9/18/11
Last week I went to the village that one of my PCV friends is working in to present STEPS and see what her village is like. We presented a film about teens talking about sex, the same one that we had presented to the PACT club at the JSS in my village a couple of weeks ago, to the PACT club there. Something that was very apparent from the discussion after the film is that the PACT club in my friend's village is at a place of already feeling pretty comfortable with each other and talking very honestly and openly. They asked questions and made comments about everything from wet dreams, to things that their peers say to each other to try to get them to have sex, condom negotiation, and sexual exploitation very openly and maturely. I was both surprised and impressed. The PACT club that I've been working with in my village is not at the same place yet. The guidance counselors have asked me to work with them to be able to talk more freely with their peers and provide more peer support so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. It was a nice motivator to see how things can be though. The kids in the PACT club here are great but very shy so I guess the next step is helping them build more trust amongst each other and with me and their guidance teachers so they feel that they can talk more openly. I actually really missed meeting with them this week and am looking forward to seeing them again this week.
Something kind of crazy happened this week during my visit in my friend's village. On our way to the JSS for our presentation, we found a goat that was stuck on a fence. Earlier in the morning my friend had pointed out some goats that were climbing onto rocks and then a fence to get to the other side of it and eat grass. I had thought that they were adorable and very smart goats. Apparently this goat had been trying to climb the fence, but he somehow managed to trip and get one of his hind legs caught in the fence wire. The wire was wrapped around his foot very badly and there was some bone exposed. When we found him he was on the ground with just his leg behind him still stuck to the fence and was whimpering. We were able to stand him up so his foot wasn't being pulled as much, and he hopefully wouldn't be in as much pain. All we had to unwind the wire fence with so that we could get him lose was a pair of scissors so it took a long time, but we were eventually able to get him lose. His foot was clearly still very injured, there was blood caked on it, and he had a very open wound so just before we released the last piece of wire my friend poured some disinfecting solution onto his injury to hopefully clean it a bit and keep it from becoming infected. We tried to lift him over the fenced in area that he was now trapped in and wouldn't be able to climb out of on his own, but he was too heavy. My friend let her landlord know about the goat because he would know who owned him with the hope that whoever did would come and free him. We left him with some water and a pear. The next morning he wasn't there anymore so hopefully that means that someone helped him get out. He was pretty hurt so it is also possible that his owner wouldn't want to keep him anymore and may have had him slaughtered, which is sad, but I'm still glad that we helped him and ended some of his suffering that day. I definitely never would have thought that I'd ever end up rescuing a goat before coming here.
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