Merundoi

I mentioned Merundoi in my last blog. It is keeping me busy, busy, busy! Together Bakary and I have enlisted 6 groups to participate. I will not be facilitating all these sessions; although, I have been going to the initial sessions of each. Bakary has recruited 2 other volunteers in the Region to act as facilitators. The groups I will be facilitating include:
1. Women With Vision, a women's group that does craft and baking and also social type work
2. Leaders of Tomorrow, a women's group that bakes
3. Gladtidings Baptist Church, Men's group
4. Gladtidings Baptist Church, Youth group

I've been working with the first two groups the longest (6 and 4 sessions, respectively). The other two groups I've done intro sessions with. This week, I'll be doing a session complete with discussion and role plays. I am really enjoying these groups. It is so interesting listening to people's thoughts and opinions and challenging them to think about how the story relates to their own lives. For example, at the intro session with the men's group, the episode was about a son (17 years) who wants to become a pilot, but his father wants him to join the army. The father is domineering and the son is stubborn. The main issue is lack of communication. One of the participants (probably in his 50's) said he remembers when he was young that he was in the same exact situation. His father wanted him to continue in technical training while he himself wanted to be a mechanical engineer. He dropped out of school and pursued his own dream. Another participant asked if he thought he would have done better if he had listened to his father. He didn't know, but he felt that if his father would have been able to help him understand why he should continue in school, he might have. Turns out this same man also has a son who is 17! I wanted to ask him what his relationship was like with his son, but I restrained myself. I hope he thought about it when he got home.

I have some other projects sort of in the making, but I don't want to get into them right now in case they fall through.

My Wellness Club keeps growing. It's been so amazing. I started this "group" in January 2007. I just asked if any of the diabetes/hypertensive patients wanted to start walking. I started out with 5 volunteers. The number fluctuated, but I finally got a steady number of 4 persons. Then after I came back from vacation I got two more. Then we started to see people walking on their own or with some friends. I would say that since we started there is now about 15 persons walking! We don't all walk together, but my core group has been commenting about how more and more people are taking up this "ting." Now, I'm encouraged to better organize them into a group with goals and objectives.

Other than work...Nigel is in his second year. He's been very busy himself with studying. He'll get vacation next year in July and August, and I'm very excited to see him :)