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?
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