Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Go To Tafea

Tafea



I’ve started my “Round the Island Meet & Greet” and will spend a week (day and night) in all 5 villages on Tongariki getting to know the people, their way of life and complete a health survey with each family.

Tafea has 8 households and about 36 people. I’ll spend a day with each family (one day will be doubled) and we will eat together, storion (Bislama for ‘chat’) and maybe walkabout to their garden or go down to the water.

So far it’s been a few days since arriving and I’m still working out the kinks of my survey and my Bislama is getting better with all the questions I’m asking. The survey was made by previous health volunteers and asks about the family’s health and the knowledge about certain health concerns. It helps to get them talking about what needs they have and gives a good baseline data so that hopefully after this I’ll be able to have some ideas of projects and workshops to try to accomplish.

I’m the second volunteer to come to Tongariki. The volunteer before me - Sarah (custom name Lei Tong – also means ‘woman of Tongariki’) – taught the kids health in the primary school, got funding for fiberglass water tanks for each community/village and started building a first grade classroom. Of course coming after another volunteer there is the inevitable comparisons made and anxiety for trying to live up to expectations. I hope that I too can leave my mark on the hearts of the people of Tongariki.

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