Find Where You Belong, Start to Take Control, Show a Little Soul

The Little Things (A Haiku)
Here in Guatemala
The milk goes in the bowl first,
Then the cereal.

Many of you have been inquiring about what exactly I will be doing for work here. My answer has been, for the most part, I haven’t the slightest idea. Training is pretty darn vague (surprise, surprise, the US Government being vague), and it’s hard to know what I’ll be doing without knowing my site. So far my work has consisted of “sewing” (aka stabbing a needle into my hand and sometimes some fabric while trying not to throw the whole mess across the table) and eating tostadas with a bunch of women. But, this weekend we had to read our “Project Plan” which explained exactly what the point of my being here is:
1. To improve the management ability and strengthen the organizational capacity of municipalities, through their Municipal Planning Offices and Municipal Women’s Offices, to deliver quality services to the population.
2. To empower and motivate community groups to actively participate in the identification, design, implementation and evaluation of sustainable-integrated community development projects/activities.
So there you have it. And I have almost exactly 26 months to achieve these things- piece of cake. As daunting as this is, our meetings with the women’s groups have been enjoyable thus far. The group we had yesterday was fun- about six women who were all very friendly and welcoming. I entertained myself by watching the children, a four year old girl and three year old boy, “play”, which consisted of him bugging the crap out of her, her mother telling her to be nice, and her behaving like an angel until she thought no one was looking and then pinching the little boy’s arms as hard as she could. I think I found another kindred spirit.

I’ve been reading like a madwoman- 8 books in the past month. God, I can’t believe I’ve been here for a month! I have to say I’m loving having the time to read something that isn’t related to a class and I’m going to have a test on eventually, but I haven’t read anything worth recommending. Trash, mostly- novel versions of People Magazine, and the like. I’m working on making a “To Read” list, so any suggestions are welcome.

Since it hasn’t been very long since my last post, I’m pretty much out of things to say. This week is filled with charlas, talks, presentations, blah blah blah. Saturday is Free Day #2 in Antigua (weeee) and then Sunday it’s off to Chiquimula, so I’m not completely sure when the next time I’ll be posting is. I’m sure I’ll have tons to share by then!