pandastan

I recently just returned from Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and was deeply moved by what I saw there. I came there to perform three activities: to perform a song I wrote for the girls called "This Is My Time," to teach a class on Universal Human Rights, and to perform the role of Shakira in drag in a Peace Corps production of her song "Waka, Waka, This Time For Africa" to break down conceptions of gender roles and barriers. In my last year of teaching, I haven't been able to get a girl in my class to say a single word. At camp GLOW, one of my own students was there to speak up right from the beginning in the Human Rights class, and I was flooded by girls raising their hands, offering their opinions and ideas about rights and their own lives. It was so gratifying and inspiring - girls from the village where they are browbeaten into submissiveness were here all of the sudden: eager and energized. Soaking up the message of self-empowerment with enthusiasm and energy that was like nothing I've seen in Malawi so far.
It made me wish I'd been able to achieve something comparable at my own site. I was able to contribute to Camp GLOW in my own way, and I hope it made the experience a little richer for the girls, but I have little talent for the motivation and organization of masses of teenagers and I was awed by the display of ability I saw by the Peace Corps volunteers in charge and by the spirit and fire of girls in attendance themselves. Far and away, Camp GLOW has been the best thing I've seen in Peace Corps so far and I believe the future success of Malawi will be paved by the young girls who are so eager and ready to taste the unknown and carve a new future, if only the institutions that hold the keys to the gates will allow them entry.
In other news, I was very happy to guide the new Peace Corps trainees as they approach their swearing in date in a couple of weeks. I accompanied a few of them up north in their first major hitching experience, but it turned out that i was the one who was in trouble, not them! I unwittingly walked into the open door of a semi parked on the side of the road in Kasungu and gashed open my head, wondering what had happened. After a few minutes of distressing blood gushing from my head, the wound clotted up and we hiked a few kilometres to the highway to pick up the next hitch, dripping bits of peanut butter on some bread to keep us going. I struggled to stay awake, in case I'd gotten a concussion, having been told that sleeping after such an event can induce a coma or permanent brain damage. Everything is fine, there is no brain damage as far as I know, and I returned home to my adorable kittens a few days later. They are now running and jumping and attacking everything: wrestling with each other and crouching in baskets and doing other wonderful things. They are quite a joy and I would be happy keep them all if they only stayed so cute and didn't cost me so much money to feed. I have two people lined up to take them so far and maybe a third. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting on the money to come through for my guardian shelter project and school is still out, so for now, I'm a full-time kitten mom while I wait.