Saturday, June 16, 2007 So much awesomeness is going on I can't even describe.

Our bike trip rocked so hard it was amazing. Cheers to the organizers. It was seriously the best organized PC event ever. We biked just under 200k over 4 days and taught anti-AIDS classes to 5 groups (young/old women, young/old men, children) to 11 villages. In totaly we passed on information to more than 2,200 individiuals. It was tons of fun, and gave me a new perspective on the Borgou. Before I thought my region was pretty ugly... no hills, no mountains... not really much of anything to look at. Turns out though that if you go a little en brousse there actually are quite pretty hilly-mountain type things.

Then, to top of the awesomness of the bike ride... we finally got to tour the local brewery! There are 3 offices to SOBEBRA (the main distributer of beverages in Benin). One in Cotonou, one in Parakou, and one in Possotome (which specializes in mineral water and sodas in plastic bottles). The Parakou brewery was awesome. We got to see the entire process, from raw material to finished beer. The bottle washer, filler and labeler was by far the most exciting.

2 weeks left in Parakou.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007 Whew, things are really starting to wrap up now.

-Finished our COS conference at the glorious Casa del Papa. Delicious. Fun.
-Finished my final interview with the Country Director and APCD


I've been whining in one medium or another for around 3 months that I can't believe it's all almost over. Now I really can't. With those last two interviews completed, the rest is just turning stuff in, a language test and other sundry tasks. Nothing to write home about at all.

In any case, if any of you have been wondering what I've been doing for the past two years, here is the text of my Description of Service (DOS)

Description of Volunteer Service
Lyle Kozloff
Republic of Benin, West Africa

After a competitive application process stressing applicant skills, adaptability and cross-cultural sensitivity, Lyle Kozloff was invited to serve in the United States Peace Corps as an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) volunteer in the West African nation of Benin.

Pre-service Training
Lyle Kozloff began three months of intensive Peace Corps training on July 8, 2005. Training was conducted in the town of Azové, located in Southern Benin, with trainees living in Beninese host families to maximize their cultural integration.

Linguistics (97.5 hours)
Lyle Kozloff entered his pre-service training in Benin with a Novice-Low level of French. During the 11 weeks of training Lyle received a total of 97.5 hours of language training. At the end of training, a certified Foreign Service Institute examiner tested his fluency in spoken French and he received an Advanced Low level of French proficiency.

Technical Training (63.5 hours)
Lyle Kozloff received 63.5 hours of formal study and fieldwork for motivating and host country populations. Major topics included national ICT strategy, needs assessment, identification of ICT resources, and the teaching of basic computer classes.

Cross-Cultural Training (44.5 hours)
Lyle Kozloff received 44.5 hours of training focused on cross-cultural communication skills and appropriate behavior in both social and work-related contexts. The sessions also described the history, politics, traditions, ethnic groups, religions, and gender and class issues of Benin.

Personal Health Training (18.5 hours)
Lyle Kozloff received 18.5 hours of health training on tropical diseases, disease prevention measures, basic first aid techniques, nutrition and hygiene.

SUMMARY OF PEACE CORPS SERVICE

Following the successful completion of his training, Lyle Kozloff was sworn-in as an Information and Communication technology (ICT) volunteer on September 23, 2005. He was assigned to Parakou, the regional capital of the Department of the Borgou and trade hub of Northern Benin. He was assigned to work with City Hall on developing a tourism website for the city of Parakou as his primary project.

Primary Assignment: Website Development for Parakou
During his first year as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Parakou, Lyle Kozloff was assigned to work in conjunction with Mayor’s Office to develop a website designed to attract tourists, foreign investment and to serve as portal of information on City Hall, its employees and the city of Parakou. As the liaison between the wealth of information provided by the Mayor’s Office and the Internet, Lyle conducted the following activities:

• Conducted a needs assessment to determine website content
• Apprised City Hall staff of steps (and costs) of getting a site online
• Counseled host-country counterparts on the importance of internationally acceptable site design, content presentation and appropriate materials.
• Trained host-country counterparts in basic website design, including HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) with an emphasis on content/presentation separation.
• Taught an introductory course in server side scripting for the presentation of dynamic content in PHP
• Wrote an extensive HTML/CSS training course document for future Peace Corps Volunteer training
• Developed materials for future Peace Corps trainees in database driven active web content, with particular emphasis on PHP/MySQL interaction
• Prototyped design templates and content

Secondary Activities
In addition to his primary activities with the Mayor’s Office of Parakou Mr. Kozloff also organized, led, and participated in secondary projects in and out of his principal sector.

ICT Activities
Website Development/Training
Throughout his service as a Peace Corps Volunteer non-governmental organizations (NGO) met with Lyle Kozloff to request the technical knowledge to get faltering, or non-existent website projects off the ground. Following the culturally appropriate design model developed by working with the Mayor’s Office, Mr. Kozloff helped design, gather content and get the sites online. In the interest of sustainability Lyle Kozloff conducted 7-10 week customized training courses in HTML and CSS using each NGO’s particular website template.

Basic Website Development Conference for NGO Consortium
After being approached by a consortium of NGOs headed by a beneficiary of Mr. Kozloff’s efforts in website development, Lyle Kozloff held a three day conference on the subject of website design. Seven separate NGOs sent their own technical contacts to start the process of the realizing a presence on the web. The conference culminated in the presentation by each ONG of a project containing all the elements discussed during the sessions.

Basic Website Development Conference for Volunteer Community
Following the success of the first conference, and continual requests by the volunteer community for the same information, Lyle Kozloff and Theresa Carpenter held a similar conference with volunteer specific needs in mind. Website design remained the principal topic, with definable hard skills as the desired end result. Unlike the NGO conference, however, sessions were aimed at providing the answers volunteers need when playing the role of consultant rather than the raw ability to do the grunt work websites require.

WiFi Antenna Design
A NGO whose primary income generating activity is redistributing high-speed Internet throughout Parakou via 802.11b (Wi-Fi) sought Mr. Kozloff’s help in the design of antennas. These antennas, fabricated from locally available materials, would help bring down the buy-in cost for new subscribers, as well as reduce reliance on expensive and difficult to obtain foreign goods. Three prototype antennas were constructed and tested, but ultimately discarded as not suitable for commercial use.

Cross-sector Activities
HIV/AIDS Awareness Bike Ride
In the continuing fight against HIV/AIDS, Mr. Kozloff participated in a pilot project in the Atacora region of Northeast Benin. While excellent work is done by the various aid organizations in combating this pandemic disease, Peace Corps Volunteers noticed that the smaller villages were passed by when HIV/AIDS was discussed. Whether due to the difficulties in finding local language translators, inaccessibility of the villages, or simple oversight these villages were missing out on vital information. To reach these small, but important, areas of Benin more than 20 volunteers, plus several host country peer educators, participated in a bicycle tour of 17 villages spread out over nearly 200 kilometers of road. The end result of the week long tour was more than 1600 people, many who had never heard of HIV/AIDS, received instruction, pamphlets, condoms and the vital education that had long been denied them.

English Club
Mr. Kozloff served as an assistant and native speaker in two English clubs. Activities depended greatly on the level of student involved, but games, vocabulary building, essay contests and skits were staples at all levels.

Camp GLOW
As an ICT Volunteer, Lyle Kozloff, served as the technical coordinator for the second annual Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). In this role he gave daily classes on the advantages and disadvantages of digital technology and filled in when needed in the basic mouse and keyboarding class. In addition he ran other activities as needed, including a nutrition judged cooking competition.

Peace Corps Activities
Volunteer Advisory Council (VAC)
Lyle Kozloff served as the Volunteer Advisory Committee (VAC) representative for his region. This involved holding meetings with other volunteers in the region to gather information for the national volunteer advisory committee meetings that met once a quarter, as well as attending the national VAC meeting and relaying this information to senior staff.

Trainer of Peace Corps Trainees
Mr. Kozloff was selected to serve as a volunteer trainer in September 2006 for the new Information and Communication Technology (ICT) trainees who were participating in Pre Service Learning (PSL). He led sessions in collaboration with staff trainers on basic hardware maintenance, teaching basic computer classes, and database driven active content website development. He also acted as a confidant for the new trainees and helped organize outside activities to encourage social bonding in the new training group.


That's it. Pretty weird to see it all laid out like that.