A couple things have gone on in the last week….last Thursday we held a full day camp. The trainees split into three different groups and planned three different camps. My group did a camp on Mental and Physical Health for girls 13-19 years old. We each brought a few girls from our communities and separated the day into different activities. It was so much fun. In the morning we did some ice breaker activities, introductions, etc and then we had our first charla on “How to Deal with Stress.”
Then I taught a kickboxing class – in Spanish!!!! It rocked…the girls did pretty well – I was surprised! Next we did a short nutrition session and then split into different groups and made lunch: fruit salad, chicken salad, potato salad, and a veggie salad. After lunch we did a self-esteem class and then Ginger taught a Afro-Brazilian Dance class which was fun. I think the girls had a good time overall – I mean better than washing clothes and doing chores all day no?

My Holy Week was pretty uneventful because my host family isn’t Catholic, but maybe that’s a good thing because the Catholics had services and processions day and night. Freaking crazies with their fireworks until 1am, keeping the whole town awake. But Saturday I showed the kids in my family how Easter is done American style, minus an Easter bunny unfortunately.
But we dyed eggs, which they we really confused about and tentative to do at first, I swear they thought I was crazy, but they loved it. I mean how can you NOT! Then I stuffed some plastic eggs with candy Christina sent me (Christina you rock by the way) and Kevin and I hid the eggs and the kids had so much fun finding them. So much fun in fact they had us hide them again, and they wanted us to hide them a third time but I sent them away eating their candy instead.


Then Monday, the big day, I went to Isla de Mendez to visit my site!!! dun-dun-dun. The visit went well though. It kinda felt weird to just be there for a few days, but the people I have met so far are really nice and welcoming. One of my counterparts is the Doctor at the local Health Clinic. He lives out of the area but comes in for the week to work and stay in the community. So I pretty much hung with him which was great because he’s young, super nice, has an amazing relationship with the community and is funny.

The first day we walked around the community, stopping in at different houses, and giving me a sense of the community, which is pretty big. I mean it’s not that big in expanse, maybe 20 minutes to walk thru the community but 383 families live there, about 1200 people. That’s a lot!!!! The houses are all really close together, totally not what I’m used to here in San Vicente. But the community has streets (not paved so don’t get excited) in a grid pattern so it’s easy to navigate. There are a bunch of small tiendas, a few restaurants, two work co-ops, and lots of dogs and pigs. ick. All the latrines are the composting type because the water level is so high that they can’t just dig holes for their business or it would contaminate the water even more than it is. Everyone gets their water from wells, but the water level is only 1-2m below ground and has been deemed undrinkable by a group that came in to test the water.

I met with a number of community leaders: the nurses, maternal health workers, two pastors (oh yeah 4 Evangelical churches), the school director, the doctor, and the ADESCO president. All were receptive to my coming and brought some great work opportunities to the table including: reproductive health and sex ed, physical ed classes in the school, water project/treatment, trash, youth groups, cultural work and English.

I didn’t take pics but the pic below of that boat in the bay is pretty much what it looks like from the shore looking out into the bay – it’s beautiful – and the ocean side is supposed gorgeous because no one lives out there so it’s deserted and clean!!!

My housing situation is a little messed up because the house Peace Corps picked for me has been abandoned for a while, has no electricity, water or a place to bathe so I’ll be working on that my first few days, and will be living with a family in the mean time. A family of 14 – kill me now. But hopefully it’ll work out.

Strange things on my trip: raccoon on a leash in someone’s yard, dead dog in front of someone’s house and nobody even noticed that’s how little they pay attention to dogs here, having a bolo (drunkard) serenade the town to sleep accompanied by the howling of dogs and lastly the first day I was there the doctor have this woman an IV in her front yard. She sat in a hammock and the IV was hanging from a tree.