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.

It has been a while

Well, I am working on the worst computer known to man, and I am paying for it, but besides that things are going well. Very well actually despite a bad day. You see over the last 48 hours I have been developing 40 or 50 little spots, that would seem like bug bites if I hadn't been using my bug spray like a shower. So, today I decided (rather my wife and counter-part decided, but they were right) to call the doctor, and since telling someone you have red spots all over your arms, torso, and legs doesn't mean much over the phone I got to go to the hospital today. Awesome! Well if ever there were a cultural experience this was it. Very it. I was shocked first because it was empty. One would think a hospital here would have at least one other patient, but the entire time I was there, I only saw a few staff members, and as we were leaving, I saw 2 other people at the pharmacy. It was also spotless. American hospitals have nothing on this place. People were cleaning rooms that I don't think had been used for a couple of days. It was comforting. So I did my best to explain my problem in Spanish, and everyone seemed okay with how things went, and I left with a script for a pill, a cream, and a huge shot. Now I was hoping that the big shot was going to be a little shot in my arm, but it wasn't. It was a huge shot in the butt. And it hurt. A whole whole bunch. And I passed out. In the lobby of the hospital. This was my own fault, but I like to think the peace corps has thier part to play as well. You see, I know I pass out after shots. I am usually very careful, but since I have had almost 12 shots over the last month, and not passed out once I was semi-confident I was going to be fine. I was too, until I stood up and walked out the door. Thats when it started, the good news I remained awake long enough to see my way to a bench and lay down. I think they were confused until they noticed I was out like a light. I warned them though, I really had. So I decided to take the afternoon off. The first such afternoon where I have had some time off, and so I want you all to know, thats what I went through to be here today. Don't worry I am just fine, just some red spots that came from who knows where. They all tried to ask if I had eaten anything new lately, and the problem was I have eaten SO many new things, the question was impossible to answer. In the last 4 days I have eaten 2 new varieties of orange, a seafood soup that was great, but who knows what was in it, at least 2 new fruits I can't even identify, plus a variety of foods they serve at restaurants where they may use a hundred varieties of anything. So for now, I am on a limited diet and some alergy pills.


And all that was this morning after I went out to an aldea met some people, saw a project where they are installing solar panels, and saw a beautiful view. This is why telling the story of my being here is so hard. I do something new pretty much every day.

So I suppose I will do my best to hit the high points of what I have done over the last 2 or 3 weeks, but I am sure I will miss something interesting. Here is the summary. We moved to Santa lucia. We met our counter-part. We went to visit site. We came back. We swore in. We moved to our site. We started work. The above story happened.

My counterpart is excellent. He has lots of work, and I am already trying to get into it. I am not exactly prepared to do the projects he wants, but I am working on it. I've never ran a caja rural before, and we had a day of training in it, but it was more to identify it than to learn how to run it. Thats what I am doing now, reading alot, making contacts, but I am getting ahead of myself, more on my job later. So here is how Valle is. There is an urban area that is fairly developed and very touristy, and 29 aldeas that ack some organization or utility (like telephone, water, electricty, or social organizations, which are really the back bone of getting things done here). So the good part is we have all sorts of stuff available to us, including cable TV in some areas. This is nice because it means on Monday nights I can ask to watch Monday night football, and they usually have the Sunday night game on ESPN too. Life is very different and conditions are still different than home, but overall, I do have it pretty good. Going out to the aldeas is interesting, because it is the same city as the urban area, but it is like walking into the past. 2 hours from me are places without running water or electricity. Most of my work is out there. My counter part is a published engineer, and he wants me to write articles for publication once I have more experience becuase he says not alot of people write on the effect a rural bank has on local water sources. It is a thought, but it is hard to say how that will go. When the Peace Corps tells you things are an exchange, what they really mean is you have alot to learn. I am pretty happy about that though, I came here to learn.

Swearing in was alot of fun, though due to bad behavior and budget cutbacks, groups no longer get to stay the night in a hotel. Apearantly people were too rowdy and about the same time peace corps was trimming the budget, so it was done away with. No big deal though, I actually had a very good time back in Santa Lucia. So swearing in was apearantly quite the production here. We were on national news, and some of us were interviewed (not me). There was even a picture in the paper. They invited the directorfrom the ministry of education, the head of a university, the ambassador (so he swears us in, he has to be there, but it makes it sound more important), and our country director. It was nice and short, and after wards we got mexican tacos, and that was awesome.






























So those are pictures of our boss, our group, my close friends and fellow trouble-makers, and my Spanish class.

Thats all for now, I could talk all day about my site, but I am nicer than that, and I have two years to tell every detail.