This week has been bittersweet as we begin to wrap-up our project in Tshapasha. Our faculty advisor had to leave today (Thursday), so we finalized our group meetings on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and we plan to have a final community “celebration” on Saturday. On Tuesday, we had a long afternoon in the village. I met joined in on the Young Men’s group, which met at the local high school. We had a group of 10 students who were all above 18, as that was part of our IRB. They pointed out that they really wanted a farm for the village in which the money could be used to improve the school. They also expressed the need for a school laboratory in which to do their practicals. As always, the road quality was also discussed. It was interesting to ask these young men what their plans were once they graduated, as most of them want to go into farming and agriculture. There was also a young man who wanted to go into road surveying, one who wanted to be a bank teller, and one who wanted to go into animal conservation. Unfortunately, when asked if they had a guidance counselor or any kind of college or career counseling, they responded that they did not. This is certainly a need in this community, and I hope that they can ultimately partner with Univen students who could perhaps provide some kind of guidance. Univen has so many programs in which students could contribute to the school in student teaching, agriculture, etc., and it seems to be a much underutilized resource. On Wednesday, we got to Tshapasha early and I met with the Home-Based Care group again. These women continue to amaze me. They knew we were coming, and brought us some freshly boiled sweet potatoes which I happily peeled and ate right away. We met in front of their current space, which is not exactly ideal, but at least it has a roof. They do most of their cooking and such outside anyway, where there are numerous chickens and dogs running around, making it difficult to pay attention to the meeting sometimes. After that, we met with the Young Women’s group again, which went much better than last time, as they were very involved and were coming up with some fantastic ideas. Unfortunately, 30 minutes into the meeting we got a call saying that the Chief wanted a ride back to Thohoyandou with us, so we had to cut the meeting short as to not keep him waiting. Cassie and I thought it funny that all the coaching on how to greet the Chief, what to wear in front of the Chief, etc., was completely irrelevant and we just hopped into the van without acknowledging him and were on our way. He chatted with the bus driver the whole 45 minutes back to Thohoyandou so we didn’t interact with him at all, which was fine by me.
 As for Saturday, we plan to have a representative from each group present their dreams for Tshapasha to the members of the village that attend, and then we will do our final assessment/questionnaire, as this is technically a research study. We also plan to have light food and drink for folks there as a thank-you for putting up with us and for participating in our study. In the meantime, we have to get certificates printed for the participants and come up with an agenda for Saturday. Over the past few days, we’ve had many frustrations and are all getting to the point where we have clearly spent way too much time together in situations that are far from ideal (mostly with logistics and disappointments about where the project has gone and where we would have liked it to go). Homesickness has set in for all of us at this point, so I think that once we get everything done we will all feel a lot better. Hopefully, when the project part of our trip wraps up, we can spend next week doing some sight-seeing. I’m personally hoping for a couple of hikes to some waterfalls we’ve heard about, and perhaps a trip to “The Big Tree”, which is just that: A big tree. Apparently it’s super old, and…big. Perhaps I will have photos to follow.

21 days down, 10 to go!

Below are the locusts with a side of Castle Milk Stout, some of the kids we fed on Madiba Day at the OVC Center, a woman making pap in front of her hut, and a glorious (and HUGE!) avocado from our yard.