Feliz Octubre!
The "plaque" recognizing the families in San Vicente and the bell tower
I
cannot believe it’s already October! Is anyone else wondering what happened to
September? I feel like it zipped by like a 30-second political advertisement.
Since my last “busy” update, to say things have slowed down would be a lie. I
am already looking forward for the school year to end (around Thanksgiving).
The schools will start up again late January for everyone to help out “cut” the
coffee this season. September 15th was the Independence Day here
which included lots of parades and tables of honor I had to sit at
(not knowing
about the honor until my name was announced…) and several small little girls
dressed to the "T" in very short brightly colored dresses. It resembled a “little
princess” competition.
(Represent!)
You know it's legit if the Ambassador came AND the mayor put a tie on.
On September 20th,
several PCV’s and staff returned to San Vicente to close the training center and say goodbye.
Apparently more people are getting murdered there, so it’s not the best place
to bring in new PCV’s for training (where I was last year). I volunteered to do a speech in thanking all
of the host families in San Vicente, I think it went pretty well…minus it being
in Spanish. People laughed at my jokes at least.
If anyone is SUPER
bored, I have an English copy (or if you want to practice your Spanish).
Who doesn't do a quick lolipop-cheetos run while celebrating?
The
weekend after my training group of 6 (I call us the sexy seis) went to El
Imposible National Park for a hiking waterfall jumping tour. It was a great
weekend; we basically spent the entire time in one hostel room and did not get
sick of one another. Everyone gets along really well, I feel so lucky to have
found such an amazing group of new friends here. :-) I definitely could not have made it this far
without their support.
September passed my
one year in site, which I am still waiting for my “official” site visit with my
boss. This included my mid-service medical exam. It was probably one of the
worse experiences of my service. I waited an hour for every
Doctor/Laboratory/Clinic I visited, then awhile for the cab to take me to the
next place. Needless to say, I MIGHT have a cavity (yea coffee and soda here!),
but no buggies (amoebas, parasites, bacterial infections). It was exhausting.
Hopefully the next year I will be lucky and be free of sickness….I have a whole
new appreciate for “appointments” with Doctors in the states and being on time.
The past two weeks in
site has been good, we celebrated the completion of the three murals in my
school on Monday for Dia del Nino.
Dancing and "making" tortillas
I spoke with the mayor beforehand to get the
cakes, soda, and utensils donated for the event which went off without a hitch!
Even driving on my road in a HUGE truck with 3 cakes, none surprisingly got
ruined. The kids danced, the anthem was played, five PC staff came to visit and
photos were taken (by other people, my camera is still broken…) and lots of cake
was eaten. If I did not have cavity before, I definitely do now. It was
awesome. My whole school was decorated and it made me proud to be a part of
this community.
Other stuff I have
been working on was starting an English class with the 6th graders
at my school as kind of a “crash course” to prep for 7th grade in
the pueblo next year (they will start English there). I really dreaded it, but
it was something my community has asked for within 24 hours of arriving in La
Loma. So far the classes have gone really well, it’s about 22 kids and we are just
doing themes, vocabulary and lots of games. :-) It will keep me busy the rest of the month!
Well, I am peac’ing
out, it’s late for the campo (8:35 pm) and my big “report” for Washington is
due tomorrow with all my activities/classes/events from the last three months
(doesn’t that sound like fun??).
Hope everyone is
prepped for Halloween in the states…eat some candy corn for me please!
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