poopie

No, I'm not gonna write an entire blog about my poop (although i totally could and if you wanna know please ask!).  but i was sick and it did suck.  I guess it was a necessary step to becomming a PCV (for those of you who aren't down with the lingo that's Peace Corps Volunteer). I was not up to par for about a week but it was the last two days that really turned me out.  I had a temp of 39 C (102 F) and i was not keeping much down.  but i'm over it.

oh, lets talk about my first charla! So for my progam i have to give so many charlas which are these educational talks about whatever topic to whatever kind of public.  I've heard from many the PCVs of the horror stories of their first charlas in training.  They talk about how they didn't know much spanish and how their audience didn't want to be there etc.  and every time I think, ah that won't happen to me because i already know a pretty good amount of spanish and yea i won't have any cool first charla stories... HOLY CRAP was i wrong!

setting up the parameters of what i was given for my first charla:
it was for a healt fair at the local health post
it was to be given 3x throughout the day (9a, 11a, 2p)
it was for a group of 35-40, 15-17 year old girls
it was to be about 35-40 min long

so me and one of my site mates, Katy, prep for the above so we can give the charla together.
ok so. come 9, no one shows up... 9:30 nothing then at 10a stream of 75-80 girls (i swear to god) come into the little grassy area that we set up for them.  But don't worry, our supervisor was like oh its cool we'll split them into two groups and u can give ur charla twice.  So now i'm thinking ok how do we cut out 10 min from our charla so that we fit both groups in before the 11am group gets there, whatever we'll wing it. we we're going through the first half of the first group and we're almost done, we split the girls into small groups and they're working great on a small skit.  then our trainer shows up and i'm excited to show here how great our charla is and how flexible we're being with the curve balls. when all of a sudden 2 CLOWNS (again, swear to god) and a nurse show up and high jack or charla.  they're like "ok, everyone come over here and get tetnaus shots and vitamines!"  we're like WTF seriously.  our trainer was about to flip and start a beat down on the clowns but luckily boss lady showed up and was like "oh so u guys are done with the first group?" and we told her no we were high jacked.  She set us in the right direction again.

so then. the second half had to go super fast because of the extra commotion caused.  it was mostly uneventful.  but as soon as they were done and walking out we're like fantastic, we get a little break. but nope the 11a group shows up right on time (since when did guatemalans decide to be on time!).

again it was a group of like 75 at least. here we go again.  luckily we got the clowns in line this time and we didn't hear an unwanted peep from then.  there was just the creeper old dude with one of those mustasches that go all the way down the chin, leaning on a car looking at all the underage girls. *shudder* we do run a bit long with the first half so some authority figure (i'm still trying to figure out who she was) comes up and whispers to us that for the second half we have to cut it down to 15 min (15MIN!!!).  Of course we do! so we run through it and we're like ok whatever.  Luckily the girls had fun and i like to say they leard something.... maybe... i sure did. 

it was awesome!!!

i just want to say that i love my group mates because Katy was awesome and the other Laura, who didn't have to help, came running to help when she saw the massive wave of girls coming our way.

oh and btw, there was another Laura who helped out too.  talk about confusing.  she's a social work student who works in the center and she randomly showed up to the first charla.  she was like oh i just want to say a few words to introduce you guys... and ended up staying the whole time watching us like a hawk.  but she's super cool too! LOVES it!

now i'm prepping for a charla on Friday to a group of 25 (or so they say) teachers.  i have to give a half hour talk about the different types of accute respiratory illnesses that are common here and affect their students.  I'll keep you posted.

lastly, much love going out to SARAH KNAACK who just set off as a PCT (peace corps trainee - like me!) in honduras.  hopefully we can share fun stories!