One Week Down

I actually came to site a day earlier than I needed. I really wanted to get things started. It is a really tough time to enter in to a community, it being christmas and summer vacation in all. So I got straight to work. My first day I went to three different schools to set up meetings later in the week. I had a meeting with my conterpart here, and visited the office of the guides that work in the reserve. The next day I dug a hole to start my compost and visited a couple of families in town. The next day I went to the town hall and talked to the mayor. He signed of on my project succuring my funding. The next day I had meeting with two PTA groups and introduced my self. Then I talked to one of the schools directors about painting the wall. I am going to start wenesday with the kids. I also spent a really wierd day in Chiclayo. The resault is I now have ELECTRICITY! Which consist of a car battery and a converter. It cost me a pretty penny, but it shold give me about 15 days of three hours of power, and it only costs about a dollor to recharge. The best part is that I can recarge it here in town.I spent a day in the garden planting 10 different plots of herbs. I am really excited to get that going. I also have had another two meetings with the director of the public high school. I think I will be able to get some really good things done there. I went to a meeting of my counter part angency and that was really wierd. They faught with each the whole time. I see where my main project will be. I am thinking I can really help orginize them. Today I am having the first meeting of my artisian group. I am trying to expand the scope of "What is tourism?" here. This group is going to be a lot of fun. I also am helping my sitemate decorate a palm/christmas tree in the town square soon as I am done writing this. My plans for the rest of this week include visiting the schools again, starting awesome class ( I will explain later), getting my room put togeather (I am sleeping on a straw mataress, have no dresser, bookshelf or mirror, and my walls are blank), planting my cucumbers, melons and onions, going to see the current reforestation project (next to the waterfall), going to the health post and starting my house visits in Las Colmenas (the first of three rounds I will do in four different communities). I will post next week with a couple of pics.
Matt