Darryn Turns Swazi: Where Did October Go?

November 7, 2011
1:22pm

I feel that many of my blogs this coming year are going to start with the same apologies for not getting an entry posted sooner. This blog is no exception. I’m quite shocked to type the date in at the top of the page! Where has the time gone? Why have I been so darn busy? Doesn’t October come after September? Hopefully this blog entry will shed some light on those questions, for my benefit and yours.

I blame work. Although my position at Baylor probably should not have to carry the full brunt of culpability when auditing my time, it sure took up a large part of it! The last month I have been flying solo after my September orientation. The five Skillshare volunteers working in my “team” have really been flexible with my learning curve, and have actually attended their mid-term meeting last week. Four out of the five of them are only here for 3 months, so all of their training will have to be repeated come January! Managing others is a skill that I have certainly had the opportunity to develop, and I would like to think that they have learned new skills from this experience as well.

October’s Teen Club lesson plan included the life skill topic of “basic finances”. We discussed the concepts of wants vs needs, and how saving your money, instead of the immediate gratification of a sweet or a cold drink, can accumulate quite quickly. This is a concept that is not well adopted in this culture, and can really help these youth plant the seed that it is better to look and plan for the future. The younger youth (10-14) had the opportunity to perform dramas/skits about how to keep money safe (ie putting in a bank, not showing it off, keeping bags zipped on transport, hiding it someplace secret, etc). FNB (First National Bank), a large bank in Swaziland, sent representatives to discuss banking basics with our 15-19 year old teens. It was a wonderful collaboration, and really gave the youth a chance to learn something that they would probably never have had exposure to otherwise.

Sadly, I would love to post all of the amazing pictures that we take at our Teen Club sessions, but I cannot. Many of our teens have not disclosed their status to family or friends in their own community. Stigma is so bad in this country, that they feel they have to keep their status a secret for their own protection and wellbeing. Thus, it would be wrong of me to post their pictures on a public site for the entire world to see. We do have all of our youths’ guardians sign consent forms, and one of the questions on this sheet is consenting to photography to be used by Baylor. Some of our youth are at a place where they feel comfortable with this, and some of those photos can be viewed on the Teen Club webpage: swazilandteenclub.wordpress.com. Even if I am not in the photos, I am running around at each of those sessions organizing the volunteers, discussing the lesson plan with the Teen Leaders (who have been trained and empowered to lead some of the lesson material), juggling the food and transport money, keeping time, and a laundry list of other expected and unexpected tasks (during the last month some of these “surprises” have included: a child’s sprained wrist with first aid, power outage, stolen yogurt, neighbor’s complaint of a night guard jumping a fence to take avocados, and sudden lack of adult volunteers, among others). I really recommend you visit this site to see the Teen Club aspect of my work!

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With the Christmas season coming up and many of us looking for a charitable organization to bestow a holiday gift to, I would like to put Teen Club and our other psychosocial support programs on your radar. There is a donation page on the Teen Club website, which can be accessed all year round. There will also be a unique opportunity for 3-6 of our older Teen Club youth to attend the International AIDS Conference in Washington DC next July! I and two other volunteers are working through all the logistical planning right now, and will be getting back to you regarding how to best support this amazing, once in a lifetime experience for these teens. For family and friends – please know that all Christmas gifts to me will be going to this program. Thank you in advance for your generosity!

The final weekend in October happened to hold a treasured 5th Saturday, which meant no Teen Club. Being Halloween weekend, this worked really well. My Mbabane “family”, which includes the PCVs that live in my apartment and the one just downstairs, went on a ~10k hike up a mountain called Sheba’s Breast. It was a beautiful overcast day, and the trail was perfectly challenging. We treated ourselves to a delicious meal in the Ezulwini valley and went straight home to take a much needed nap. Transforming our apartment into an obvious place of Halloween frivolity did not take much time with our printed out witches, bats, haunted houses, and signs. Transforming ourselves into amazing Star Wars characters took a bit more effort. With the help of Laura, Nancy, and a couple bottles of hairspray, I became Princess Leia. Laura was my honey bunny, Han Solo, and Brandon was my bro, Luke Skywalker. Quite fitting relationships if you ask me. Our guest list included Dexter and his victim, Frankenstein’s Monster, two zebras, Waldo, two khumbi conductors, Pinky from Pac Man, mysterious masked fairy, and MTN airtime sellers, among others. It was a really fun shindig. On the actual Halloween night, Cameron (my boyfriend and additional October time consumer :-P) and I watched “Hocus Pocus”! My favorite Halloween movie, and probably the scariest one I could handle. :-)

** Although living in the capital and it being a beautifully sunny day, our power went out. I am just finishing this blog at 8:42pm. Oh Africa.