Poco a poco

Poco a poco is how everything feels these days. Little by little. The language, the culture, daily ruitines, etc.

I feel like it has been a while since I wrote an update, but I´m sure in reality it hasn´t been too long. I know you all have been anxiously awaiting my stories! haha. Just kidding. But in reality, I do anxiously await email updates from you all, so keep them coming!

Things have been going well in my site, with the regular ups and downs of anxiety that accompany new volunteers in their work. In terms of my family life, everything is going very well. I get along really well with my siblings and usually it feels just like a real family. Of coarse, it has been a LONG time since I lived with a 5 or 7 year old, and at times I just don´t know how to deal with my two youngest siblings. Not to mention the differences in child rearing here and the amount of work they do around the house makes me sometimes forget that they are kids! My host Dad has been a big help in daily life, bringing me to meetings and always introducing me to people and helping me in conversations when I don´t understand. He is a great guy and I am grateful to have his help.

In the community I am starting to feel more and more at home. With a few of my neighbors I feel comfortable dropping by their houses and chatting for. My name gets yelled by local kids in most parts of town instead of Gringa. And with my closer neighbors and friends I get called Carito affectionately, and it makes me feel at home. I am even starting to make some friends in site... mostly my oldest host brothers friends and my host aunts, but slowly but surely I am progressing in the friend department! My little puppy is doing well, he is getting fatter and is tortured daily. But, today he got his first vaccination and I got a bunch of tips and flea medicine from the vet, so he will be in good health! He makes me smile and I´m glad I have his tiny company sometimes.

For those of you who are wondering, which I think is most people, I feel like I should explain exactly what I am doing here besides playing with my puppy and making friends. The goals of the Peace Corps are to develop sustainable community projects (for my in the environment) and cultural exchange. The cultural exchange is easy and a daily process. Thank you Mom and Dad for the book on Ithaca, because everyone loves it... although they think it represents all of the US and I have to explain that it is only one place! In terms of projects, we are meant to start them after 3 to 4 months to give us time to develop a diagnostic of the community and to understand better what the problems really are. That is the stage I am in, which means a lot os stress in terms of researching, but also a lot of fear about how to go about this diagnostic thing. It is scary sometimes to go and ask people pointed questions about their trash and the environment, and I honestly hate doing it. But, as my boss always says, it is very important becasue I wont be able to help if I don´t know what is going on. This is something I really like about the Peace Corps, is their attempt to really integrate and understand a community before diving in with random projects and throwing money at communities without and long terms sustainable goals. So... heres hoping I can develop something long lasting and sustainable!

Right now, I have started a little summer school with the local kids teaching English and Environment. It is fun and easy going, I teach two days a week, two different classes. My older kids are really great and I think they enjoy the class. The younger ones are a struggle because I didn´t realize at first that a lot of them cant read. Now that I know, I´m hoping to make the class a lot more interactive and fun for them. It also gave me the side project of working one on one with my younger host sister to help her learn to read. So, if any of you have good ideas about teachig english, tips, games or songs... let me know!

I guess my last piece of news is that I am learning to spear fish! It is really fun and pretty tiring but I love it! I usually tag along with the boys while they chuck their fish to the shore for me and the other girls to collects (which I also had to learn to do... its not so easy to hold on to a fish!) until the boys are tired or finished and then they let me go at it! My total caught amount is 5 fish! I´m very proud. Pictures are soon to come of my fishing adventures.

Other than that, I am on a very slow terrible computer, so I will finish this email for now. I love and miss you all and I hope you can send me updates soon!