Busy days!

One thing I love about my community is that there is ALWAYS something to do. I'll look at my blank calendar on Sunday thinking, "Gee, I have a lot of free time." Then BOOM and now I have 15 meetings, intramurals, cooking, art, women's groups, ADESCOs, NGOs, this, that, and more! It's great and it's exhausting.

Today I ran around with the kids from my school for their annual intramural extravaganza. Of course, the boys play futbol and the girls either sit around or some play softball. They never mix and the girls never play futbol. Besides the gender divide, the kids really like having time out of class. And they're getting bastante time off! Three days this week are spent in the cancha playing sports and next week is Semana Santa, which is like spring break but with a lot more church.

Kenny and his friend. The mayor donated the uniforms for kindergarten. 

Two of my 9th grade englsih class students are in *love*

Finally got a pic of Kenny and David. So cute here, so loud when they're at home. 

Kids really wanted me to take a photo...

Me with my 9th graders. I asked the teacher next to me to take the photo, but he made a big deal about finishing his cortido and beans so he could be IN the photo. Guess I should work on my speaking skills some more.

Some girls playing softball. There were so many dust storms. Where's the RAIN!?!

Then I showered up and zoomed into town for a presentation from Asociacion PROESA. I'd like to think that my NGO b.s. meter is pretty accurate at this point, thanks to all the failed projects and false expectations previous NGOs have brought to my community. PROESA seems pretty OK to me. They work with the mayor's office to build capacity for production and local economic growth. I like their mission statement and their output goals are reasonable. They're going to start decentralized meetings across the municipality this month, focusing on the strengths of Osicala's producers (cafe, henequin, artesania, coopertivas, corte conffecion, etc) and how to improve their technical skills and organizational capacity.

I was feeling extra confident today and even read a paragraph of the powerpoint slide out loud when no one answered the presenter's plea for participation. I stumbled on a few words but everyone seemed impressed with the gringa's mad Spanish skills. I'm just here to make people smile :)

Blogging is hard

Recently I've been conflicted over the purpose of this blog. I honestly don't know what I'm doing here. I just wanted to write some stories so that my mom knew I was ok. Sometimes they're funny, and sometimes they're not. Maybe one day I'll get the comedic timing down.  

Even as I'm tapping this out on my iPad, I'm annoyed. There's so many sites and smells and feelings I want to remember and share about my service and I know, I just know, that I'll never capture them all on this screen. It's a crushing thought. I wonder if it'd be better for me to stop categorizing the blog-worthy from the daily experience and just focus on my actual work as a volunteer. 

But I want a record of my time here, so I find that I need to write. I think to myself, "Geez, Alex. Maybe you should get a real-life journal and spill your guts there." However, the thought of using a pen makes my hand cramp up. It's not like we're living in the Dark Ages, right? I mean, the 1960's were soooo long ago. 

Probably my bigger problem is that I've reached the point in my service where I'm completely apt to conducting internal dialogues and it's only week ten. 

A few times I've used this blog to vent, and admittedly that was pretty stupid. After all, it is the Internet. Anyone could be reading this right now amidst the glare of their MacBook, sipping the last drops of overpriced latte from a cardboard cup they're inevitably going to throw away, thinking to themselves "Geez, this girl needs to get a grip. It's not like she has to live there forever." 

To them I'd like to say that's right, this is a short span of life to spend living in a developing country. But it's absolutely worthwhile to recognize my feelings, needs and wish-lists. 

(And who am I kidding? My blog isn't showing up in anyone's Internet results. Great internal dialogue though, you're a pro.)

I've hurt people when I've treated this blog as a personal journal, even if they don't know it yet. I've laughed at the expense of my host culture, and that's not funny at all. I feel horrible about it now. I want to erase the damning posts and continue on as if I never experienced these moments of cultural superiority. But to do that would be a lie and I swore to only tell the truth about my service. It's hard to share your life so openly because you can't take back your mistakes. 

So what do I do now? Over share, under share, stop writing all together? In a few days I might not have a choice either way. I'm not sure what Internet connection will be like in my new home, but I'm sure I'll go to great lengths to get my bandwidth fix. If anything, writing for this blog gives me something to do on rainy Sunday afternoons and I'm ok with that.