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| Hard at work, making things tasty |
The Gender and Development Committee traditionally do a fundraiser during the trainings, at least the long trainings. They usual do something like pasta dinner or a used-clothing sale and bring in 5,000-10,000 Vatu, or the equivalent of $500-$1000USD. They aren’t huge but then again the projects they’ve been doing haven’t been huge. This time is different. The last few years have been focused on Camp GLOW/BILD, the leadership development camp we went to last May, but now they are trying to re-focus on more gender based issues such as the Gender Based Violence toolkit they’ve put together. I’m testing it on Pentecost in the next few months, I’ll let you know how it goes.
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| They were arguing over the towel. |
Anyway, they decided to throw a “Fancy Party” fundraiser instead of the usual pasta dinner. They made four h’or devours type courses, two desserts and drinks and had a silent auction. The food was good and the head chef was good enough to edit one of the courses to make it more vegetarian friendly. There isn’t much you can do with sliders to make them vegetarian, though.
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| She’s pretty cute. And not afraid of me. |
The silent auction was a great combination of practical items and silliness. We had everything from a towel from Target, Cheetos from the US and toilet paper to USB drives and a box cutter. It was fun to see what people are attracted to under what circumstances. Here in the Peace Corps, some of the highest bids went to American items like the Cheetos and towel, which back in the US would probably be the least interesting things on the table.
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| Cinderella! Wash the dishes! |
The party was fun. It was all PCVs and our new Country Director and new Administrative Officer. The CD is married and has a very cute daughter who is not afraid of white people. It was nice to play with a kid who isn’t afraid of me, confused by me and generally interacts the ways I know how to interact with kids. She took a liking to my camera, which made her dad nervous. I kept a firm grip on the strap while she was taking pictures, I don’t want to test the titanium casing on that thing.
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| Head Chef Mat and a chunk of meat |
We cleaned up and cleared out of the house we were partying in by 10 and went back to the hotel where we discovered that vodka can also be drunk out of a “shell.” In some ways it is easier than a shot glass, really. Maybe I’m just getting too good at drinking things from shells.
It was a fun night and the fundraiser made four times what they were aiming for. Hopefully this means the next year’s worth of camp GLOW/BILD will be fully funded and that we can laminate a few sets of pictures for the Gender Based Violence toolkits.
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Dessert! Chocolate pudding with whip cream and chocolate pieces.
I ate mine with a fork. |
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| The committee hosts, after the hosting |
