Here are some of the greatests things happening in my life! I wanted you to know...cause its not all just sitting around and sweating!!! (even though I do that alot!)
Girls club on Saturday played ultimate frisbee...and while it wasnt handbal (which is what they always want to play)...i think they still had fun! This week we are going to make sugar cookies (and borrow the cookie cutters from Ña Lucy, ps, she loved the snowflake cutter you sent mom!) They girls are super excited and all said they wanted to bring the ingredients to help make the dough! How awesome!
I have had the two most amazing days of my Peace Corps Service, Monday and yesterday were phenomenal! Make that three...today too!!!
Monday, the Sec of Environment and I planned a charla about trash management and then she came to our day camp and gave it! She led the opening activity! Was great in our skit! And help manage our trash relay-race! It was incredible! I havent been able to convince her to do anything with me (almost ever!) So that was phenomenal! I realized that with most Pyans you can only plan for things that are going to happen TODAY! Otherwise there is no incentive, why would they EVER want to plan ahead! (This has been a hard realization to come to...because I LOVE planning ahead!)
There is a new Sec. Of Kids at the Muni, and she is totally on top of her game! She was the receptionist but got promoted, because the old sec of kids, got demoted to receptionist...cause well...she was less excited about work and more excited about drinking terere and reading magazines! But the new one, her name Liz and she is a fourth year psycology student and has lots ganas to work! We started to talk and plan yesterday, today we have a school uniform drive, practically set and ready to go! NOTHING has ever happened this fast (ESPECIALLY WORK!) in all of my time in paraguay!
YESTERDAY! I also had the most amazing meeting with our mayor. I told him how much I loved the new Sec of Kids and how guapa the Sec of Enviro was on Monday! And that I am really excited, after all of this time to find people who want to work with me! THEN, he asked me to put together an all day workshop for all of the muni funcionarios to plan for 2009, to find out what their mission is and to help them be better funcionarios, and better serve the people! I almost fell out of my chair! The sheer joy that overtook my body left me slightly dumbstruck. And I think all I could come out with was, ¨Ah, ah, ah...me encantaría!¨ SO! That is in the works! And then he said he would come and visit our summer day camp next Friday on game day! And that they would pay for our budget so that we can buy art supplies and give out a snack! Cha-ching! Then we talked about the new library building, and that he is still infavor of the location, the land and construction. The arquitect still needs a document that says the Mayor said, ¨ok¨ and what the measurments are of things and we can start to draw plans! Awesome, and we are going to try to do a SPA grant to get 5,000$ in books because that is what it really needes!
SUCCESS! Amazing! Just plain awesome!
And today, Liz (New Sec. of Kids) and I spent the whole morning putting together our project plan for a Uniform Drive, to recycle school uniforms that are too little for rich kids and give them to poor kids. That might not be the best way to discribe it...but its about the jist! She is incredible, we marcared fechas con trabajos especificos! GENIAL!
AND!!! I got an email from The International Book Project and they sent us a box of 30 (amazing) books for our public library! And they are ALL in SPANISH!!! (They will arrive in 4weeks-6months...so maybe some waiting...but still!)
Summer camp started on Monday and kicked off with a bang (Normas trash charla!). Yesterday was good too, but the kids were a little more out of control! Today is the day off and we will be back at it on Thurs and Fri. Then same 4 day schedule next week! It is exhausting but wonderful! I come completely filthy! Kids (especially in barrio San Roque) are really dirty!
Last night, I also went on a ¨caminata¨ (exercise walk) with my first Horqueta host mom, Ña Carmen and her daughter in law! It was way fun and turned out to be farther than i imagined, but still good. I was just really hungery when i got home after an hour1/2 walk and camp! We got to talk and I got to listen to them talk. We teased and talked about good food recipes...I explained mexican tortillas. They wanted to talk about more than just the weather, which was wonderful! They are good listeners and ask hysterical questions – like, why do american (and spanish) families stay at hotels when they go to visit their families in other cities. I tried to explain that many americans like their space and dont like sleeping on the floor. And they said, well, what if you put mattresses on the floor...and I had to say that even then I couldnt imagine even some of my relatives sleeping on the kitchen floor, mattress or no mattress!
We have radio tonight, not sure what we are talking about yet – but we will figure it out before we go on hopefully!
Those are certainly the most exciting things in my life. I love and miss you all like mad!
