One Year Down

Wow. 15 months later. 2 weeks away from a USA visit and still really wanting it. I must say, time has been flying by lately, except for waiting for the arrival of my new baby niece!!!

A friend recently posted this article on facebook and it explains how I feel a lot of the time here in regards to sometimes feeling like a failure
What The Peace Corp Taught Me About Failure
www.huffingtonpost.com

So elections went off with no disruption in our town, except we lost a few days-week of class....currently the kids are still in school for another week, though the teachers are all gathered in the office, adding the grades which are due soon....so the kids just run around free and keep asking if they can leave, and no one seems to know the answer....eerily similar to the beginning of the school year.

I am off in a few short days to do a tech exchange and meet the volunteer who made her house out of bottles and is currently working on another project using the same method. I am struggling to cope with the fact that I have to let go of control and depend on many different people here for this project to work....and I am scared out of my mind at times it won´t. But then in other moments feel so sure that it will....only time will tell.

I am still tired. But busy. And generally happy. Matt is currently in Managua working at a camp for University English Teachers through the US Embassy, so I am experiencey the Q as a solo girl volunteer would....so far so good though it is only day 2 (-:

Really thinking about lots of people at home etc lately....Probably bc that is where we are headed so soon for a little break....

Much love to everyone!

Truth be Told

I am tired, and a little burnt out. October went by really fast. We colloborated with our sitemate on his big health project---teaching people that work for various coop´s/farms about HIV/AID´s...then giving them a pre-made mini-charla, or mini-presentation- that they in turn promise to take out to their fincas and give to all their workers....pretty cool.
Then we had a big fancy dinner at a fancy hotel in Managua in order to fundraise money for the small business volunteers who are working with kids here to start their own small businesses.
Then we had a wedding in our old host town of Catarina, it was really beautiful and fun....except we got robbed on the bus on the way home...nothing crazy...lost the computer and the camera...on an almost empty very nice bus...very strange indeed...

I have been playing catch up on the small grant proposal we had started and had saved on that computer, also lost my memory stick, and it is going ok.

we WERE hoping to present the project to the committee that has final say over the project in December before we go home, but our boss just recently came to visit us, and readjusted my expectations...which is a good thing because i was running around like a crazy insane woman trying to get done QUICK, which in this culture, can be pretty close to impossible.....we are thinking now we will be presenting the project proposal closer to my birthday in March of next year....

I´m not gonna lie, pretty much all i can think about right now, besides the project, is going home for a break, and taking a real break...and seeing all our family and friends and especially my new little niece!!!!!!!

I am mentally and physically exhausted.....but i hope you guys are all great!!! oh yeah, small detail, presidential elections are here this wknd....could be pretty interesting....but no worries, we are all safe!