02 de Febrero, 2008

Another month has gone by and I can´t believe its been over 2 months in my site. I´m assimilating and speaking the language better, but still have a long ways to go. At least now I am able to sit and have conversations with friends and neighbors. Although the majority of my time is still spent just hanging out with people and talking, I am working with my community counterpart and an aid organization to start ¨huertos familiares¨with a group of women in the community. I´ve already started gardens with a smaller group of women, but will be working in a more organized manner with more women in a larger group. Although I am the one that is supposed to be ¨teaching¨, I feel like I´m learning more from my counterparts and the group than they are learning from me! And for some reason my own personal garden is just going down the tubes, being attacked by all kinds of new bugs and diseases.
I´m also set up to work with the community nurse on maternal and child nutrition and health, giving ¨charlas¨and meeting all the women this month. And since school is starting this week, we will be trying to organize a youth group to teach life skills, agriculture, community banks, and relationship skills.
I´ve also started an informal english class with some neighborhood kids, that sometimes has 15 kids in attendance and other times only 1. And always be assured that they will show up 1/2 hour late.
An aerobics class is in the works, all I have to do now is remember enough moves to fill an hour!
And lastly I´ve been busy helping lay brick and perfecting my machete skills with the construction of the animal health lab that is being built at my community counterparts house. The director of the organization that is funding the lab came to our community last week to meet with the women in the group and I got a better chance to learn about the 5 year plan of this sustainable, organic agricultural organization that I am looking forward to working with over the next 2 years. They start with small garden projects for family self-consumption, then work up to chicken coups and goat production on a scale large enough to produce enough to sell.
And between all this ¨work¨I´ve been constantly sick. A terrible ear infection that perforated the membrane in my ear sent me to Managua last week and then was followed up by another round of stomach problems this week. All these enfermedades have put be in bed, kept me from running, and prevented me from socializing with the community more than I´d like.
I´ve also finally received approval for my little casita that I´ll be moving into the first of march. It still needs some work on my part, but not as much as I anticipated. Already, though, the word of me moving to a house alone and being separated a bit from the part of town I live in now has spread to everyone and they´re all talking. No one wants me to live out of their watch and can´t understand why Im not scared to live there. Hopefully with time we will all learn something different about our cultures and how living alone is normal for Americans and there is nothing to be afraid of.
I will be thinking about everyone at home as I´m watching the Superbowl from a Nica bar tomorrow. Who´s playing again?