One Month Down

So much has been going on! Engineers Without Borders were here the 13^th through the 19^th. Some of them crashed at the house down the street from me where they all ate their meals and the rest stayed at my house…it was definitely crowded! We were working in a community called Las Pilitas. It’s a poor neighborhood situated in a ravine where dirty drainage water runs right through it and they have to walk up steep slippery ricks to get to the rest of the town. The PCV here applied to EWB for a project to build a street or walkway to safely connect them to the rest of the town. This stage of the project involved them taking a lot of survey data, training the community to use the tools properly to break up the rocks in the ravine, and prioritizing clean up campaigns. That week was really my fist week on the job, and it was a huge test of my Spanish skills! The other PCV and I basically had to coordinate everything the Engineers need to do and translate or everything (which is why I now know how to say drill, shovel, rebar, fencing, and a variety of other construction materials in Spanish). My counterpart and I also gave a charla (workshop/training/class) on proper trash disposal and the environment to the community and helped form a clean up committee in the community. Hopefully well help them get a water committee organized as well, as we hope to solicit for some public water taps in the community as well. On Saturday we all went to a nearby beach and spend the day relaxing in hammocks and on Sunday we visited the Izalco Volcano and Lake Coatepeque.- absolutely gorgeous!

This week the other PCV and I have had a ton of meetings and activities. The other day I taught a class on leadership at the school (in Spanish of course!) and yesterday I had and interview and helped with an English class on the youth run radio station that the other PCV helped start. We also met with the cleaning committee in Las Pilitas and set up house visits in the community above them to talk about trash management (i.e., asking them not to throw their trash in the streets and into their community!)

In more wildlife news, I finally saw a scorpion! One of the engineers was washing his pants in my pila (stone sink thing) and found a scorpion and two babies in his pants….

I’m really homesick now that the engineers have gone. I was doing good until they all came and stayed at my place, I got used to having a bunch of people around, and then they left to go back to the States and I kept thinking about how it would be if I was going back for a visit too…I wont be able to leave or have visitors until late June or July, so I’m looking forward to the second training session in June where I’ll get to see my training group again. Hopefully this will cheer me up!

Meeting with Las Pilitas community

Cleanin Up and Breakin Rocks

Engineers Without Borders - Central Ohio Professionals Chapter

Broadcasting in the Radio

Furry Chicken :)

Izalco Volcano

Lake Coatepeque