I told my host family that Rosh Hashanah is a special day -- Jewish New Years -- and they thought it best to spend the day doing family activities. This included cracking open cacao pods, taking out the cacao seeds, harvesting oranges, and then having apples and honey before dinner (with a few prayers and an interesting rendition of Adon Olam). There are some fantastic videos of this day, but the internet is not currently permitting me to upload them. Hopefully the pictures below will get the idea across! Maybe one day for the videos.
Unfortunately I managed to get sick again:
Vomiting
this morning off the stoop,
My
spirits were beginning to droop.
Was
only a week
Of
having the streak
Of
each day enjoying a solid poop.
But then I made it to Regional Meeting and am doing well! Got lucky -- only a virus, only lasted two days. Currently enjoying hanging out with all of the volunteers in the Bocas province, spending some quality time in Bocas city on Isla Colon. It's been wonderful to see the friends from training, and make new friends with the volunteers who have been here longer and have plenty of wisdom to share!
And in terms of work things, I've turned in my first report update to the Peace Corps (called the VRF), which forced me to think about what work I've accomplished:
First
VRF and struggling a bit:
A
success story with truth and wit?
No
diarrhea –
There’s
an idea!
That
would be some really solid shit.
Been collecting lots of interesting information about my community -- asking for community maps, and family trees, and daily schedules, and yearly calendars to get a feel for how the members of my community see their community. Exploring their thoughts about how their environmental health can be improved -- lots of opportunity for water and sanitation projects. Toured the aqueducts that currently exist -- the central aqueduct that serves the school and the houses in that area is 12 years old and has plenty of problems.
Also took a look at the composting latrines that the first volunteer built -- there has been some real success there, with one community member a particularly good example of success, using the compost from his latrine properly maintaining it. Most of the other latrines are also in reasonably good shape in terms of use and maintenance, though some reinforcement of education could be useful. Took photos of all the composting latrines to submit to an engineer in the environmental government agency that, thanks to the previous success of our community and his relationship with Lucas, my community guide, is interested in helping us build some more composting latrines! Met with him, seems promising.
Reinforcement of a variety of environmental health knowledge -- hand washing, disease transmission prevention, and the like -- will be useful, too. Our latrine charla was a good start, and taught me a lot about successful techniques in encouraging community participation and learning. Many more charlas and meetings to come!
I also have my own "committee" to help to organize meetings and spread the word -- their help will be indispensable as my work progresses. We are currently making plans for doing a community-wide water and sanitation health survey; I am so thankful for their willingness to help me!
One final success: I finally got to start playing sports with the muchachos! First I was invited to play volleyball, which men and women play together. But only guys play soccer (as I have been told from the first day). The second time, I ditched the volleyball court to try to get into a soccer game. The boys were just passing the ball around, so I walked up and asked if they were going to play, or just pass. They passed the ball to me; I juggled a few times, and passed it back. Then they punted it high into the air at me -- and I did a pretty solid chest trap. Apparently that was all it took to impress them -- we started a game, which was a lot of fun! They passed to me, they played defense on me, I juked them a few times, and suppose I made a good impression. The following week, they invited me to join them again. When we got to the field, there was an odd number -- and the guys saw a middle-school-aged girl hanging out by the volleyball court and asked her to come play, too! The two women were on the same team -- she was a feisty player! -- and our team won. Making progress!
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