Day 23

A little after 10 am, 17 of us, women’s center attendees and volunteers, packed into the small room to start the day with song and prayer as usual. Wednesday mornings are reserved for hairdressing lessons but today two new volunteers, Lina and Jillian, offered to be “clients”. 

While they waited for their hair to be twisted and braided, Amy (pictured left) worked on grant proposal in hopes of securing sustainable funding for the Gihon Women’s Center. Right now they rely on private donations. 

Emma, far right below, spent the day talking to Agnes and preparing for next week’s lesson on HIV and AIDS. 

In the morning, I finalized my presentation on pregnancy and childbirth. It’s a few slides about how pregnancy happens, testing, the stages of labor, inductions and interventions. From what I gather, the women don’t have a resource for this information in the community. 

The women are warming up to us. Many, if not all, have hard and emotional stories that are not easy to tell. Some can now laugh about their hardships. Two of them I know could be comedians because they keep the group in stitches with their commentary about life. Other women barely smile. It’s obvious that center is integral to their healing. 

In other news: I received an email from Hopkins with my coursework for the first semester. Holy crap!