Finding Distractions

Its been three weeks since entering site and for the most part it has flown by. The days themselves seem to creep by at times, but each Friday I can´t believe another week has ended. Ive started to grasp what exactly I´m supposed to be doing down here and it´s overwhelming at times. Needless to say, the work weeks are full of distractions. Its the evenings and weekends that need a

little more activity.

So that some you have an idea of what Im doing here are some projects I´ve got going on. For pure water for the world, Im hoping to create a prceedural manual for them and revamp there community volunteer training materials. Everyone is so busy in the office that I feel as though sometimes no one sees the big picture of what they are doing and how its supposed to work. As for the training materials, we spent 7 hours last wednesday training a group of 10 volunteers on water filters, water contamination, and diarrheal disease. The facilitators are wonderful, but the material is a little unorganized. Next week we will have a meeting on narrowing down our subject matter to really drive our points home, and provide more hands on activities for everyone. A little side project im trying to put together for Pure Water is a student internship with a local technical college. We have so many statistics and information at the office, but our database is completely out-of-date. Since most of us are either in the field taking water samples, installing filters, deparaciting communities, meeting with health centers, or training volunteers and communities, there is little time to consistently input information in our database. Hopefully, with an intern we can really organize the office and get our files up-to-date. Who knows, maybe this kid will be able to design a better way of organizing our archives.

With the HIV clinic, work has become a little slow, frustrating, and mildly depressing. I started making houe visits to patients and its pretty incredible. The office itself seems very comfortable with the way they do things, and very difficult to change that. Therefore, most of my efforts have switched over to the support group. Presently, I am trying to design an income generation project for the group. We are also trying to find a source of funding and open up a bank account. I think Im going to throw in some of my own money to get it started. As a personal project Im hoping to organize a Regional Convention for the HIV/Support groups down here. Most of the groups here have recieved a bunch of training on hygiene, HIV, nutrition, human rights, etc. But what has been lacking is venue for everyone to meet comfortably. In order to work Im going to plan some unique activities for everyone, such as a hike, cooking classes, art classes, pretty much anything is on the table.

It sound like a lot of work and its actually kind of stressful writing it all out...(omg, in addition to all of this I still have to do my directed study for my Masters.) Ok, so it is alot, and youre probably thinking: ¨wow, he´s doing great and he´s so busy!¨

Well, I am doing great, but busy isnt really the right word. Most of these things are in the planning phase, and I have noticed that its really hard to move past the planning phase here. Patience is the key to success. Things take a really long time and it can be difficult to motivate people to get things done. Luckily, some (not all) of my counterparts are full of energy and really excited to get moving (well, cautiously excited, they know that foreigners don´t always keep their promises).

So, though I do have quite a few things going on, my evenings and weekends are kind of void of excitement. To stir things up, I joined a gym! Its like no other gym in the world! I even have a group of people I go to the gym with! Granted, they´re all forty year old women...but a group nonetheless! The girl that rents the room next to mine is the one who introduced me to this lovely group of cougars (not really though). Apparently, they are all physical therapists and work together. It´s kind of cool cause they all really look out for me and call me Joelito...or papi...which is still weird, but quite common here.

As for the gym itself, its two small rooms that have the unairconditioned feel of a Sauna and the visibility of a KFC at midday. There are about 4 bicycles that are stylishly masking taped together and some weight machines that have a tendancy to sway back and forth as you use them. (continued after anecdote)

For some strange and awkward reason, the pre-workout routine has been me helping the eldest of the ladies put on her workout corset thing. I dont really know what its called, but it velcros together and is supposed to keep things ¨in place¨ during aerobics. I really dont like putting it on, but she told me to suck it up and just do it. Apprentally it has to be on tight or it doesnt work. The whole process usually ends up with her screaming tighter and me panicing to velcro the stupid thing shut. By the end of the ordeal we´re usually laughing pretty hard. She also puts on a plastic bag to sweat more, which is very much illadvised. Ive told her several times that its dangerous and can cause kidney problems, but she continues.

At the gym there are three trainers. There is one guy that has so many muscles in his upper body that its kind of funny to look at, especially since his legs are the tinniest things I´ve ever seen. The second sits around most of the time staring at people quietly. Surpisingly, he´s the aerobics instructor, and when he gets going (which is often) the aerobics class is pretty much burntout after 15 minutes. The last guy...well he´s awesome. He checks on everyone, knows how to do everything, AND (here´s the kicker) he´s mute and deaf! Its amazing! He has been there so long that everyone pretty much knows what hes trying to say...I have no idea what hes saying, but everyone else does and thats what matters. Sometimes when hes trying to tell me something, he writes it out on his arm...not the best, but it gets the job done. Im pretty sure he can sign, but I dont think anyone else in the place can. Overall, pretty awesome place...to top it off they play 80´s music all day. Monthly I pay 200 lempiras, which is about $12. BEST DEAL EVER

weightloss to date: 41 lbs

Hair: still uncut

And thats it. I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all a bunch and love you ll very much.

J

PS: These pictures are about a 3 weeks to a month old