Secondary Projects

During our two month training we were reminded nearly every day that a good PC Volunteer has a Secondary Project or two.  By definition, secondary projects are voluntary.  We don't Have to do secondary projects.  Even people who inherit secondary projects when they roll into their sites in December have no obligation to keep doing them.  Right.  Except that Every Good PCV has a Secondary Project, so by definition a PCV without a secondary project is not a good volunteer?  So, secondary projects are the volunteer work of volunteers.  That's an order of magnitude More Volunteering than just being a PC vol.  

I'm no stranger to guilt.  I went to grad school. There, a guilty conscience is finely tuned and well maintained by the faculty to keep students in the labs every waking moment--except Fourth of July and Christmas, the only holy days according to my advisor.  Or is that called personal responsibility and work ethic?  I can't remember.  Anyway, so I expected that I would have a secondary project.  I wanted a secondary project.  But I guess I never wanted one bad enough to start pounding the pavement and knocking on doors to find out if people wanted an English Theatre Group or a Science Fair.  

(Fun Fact: this is how Mozambicans knock:  They stand outside your door and yell Licensa! or Sensa! over and over at the top of their lungs until you come out.  They don't knock.  They don't ring the bell--yes, imagine, I have a doorbell!  All this sensa-ing gets quite confusing at my house because my neighbors live so close.  Sometimes I reluctantly leave my house only to find out that I wasn't being sensa-d at all)

I figured that when MboaCity was ready for a secondary project it would let me know.  This way I would get to avoid the certain humiliation of asking if any of my fellow profs wanted to work on a project with me.

So, now I've been at my site for 5 months and I think I have a lead on a project.  Good timing too, I was starting to get bored and lethally frustrated with my students (90% of whom are funny and nice and just a little rowdy and 10% of whom like to do things like walk to the front of the classroom and imitate my Portuguese In Front Of Me.)

There are 3 profs at my school who want to start a group called Associacao de Jovens Voluntarios--AJOVO--basically it's Scouts--a youth organization to work in areas like social action, health, house building and sports.

Our program will be modeled after a very popular one in the next town over.  Little kids will come to school on Saturday and have an informal hour long class--could be english or science or whateeeeva and then after they go out and play games for another hour or so. All the classes and games are led by high school kids so it's a great opportunity for older kids to develop leadership skills and for younger kids to get a bit more instruction.

Kim and I are going to be facilitating some story time and small group reading sessions.  We'll be submitting an application to get a library of books from the Books For Kids Africa program.  Even if we aren't selected we still have a really neat program to work with.  The best part about all of this is that we're here to help with a program that's being started because our community wants it.   We get the satisfaction of knowing that we're contributing our own special skills and contacts to a project that has genuine community support behind it.  

This Saturday we had a training meeting with the older-kid volunteers.  They learned first aid and how and why to plan activities.  Next Saturday will be the first Saturday with criancas.  I'm pretty excited to see how this all goes.  Stay Tuned!