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Sunday, March 1, 2015

WCI and Liberia

It’s amazing how quickly time can pass sometimes!  My last blog post was four months ago when I was still a volunteer in Cameroon, and now I’m writing this one sitting at a table on in my hotel in Monrovia, Liberia as a Program Manager with Women’s Campaign International. 
I closed my service with the Peace Corps in late November and was home just in time for Thanksgiving.  I left behind a country that is home to some amazing people and experiences that I will never forget.  From my friends in Guider that I left back in April to others throughout the country, from volunteers that have left to those that are still there, and then of course the Peace Corps staff, I say thank you.  I couldn’t have asked for a better experience.  There were of course some difficult and frustrating times, but overall I’m incredibly glad that I did it.  The Peace Corps isn’t for everyone, but I recommend it to anyone with a thirst for adventure and a large reservoir of patience.  My biggest tip: don’t have any expectations.  You’ll never get what you thought you wanted but you will get something that will be amazing.  I hope that I was able to make some small difference in Cameroon and the Peace Corps as an organization there, but undoubtedly I grew more as a person than I was able to help.  Cameroon will always hold a special place in my heart, and I will continue to do what I can to support its people and its development. 


We stopped at a few places to see women we
have worked with in the past.  This was Amazing
Grace,who makes hand made glass bead necklaces.
Within a week of getting back I started the job search.  Over the next two months, I applied to a ridiculous number of places, and was fortunate to get interviews at many of them.  In the end, I decided to take a position as a Program Manager with an organization called Women’s Campaign International in Philadelphia.  Founded in 1998 by former congresswoman Marjorie Margolies, an amazingly dynamic person with a drive to empower women (and men) throughout the world, WCI has worked in more than 40 countries in a variety of areas, from campaign skills and leadership to business and financial literacy to media to healthcare.  I now oversee all of our programs and could not ask for a better position.  The people that I work with, in Philadelphia and abroad, are dedicated and capable.  Though we are a small organization, WCI has done some amazing work that I am excited to be a part of. 

Our mobilizers during the refresher training
My move to Philadelphia was an expensive whirlwind, but I ended up with an amazing apartment in a city that I can’t wait to explore (once I have a bit more free time, of course).  I’ll need a few months to catch up to all of the money I spent getting there, but I love my job and I love the city.  I honestly never expected to live in Philadelphia, but I’m glad I am.  Within three weeks of starting, I was already heading to Liberia for work, where I am now.  WCI has been here since 2008 and we have a great staff that operates in all 15 counties in Liberia.  While the majority of our work has been with the National Rural Women's Program training people on campaign skills and business and financial literacy, with the outbreak of Ebola we transitioned into prevention work.  We have been able to utilize our network of strong women throughout the country to work in small communities and reach people who otherwise probably wouldn’t have been to teach them about Ebola prevention.    
Our field assistant leading a training

Over the last few days I’ve been able to travel to a couple different counties and observe both of our major programs.  In Tubmanburg, Bomi County, I observed one of our field officers and his assistant doing a refresher training with our mobilizers for E-CAP, a program that we are a subcontractor to Mercy Corps on, funded by USAID.  About a dozen women were trained on Ebola prevention and the use of the MELS reporting system, a system that uses cell phones.  These women each supervise several communicators who work in a few counties.  They were all so energized and knowledgeable, it was great to see. 

Our mobilizers looking through materials
On the way back I was fortunate enough to meet Mama Tomah, a very important woman in Liberia.  She is starting to get old and has trouble getting around, but her influence on her community and her country is indisputable.  The Minister of Gender told me that I need to meet her, along with everyone in our office in Monrovia.  After the war she was able to build schools, a clinic, a church, and other things to help support women who had been sexually assaulted, orphans, and children born of war.  With the help of the Carter Center she built a council center for Traditional Women United for Peace in Liberia.  This center is a place where people will come to resolve disputes – everyone from government ministers to community members.  The rulings there are respected by all and it has become a place to resolve disputes that could otherwise lead to conflict and perhaps even war.  She even served as one of the delegates to the UN with newly elected president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf ten years ago to try to get Liberia’s debt lowered.  She’s worked with WCI over the years, and one of her ‘daughters’ is even a mobilizer for us.  They did such a great job with Ebola prevention that there was not one casualty in their community.  She was an incredible person to meet.  Liberia and the world could use a dozen more just like her. 
Mama Tomah
Unloading distribution materials
The next day I traveled to Buchannan in Grand Bassa County.  It’s a beautiful seaside town where we are operating a program funded by UNICEF.  While there, I went around with a field officer, mobilizer, and communicators distributing hand washing materials to twenty households in two different communities.  Each one was given a bucket with a faucet, gloves, clora (a form of chlorine), and soap, along with directions on their proper use.  Our communicators work in the communities that they live in.  They had gone to these households already to talk about the importance of hand washing, but many of the people they talked to said that they did not have the materials they needed – one woman told us that the bucket her whole family used for bathing was the bucket they used for hand washing as well.  The great thing about our communicators working where they live is that we always know what households are actually in need of materials for when we do a distribution.  The people were happy to see us and grateful for the materials, and we know that they will be used properly because our communicators can easily stop by to check on them. 

Distributing materials to the community
This has been a great trip; there was such much to do and still is with our programs here.  I’m sorry that I have to leave tomorrow, but I know that WCI is in very capable hands in Liberia.  I hope to be able to meet with more organizations tomorrow before my flight.  It has certainly been a whirlwind trip, but it was definitely worth it.  Tomorrow I start my journey back, and then my boss and I will be going to DC on Thursday of next week for a few days for meetings.  I absolutely love my job, I couldn’t have asked for something better.  I have already learned so much, and I am working for an organization that is making a real difference. 
Practicing hand washing

Monday, October 27, 2014

There goes my staj

Thursday, October 16, 2014

I haven’t posted a blog in a while – that isn’t to say that I haven’t written any, just that I haven’t posted any.  This saga with my tooth went on so long that honestly, the last blog I wrote shouldn’t see the light of day; it was a bit… incendiary.  Inappropriate at least.   Plus let’s be honest, I was as tired of writing about that tooth as anyone still looking at this blog was of reading it. 

About a month ago a solution was finally reached.  I was sent to Denver, where I’m from, to get the tooth extracted and an implant put in.  I was a bit surprised – the people in DC told me that I would be going for treatment to South Africa.  I’m not sure what happened but I’m assuming it had gone on so long (more than five months) that they decided to just let me go home.  Not going to lie – South Africa would have been awesome, I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t get to go there.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but I’ll be going home in a month and a half for home leave anyways.   

Regardless, home was great.  I saw a lot of friends and family, watched football and hockey, played with my dog, ate great food, drank great drinks (it’s Colorado, home of the best beer in the world), and relaxed on the couch.  Everyone always thinks that I want to go do crazy things when I’m home, but really I just want to relax, eat, drink, and see people.  It’s the little things that I miss when I’m in Cameroon– being able to drink water from the tap (with ice!), sitting on comfortable furniture, getting my own seat in a car (or even driving), and using a microwave.  Of course, getting to go to the Great American Beer Festival was pretty awesome.  If you don’t know what that is, look it up and be jealous. 

Last night was my fourth time flying into Cameroon – when I first got here, xmas last year, Morocco, and now for my tooth.  Other than the first time, this was the weirdest.  Since I’ve been gone, another couple of my closest friends left.  I should get used to it – all of my staj (training group) will be gone by November 7th.  I know I made the right decision to stay in Cameroon; my position working with M&E is exactly the job experience I want.  Plus I just wasn’t done living here; I would have already been gone for a couple of months by now.  I like Cameroon.  Coming back now though it seems like I underestimated how difficult it will be. 

Over the last ten years I’ve been lucky to find myself in situations with groups of people where we are all out of our comfort zones and go through everything together.  From college to Teach for America to grad school and now the Peace Corps I’ve met some amazing people that, partly because of our shared experiences, I am incredibly close with.  Even more than TFA, Peace Corps has probably been the most intense of these experiences. 


I think the work in TFA was more difficult, but the thing about Peace Corps is that you never leave work.  You are always viewed as an outsider and live life in a fishbowl; the hard part about Peace Corps isn’t the work that you do, but everything else that goes along with it.  Not only that but unless you’ve done something like it, you won’t get it.  Even the people here that I don’t like I’ve got a shared experience with, something that will always keep us connected.  Within a couple of weeks there will only be a handful of people left in country that I’m really close to.  I don’t know how I’ll get through the next year like this without so many of my people.  It’s been a great two years and I’ve met some of the strongest, smartest, and most fun people I ever will.  You guys will be sorely missed.