It has been a good weekend.

This week has been pretty busy for both Alice and myself. Alice Met with a Patronato (her and I have yet to decide if there is an equivalent, they are most like neighborhood associatations, but they are important, so I don't know if such a thing has ever existed at home, but I dont think so), and everything went great. They loved her group, and since they just got internet, they invited her group back to teach small internet classes. Which is super cool. The picture above is from the town of Alauca where she is working, and it makes me giggle, so thats why it is there. Chickens actually spend alot of time here crossing the road, but I've yet to ask one why. I'll let you know when I find out. Thats a picture of the great event. Alice was the one who wrote down all the information the Patronato gave them about thier organization. One of our training projects is to analyse a community based organization, and they got thiers done early. My group is supposed to do ours on Wednesday, and I can only hope it goes half as well.





Friday I gave my second Charla, and I have rarely had more fun in my entire life. I don't believe for one minute they actually learned what I wanted them too, but sometimes, you just have to live with knowing that you had a good time. One of our other projects is give business fundamentals charlas, and got to teach production, and to do as such, we made paper airplanes. First, I had 5 kids make whatever they could by themsleves, while 2 tested. Then I had a different group make it in an assembly line style. All that to demonstarte the difference between line and individual production. It was a huge mess. airplanes where everywhere. It was the awesome.


Friday afternoon the whole group helped start a tree nursery at a grade school, which was great fun. Kinda. I can only put so much dirt in bags before I lose interest, but the project was good, and I finally got out putting dirt in bags by rubbing the hard seeds over sandpaper, which I actually found more interesting. Some seeds need help breaking the shell, so thats why you do that. Here are a couple of random pictures of that.

And heres a cute picture of Alice doing Laundry.


And finally, A picture of me, looking like I was actually teaching kids, when what I was really doing, was having a whole lot of fun, of debatable educational value. The other American is the youth volunteer from that town.

A weekend to remember.

So friday's Charla was a learning experience, and I am glad it was part of Spanish clas, as my teacher very effectively made his point that I still need alot of work, but I can make it through if I try. I now see why it takes so long to become fluent in a language, as I have been working on Spanish on and off for a long time, and I still have so much that I just have on clue what is going on.

Friday afternoon we talked to the mayor for the first time, and all the great project ideas people said he wanted to do seemed to be about half true. He really didn't want to the Patronato, he had just been talking about it. Which I am sad to hear, since obviously I wanted to do it. More so, his real desire was to get a volunteer, not a group of trainees. I think since he had a volunteer in his community he just went under the idea we would work there like she does, not just a short time. Honestly I don't know what happened, thats just a guess, as he seemed quite suprised to hear we were only there a couple weeks. But all is not lost, we still have more work to do than we know how to tackle.

Last night we went out and celebrated Alice's birthday, which was a ton of fun. Añice had a great time, and everyone had made her a cute little card and got her some tasty deserts. We went to a café that has live music every Saturday, and the guy is realy very talented, and draws quite the crowd. We even go to stay out past our curfew to nearly 11:00pm! I admit, I was tired.

Alice told me I needed to start puttin up some pictures, so Heres a couple, as you can probably tell, things here are very pretty. She goes a couple times a week to one village while I go to another. He group is working on some pretty cool looking projects too, and she has high hopes things will go well.

Never fear friends and family, she does plan to let you all in on the fun, but we forgot her password, so when I have time I will have to get her all fixed up and she is ready to share the fun.

Tommorow

I feel a bit overwhelmed today, and since I am here at the cibercafé I figure I will update everyone on how things are going here.

Tommorow I give my first charla (a short lecture or lesson, can be in a formal or informal setting) to students on self-esteem. I find it annoying I need to look confident and cool tommorow, but I find I don't like public speaking in english, and I have an impossible time understanding what kids say to me, so while I am excited, I am looking for any excuse to delay things a week or so. That would be cool. I am not ready. Oh well.

We still need to talk to the mayor, but the project we want to undertake is we want to start a patronato in an urban area (don't think inner city, here urban area just means there are at least 4 ish roads. A patronato is kinda like a neighborhood organization, but it is effective in working with the municipal government, and that is also more important than it may sound. They really only have 2 levels of government here, federal and municipal, and unless you have good friends in the federal government, the municipal government is in charge of all public improvements, including roads, water, electricity, ect. This means if you don't have a patronato, your area effectively has no representation in the part of the government responsible for services. I don't know how this process will work, but I am excited to try.

A little late.

www.pennytalk.com should have the phone cards I was talking about, I haven't used them before, but word is they have the best rates to call here. I could be way off, thats just what I was told. In the case they don't exsist, I am very sorry I lied. Either way, I am sorry I may have mislead some of you fine blog readers. I find it hard to believe the lowest out there to call me is 16 to 17 cents, since I can call home for about 10 cents (2 limpira). If thats the case, just send me money. I'll call you.

So I didn't update on Monday as I promised. I am sorry again. Appearantly other people saw the same future problem as I did, and they went before me, and I just wasn't willing to wait an hour get a computer. The good news is, my current site has an internet café, so you should all rejoice that my updates should continue to come out occasionally.

Volunteer visit in La Paz went great, and made me realize that I should doubt myself for a minute, I am doing what I was meant to at this point in my life. I am currently thinking in 2 languages, so if I use the wrong preposition, it is because one is improving and the other is getting worse. I am hoping that in a month I will talk like a 5th grader in both, and that would rock. Anyways, La Paz. It is nice, fairly big, fairly liberal, and the people really are working towards development, especially the government. This was my first real meeting with a mayor here, and he gave me a good first impression.

We are now in El Pariasio, or something spelled vaguely like that. It is also bigger than the original training site, and less accustomed to Americans. so things are seeming more like Honduras. I live with a very nice family, but I am learning I am not as good at things as I thought, but Santa Lucia did add a nice middle step to what would have a been a fair sized difference. We start out self directed projects on Thurday and I could not be more excited. My group is going to attempt what currently sounds like a huge task, and I will update everyone after I know better if it is going to work out. Everything else is just organizational or a lecture, which can make a huge difference, but they just don't bring me the same level of excitement over the long term.

I will try to elaborate more in the near future.

In advance.

I am going on some field trips and I don't know how well technology will follow me so heres an update of whats going on over the next bit of my life.

Tommorow Alice and I are getting a cell phone. I had orginally planned to swear off these awful leashes for two years, but the problem is simple. They are super cheap, and free to recieve calls. I am paying about 32 dollars for one. It is not super nice, but now people can call me, and with a phone card in the states, it will cost you about 2 cents a minute. I can also recieve text messages, and rumor has it, it doesn't cost any more to send one out here. And if it does, you can go to tigo.com and put in my number, and send one that way for free.

Tommorow I am visiting the capital to go to a market and the bus station. Basically, they are teaching us how to buy/haggle food, and how to travel. Good information, I reckon. Then Thursday until Sunday we are visiting another volunteer. She lives in a fair sized city, so we're excited to go. Then next wednesday we change training sites, so updates may be sparse, but we don't know yet.

I'll try to let everyone know what the good word is before then, but if I can't, Good luck over the next six weeks.

A couple of notes

Disclaimer: The Peace Corps employs me, but that is it. My opinions don´t reflect thiers, and occasionally vice versa. Sadly, some volunteers have done some very silly things that reflected poorly on this organization in various ways and now I must point out that all opinions expressed below are my own. All recollections are my own version, so your view of this blog should reflect only poorly on me, but reflections of the postive type can be pointed towards whoever. Rock out.

Also, I am working with varios keyboards of various quility, and, additionally, my grammar really sucks, so if your the type to enjoy this sort of correcting, let me know. I could use an editor. Shawn, I´m looking your way.

Today was one of the better days I have had. Why? Because my wife brought me a doughnut from the big city. How awesome is that? It is the first American food of any type I have had.

Also, since I know potential volunteers often peruse blogs to find out what it is like (since I did), heres a story for you. In training, they are going to talk alot about unwanted attention, and as well they should. There is alot of this sort of attention. Some of the ladies are starting to get it alot. Being a man I thought that I would have less to worry about, and overall I do, but when it happens, it is a bit of a shock. Over the weekend I was in the midst of a confrontation with a drunk man who wanted to drink and dance with some volunteers. We weren´t even at a club or a bar. And when I told him they couldn´t speak Spanish, and don´t like to dance, he got mad. Then I had to ask him to stop propositioning my wife. He got even more upset. We excused ourselves from the situation at about the right time, as after we left, he threw a chair. This type of attention is common, and his reaction is not abnormal, and the police aren´t always just a phone call away. If you cannot keep a level head during stressful situtions, reconsider. Most volunteers who experience problems don´t call attention to themselves, it just happens. We knew when we needed to leave, and we did, despite the fact that besides him we were really having fun. Good decisions keep you out of trouble.

A new post.

The shift button was broken. I figured that was it, but I had to use another computer to decide for sure. Internet Cafes are not what they were in Europe. Your connection is shaky, the keyboards are not only a little different, but half the keys are so worn you can no longer read the letter. I haven't played hunt and peck since I was 12, but now it is like that with a game of guess and check thrown in for extra fun. Neat!

My Spanish is improving quickly, but it seems my Spanish teacher thinks I talk poorly. Today I got a book on pronunciation. I think my left over Spanish accent annoys her, since everytime I mumble, or use a th sound instead of a hard c, or growl a j she makes me say it over and over until said behavior disapates. Overall, I am in the middle of the pack, but I am less afraid to use it and mess up. I met a volunteer who has been here a year and he is still nervous to use it. I think my ability to embarass myelf will be handy. This week I have to talk for 20 minutes on a theme of my choice in Spanish. that should be fun, but today I talked about soccer for 15 to a group that could not have cared less, so at least it can't go worse. It is just not my fault that I am in a class full of ladies who don't like sports.

Not a whole lot is going on really. Since I messed up my knee my first day off I haven't played alot of sports since. I will get back into it, but only once it stops hurting after I walk home. I'll probably go for a jog on Saturday to see how things go. I've restarted hackey sack, but I can only use one leg well right now, but thats cool.

I need to get home before dark, but I hope this finds everyone well.

Drew