applications and project plans

Whew, it’s cinco de Mayo!  It’s my parents wedding anniversary…whoops, sorry I forgot to send a card mom and dad. 

This past Tuesday was Peruvian labor day; the health post and the schools were closed.  I took the opportunity to get some work done in Chota; a bigger town about an hour drive from Bambamarca that has a Serpost and internet.  Also this past Tuesday May 1^st was the first day that the AAMCAs application or medical school admissions application was opened for 2013 applicants, yikes!

After the training event that all of the Peru 18ers attended last week we’ve all got project plans, budgets, and vision statements on our minds.  So I spent Tuesday starting my med school application and writing up my vision statement, goals, and objectives for a Healthy Schools project.  We technically received training on how to write grants, but I would prefer to hit up the local government for project funding.  It’s way more sustainable after all.  Plus, there are all these health indicators that the municipality wants to report  they’ve improved and they’ve got a budget to pull it off.

So the rest of the week I spent mostly at the primary school, because the health post was way to busy to talk to me as usual.  I get so tired of it, because I am here to volunteer to help with them their jobs.  They are required to do a certain amount of health promotion, which they currently aren’t really doing.  They are currently short 2 employees, but they have been short 2 employees since December and I’m sick of waiting around for them.  I’m starting to see why the previous 2 volunteers didn’t work very much with the health post and focused more of their time on projects with the schools.  The director of the school is always really enthusiastic about having me do projects and activities with the students, while the health post is too busy to coordinate with me on ideas for projects let alone participate in actual activities.

Anyways, enough complaining!  On Wednesday I had the craziest English class, because both of the 6^th grade teachers didn’t show up for work.  I came in for my normal two 45 minute classes with the two 6^th grade classes.  Instead I got all the kids at once for an hour and a half.  I must have had 37 6^th graders all wound up from spending the entire morning in self-study since they don’t really have substitute teachers available in my town.  I’d like to report that I didn’t repeatedly have to yell ‘silencio’ and ‘callate’ (shut up!), but it may have happened a time or two. 

Even though English isn’t a Peace Corps health goal I really enjoy teaching.  The kids are always excited to see me and they participate.  I feel like they actually learn.  Whereas when I talk to moms, they just sit in silence avoiding eye contact and not responding to direct questions.  I’m not sure if it’s a I need to gain their trust/they’re uncomfortable around me thing, or if they just don’t really want to be there and have no interest thing.  Pretty much all of the settings in which I get to talk to moms they are required to attend for this social welfare program, so it’s show up or don’t get your money type situation.

It’s still really early on.  I’m sure once I get going on a project with a small group of moms things will feel different.  They’ll get to know me and I’ll get to know them.  After the training we had last week I have a rough draft of a Healthy Homes project, but I need the help of the health post to get it going.  I need help selecting the families and I also need help with my formal project plan in Spanish that I will need to present to the municipality.  At the post they’re too busy though, so I’ll guess it’s going to wait.

Last night after dinner I helped my host family with preparing some of the breads that they sell in their store.  Embarrassingly this is the first time I’ve ever offered to help with this job.  2 or 3 nights a week after dinner my host mom and brother make this sweet mixture to put inside 2 of the types of bread.  It’s kind of gross, because it’s just water, sugar, and water.  If you can get over the fact that it’s gross, it tastes pretty okay.  It was really nice to spend family time with them though.  It cuts in on my t.v. watching time; I have a gazillion downloaded t.v. shows and movies on my 500 GB external hard drive.

We just sat around joking, dancing-the kind when you are sitting but move around your butt and arms, singing along with the radio.  I’m really lucky to have such a great host family.  I don’t know how I’d get through this if I didn’t have an inappropriate loud family that liked to sing off key and dance badly.  My host brother Witman and my little cousin Eduar and I are going to start reading Harry Potter.  I found 2 of the books in a market when we were at our training thing last week.  They’re all out of order, but it doesn’t matter.  I am just so excited to get these boys reading for fun.  Books are expensive and kids around here do not read anything except their school books.  Harry Potter y el Cáliz de Fuego!!!!  Wish me luck converting them to readers!

Chau for now,

kb

My host mom Dalila and I.  I'm wearing the skirt I have been working on, but it's still  not quite finished.  It should be knee length like her's.

My neighbor and former host mom of the previous volunteer Adela asked me to come over to her house to take pictures of her turkeys.  Especially that all white turkey, she's pretty proud of that one.

Then I handed over the camera to her and she loves taking pictures.