As 2018 comes to an end, I have been reflecting on some of my favorite moments of my Peace Corps service during this calendar year. These are no particular order.
During “Thanksgiving” break, my friends and I sat around talking after our dinner until 2 or 3 in the morning. I told them that I am a huge fan of Mary Poppins and then we all proceeded to quote lines and scenes of the movie. To have others bask in favorite movie lines of a 50-year-old movie is priceless. (You can read about our Thanksgiving holiday more here.)
During METS Camp, one of the campers, named Shota, jumped up-and-down and yelled, “I love this so much” as we were working on a DNA experiment. To see a teenager exclaim with such excitement in front of his peers like a five-year-old makes the year-long planning process totally worth it. (If you want to learn more about METS Camp in general, read about it here.)
One of the team during METS Camp preparing their materials for the DNA experiment.
There was a lot of work to get Justin and I approved for another year of service. When it was all said and done, Justin and I were really happy that we could stay in Georgia and continuing serving our community. (Read more about it here or here.)
During DREAM Camp, I taught the campers about the difference between inclusion and tolerance. There was a lot of confusion between the difference between the two acts and why inclusion was more kind and important for humanity. I used odd metaphors to help them explain and it worked! The campers, in turn, used these metaphors and helped explain it to the other campers who could not understand it. I stood there like the happiest teacher knowing that I helped turn on the metaphorical light bulb in their minds to make more acts of kindness into the world. (If you want to learn more about DREAM camp in general, read about it here and here.)
Me on the left and Tasha, a camper, on the right. Tasha explained the definition of inclusion so well during a presentation at DREAM Camp that sparked a conversation and a lot of learning.
Celebrating a big birthday in Tbilisi with my sitemate Erin and my husband Justin. The three of us are born in the same month and year and all three of us are born within 14 days of each other. So naturally, we had a combined birthday celebration and it was amazing.
We had 14 people for dinner to celebrate our birthdays and it was absolutely delicious and wonderful. Getting a reservation for a large party, on the other hand, was a story in of itself.
Taking Georgian Dance classes with two of my sitemates. For some reason, I thought I had a picture of me, Erin, and Nicole taking dance classes, but apparently, I do not. For two months, the three of us learned the Rachuli and Adjaruli, which are two dances from the regions of Racha and Adjara, respectively.
At least once a month, my friends Kate and Rose (who I have mentioned many times before) would come to my site to hang out. Our favorite activity was going to a local establishment and drinking tea. Erin, my sitemate, would also regularly join us. It is possible that we started this late 2017, but I think it took off in 2018 as a regular habit.
Rose, Me, and Kate drinking out for tea 🙂 We would joke and call this type of hangout, “tea club.”
Let’s Play Together is a project I co-lead with a couple of other volunteers and McLain Association for Children (MAC) that provides an opportunity for children of all abilities to learn, play, and engage with each other. Someone very special to me taught me at a young age why this is important and I dedicate this blog post to Natasha.
Every Friday, my mother’s side of the family gets together, and we share a feast together. I have moved away, but they still do this in my original hometown. When I was a child, I was fortunate that my great-grandmother was still alive and I was able to get to know her. Up until her death, the entire family would gather around my great grandmother’s table. Now, we gather around my grandparents’ table. Each Friday, we spend hours chatting and eating. When I was about 5 years old, my sister, Shereen, and I thought my mom’s first cousin, Natasha, was the coolest. At the time, Natasha lived with my great grandmother. We were very interested in Barbies and Natasha, my mom’s cousin, was also interested in them! In fact, I think Natasha was sometimes more invested in the storylines that our Barbies’ lived than we were.
Some members of my family for what I am assuming is a wedding reception. However, for lunches, we would have at least 2 dozen members of the family get together. Natasha is the young adult female with black hair on the left. My great-grandparents are at the head of the table.
Natasha was only a few years younger than my mother. Therefore, we absolutely loved the fact that a grown adult wanted to play Barbies with us for hours on end. As we got older, Shereen and I began noticing that Natasha was the only adult who was interested. We were confused why did Natasha not have her own family or do things like the other adults did. As young children, we did not complain because she was an awesome playmate. My mother explained that Natasha was special and has a warm heart, but her brain developed a little differently. Not fully understanding that concept, we continued playing barbies with Natasha every Friday in her room for a few years.
As Shereen and I grew older, we also grew out of our Barbies phase. Natasha did not. It got really awkward telling her that, “No, Natasha, we don’t want to play Barbies with you today.” I was 11 years old and I looking back, I want to punch my 11-year-old self in the face. Natasha had a mental disability and although she had an adult body, she never developed an adult state of mind. Natasha was patient and offered to play other games with us. I can’t remember what other games she offered, but I knew that Shereen and I probably broke her heart because we weren’t interested in the other games she offered.
My mother (right), my aunt (top center), and Natasha as a baby (bottom center).
At the time, my original hometown did not have resources or centers for persons with disabilities. In fact, there was still a stigma and misunderstandings regarding disabilities, mental or physical. My grandfather did a lot of innovative things for his niece, Natasha. However, she still spent most of her time living with her grandmother and most of the time isolated. My family loved her and included her in our family activities, but I know that she felt different.
In the year 2000, my parents, sisters, and I moved thousands of miles away. Therefore, we only saw Natasha during the summers when we visited. A few years after that, when I was 18, my great-grandmother passed away. Natasha moved next door to live with her first cousins in her own small apartment that as above the cousins’ house. When I was still in college, Natasha passed away, alone, when she was about 35 years old. I do not remember the last conversation I had with her. Yet, the only thing that kept on looping over and over in my mind was the memory of me telling Natasha, “No, I do not feel like playing Barbies with you today.” Shereen felt the same way. We felt immense guilt for some reason. My mother told us, “Do not worry, Natasha, knows that you two loved her.”
Regardless, I always felt that I needed to do something that honors Natasha’s life. I just never knew how, until now. A little over a year ago, my sitemate Karen, a G15, co-lead a Peace Corps project called “Let’s Play Together” (LPT). This project is a partnership with the McLain Foundation for Children in Georgia and Peace Corps Volunteers. We create one-day events in various towns and villages in Georgia, mostly in underserved villages. In these events, children and young adults of all abilities play, dance, create art, play tug-of-war, and other fun activities throughout the day. In the last couple of years, we had hundreds of children participate in Khashuri, Batumi, Sachkere, Terjola, Kutaisi, Rustavi, Gori, Poti, Ozurgeti, and even Tbilisi.
My G15 sitemate, Karen (left) and I (right) during the Let’s Play Together event in Khashuri on Saturday, June 10th, 2016
Karen pulled me into the project and after she finished her Peace Corps service, I took over her role as the logistics person for Let’s Play Together. I currently co-lead this project with my friend Courtney. We have led four amazing events in this school year and we are currently in the process of handing the project over to the two amazing G17s for them to run the project next year. I truly feel like this project helps me honor Natasha’s life and provides a way for me to make an impact in Georgia, specifically for young Georgians with various and different abilities.
Like Natasha, Georgians with different abilities, specifically outside of Tbilisi, have very little resources and opportunities. Many face stigmas and the community still believes in this crazy myths surrounding disabilities. One time, I heard a story, that If I remember correctly, a little boy in an underserved village became bedridden because the family was told that the child was not supposed to go outside or do anything due to his condition. The boy would not have been bedridden if the family was properly educated. Basically, the child became MORE disadvantaged due to the stigma and lack of education regarding disabilities. I was dumbfounded.
In June 2017, we hosted a Let’s Play Together event in the town of Khashuri. That Saturday morning, it started to rain. Karen and Courtney O., the G15s who ran the committee before Courtney A. and me, expressed concern regarding the event. I remember telling Karen, “why does it matter if it rains?! It rains all the time in Georgia and life moves on.” Then Karen told me the shocking news that an old Georgian wife’s tale if a person with a disability is in the rain, that his/her disability will worsen. Sure enough, only two children with disabilities showed up. The other parents were concerned about their children because it was raining. Luckily enough, by 10:30 a.m., the sun started peaking through the clouds. We called many parents to remind them of the event. We had more children with disabilities come, but still, the number of participating children could have been higher if it weren’t for the rain.
Let’s Play Together event in Zugdidi, Georgia in December 2017. Courtney (immediately left of the poster in the green shirt) and I (immediate right of the poster in the red shirt) are the G16 committee leaders. The remaining people in the photo are the Peace Corps Volunteers that participated in the event that day.
Another story, not related to Let’s Play Together, but still worth mentioning is the healing myths of Ureki’s magnetic beach sand. Ureki is a town in the western part of Georgia along the coast of the Black Sea. The beach is absolutely gorgeous; the sand is black and fine. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, it is said that “it heals people with its disabilities.” Justin and I have been to this beach a couple of times. We will see many children with wheelchairs lying on the beach. I do not have words for this, except to say, that I doubt that this myth is scientifically supported. Many Georgians that I have met swear by this and the beach’s healing powers. I find it upsetting because a lot of children with disabilities are tucked away in their family homes. They are not active in society. Yet, I will find children of various abilities on the beach with their parents praying close by. Here is another blog post in which describes briefly where the healing powers come from.
This is one of the reasons why Let’s Play Together is such a great project. MAC provides all sorts of resources for the event. Physical therapists attend the event and help us. We have games that involve everybody- regardless of level. Our games are intriguing, involving mind and body and creating a bond between the participants and youth volunteers.
Therefore, Let’s Play Together has such a simple concept, yet it is very impactful. Having an event in which children of various abilities play together demystifies our differences. Through games and dance, we all realize we are more alike than different. Every person on this earth has value and can create impact. It is important that we create a safe space in which people of all backgrounds feel valued and appreciated in life. The event may be only a few hours long, but I know that it means a lot for our participants and volunteers. It means a lot to me to be a part of such a strong and impactful project during my service.
My first job interview was when I was 17 years old. My sister and I decided that one day we wanted to get a job, so we walked to the biggest employer of our city to see if they had any openings. Back in my day (I’m just kidding, I’m not that old), you could just walk over and ask for a job. We lived close to a theme park and we thought working there might be fun.
I remember thinking to myself that I had no idea what I was doing. No one ever walked me through what an interview is like or what I should expect. Somehow, even though I did not dress in business professional attire, I still got the job after three hours of interviewing. Working as a food hostess was a great professional learning experience. Looking back, I made two big mistakes: I had no resume and I did not dress professionally. Granted, I was applying for a minimum wage job and wore jeans to the interview….but still, not the best idea.
In this regard, the youth in my community and I have that in common. I had little opportunities for mentors and career advice, and so do these youth. However, I did have a school counselor (who was an amazing human). Public schools in Georgia do not have school counselors. In fact, I’m not sure if Georgians are even aware that schools counselors are a thing. Therefore, learning how to write a resume and exploring career goals are not topics discussed in schools.
One of our mentors (left) working with her two female youth on their resumes and 5 year goals
The previous cohort of the Gender Equality Committee did a mentoring project in one community. It was gender split and the beneficiaries were the IDP youth (Internally displaces persons, typically from either Abkhazia or South Ossetia). However, this year, my cohort (the G16s) wanted to expand this program to different regions within Georgia. We held workshops in three regions: Samgerlo, Imereti, and Guria. My friend Kelley was the mastermind behind the whole thing. I helped her run just one of the workshops: the Imereti Region Workshop.
For each workshop, we planned on recruiting 8Â mentors (4 female and 4 male). We also wanted 16 youth (8 female and 8 male). The plan was to equally split up the youth with the respective mentor with the same gender. As I’m writing this, I’m giving a little chuckle. Why on earth did we think we could get the perfect number? Just because we wrote in our Let Girls Learn grant that we could 16 youth and 8 mentors, reality always has a different plan in Georgia!
Ryan, Peace Corps Volunteer, (3rd from the left top row) with the male mentors and youth at the Workshop during the gender split session
I co-hosted and organized the Imereti Region Workshop along with my friend Ryan. You’ve should have heard his name by now, I’ve mentioned him in various posts. Ryan calls me five days before the workshop and tells me that we do not have any youth signed up. I nod my head and just sigh. My response was, “Ryan, it is Tuesday afternoon. Friday is a holiday. Do you think we can actually find 16 kids to show up within 2 business-days?”
Optimistically, he responds, “we can try!” I replied, “I guess it does not really matter. Even if we found a bunch of kids, they could just drop out any second. Let’s just try to get kids. If there aren’t many by Thursday afternoon, we will postpone the event.” Thursday rolls around and Ryan calls me back. “So, we actually have more than 16 kids now.” I laughed and said, “of course, we do. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them do not come.”
Sure enough, Saturday rolls around and we only had nine kids show up on time. We waited a while and then three more stroll in like being late is still the fashionable thing to do. Kelley, Ryan, and I look at Manana (Ryan’s counterpart) and ask her if more people are coming. Manana said she will be right back and walked out the room. Through the window, I see Manana walk to park in the center of town. I assumed she had a good reason and did not think anything of it. Minutes later, Manana comes back by gently telling a teenage boy she brought with her to sit down. I asked Ryan what happened. Apparently, Manana walked through the park, some a kid, and “invited” him to attend this workshop.
I have to hand it to the Georgians. If they want to make an event happen, it will happen. In America, I would not be so confident to just go to a park and grab a kid. Secondly, I would have been stressed out if days before the event I were to have to registered participants. But so life here….predictably unpredictable.
Other than the little participant count mishaps, the event went without a hitch. Kelley did a great job presenting the various job-related skills. I conducted a session on job interviewing. The kids were very engaged. In fact, I don’t remember seeing any kids trying to sneak in a little Facebook time on their mobile phones. I was pleasantly surprised at how active the youth and the mentors were in the sessions.
Some of our mentors and youth as they were participating in an activity during the Job Interviewing Session.
When the day was over, one of the mentors I invited came up to me and said, “Workshops like these are very important in Georgia. It is a shame that only these youth came. More should have come.” I had also invited Justin’s Georgian tutor and she echoed the sentiment. In fact, she even suggested that Kelley and I should hold the fourth workshop at her private school. Granted, we had only planned for three workshops, but Kelley and I loved the idea of hosting more workshops. In all honesty, I loved that the mentors and the mentees loved the workshop that they volunteered their opinions that more should be conducted.
My organization and I applied and received a grant from the Let Girls Learn project to encourage teenage girls into sustainable, green farming! How? We taught them how to compost and provided them with the materials to do it in their villages!
When I studied abroad in Hong Kong during college, I took a day trip to Mainland China for a Spa Day with a friend. In the cab, on the way to the spa, I saw a milk ad on a billboard. It had a cow, showing its utters, stating how fresh her milk is. Right next to the cow billboard, there was an ad for pork. It had the same set-up, a pig was basically saying, “Hey, I’m yummy. Eat me.” It freaked me out. I realized that American commercials (excluding Chick-fil-A), tends to shy away from things like that.
American culture, regardless of personal values, does not have a strong desire to know where our food comes from. Things are slowly changing, but it is true. When I told people that our “pet chickens” were later “dinner” in Peace Corps, people thought, “oh, my poor thing.” It is completely forgotten that most of the world and human history knows exactly where their food comes from. For centuries, most of food came from our backyard’s or our neighbors.
My PST (Pre-Service Training) Host Family were farmers and grew various vegetables and fruits. I personally picked out these garlic bulbs from the garden back in PST.
For Georgia, this is still the case. According to The Fund Georgian Center for Agribusiness Development, the “agricultural sector employ[s] around 53% of the active workforce.” For less than 4 million people, that is a crazy amount of farmers. In my personal opinion, this is probably an inefficient way to feed a nation. To make matters worse, there are a lot of harmful farming practices in the country.
My host neighbors in PST riding their tractor to the far early in the mornings. I would see this man so many days on my way to training.
Georgian farmers heavily use pesticides and toxic fertilizers. Green farming practices are nearly non-existent on a national level and are not commonly used by local, small-town farmers. According to WECF International, Georgia still uses illegal and toxic pesticides in their farming practices. Many of these pesticides are untested, and they are replicates
of the “western trademark pesticides.” Farmers tend to use these replicates because they are cheaper; however, they contain harmful toxins and pesticides that are also less effective at killing their targeted pest. The improper use and storage of these illegal and banned substances pose a health risk to the farmers and contribute negative effects on the environment.
My youth counterpart and I receiving fresh fruit from one of the farmers in our composting project
Also, men make up about 90% of farmers in Georgia (our own needs assessment). Females may look after small livestock, such as chickens. However, the men are strategically in charge of the farm and make the important decisions. Women, on average, own fewer assets, such as land, livestock, and human capital. They have less access to inputs, such as seeds, fertilizers, labor, and finance. They tend to depend on their husbands for these things. Increasing women’s resources could “help rural women maximize economic opportunities, increase productivity, and improve food security, education and healthcare since women tend to reinvest in their households” (The World Bank).
To alleviate some of this, my youth organization, Youth2Georgia, wanted to do a Composting project in the villages of Imereti. Initially, we submitted the proposal to the German Embassy, but we got denied. Therefore, six months later, we revamped the project idea and submitted it as a Let Girls Learn (LGL) grant. I discussed a bit of what LGL is in this post if you want to read more. We felt that composting was a great way to reduce the dependence of harmful fertilizers and pesticides while increasing female participation in sustainable, green farming practices!
Iberia College Training and Composting Demo. Here, we are building the first composting bin at the Agricultural School at Iberia College.
So for a couple of months, I worked hard with my counterparts. Many times, a Peace Corps Volunteer will write the SPA or LGL grant, but because we were not on a tight deadline, I refused to do that. For nearly two months, I spent several hours a week working with my counterparts. In fact, I did a mini, informal Project Design Management training. I explained all aspects of the Let Girls Learn grant writing process. They even wrote the first draft to the grant. I worked with them on all the edits. In the end, I rewrote a lot of the English and fixed it up. However, it was a truly a group effort and I was very proud of how much we designed the project together.
In total, we delivered three separate trainings. The first training was at Iberia College with about 20 participants. We trained the entire staff under the school of agriculture and their students. The staff and students included both male and female. We strongly believe that in order for gender equality to be achieved both men and women must participate in the process. The second training involved teenage girls and several of their mothers. We were hoping that involving the parents would increase the likelihood of them actually composting.
A picture of our second training. We held the event at a local winery of a famous female winemaker. The well-known female winemaker was also a participant and served as role model for composting.
We have later learned that there was no correlation between parent participation and girls composting. In fact, it seemed that less teenage girls wanted to participate in the training with their parents. Therefore, for our third training, we only invited 20 teenage girls. All the participants were from villages in our region. Therefore, all of them had access to large farms in which they could do composting.
This is the winemaker’s composting bin! I was so proud of how she got started on it and already filled it up half way within a few weeks.
Now, I will admit…We were not the most successful with the turnout. Only about 17% of the participant actually composted on their farms. However, over 80% indicated they understood how composting is made and why it is important as evident by our post-tests. More importantly, they understood why increasing female participation in farming is important (we had a gender component in our training).
On one of our monitoring days, we visited the sites that started the composting. I’m not making this up, but it was one of the most beautiful days I had in my service. I cannot tell you how bright the smiles were of our participants. For those who composted, they loved it! Seeing how proud they were made me proud! It was heartwarming how they took care of their composting bins and how it will change the quality of their farming.
For two of the three trainings, I had partnered with one of my friends and Peace Corps Volunteer Ryan. If you read the Thanksgiving post, he is referred to as Yarn Skallah. He was conducting a grant and a project to teach youth to professionally film and edit videos in the same community I was doing my composting. We thought it would be a great idea to film the composting trainings. If you are interested, here is a YouTube video of my trainings!
Given it is early December, I only hang out consistently with a warm metal box at my house; I call it my heater. Everyone else calls it a heater too, so I suppose I should give it a better nickname…Regardless, I was next to the only heater in my place, propping my feet up on a stool, with my laptop on my lap (and verifying in my mind, once again, why they named a laptop). Most Georgian homes do not have insulation or central heating. I am extremely lucky to have one gas heater in my home that works- even if it does not heat the entire house. So there IÂ am sitting there trying to stay warm when suddenly my dad calls me on Facebook Messenger.
Actual footage of me next to the heater from November-March
He begins with, “How are you doing, Baba?” I responded with, “I’m working right now.” He was confused since it was around 10 p.m. at night on Saturday. I told him two things: 1) Peace Corps life does not have a regular 40 hour week. It especially does not end at the end of the workday. 2) I had a record number of grants to read, so working on the weekend was a given. This promoted a discussion to exactly what grants are in Peace Corps and why I was reading them. I told him that I was on the Small Projects Assistance Committee. Since my dad was curious, I thought….this might be a good blog post.
I had barely mentioned that I was on SPA on this post, but I did not go into detail. As stated on the USAID website, “The Small Project Assistance Program (SPA) is a joint collaboration between USAID and the Peace Corps to support local community development…Local Sustainability Division manages USAID Mission access to SPA and encourages USAID Missions and Offices to participate in the program. Peace Corps Volunteers compete for funds allocated by USAID through a proposal process managed by the local Peace Corps field offices.” I believe that each Peace Corps manages SPA slightly differently, but since I’m in Georgia, I’ll explain a bit of how it goes here.
The current SPA Committee. From left to right, Erin (G17), Dora (G17), Sarah (G17), Felix the Cat, Kara (G16), and Daniel (G16). And I’m taking the picture
Have you ever followed any of Peace Corps’ posts on social media? Well, I bet you that a lot of those posts were SPA related! For example, if you see an English Cabinet that is renovated in a village school- that is probably SPA! So basically, SPA is a powerful tool to get our $hit done! We mobilize our communities with notebooks in hand changing lives.
Sounds cheesy, well, it is because it is. How are so many of these grants ends up so awesome?
My friend Emily, right, on the launch day of her Healthy Living Club
First, we welcome and encourage Peace Corps Volunteers to have us review their grants in advance before submitting it. In essence, I would read the grant and offer the Peace Corps Volunteer objective critique and constructive feedback. It could be about the grant idea in general or the actual writing of the grant.
“Your grant is fine, but here is some things you could work on.”
However, they are not required to submit us anything in advance. We are there if they want us. When it comes to the recommendation after the submission deadline, each of us actually read every single grant. To reiterate, all six of us reads every single grant submitted and rates each grant based on objective criteria. During our quarterly meeting, we discuss the grant with two of the Peace Corps staff members and then offer our recommendations to the Country Director.
Each Peace Corps Volunteer and one counterpart is required to go through training at PDMÂ Project Design Workshops. Each volunteer brings along one counterpart to the training, that way, we are also increasing the capacity of host country nationals. If the grant is approved, they are either funded a maximum of $2,500 if it is a local or $5,000 if it is community-wide. For basically chump change for many companies, these funds can literally shape and change a community.
These are the G15s when we were wrapping up our May 2017 cycle. We basically hide in the Peace Corps office’s large conference room discussing each grant.
Being a part of the process is amazing. First, I feel like it is one of most impactful part of service. I have helped dozens of volunteers with their projects indirectly. I have offered them suggestions that strengthened their proposal and/or their grant idea. Some volunteers have engaged us in conversations with their counterparts from the start. Others will just send us their final version to ensure they aren’t missing anything before the submission. However, speaking with Peace Corps Volunteers in the early stages can be fun. It can shape the success of the grant. For example, my friend Emily (who is on the Gender Equality Committee with me), engaged me from the start! She wanted to do a healthy living club at her school.
Emily teaching her kids some sporting techniques!
There have been times where she would call me, “Rawan, can we do this? Can we do that?” I have spoken to her and her counterparts on speaker phone giving recommendations. I also read the grant and offered a comprehensive review once she put pen to paper. When her grant got funded, I almost felt like I was a part of the project! It is awesome to serve as a resource for other volunteers to help them create and implement better projects in their community!
Mini METS are our one-day STEM workshops conducted at various Peace Corps Volunteers’ sites.
When BJ, Amanda, and I created the METS Initiative in 2016, BJ had suggested that it should be more than just a camp. There should be another component of the initiative: Mini-METS. Amanda and I wholeheartedly agreed. Mini-METS are one-day “camps” that would be hosted in various Peace Corps Volunteers’ sites upon request. As you may know, METS is our STEM initiative. It is STEM spelled backward and it also means “Me too” in Georgian.
Even though Georgia has made efforts to increase science education, it is still not a popular major to study in university. Not only that, many of its scientific facilities are outdated. This is one of the reasons why the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) invests in Georgia. In fact, MCC is the one that awarded San Diego State University the $30 million grant to partner with Georgia to have an American Accredited University in Tbilisi. As you may recall from my previous blog post about METS, Georgian San Diego State Universities acted as our counselors in our camps.
As this article in the Daily Aztec mentions, the money from the grant “will be allocated toward renovating labs and improving the quality of higher education.” Also, the article mentioned that “MCC wanted an American accredited U.S. degree to be offered in Georgia because Georgia needed higher education to meet the standards of emerging democracies.” This is one of the many reasons why the whole METS initiative started. This is why we feel that we need to continue our work in METS beyond just our summer camps.
Rose (left), me (center), and Atka (right) hosting our Mini-METS on Saturday, October 28, 2017
This past Saturday, on October 28th, 2017, Atka, Rose, and I hosted the second Mini-METS in a local town in the Imereti Region at our friend Ryan’s site. The first one was conducted in the spring by BJ and Amanda. On Saturday, we had nearly twenty youth show up to the event. We conducted three activities for Mini-METS: 1) rockets 2) math tricks and lastly 3) lungs. With each presentation, we discussed the theory first and then did the experiment. It is important for students to understand the science behind the experiment. I don’t want them walking away thinking it was “magic.”
Atka explaining the chemical composition for our rocket experiment
So for the rockets, Atka explained what were reactants and catalysts. She taught them how all the materials interact with each other to create a mini “rocket.” Curious to what our rockets actually were? Simple. They were Alka Seltzer tablets, water, and a film tube canister. No, seriously that is it. You put half an Alka Seltzer tablet in a small film canister with warm water. Close the lid. Place the canister upside down and wait for it to launch!
What was surprising was some kids left immediately after this experiment. It was a bit shocking because this experiment is a huge hit and every student loved it! They were all jumping in glee and we had to do some crowd control. It is just difficult to compete for their attention- on the weekend- especially when they have Facebook waiting for them at home.
Then, I did a math presentation. I know, it sounds like a snooze. What kid would want to learn math on a Saturday? Ryan was hesitant to have this when I told him that it was part of our agenda. I can’t blame him. I thought it was going to be boring when I introduced it at the Kobuleti camp. However, it was such a hit. The kids in Kobuleti were literally jumping out of their seats to participate.
So, I tested my luck for the second time to do it at Mini-METS. Guess what? Another hit. I taught them how to divide big numbers by five – in seconds and in our heads! Spoiler alert: you double it and then divide it by then. I decided to do a simple math trick because many of the students in the audience were in the sixth grade.
Lastly, Rose did our lung presentation. She explained how lungs work and what can cause inflammation. One way to stop inflammation of the lungs is smoking. Thus, it was basically a mini-anti-smoking campaign. How best to illustrate how bad smoking is? Do an experiment where you can literally see the damage after a few minutes.
Rose (center) is explaining how to properly use our lung model above.
Our lung model is basically built from plastic bottles, balloons, and cotton. The device is the one actually smoking the cigarettes. Even after even a few cigarettes, the cotton inside the plastic bottle changes color to a more yellowish-brown. Thus, this indicates that lung damage from smoking is almost immediate. It is a great way to show kids immediately how smoking damages the lungs. I want to say this experiment is completely harm-free, but I cannot. We did incur a bit of second-hand smoke during this process.
The students “building” their lungs for the experiment.
A lot of the kids enjoyed this too. I’m not sure how many of them will not pick up the habit of smoking though. Smoking in Georgia is a big problem. The majority of males in this country smoke. It is not very “lady-like” for women to smoke, therefore, the problem is mostly with men. Regardless, we hope that we were able to impart some knowledge on these youth.
Overall, Mini-METS was a success. It is really fun seeing kids get excited about science and math. It made it worth it to wake up early that Saturday morning!
“You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug” is one of my favorite lyric lines in the song “Brave” by Sara Bareillas. Last weekend, I turned a stereotype used against me into a powerful change agent.
On Sunday afternoon of last week, I came back from DREAM Camp from a town on the Black Sea. The camp launched this year by Peace Corps and a local organization to promote tolerance and respect for diversity, ethnicity, and multiculturalism among Georgian youth. Since most Georgians (over 80%) are ethnically Georgian and practice the Georgian Orthodox sect of Christianity, diversity is not a topic that is openly and frequently discussed in the social and educational fabrics of society. So we set out on a mission to have open discussions with 30 teenagers regarding diversity and multiculturalism.
Each Peace Corps Volunteer led a session on a topic relating to diversity. I led a session on Identity with the help of a host country national translating my English into Georgian. The session was meant to connect race, ethnicity, and nationality to the meaning of personal identity. Considering how the media portrays my ethnic background as anything but the “majority” in the West, I used my story to ignite change. Now, Sara Bareillas might have sung those lyrics with a different audience, but I decided to get raw and vulnerable with the teenagers sitting in front of me. I felt that in order to make a difference I had to divulge into deep parts of my personal history of discrimination that I quite frankly never discuss openly. I’ll spare you the details, but I straight up told the teens the consequences of what happens when a society seeks out intolerance, exclusion, and intolerance of minorities in such a raw and personal way. Now, I was mostly providing some old anecdotes, but it can’t be more relevant for today considering our current world events.
I told them that it is important to recognize that your identity, self-perception, and self-confidence can be so deeply tied to society’s perception of you. So I ended my session on the note that it is important to seek out understanding from those who may be slightly different from you.
At the end of the session, I walked away not knowing what impact, if any, my session had on the teenagers.
Here I am (left) delivering a session on identity at DREAM Camp. One of the campers (right) was sharing her identity circles.
We had scheduled a Karaoke and dance party after dinner for our campers. While signing and dancing along to “Hit Me Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears, one of the teenagers came up to me. Now, I’ve recognized this kid before, but she was one of the quite ones who participated here and there. She admitted to me that she loved my session and it was thus far her favorite. She said that my story left a great impression and I had made an impact on the way she viewed diversity and identity. She said she was really grateful and glad I was able to present and then proceeded to give me a big, fat hug. I appreciated the genuine embrace and told her thank you for feeling comfortable to share her thoughts with me.
And this my friends, is the perfect example of an interaction of what I hoped as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Then, I walked away hoping that this girl will shine a light and spread some love and joy into her community.
