As How Does She Do It? readers you might be interested in supporting a couple events coming up in the Seattle area.
October 19: Preview the film “I Know a Woman Like That,” a documentary film that features some amazing older women, including Maxine Hong Kingston, Rita Moreno, Gloria Steinem, Lauren Hutton, Eartha Kitt, and other not-so famous women, including a 92 year-old ballroom dancer and yoga instructor and a 90 something year-old water skier. Maxine Hong Kingston and the filmmaker will be on a panel moderated by Mayumi Tsutakawa following the film.
Broadway Performance Hall, 5:30 - 9:00. Your $50 contribution supports Kawabe House and Senior Services
For reservations, click here.
And another:
Water First International, the organization started by Marla Smith-Nilson (featured on this site May, 2010) is preparing for its 6th annual Give Water • Give Life Benefit, their premier fundraising event of the year. More than 700 people will gather in support of people in need of clean water in India, Bangladesh, Honduras, and Ethiopia. Last year’s event raised a record $510,000 for sustainable water supply, sanitation, and health-education projects. I went last year and was overwhelmed by the great work this organization is doing. I’ll be there again, enthusiastically supporting their efforts. Hope to see you!
DATE & TIME: Saturday, November 13, at 6:00 pm
LOCATION: Washington State Convention & Trade Center, Seattle
Enjoy a cocktail reception, live music, and a unique silent auction, followed by a dinner and a Water 1st presentation and film featuring current and future Water 1st project beneficiaries. There are no tickets for this event. Suggested minimum donation is $150/person.
- Janet Pelz
And a follow-up on the story about Meg Tremblay
I thought you might enjoy reading about her typical day living in Zambia (read her full story about her Peace Corps experience here)
5 am: Morning run
6 am: Haul water from well and take a quick cold bucket bath outside in my bathing shelter, which was just a little structure made of straw without a roof. Usually I had a big pot or plastic tub filled with water and a big cup to pour the water over myself.
Quick breakfast, usually bananas or mangoes depending on the season, maybe some buns and coffee made the night before. I usually wouldn't make a fire in the morning to try to save coal/time etc. I would try to shop about once a week when I went into the town to do work there. I'd buy onions, tomatoes, greens, beans, bananas, or oranges, sometimes sweet potatoes, eggplants, watermelon or avocados when they were in season, and when I needed it, toilet paper, soap, candles, washing powder. Once every two months I'd get some other supplies (salt, spices, powdered milk, flour, coffee, etc.) from the actual store in the provincial capital and haul them back to Katete then bike them out to my village.
8 am: Biking the 10km into the town to work with the Network of Zambians Living Positively or the 3km to the clinic where I would meet up with clinic staff and then bike out to one of the villages to meet with the Neighborhood Health Committee members and do maternal and child health outreach. This might including weighing babies, the nurse giving shots or tending to the sick. We'd also do health education talks while we had so much of the community there on things like condom usage, malaria prevention, what to do if one gets diarrhea, good nutrition, etc.
1pm: We'd be done with the work and I'd grab a quick bite with the clinic staff and Neighborhood Health Committee members. The community would sometimes make us the traditional Zambia dish of nshima, which is a flour ground from corn and then mixed with water until it starts to get harder, then it is used to pick up and eat other foods like cabbage or beans or rape (dark green). Then back on the bike to another one of my villages for a meeting or training or working on one of our projects (for example the school in my village of Malata or the well we built in another one of the villages).
5-6 pm: Back to my house and greeted by the kids. Draw more water from the well and then play with the kids, basketball, soccer, jumping rope or drawing, etc. While the kids are hanging out at the house, gather twigs and straw, put coals in my brazier and light the fire. It takes sometimes 15 minutes or longer to get the fire going. Once the coals catch I would swing the brazier to get the coals hot and to get the fire to spread. Then I'd usually put a big pot on the fire to heat bath water.
6 pm: Cut up some greens or beans or whatever else I'm having for dinner (the kids are still hanging/playing at my house during this time), take the bath water off the fire and put on the food. The adults that were in the fields all day start to arrive back to the village so sometimes they would come by to sit and chat or I'd help my friend Rhodah with her school work or she'd help me with my chichewa.
7 pm: Try to get the kids home and take a warm bucket bath outside, often after dark depending on the time of year. This was always one of my favorite moments because I was tired and the warm water felt like such a luxury. The village settles down and I can hear families talking around fires and drumming. Often I’d be bathing under the stars. Then eat dinner.
7:30 pm: Prepare materials for whatever I'm doing the next day.
8-9 pm: Read, paint, draw, write letters etc.
8:30-9 pm: Bed time.
Meg’s village at night
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