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!