Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have a parasite.

Yep. Its finally happened. Just when I was congratulating myself on my iron stomach and superior immune system...BAM...mal de mayo gets me. This month is the beginning of winter/wet season, which means the bugs have multiplied a million times and practically everyone comes down with headaches, body aches, and stomach problems. I finally got my medicine today, so in 3 more days I should be back to normal. 
In the last two weeks I was able to have a few meetings with the new mayor, and I finally know who my counterparts are! Last Thursday I had my general assembly with the community, which I had been stressing about since I got to my site. The purpose of the assembly is to introduce the new volunteer to the community, explain Peace Corps and what work the voluteer will do in the community. For the first month the volunteer is supposed to work with the counterpart in the mayor in getting to know the community and preparing for the assembly. I, however, didnt found out who my counterparts are until two days before my assembly. I had reserved a space in the town hall well in advance to have the assembly, and when I showed up that morning I discovered the room was filled with fertilizer. So then my counterparts and I had to find a new venue and clean it before people started showing up. To make things worse, the projecter I had reserved to use for my power point presentation had been given to the casa de la cultural for a film festival, so I had to do the whole presentation without my powerpoint. In spite of all this, it went pretty well. About half the people I invited showed up which was way more than I expected, my counterparts helped with the presentation, and I got some good feedback from the community members. 
My computer stopped working last week, so I took it to a guy in town who owns a cyber cafe. I think he managed to save my documents, music and pics, but he had to redo all my programs and stuff using the software he has to fix it, so now everything on my computer is in Spanish....As if I wasn't bad enough with my computer before :)

5 comments:

  1. sorry i haven't checked this sooner. we talked about the bugs, stomach and all. glad the meeting went well. good to hear you finally met your counterparts. i suppose they had some adjusting to do after the elections as well. hopefully, they will be able to devote more time to you now that things are setteling in for them as well. looking foreard to seeing you in august. gave meredith wells (clare's daughter, i think that is her first name) your phone number, so hopefully she will call you sometime. miss you much and love you....dad

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  2. hey your dad and i checked on the same day!

    look now your comp will even help you learn espanol, think of it as cammie in hardware/software form!

    conejito es bunny!!

    and sorry about that parasite, just practice for 2012!! get that ironclad stomach sista

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  3. Hey Sister-Girl, Sorry I don't check the blog more often,,,I just forget. I like our phone calls better! Just to hear your voice. Miss you terribly, miss our coffee-chats, miss our shopping-chats, miss you, miss you, miss you....love you TONS, Aunt Dee

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  4. Hope you are starting to feel better. We love to read how things are going for you. Im glad to hear you are coming home for some down tme. You are doing such wonderful things. We love and miss you!!

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  5. Hey Lauren. Jackie just hooked us up on here. When we get home, I will get a picture on here. Heard about the parasite from your Mom just the other day. I am sure you are feeling better now. Hope we get to see you when you come home. Take care, Dawn and Amy

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