The title of the post makes it sound more daunting than exciting, but the next three months are going to be a whirlwind of activity and movement through our humble little Tacna.
First, in the middle of October, our bosses from JVI will be down here to visit. More than an observation, I understand the visit to be a chance to share with them how everything is going, reflect on the past year, and think ahead to challenges and goals for the second half of this experience. We will be going on a six day retreat to the beach, and they will be stopping by for a site visit to my school. I have been thinking a lot lately about this visit and my site in general, and I believe I will be discussing with them the possibility of being somewhere else next year. I do not feel like I recieve enough institutional support (well, its hard to feel that I do when there is not even a director of the school around), which has affected how I view my own projects I have created and the animo I have. I will keep all updated on this front. On the positive side, I am helping to organize the plans for food over the retreat, which will be a medley of Peruvian dishes cooked by an awesome cook and amazingly sweet woman who is a good friend (she sells jello cups at the market near my school so I stop by and talk to her from time to time).
Next, at the end of October, we are going to do a haunted house in our humble abode. Nothing like sharing some cultural fun from the United States and getting to be silly and scare some kids in the meantime.
On November 16th, the two new volunteers will be making their way down here. I am very excited to meet them. Even though I am not so excited to see the old volunteers go, it will be very interesting to see how our community evolves and changes with new faces and personalities in it. As long as I have my early morning times to myself to run, do my crossword, and, on Saturdays, drink coffee, I am good.
December will be probably the most hectic. My birthday is the 4th, Christmas is the 25th, my mom comes on the 22nd (I am incredibly ready to share this experience and place with loved ones in a more real and tangible way than one can simply do in letters, calls, and pictures), and mushed into all that will also be the end of the school year, Nate and Cara´s respective families coming down, the newbees moving into the house after spending a month with host families, and the old volunteers leaving. Wild wild wild. And then comes Mes de Mision all over again.
Wow - its quite a lot even just sitting here early on a Tuesday morning and thinking about it. Well, I am ready for it (even though I was in a little bit of a funk Sunday and Monday) - and keep checking for updates on how it all goes!
Showing posts with label new community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new community. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Monday, December 22, 2008
Movin´ On Up
So, yesterday I finally moved into the digs in Habitat (of which there are a couple pictures on my facebook). Habitat is basically like a poor suburb - its quiter than the city, its more of a community, you have to take a bus or collective taxi (no SUVs - pretty sweet) to the center, and its got its own school (Miguel Pro - with whom I will be doing Mes de Mision), but the people live very simply for the most part and it was built by a collective effort with support from Habitat for Humanity.
I think a perfect little anecdote of how I expect life to go is my first overnight experience. After an exciting night of unpacking, moving stuff around, hanging out with the community mates and eating avocado, wheat thins (Christa´s mom brought some from the US), cheese and some grapes (of which I will keep eating and eating until my stomach hurts), I slept well until about 3:30. From then on, between my own restlessness and the gallos going cockadoodledoo all the live long morning, I pretty much slept terribly. At 5:30, I went for a short run, which was both rough, but very enlivening. As I was finishing up, I passed by one of our neighbor´s houses and stopped to talk to her a bit as she was gardening out front. After I nice chat, I went back to our place. About half an hour later, her middle daughter showed up asking if we had a pitcher they had lent to us the other day (I couldn´t find it). Then ten minutes later, one family member (though I didn´t see which) brought over a gallon jug filled with this awesome banana shake stuff. Ten minutes later, her younger daughter showed up asking for two plastic coca-cola bottles (had to be coca cola). Meanwhile, one of my community mates was in the bathroom with a bit of an upset stomach, which I mentioned to the girl. Almost as soon as she left, there was a knock on the door again, and this time it was the mother who had come by to see what was wrong and offerher advice on how to handle a rough stomach.
Wonderful, without privacy, action-packed--I think this is pretty much what life is going to be like.
Other things of note:
- On the way from my host family down here on Sunday, we passed by a passed out drunken guy on the side of the street and the taxi driver and I spent a couple minutes getting him into the shade and getting him awake and alive with some water. Always scary to see something like that - and from what I hear, happens quite often here.
- I have become a baking master. At the host family´s, I made a banana bread, a carrot cake-bread, a chocolate banana bread, an apple banana bread and a chocolate strawberry cake. I have been loving it. The other day I also helped make some ceviche - which is incredibly easy to do (just a helluva lot of dicing) and incredibly incredibly tasty. I have been talking so much about different cooking things and am so excited. I will promise to post about how my X-Mas baking plans go.
- Spent a last great day with the host family and we laughed, talked about the times I got frustrated, talked about all the ¨silly¨ things I did - which to me were just innocent cultural mistakes, but they find overwhelmingly hillarious (like when I say policia with the accent in the wrong place or made some joke about the host father being papasnatas - long story - which apparently means stupid or dumb here) - and went to eat some grilled cow´s heart for the last time with them. I will definitely miss them, but am planning already on doing a bunch with them (including eating Christmas dinner there).
- The former volunteer at Santa Cruz left and so today it was just me. In a weird way it gave me a boost of confidence, though it was also a bit tough to handle at times with the students (who are already sort of checked out anyway). But I definitely comfortable in my own skin there, so to speak, which I think is a real plus.
I think a perfect little anecdote of how I expect life to go is my first overnight experience. After an exciting night of unpacking, moving stuff around, hanging out with the community mates and eating avocado, wheat thins (Christa´s mom brought some from the US), cheese and some grapes (of which I will keep eating and eating until my stomach hurts), I slept well until about 3:30. From then on, between my own restlessness and the gallos going cockadoodledoo all the live long morning, I pretty much slept terribly. At 5:30, I went for a short run, which was both rough, but very enlivening. As I was finishing up, I passed by one of our neighbor´s houses and stopped to talk to her a bit as she was gardening out front. After I nice chat, I went back to our place. About half an hour later, her middle daughter showed up asking if we had a pitcher they had lent to us the other day (I couldn´t find it). Then ten minutes later, one family member (though I didn´t see which) brought over a gallon jug filled with this awesome banana shake stuff. Ten minutes later, her younger daughter showed up asking for two plastic coca-cola bottles (had to be coca cola). Meanwhile, one of my community mates was in the bathroom with a bit of an upset stomach, which I mentioned to the girl. Almost as soon as she left, there was a knock on the door again, and this time it was the mother who had come by to see what was wrong and offerher advice on how to handle a rough stomach.
Wonderful, without privacy, action-packed--I think this is pretty much what life is going to be like.
Other things of note:
- On the way from my host family down here on Sunday, we passed by a passed out drunken guy on the side of the street and the taxi driver and I spent a couple minutes getting him into the shade and getting him awake and alive with some water. Always scary to see something like that - and from what I hear, happens quite often here.
- I have become a baking master. At the host family´s, I made a banana bread, a carrot cake-bread, a chocolate banana bread, an apple banana bread and a chocolate strawberry cake. I have been loving it. The other day I also helped make some ceviche - which is incredibly easy to do (just a helluva lot of dicing) and incredibly incredibly tasty. I have been talking so much about different cooking things and am so excited. I will promise to post about how my X-Mas baking plans go.
- Spent a last great day with the host family and we laughed, talked about the times I got frustrated, talked about all the ¨silly¨ things I did - which to me were just innocent cultural mistakes, but they find overwhelmingly hillarious (like when I say policia with the accent in the wrong place or made some joke about the host father being papasnatas - long story - which apparently means stupid or dumb here) - and went to eat some grilled cow´s heart for the last time with them. I will definitely miss them, but am planning already on doing a bunch with them (including eating Christmas dinner there).
- The former volunteer at Santa Cruz left and so today it was just me. In a weird way it gave me a boost of confidence, though it was also a bit tough to handle at times with the students (who are already sort of checked out anyway). But I definitely comfortable in my own skin there, so to speak, which I think is a real plus.
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