afternoon. When the rain comes. I spent about 10 min carrying a cardboard box today in the rain fording a road that was deeper than some streams I've crossed. The box broke. No one showed up for the meeting. Apparently women between 20-30 who aren't married don't exist in that area. We were told that might happen.
My host-sister who is 20 from Bandung was in town as she is pregnant and they wanted to have a prayer circle for her. She spent the night of the circle cooking with the rest of the women (about 6) for all the men (about 25) they invited to do the actual praying. I made pancakes with a couple friends. My host family was getting upset with me because I was eating and sleeping at other peoples homes too often. Hendri explained that sleeping at girls homes was rude in this region. So I started bringing people home to eat etc. It seems complicated but actually simple; respect comes from being used by people, thus if Justin is sleeping/eating at someone elses home he must hate it in his own home. This isn't really true, but my home just isn't where people congregate and I don't want to come home at 6 when it gets dark and apparently when you are out after dark you lose fingers. I've compromised by bringing people to my place which pleases them, which gets them off Hendri's back etc. But I still eat and sleep at other homes, so on average the Host Parents will be happy with me
I have been working on the global warming front with the kids of the village up to this point and soon (providing my posters are translated and printed) I'll be working on an antismking campaign which may not be received well but I'm cool with that. Hopefully I find time to get it into the schools before we leave, many of the projects we've been attempting over the past 2 mths have resisted being done but we have some hard evidence we were here and hopefully we have made some kind of impact on the people here. Construction of 4 recycling bins have been completed, as well as signs asking people to slow down as they pass through the village. How effective they will be is depressing but at least we tried. Which is basically my feeling on the anti smoking campaign. I've learned some interesting things about Indonesias cigarettes, and people here like them a lot, but maybe a few people will listen. Either way I'm starting with the kids, they seem to be interested in the global warming lesson.
Well, I've dried a bit but since it's almost dark and the rain hasn't stopped I'm about to get wet again. But at least the computer isn't getting dripped on. A girl came and took its protective plastic sheet, and while a wet computer is never a good thing, these have all had their grounding prongs cut (the third prong at the end of an electric cord) so they already shock you when you touch them. Till next time.
Justin