It's Time to Celebrate

First, I want to say thank you for the book drive money! The grant was filled and so now it is a waiting game to get the money from the states. Funding is always a struggle and I admit to lacking grace and patience when it comes to money. I am soliciting for a latrine project in my site and can quickly turn a conversation into a venting session if I am not careful. In another bit of unfortunate news, I have had some theft from my patio at night, the church’s tools, which feels violating and my computer is irreparably broken so I will likely be writing less.

It has actually been nice to not be tempted to watch shows, after my lack of discipline resulted in watching the entire season five of the office more than six times, shocking really. I have noticed that my restraint is so lacking that anything that fun or tasty proves to be impossible to resist. Even oatmeal and powdered milk can be wildly alluring. Oh, how we change! I have become so lazy and unhealthy about food, I am going to have to stage my own intervention, ha. It is a matter of getting myself to the market on Tuesday, wanting to cook and do dishes and eating balanced meals. We all need goals, right? I secretly think the lack of fun in the house leads me to be a better volunteer, whatever that means. Because I don’t have computer TV, maybe I do more visiting and perhaps more inspired to do work related tasks. Right now, I am teaching environmental education, art and English. An environmental coloring book is also in the making but we’ll see about implementation. How a coloring book can be complicated is beyond me. Show me the money and the Kinko’s and I would be rocking, even a scanner, come on!

I had a trainee come visit to see the life of a volunteer. She got lost in a different border town and had to take a very pricey taxi over an hour from my site. Other than that, the rest of the weekend went smoothly with lots of community events and visits. We went to a cockfight, a greasy poll climbing competition, a meringue concert and of course, the dirty river that separates us from Haiti. We had a huge spider, a leech and an exorbitant amount of salamanders in my house. There is nothing like a visitor to make you realize how dirty your life is. I also realized that I let ants crawl all over me without brushing them off and that I had unnecessarily gone the ten months in site without a pillow. I bought one right before she came and now I feel like a queen in a hotel… or something. We also ate things I never normally get like soda, chocolate milk and cheese, woop!

Now, for Semana Santa! The week before Easter is a huge holiday here with no school, lots of family visits and beach vacations. Apparently, our river fills with people and the nights are full of parties. I’m sure I’ll be busy going to church and shaking my groove thing, ha ha!