The past few weeks have been full of work--which is awesome after a very, very, very slow rainy season that was lacking in anything and everything work related. I’ve been helping a neighbor with a training packet for the new Preschool teacher’s (called the PRO NEI schools here) and giving them some…gulp…English training books. Basically I’ve been making a list of English words that are preschool level (apple, orange, dog, cat…) with their translations and a phonetic way of saying them (which is accomplished by me saying the word and getting a friend to write it how she thinks it sounds). Then I’ve been translating (note a theme here?) a arts and crafts book for the teachers as well. So that’s been taking up a lot of my morning and night time, passing a few hours a day in front of my computer making everything look pretty.
Then of course I’ve been doing things outside, because we all know how much I hate to pass a whole day in front of a computer (duh that’s why I’m in the Peace Corps). I’m still working on my garden, trying to find someone to help me fence it in. I’d do it myself, but it involves wielding a machete and I’m rather fond of my fingers and toes, so I figure I’ll leave the cutting of the bamboo to a professional…or at least to someone with experience. I’m also still working on sanding off the paint on the mural. That project is moving way slower than I thought it was going to—caused mainly by the black paint being made of some super strong chemical that has caused it to fuse with the cement and thus not want to come off. Come to think of it it’s probably the lead in the paint that causes that reaction…yay cancer here I come!
I’ve also been helping Carlos, our Lab Technician and local water sanitation manager go to each water collection/treatment center in a few of the caserios. Now I’m not a Wat-San (that’s Peace Corps short hand for water and sanitation) volunteer, but as most of you have figured out reading these blogs, our roles as volunteers seem to overlap quite often. Thus I find myself working on many of the same projects as other group’s volunteers (latrines, water systems, gardens, trash programs) because they all involve protecting people’s health. But I’ve gotten the crash course in wat-san over the past week. It’s been great fun, and quite the eye opening experience. It really is amazing what you can do with a few miles of PVC piping and some cement.
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