Settling In

So we are adjusting to life here fairly well, and we are learning the flow of work with relative ease. We have been in country now for 3 months, so that is the longest we have been out of the country. Alice's studies abroad may have been a little longer, but since we don't know exact dates, we've decided this definitely feels like the longest we've been out of the country. It is interesting the differences between the two experiences. In Spain we had just enough time to adjust before we were ready to go home. This time we are adjusting to the culture just in time to start working on our real reason for being here.

And start working we have! Now some volunteers arrive in site and spend the first 3 months making contacts, and not really getting a whole lot done. Others get to site and get pummeled with work. We have a fine mix between the two. We have definitely started working on something, but we are looking for other opportunities as well.

I've started meeting members of the local Caja Rurales that I have been assigned to strengthen, and Alice has started meeting members of patronatos. This week I will be attending my first two meetings in different villages to find out what I can do to help out. Alice is going to one on Sunday. Finding work won't really be a problem it seems, but rather deciding what work we want to do and where we can be most effective is going to be the hardest part.

We've also met with 2 directors from local high schools and we are probably going to lead civic education classes in both of them. We have one more high school to introduce ourselves in, and we'll be doing that sometime in the future, but I don't really know when we will be doing that.

So a friend here in site (the other volunteer) told me the other day about a great way to get news. Podcasts. It hadn't ocured to me I could do that, so I have started searching podcasts for good ones to gets news and entertain myself. Right now I am listening to Democracy now!, wait! wait! don't tell me, Car talk, fresh air, Diane Rehms, SModcast, and talk of the nation. Please let me know any suggestions if there is a radio program worth listening to that does a podcast version. I am also occasionally getting videos of the daily show off comedy central, which is nice, because the fake news seems to be a lot more fun than the real stuff. Please, let us know. We don't have a lot to do at night, so we watch a lot of movies and listen to lots podcasts.

So I hadn't planned ahead today with a specific story with pictures and detail, and I am kinda feeling a bit silly now, like I should have been leading up to somthing, but I am not. I suppose for now this wil have to do, but we are working on pictures of our house and pictures of where we live, and I will start thinking of stories I can tell.