It has been over a year since I've updated. Clearly the whole update new year's resolution thing did not work out so well. So much has happened in a year, obviously too much to talk about in this one update so I'll just stick to the current stuff.
January has been kind of a crazy month. It was hard to come back from vacation. I went home for a week and it was awesome but also I was running around a lot hanging out with friends, family and running errands. I got back to Guate on the 1st (i spend midnight in LAX). There is a funny story to that too. Some guy (who is such a downer) was talking to me when i got back and to be nice i asked how his new years was. He said it was just him and his mother and it was really depressing. I wanted to be like well you have no idea. I spent mine with a bunch of strangers in an airport so there! hahah.
Anyway, work wise January was kind of off and on. Something awesome that happened was our town mayor approved the funding for a project me and my sitemate have been working on for a while. We're going to start construction on a kitchen for an elementary school in March or April. This project has taken forever, the volunteer before me started it about two years ago so when she left Elana and I took over the project. It's great to see some movement on the project. We're going to build the school out of "eco-bricks" which are plastic bottles filled with inorganic trash. That's another big problem in my town, a lack of trash management. The football field in the village is covered with trash. so another project i've been working on is a trash clean up with the high school students. In the health post we have a nursing student who is performing her practicum so she has breathed new life into the idea. A while back we organized a trash clean up with the high school students and our health promoters as well as the ladies who wash their clothes in the river but it kind of fizzed out. But its funny because before when we tried to organize this it felt like we were the only ones concerned with the environment and now talking with the director of the high school and the local mayors they seem to all be thinking about it. so i guess little by little things are changing.
Also in January I got the chance to go to a workshop hosted by PC focusing on nutrition. it was a day and a half and i learned a lot but more importantly i think the educator from the health center learned a lot too. Hopefully she'll take back some of the info she learned and put it into practice.
So a theme that i've constantly felt here in guatemala is that working days are few and far between but something pretty cool happened this past week. I was chatting with my counterpart in the health post. we were talking about how january went by so fast and I mention that that means that I only have 5 months left. He asked if I was gonna extend for another year and I said nah, no one wants me here I don't even really work and he said that's not true, yes you do. Aww, that warmed my heart. I thought he thought I didn't work but I fooled him! haha. I think we make a good team. I hope I get replaced by another volunteer.
ok that was a bit of a brain vomit blog but hopefully it helped document my crazy life here.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Saturday, January 28, 2012
All Volunteer Conference
So day two of a two and a half day All Volunteer Conference. What does that mean? Well last week we got an email saying that all volunteers needed to be in Xela to attend a conference to discuss new options for volunteers who wish to leave early. I guess Guatemala (along with Honduras and El Salvador) is too violent to keep going with business as usual. That means that two groups of volunteers equaling about 70 people are being forced to leave up to 4 months early because they need the numbers of volunteers to drop drastically (right now we're at about 220 and they want us to be down below 120). A lot of these volunteers are in the middle of infrastructure projects which means that for a majority of them, the families that were promised stoves or latrines or floors or whatever are now not going to receive them. All this plus the volunteers were notified only a few weeks or months before they were to leave, not giving them enough time to either train volunteers what would replace them or to wrap up the loose ends that are hanging around from their service. It's kinda a bummer if you ask me (or any other volunteer really).
What it also means is that all the volunteers in the majority of departments (like US states) are going to be moved to the "Central Western Highlands" which indecently is exactly where I am located. So a bunch of volunteers who have been in site for a year or like me 7 months or others who have been in site for the past 3 months are being relocated and have to start all over in a new site. It sucks for everyone pretty much. Which is why we were offered the option of early Close Of Service. This lets us dig out now and receive all the benefits of a volunteer who has served the entire service. We also have the option of re-enrolling in a different country and starting the whole service over.
So needless to say this All Volunteer Conference was TENSE. People were pissed off. Not quite as pissed as a meeting that the group who was told earlier this month that they were to COS in a month's time. I hear through the chisme mobile that there were F bombs dropped at the country director and personal attacks were made to the staff. At least this time <most of> that was kept in check.
Me personally? I'm not super stoked about my site. I'm not in a relocation zone so I'm not getting a new site. One option is to move down to the Muni (kinda like if I were to move from Waimanalo to downtown or from Ralston to Omaha). I'm actually leaning more toward this option because I would be around more volunteers and have things to do there. In my aldea there is nothing and I am a city girl I don't know what to do with myself in the country. Another option would to take the early COS and re-enroll in another country. This option is super tempting because how cool would it be to get to do this all over again in another country? At least I think it's cool, a lot of my peers would not be down for that. Not to mention all the security issues and new rules that are going to be put in place that could make my service a pain in the arse. I also know that I am in that period of service where everything sucks. Talking to other volunteers they say that they were thinking of leaving (with or without the early COS option) at this point in service but that now they're really glad they stayed. So balls up or move out?
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Stand fast.... again
So as promised i got another blog entry done and with less than a day to spare. the other two resolutions are going so so. i did study some ki'che' this week (not quite 3 hours worth but some). and my friend said i could have her GRE book when she's done taking the test. so there's a start.
right now i am chillin in my bed on a lazy sunday afternoon. I was invited to an evangelical church service that was supposed to be today but i didn't go. i was really excited to go too, but last night i couldn't sleep (i think i fell asleep around 430) and the service was at 9. i really wanted to go because i heard evangelical services here are intense. the whole 9 yards: screaming, yelling, crying and of course praising the Lord. Its interesting because the family that invited me seems pretty low key so i was real interested. Anyway, i traded in some intense Lord loving for some intense z's. That is until the host fam decided to get up and yell across the yard at each other and rev up the pick up truck for 15 mins which of course drove mono (the dog) nutz. so it was also a slightly restless morning.
good thing we're on standfast again! meaning for the 5th time in as many months PC/G has issued the order that we are not to leave our site for the weekend. This is actually a good thing for my wallet. i would probably have been hanging out in Xela on Saturday drinking coffee and aprovecharing the free fast WiFi that & Cafe has in the parque central. Then it would be off to a comedor lunch and then of course there's always pasaje to get back to site. i may have dropped about 100Q in the day (~$15). in stead, i hung out here. I made some delicious Kim Chee fried rice. SOOO good. I still have a bit of Kim Chee left so i'm thinking repeat performance.
As far as work goes... well eh. Actually, during the restless hours of the morning i was thinking about starting a girls group with the high school girls here. kind of a before school (they only go to school in the afternoons), hang out fun sesh. it seems like a lot of work so here's hoping that i have the ganas to pull it off. other than that, i have the health promoter group rolling. we have another meeting at the end of this month. I also had a meeting with my unofficial counterpart who works for a NGO run out of Xela and it was a fairly productive meeting. I'm going to start working with her more in one of the other aldeas (towns/villages) so we'll see what that future holds. I think the people there need a bit more help than a lot of the people in this other aldea where my site mate is working. its going to be tough work. lets get 'er to it.
shooties.
right now i am chillin in my bed on a lazy sunday afternoon. I was invited to an evangelical church service that was supposed to be today but i didn't go. i was really excited to go too, but last night i couldn't sleep (i think i fell asleep around 430) and the service was at 9. i really wanted to go because i heard evangelical services here are intense. the whole 9 yards: screaming, yelling, crying and of course praising the Lord. Its interesting because the family that invited me seems pretty low key so i was real interested. Anyway, i traded in some intense Lord loving for some intense z's. That is until the host fam decided to get up and yell across the yard at each other and rev up the pick up truck for 15 mins which of course drove mono (the dog) nutz. so it was also a slightly restless morning.
good thing we're on standfast again! meaning for the 5th time in as many months PC/G has issued the order that we are not to leave our site for the weekend. This is actually a good thing for my wallet. i would probably have been hanging out in Xela on Saturday drinking coffee and aprovecharing the free fast WiFi that & Cafe has in the parque central. Then it would be off to a comedor lunch and then of course there's always pasaje to get back to site. i may have dropped about 100Q in the day (~$15). in stead, i hung out here. I made some delicious Kim Chee fried rice. SOOO good. I still have a bit of Kim Chee left so i'm thinking repeat performance.
As far as work goes... well eh. Actually, during the restless hours of the morning i was thinking about starting a girls group with the high school girls here. kind of a before school (they only go to school in the afternoons), hang out fun sesh. it seems like a lot of work so here's hoping that i have the ganas to pull it off. other than that, i have the health promoter group rolling. we have another meeting at the end of this month. I also had a meeting with my unofficial counterpart who works for a NGO run out of Xela and it was a fairly productive meeting. I'm going to start working with her more in one of the other aldeas (towns/villages) so we'll see what that future holds. I think the people there need a bit more help than a lot of the people in this other aldea where my site mate is working. its going to be tough work. lets get 'er to it.
shooties.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
New Year's resolution
So I'm going back and forth about new years resolutions. i have a few in mind and i think that the smart, responsible thing would be to just go with all of them but i'm kinda lazy... so i'll prioritize and make sure that at least one of them happens.
1. would have to be study for the GRE. i'm thinking i need to get my life together and as it stands its looking like that will involve taking the GRE. I have no study materials and my english vocabulary is going to shit (thanks to my limited spanish and even more limited kiche vocab) but if figure if i start within the next few months i'll be ready to go by end of summer/fall. Since this is going to help out my future i think this should be priority numero uno.
2. is to study Kiche a three hours a week. maybe an hour every other day. i really feel like i should know more than i do. its not like its a super hard language, i just don't put the time into learning it. maybe less facebook more kiche. who am i kidding... less facebook?!
3. and the third and only one that i have completed so far in this, the first week of the year, is to blog at least once a week. it is going to be hard. seeing as how i've blogged super sporadically throughout the last 8 months. my bad. but at the core the resolution is to be more consistent with the blogging so hopefully it will at least work out to every other week.
wish me luck.
1. would have to be study for the GRE. i'm thinking i need to get my life together and as it stands its looking like that will involve taking the GRE. I have no study materials and my english vocabulary is going to shit (thanks to my limited spanish and even more limited kiche vocab) but if figure if i start within the next few months i'll be ready to go by end of summer/fall. Since this is going to help out my future i think this should be priority numero uno.
2. is to study Kiche a three hours a week. maybe an hour every other day. i really feel like i should know more than i do. its not like its a super hard language, i just don't put the time into learning it. maybe less facebook more kiche. who am i kidding... less facebook?!
3. and the third and only one that i have completed so far in this, the first week of the year, is to blog at least once a week. it is going to be hard. seeing as how i've blogged super sporadically throughout the last 8 months. my bad. but at the core the resolution is to be more consistent with the blogging so hopefully it will at least work out to every other week.
wish me luck.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Much needed update
So I haven't written in a loooong time, but for some reason today felt like the day to do it. it was one of those days that starts out lame and just keeps getting more lame and then turns around and has a late in the day come back that just makes you think wow these are the moments that brought me here.
It started off with me brooding over the fact that I had a bummer of a weekend. The kind of weekend that makes you kinda depressed and irritated and well, really pissed. Not all of it was bad, there were moments that were really fun actually like when i went to see how the Grinch stole Christmas put on by a couple of volunteers in the cabezera, Toto. SOO cute, and i'm really impressed with how much work must have went into the production. Also, i had a great time at my friend's house cooking a delicious dinner of tortilla soup and pineapple upsidedown cake. But other than the highlights it was a weekend filled with miscommunication which ended up with me not being in the mood to celebrate/party. kind of a bummer which carried over to today (monday).
I woke up and was didn't have any ganas to do anything. I knew I should either go to the Puesto or clean my room and really neither got done (although I did organize a little). But finally I decided to grow a pair and get myself out of the house. I called my friend (Laura, i know go figure) and we decided to go check out the celebration of the Diablos in San Cris. That's when my day turned around, or should i say afternoon, because i didn't get out of my house until after 2pm.
the strangeness of my day included a man in a mexican sombrero following me and laura around serenading us. It was less creepy than it sounds, although come to think of it it was kinda weird. Then being hugged by teenagers in sequenced panties and black body paint and masks and then on the way home being serenaded again by an evangelical on the bus while striking up a conversation with a mormon who has family in hawaii. the whole experience made me reevaluate the important things as silly as it all sounds and now i'm back on track.
i'm still more than ready to take off for a week or so for some vacay. I've pretty much checked out of my job. My counterpart has been out of the puesto since the middle of last week so theres not much of a driving force to my work schedule. he'll be on vacation untile the middle of january. Last week i did do some work though and it felt good, recharged me for another period of laziness. shouldn't it be the other way around?
anyway, i helped out with a day camp in Laura's site. it was really cool to hang out with the kids. one day i taught english class and arts and crafts and then another day i helped out with arts and crafts, teaching about the environment and dance class. they were a lot of fun. then i had an HIV workshop with the medical students who are doing their practicum at the puesto. that was fun too. It was a bit frustrating because it was a week late (i wanted to do it on world AIDS day but my sitemate and i didn't get our butts in gear until i found some motivation).
So next week i will be home. so excited. i already have a list of places and things i want to go/do. woohoo. hope i have time to do it all.
one love.
It started off with me brooding over the fact that I had a bummer of a weekend. The kind of weekend that makes you kinda depressed and irritated and well, really pissed. Not all of it was bad, there were moments that were really fun actually like when i went to see how the Grinch stole Christmas put on by a couple of volunteers in the cabezera, Toto. SOO cute, and i'm really impressed with how much work must have went into the production. Also, i had a great time at my friend's house cooking a delicious dinner of tortilla soup and pineapple upsidedown cake. But other than the highlights it was a weekend filled with miscommunication which ended up with me not being in the mood to celebrate/party. kind of a bummer which carried over to today (monday).
I woke up and was didn't have any ganas to do anything. I knew I should either go to the Puesto or clean my room and really neither got done (although I did organize a little). But finally I decided to grow a pair and get myself out of the house. I called my friend (Laura, i know go figure) and we decided to go check out the celebration of the Diablos in San Cris. That's when my day turned around, or should i say afternoon, because i didn't get out of my house until after 2pm.
the strangeness of my day included a man in a mexican sombrero following me and laura around serenading us. It was less creepy than it sounds, although come to think of it it was kinda weird. Then being hugged by teenagers in sequenced panties and black body paint and masks and then on the way home being serenaded again by an evangelical on the bus while striking up a conversation with a mormon who has family in hawaii. the whole experience made me reevaluate the important things as silly as it all sounds and now i'm back on track.
i'm still more than ready to take off for a week or so for some vacay. I've pretty much checked out of my job. My counterpart has been out of the puesto since the middle of last week so theres not much of a driving force to my work schedule. he'll be on vacation untile the middle of january. Last week i did do some work though and it felt good, recharged me for another period of laziness. shouldn't it be the other way around?
anyway, i helped out with a day camp in Laura's site. it was really cool to hang out with the kids. one day i taught english class and arts and crafts and then another day i helped out with arts and crafts, teaching about the environment and dance class. they were a lot of fun. then i had an HIV workshop with the medical students who are doing their practicum at the puesto. that was fun too. It was a bit frustrating because it was a week late (i wanted to do it on world AIDS day but my sitemate and i didn't get our butts in gear until i found some motivation).
So next week i will be home. so excited. i already have a list of places and things i want to go/do. woohoo. hope i have time to do it all.
one love.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Guatemala is bad ass
Ok, so i know that i may be a little bias but i think Guatemala is bad ass. I feel like i'm living in the wild west of Central America. Ok, not really. I actually feel really safe here, just about as safe as i would feel in any large city in the US. Never the less, my fellow PCVs (peace corps volunteers) keep telling me how they think our post is this close to being shut down. I don't believe them, i mean Guatemala has stayed open for almost 50 years. if you don't know your Guatemalan history (don't worry i didn't either til i came here) that means that the Peace Corps has been operating her even during the Civil War! and it was not a quiet war either, we're talking about young men's soles of their feet being cut off before they are beaten to a pulp and covered in gasoline and burned to death. I say if PCVs could handle being here during that than who am i to run away scared.
Where is this coming from you ask? well a few weeks ago i got an email saying that all non-guatemala PCVs are restricted from traveling through Guatemala for a period of time due to safety reasons:
“Heavy rains affecting Guatemala have damaged the road infrastructure, causing several sections of main roads to collapse and/or wash off... Another important event occurring in September is the Presidential, Congress and Local Authorities General Elections; which will be held in every town in Guatemala on Sunday September 11th. Due to these threats to PCVs Safety, Peace Corps Guatemala has temporarily prohibited PCV’s from other countries from traveling to or through Guatemala. This prohibition starts August 29th, 2011 and is expected to be lifted on October 3rd, 2011”.
cool right? ok, so it may be partly due to the rainy season which is no joke, but even less of a joke is the elections. they get nutz here for that.
second crazyness going on here was friday or so THE POLICE STATION IN MY MUNICIPIO WAS BLOW UP!! what!!! yea so i guess there are two versions of the story and i shall tell my preferred version (also check out http://www.prensalibre.com/totonicapan/Vecinos-Policia-San-Andres-Xecul_0_544745661.html if you read spanish or have it translated). So these two people steal a cell phone from a kid. the two people are arrested and then transferred to different police station because the neighbors are pissed and they "want to handle the culprits themselves" aka, lynch/burn/do generally bad things to them. the police don't turn them over so what do the people do? duh, blow up the police station, breaking windows and the gates and motorcycles. as far as i know no one was hurt. btw, the police here in guate are kind of a joke. much respect for them, but the general consensus is negative.
third crazyness that happened in the past week was that on saturday my friend and i were enjoying an afternoon in Xela, grabbing lunch and we were on our way back to site (well before dark) and we were on a micro (kinda like a big minivan used for travel within the city) and the crazy driver cuts off this other car. the driver was kind of an ass btw. anyway, we pull up to a stop and i hear this loud bang (no gun shot i promise). it was the pissed off driver of the other car. he got out of his car and pounded on the driver side window and was yelling. but that wasn't enough, he crossed around and started yelling through the open passenger side window, but that wasn't enough, so he climed aboard and started yelling at the driver to his face. he was so close to starting a fist fight, i was kinda scared (for the driver - a small skinny dude). best part was the angry dude! he was straight from the 80s, super long mullet all the way down his back with tight black jeans and an over sized white button up tucked in, complete with cowboy boots. but this was no ordinary mullet, it was the kind where the sides of his head were actually shaved clean. So great!
so to recap: guatemala is the shit! i love it. its dirty and grimmy and crazy in the best ways possible. but it is also amazingly beautiful with the rich culture (minus the mullet dude) and diversity. to counter all the crazyness i would like to finish with a story of how beautiful life here can be. so today i was at an intercambio (exchange/sharing) of girls groups. it was overall pretty boring, but whatev. this group is intended to help girls, especially those in rual indigenous communities with their self esteem and self empowerment. this one girl gets up to talk about her experiences with the group and how it has helped her. i kid you not, it was the most beautiful speech i've heard in guatemala yet. it was so positive and she spoke with such confidence and eloquence. she has had one of the toughest stories of any of these girls and she has come back from that to become one of the leaders/mentors for the younger girls. she aspires to be a lawyer so that she can come back to here community and help the other women find and practice their rights. how awesome is that? so cool.
Where is this coming from you ask? well a few weeks ago i got an email saying that all non-guatemala PCVs are restricted from traveling through Guatemala for a period of time due to safety reasons:
“Heavy rains affecting Guatemala have damaged the road infrastructure, causing several sections of main roads to collapse and/or wash off... Another important event occurring in September is the Presidential, Congress and Local Authorities General Elections; which will be held in every town in Guatemala on Sunday September 11th. Due to these threats to PCVs Safety, Peace Corps Guatemala has temporarily prohibited PCV’s from other countries from traveling to or through Guatemala. This prohibition starts August 29th, 2011 and is expected to be lifted on October 3rd, 2011”.
cool right? ok, so it may be partly due to the rainy season which is no joke, but even less of a joke is the elections. they get nutz here for that.
second crazyness going on here was friday or so THE POLICE STATION IN MY MUNICIPIO WAS BLOW UP!! what!!! yea so i guess there are two versions of the story and i shall tell my preferred version (also check out http://www.prensalibre.com/totonicapan/Vecinos-Policia-San-Andres-Xecul_0_544745661.html if you read spanish or have it translated). So these two people steal a cell phone from a kid. the two people are arrested and then transferred to different police station because the neighbors are pissed and they "want to handle the culprits themselves" aka, lynch/burn/do generally bad things to them. the police don't turn them over so what do the people do? duh, blow up the police station, breaking windows and the gates and motorcycles. as far as i know no one was hurt. btw, the police here in guate are kind of a joke. much respect for them, but the general consensus is negative.
third crazyness that happened in the past week was that on saturday my friend and i were enjoying an afternoon in Xela, grabbing lunch and we were on our way back to site (well before dark) and we were on a micro (kinda like a big minivan used for travel within the city) and the crazy driver cuts off this other car. the driver was kind of an ass btw. anyway, we pull up to a stop and i hear this loud bang (no gun shot i promise). it was the pissed off driver of the other car. he got out of his car and pounded on the driver side window and was yelling. but that wasn't enough, he crossed around and started yelling through the open passenger side window, but that wasn't enough, so he climed aboard and started yelling at the driver to his face. he was so close to starting a fist fight, i was kinda scared (for the driver - a small skinny dude). best part was the angry dude! he was straight from the 80s, super long mullet all the way down his back with tight black jeans and an over sized white button up tucked in, complete with cowboy boots. but this was no ordinary mullet, it was the kind where the sides of his head were actually shaved clean. So great!
so to recap: guatemala is the shit! i love it. its dirty and grimmy and crazy in the best ways possible. but it is also amazingly beautiful with the rich culture (minus the mullet dude) and diversity. to counter all the crazyness i would like to finish with a story of how beautiful life here can be. so today i was at an intercambio (exchange/sharing) of girls groups. it was overall pretty boring, but whatev. this group is intended to help girls, especially those in rual indigenous communities with their self esteem and self empowerment. this one girl gets up to talk about her experiences with the group and how it has helped her. i kid you not, it was the most beautiful speech i've heard in guatemala yet. it was so positive and she spoke with such confidence and eloquence. she has had one of the toughest stories of any of these girls and she has come back from that to become one of the leaders/mentors for the younger girls. she aspires to be a lawyer so that she can come back to here community and help the other women find and practice their rights. how awesome is that? so cool.
Friday, August 26, 2011
lazy day.... week
I'm hanging out here in Xela today. No work got done. I tried (not real hard, but the effort was there), but my counterpart and most of the puesto staff is gone again. they're at the demonstraciones down in 4 caminos. the government isn't paying them what they said they would be paid and so they're going on a strike sort of thing. not quite a strike as we know it in the states because they'll come to work sometimes. So my counterpart has been to work about 6 days of the last 3 weeks. it's kinda hard to plan things cuz i never know if he's going to be there. I even tried to schedule some health talks and school visits with the health educators and they show up sporadically too. i know that what they're doing is important because it sucks to not be paid (i assume, i've never worked a job that didn't pay me what i was owed - i even had a job that over paid me for months, but that's another bitter story for another time).
its just hard to get into a working rhythm here, its just easier to run away to Xela and eat a burger and drink coffee in a starbucks like coffee shop. its hard when you don't know when the people you schedule things with will show up and i'm totally not comfortable going to the schools by myself yet. I've just had a week of not showing-up-ness. only one health promoter of 4 showed up to give his health talk and my kiche teacher wasn't answering her phone (no service i think...) so basically this week has just been me hanging out. which isn't a bad thing, i just feel like i'm wasting my time and your tax $ (assuming you are a tax paying american). It has just been a week of directionlessness.
now i have to turn in a monthly calendar to my project specialist for the month of september and i don't know what to put on it because i haven't talked with my counterpart to plan the month. i'm tempted to just fill it in with what i think could potentially happen because its not like the actual calendar is going to be up-to-date for more than a week anyway.
ok, enough downer speak. things in my little corner of the word are going pretty well beside all that above. i'm starting to feel more comfortable with the health post staff (when they're there). we're starting to form a new group of health promoters so i have something to focus my energy on. we have 3 promoters from the old group that we're going to use as our co-trainers, so i have to figure out what that means. they were the 3 (out of 20) who were consistently there and prepared and ready to go. we just have to find a way to utilize their energy and focus it in a productive way.
A friend suggested that i read a book, Switch: how to change things when change is hard, and i bought it and started reading it. really good book and really applicable for my work here (Check it out). anyway, these pilas (on top of it) promoters would be considered "bright spots" and we should use them to model the desired action. so my plan is to tweak them and use them to capacitar the new promoters. sounds like a plan huh? we'll see. ok i think its about time to take off. i wanna go buy some bread, soap and beans before i head home. love you all! wish me motivation!
its just hard to get into a working rhythm here, its just easier to run away to Xela and eat a burger and drink coffee in a starbucks like coffee shop. its hard when you don't know when the people you schedule things with will show up and i'm totally not comfortable going to the schools by myself yet. I've just had a week of not showing-up-ness. only one health promoter of 4 showed up to give his health talk and my kiche teacher wasn't answering her phone (no service i think...) so basically this week has just been me hanging out. which isn't a bad thing, i just feel like i'm wasting my time and your tax $ (assuming you are a tax paying american). It has just been a week of directionlessness.
now i have to turn in a monthly calendar to my project specialist for the month of september and i don't know what to put on it because i haven't talked with my counterpart to plan the month. i'm tempted to just fill it in with what i think could potentially happen because its not like the actual calendar is going to be up-to-date for more than a week anyway.
ok, enough downer speak. things in my little corner of the word are going pretty well beside all that above. i'm starting to feel more comfortable with the health post staff (when they're there). we're starting to form a new group of health promoters so i have something to focus my energy on. we have 3 promoters from the old group that we're going to use as our co-trainers, so i have to figure out what that means. they were the 3 (out of 20) who were consistently there and prepared and ready to go. we just have to find a way to utilize their energy and focus it in a productive way.
A friend suggested that i read a book, Switch: how to change things when change is hard, and i bought it and started reading it. really good book and really applicable for my work here (Check it out). anyway, these pilas (on top of it) promoters would be considered "bright spots" and we should use them to model the desired action. so my plan is to tweak them and use them to capacitar the new promoters. sounds like a plan huh? we'll see. ok i think its about time to take off. i wanna go buy some bread, soap and beans before i head home. love you all! wish me motivation!
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