April training

Yesterday we had another meeting for our trip, though it was thankfully shorter because it was on a weekday. We all met around 6 and started out by doing an activity outside, while we still had light and a beautiful spring day to work with. While in Africa we'll teach a lesson on drugs and alcohol and one of our activities features some pretty powerful beer-goggles. They look like huge safety goggles and people wearing them look hilarious because their eyes seem huge and distorted. We each took turns putting them on and being spun around a few times, and then tried to slalom between colored dots on the ground. It was remarkably hard to do! I'm sure we all looked pretty ridiculous, stumbling around. Thankfully Ytevia took off her awesome high heels and wore Rebecca's slippers, otherwise we may have had to end the meeting there with a trip to the hospital.

We also demonstrated another little activity that compares reaction time while "sober" by catching a pen or marker that someone drops into your hand versus "under the influence", by sticking your hand in a bowl of freezing ice water. I was the brave volunteer for this, although I think a lifetime of living in Wisconsin has trained me better than most at functioning with frozen and numb hands.

Our second activity of the night was making "power dolls", which was also a lot of fun. Basically, you write a message to yourself down on a half-sheet of paper (a goal, a reminder of something you've overcome) and then you crumple that paper up into a ball. This is the doll's head. Using some fabric and yarn, you make the body around that. I can see why the kids will enjoy it.

In case you're wondering why a group of grown women were stumbling around with beer goggles and sitting around making dolls, I should mention that all of the activities we'll be doing with the kids at the actual camps we do here and now in Wisconsin. It's a good experience because it's easier to teach and lead an activity when you've done it yourself. Some of it is a bit silly, like making these dolls, but meanwhile we were discussing why we did this and how we were going to present it to kids there. It certainly makes me more comfortable with the prospect of leading these camps.

After that we moved on to some more discussion. We went over some information we'd been given on alcohol and drugs in South Africa. It's interesting to think about because the environment is so different there. Even in Madison walking home while drunk can be dangerous, but in South Africa walking home while inebriated along a dark, narrow road can be much worse. The beer goggle activity may sound silly, but we're hoping it shows these kids how hard it is to walk when you're not fully in control, because they'll be traversing roads where even a little stumble could put you right in the path of a vehicle.

After this was some review on HIV (and I love this topic so much that I'm sure I ended up being very annoying. I kept wanting to answer all of the questions I knew about!) and a discussion on safe sex and healthy relationships. The discussion kind of put us in the roles of the kids we'll be teaching later, in that Rebecca was asking us a lot of questions about what we think healthy relationships are and what to say to someone who is pressuring you into sex or unsafe sex. It's one of those topics that I'm sure we all know pretty well, but it takes some getting used to talking about it. It was a good learning experience because watching Rebecca try to draw more information out of us showed how we can do it for these kids.


I'd just like to mention here that I'm trying to raise money right now for AYO. I've set a rather lofty goal of $1000.00, but I really think that I can reach it. I mean, if I can get 50 people to donate $20 each, I'll get there with no problem... and I know I have at least fifty friends! Even $5 is an awesome step towards reaching my goal. All donations are tax-deductible. This is a new experience for me, because I've always had a problem "selling" things, even when it was for things people loved like Girl Scout Cookies. This is even harder because there's no tangible good, but the cause is so much more important to me that I just have to try.

If you're at all interested in donating any amount of money, you can do so online through my FirstGiving page here. If you don't like donating over the internet you can make a check out to African Youth Outreach and either mail it to me (e-mail me at mariley2@wisc.edu for my address, I don't feel right putting it on the internet!) or you can mail it directly to AYO at

African Youth Outreach
C/O Alexander Kendziorski
406 Sethne Court
Monona, WI 53716
USA

Just mention in the memo line that it's for Megan Riley. Thank you all so much for all of your help, and I hope you keep reading my blog!