I have offically been sick for seven weeks. I have lost close to forty pound last time I checked. I am sure it is more by now. I have taken two stool samples, and I now now I have giardia. I am still able to live my day to day life it just makes things a little harder. The Peace Corps office in Lima has sent me medicine. Now I just need time off to go pick it up. Maybe next week.
Things are starting to pick up here. I have English classes twice a week for two hours. I am getting a good turn out. I also am right in the middle of my World Map project. It is really time consuming. Especially since the youth are not around to help. I do not see the benifit of this project and think that it is an aweful idea. It distracts me from real work and is slowing my intergration into the community. In the next few week I am very occupied. I am working with the medical post to write a curiculum for the nurses. They will go to the rural schools twice a month and give the youth lectures. They will be about hand washing, drinking clean water, common disease, and so on. I am working with four different schools to develop a tree planting and organic garden component to thier classes. I will be revising the curent cirriculum on monday. I am working hard in my own garden. I am very pleased to say that I am finally having succes. I have about five hundred sprouts of 25 varities of veggies, herbs and fruit. I am forming a group of artesians. This group is very lost and I really have no idea what I am doing we will have to see how it works out. I have also started talking to two different NGOs about funding projects and how I can work along side them. I went out to the tabacco plantation today to learn about Peruvian style hydroponics. I am going to be trying to revise my counterpart in the next couple months. The system they are using right now is just plain aweful. They need a lot of help but do not want to take suggestions.
It is really hot here right now. It is downpours mixed with 90 degree heat. I miss the snow. Humid is a huge understatement. I have site visit from my boss on the first of March followed by a three day workshop with all of the volunteers from my group. I have a lot of worthless work to do for both and do not know where I will find the time. I hope all had a good St. Val's day.
Matt
sábado, 16 de febrero de 2008
sábado, 2 de febrero de 2008
Month two. Done and Done.
I have some how forgotten to write everytime I come to the internet. A lot has been happening. I have been sick with what I can only guess is a intestinal parasite for the last month. I weighed myself about a week ago and I had lost over thirty pounds. I am glad to be getting to a healthy weight just wish I was doing it in a healthy way. My grandma is convinced that I need to eat more of the rancid food that they feed me. She tells me that I need to eat or I will die soon. I explain to her what colera is, and that it is only passed to other people when you do not wash you hands after going to the bathroom. Kind of like how she never does. She proceeds to tell me I am crazy, and I proceed to talk under my breathe in English. Nothing gets resolved and we have the same conversation when the next meal that I have previously said I do not want to eat arrives.
I have developed this really awesome super power here. I like to call it English. I can talk to selected people in it and everyone else looks at me baffled. With out it I am what I like to refer to as the ¨Mayor of Struggletown¨. In the sector of work I have been moving forward slowly. I am starting to paint my wall. I go the run around for a month and now the project is finally in my hands. I have collected a group of youth to help me, and found some youth who want to help. I can not wait to get this done. In the mean time I have been putting togeather a survey to ask the people in my area. This will be very hard to proceed with. People here are very friendly and do not like to tell you no. In fact they will answer with a response that you want to hear. I am forced to give this servey in my first three months before I have built confidence with my communinty. This should be good. I have alredy been told that I am too white and young to be asking people such questions. How do I respond to that. I will prevail. My main goal is to get it out of the way. On my own time through conversation I am making alliances-friends all over the place.When ever I go any where the people go out of their way to greet me. I really am enjoying my self. I can not tell you how much I could get done if I was healthy.
You know every person has their own reason for joining the Peace Corps. You know besides having this deep inner desire to save the world. I think I found my reason the other day. It had been raining for about 18 hours straight, and my world had been turned up side down. I mean you could not even walk outside because of the mud flat that now covered the entire valley. And that was it. I had my realization. How special it was to be in a place living amongst nature. Where the rainny season really meant the rainny season, not that you had to put on your gortex jacket and boots, or that you had to use your wind shield wippers, but that it was raining and that was that.
My garden had finally produced a plant. I am jubilant. I have a few sprouts, and I can not explain how happy I am. I was thinking in the southern hemisphere things were done different, but to my suprise things can be planted here. My grandma was very adiment to tell me that plants here do not need water until they are three inches tall. I questioned her and she told me that she had the experience and what did I know. I could not say anything besides I was a biuogeochemist and that that is not the way things work. She responded by telling to get my vudoo(science) the hell out of here and until I had some food for the table, I had nothing to be able to question here with. I love this lady. In three months I will have the most amazing garden including. Seven varieties of fruit trees, 14 varieties of vegies, and 13 herbs for starters.
I have pictures but they will have to wait. Untill next time, by that I mean next week.
I have developed this really awesome super power here. I like to call it English. I can talk to selected people in it and everyone else looks at me baffled. With out it I am what I like to refer to as the ¨Mayor of Struggletown¨. In the sector of work I have been moving forward slowly. I am starting to paint my wall. I go the run around for a month and now the project is finally in my hands. I have collected a group of youth to help me, and found some youth who want to help. I can not wait to get this done. In the mean time I have been putting togeather a survey to ask the people in my area. This will be very hard to proceed with. People here are very friendly and do not like to tell you no. In fact they will answer with a response that you want to hear. I am forced to give this servey in my first three months before I have built confidence with my communinty. This should be good. I have alredy been told that I am too white and young to be asking people such questions. How do I respond to that. I will prevail. My main goal is to get it out of the way. On my own time through conversation I am making alliances-friends all over the place.When ever I go any where the people go out of their way to greet me. I really am enjoying my self. I can not tell you how much I could get done if I was healthy.
You know every person has their own reason for joining the Peace Corps. You know besides having this deep inner desire to save the world. I think I found my reason the other day. It had been raining for about 18 hours straight, and my world had been turned up side down. I mean you could not even walk outside because of the mud flat that now covered the entire valley. And that was it. I had my realization. How special it was to be in a place living amongst nature. Where the rainny season really meant the rainny season, not that you had to put on your gortex jacket and boots, or that you had to use your wind shield wippers, but that it was raining and that was that.
My garden had finally produced a plant. I am jubilant. I have a few sprouts, and I can not explain how happy I am. I was thinking in the southern hemisphere things were done different, but to my suprise things can be planted here. My grandma was very adiment to tell me that plants here do not need water until they are three inches tall. I questioned her and she told me that she had the experience and what did I know. I could not say anything besides I was a biuogeochemist and that that is not the way things work. She responded by telling to get my vudoo(science) the hell out of here and until I had some food for the table, I had nothing to be able to question here with. I love this lady. In three months I will have the most amazing garden including. Seven varieties of fruit trees, 14 varieties of vegies, and 13 herbs for starters.
I have pictures but they will have to wait. Untill next time, by that I mean next week.
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