martes, 22 de noviembre de 2011

Life

At least once a week I tell myself I need to update my blog.  Everyday I come home tired and consider it, but it's usually my first time of the day to get online and need to check my e-mails, do some more work stuff and catch up on facebook.  This has been about 7 pm lately when I finally get online.  The upside to all of this is that I've been really busy. 

I'm going to try and be brief about everything in order to mention it all, and hopefully will get on more.  Today, I'm going to go to receive the recycling truck!  We've weighed most of what we have and so far and we have over 13,000 kilograms of reciclable materials.  That's more than one ton!  This is at least 700 kilograms that's not being taken to the county dump, and 600 kilograms that's not being burned according to the town's solid waste capabilities.  I could not be more stoked with the outcome at these two schools.   Plus, the one director I've had a chance to talk to about it says that she would love to continue the program next year even though the municipality will be sending trucks out.  This way the school will continue getting funds rather than the company that will be coming out.  Plus, they can continue to use it for their Bandera Azul programs and continue the environmental education aspect of it!  Woot!

I started a computer course in one town.  I've been pretty busy so wasn't planning on it until January but one friend heard that I have been trained to facilitate Intel courses and asked to organize it and that we start immediately.  So three times a week from 3-5 pm I facilitate this course.   Some women in the group had never even touched a computer before so it's really amazing how much they've learned, even the more advanced students.  And it looks like we'll be able to finish the 5 week course before I go home for the holidays which is great!

I have two high school groups that I'm working with.  They're both pretty small but I know that they've all gained a lot from them.  The first is an environmental group taking part in a Peace Corps program called Alianza Liderazgo del Ambiente.  There are several workshops involving different aspects of the environment such as water, earth, biodiversity, etc.  At the end the kids have to submit a multimedia project discussing the situation of the environment in their communities and make an action plan of what we can do to improve it. Then, we have the opportunity to take two students to the conference in Bahia Ballena to present the project with most expenses covered.  It's a really great program but I'm having trouble working with the end of the year school schedule. 

The second high school group is called Voces Valerosas.  This is an all girls group in which there are numerous workshops on topics ranging from female leadership, to economic justice and human rights.  It's another really great program thought up by Peace Corps volunteers in which the girls express themselves and the situations they find here in their communities through art.  They write poems or stories, do collages and draw pictures.  At the end we submit their pieces to the committee that chooses the pieces to include in the magazine of the pieces submitted from girls all over the countries in these same groups.  Then, we also have the opportunity to take two girls to the conference in San Jose where they can meet other PC volunteers and girls just like them.  I've learned so much from these girls.  Even if we don't finish out the workshops due to scheduling conflicts I'm so happy to see what they've learned, especially which girls decided to join the group. 

Lastly, I have my kids soccer group that meets on Saturday mornings and we train them.  Most of them are just starting out with it so they have a lot of room to improve to beat the other local teams but they've made a ton of progress and they really appreciate the weekly practices.  I had found a coach for them but he's a director at a school and has been really busy lately so I've been taking over.  But we try to make sure someone's there every weekend. 

There's more in my personal life to include but I'll leave it for another day.  I'll just leave you with this.  I have some great friends.  I'm living with my friend Marilu although she nor her daughters spend much time here.  They stay at Mari's mom's house because she's been a little sick and take care of the house for her.  So I'm basically living alone and really enjoying it.  And right when I've had too much time alone they show up and we hang out and play around which is perfect.  I'm still dancing almost once a week.  Family back home... get ready for a dance class.  I'm not kidding.  Mom, I'm offering up your house for a family dance class, haha.  I'll be home three weeks from tomorrow and am so excited to see all of you!!! 

Love yous. 

Jenny

P.S.  My camera died so I'm sorry for the lack of color in this post.