Keeping Busy

8 weeks.  I have 8 weeks left in my service.  Actually I have less than that.  I have 52 days.  Each day in San Martín seems to fly by even faster than the last.  I’m so busy here I don’t even know where to start.  As I explained in my last post, I’m primarily working with 26 community-based youth groups.  Once a month, I give a leadership and teamwork training to one or two members from each group, and then they go back to their communities to replicate the training I gave them.  I’m doing the same thing with recycled arts and crafts.

 

Giving a training to some of my youth leaders.

Working on recycled arts and crafts.

One of the purses we're making using recycled materials.

I’ve also been training some of my more active youth leaders in how to teach self-esteem lessons in the primary schools, and I’ve collaborated with three local primary schools that are allowing my youth leaders to teach these lessons one day each month.  In the middle schools, my counterpart, Briyi, and I are teaching lessons on alcoholism and drug addiction.  All in all, we are working with over 800 primary and middle school students in addition to the members of the youth groups.

Some of my middle school students presenting their poster on
how to say no when someone offers you drugs

One of my youth leaders giving a self-esteem lesson to primary students

This month, I also started working with an organization called CONALFA.  This organization gives free adult literacy classes in most of the rural communities of San Martín.  They invited Briyi and I to give some trainings to the literacy coaches, and we gladly accepted.  It’s been fun to work with this group of young adults, most of whom are aspiring teachers.

CONALFA literacy coaches during a training

I’ve also been helping out with an eco-tourism project.  I’ve visited five tourism sites in San Martín, and I’m helping the municipality to develop ideas on how to promote tourism in the community.  I’ve been giving them a foreigner’s perspective and translating website information into English.

Visiting Mixco Viejo, the Mayan ruins in San Martin

In May, we’re planning two large activities.  First, we’ll be holding a full-day HIV/AIDS training.  We’re inviting 2-3 young men and women from each youth group to receive this training, with the hopes of them being able to assess the need in their communities for future trainings of this type.  The municipality will be donating lunches and snacks, so we won’t need to solicit any outside funding.  We’ll also be training ten youth leaders to help us out with various activities during the day.  About a week later, we’ll be holding a youth talent festival.  San Martín youth will be able to sing, dance, act, and display any artwork or handicrafts.  Prizes will be given to the top contestants in each category.

I’ve also been hard at work revising sections of the various manuals we work with in my project.  As a member of the Project Advisory Committee and the Curriculum Committee, I’ve been charged with helping to prepare the documents for the next incoming group of new volunteers, set to arrive in country in June.  We just finished our revisions, and I formatted and sent the documents off to the language department to be edited last week.

I also have a TON of reports to write up and turn in to Peace Corps before June 14^th, which is my COS (Close of Service) date.  These will keep me busy once they are sent to me within the next couple of weeks.

As a side note, I got into Harvard, Georgetown, the University of Southern California, and the University of Washington.  In all I got into five of the six programs I applied to.  I’ve decided that I’ll attend Georgetown, starting in the fall of 2014.  In the meanwhile, I’m going to go back to Seattle for a year, find a job, and spend some quality time with my family and friends.