Training pictures, finally!

I finally got a chance to upload a healthy sampling of pictures from the time I spent during training in Cayambe, Olmedo, site visit to Bahia and Quito:


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043880&id=27500865&l=adbc95f5a3

I hope you enjoy them!

1 Month In: Still Getting Settled.

I am officially a “mono,” litterally a monkey, but rather it means that I am a costena, or coastal dweller. I have officially traded papas (potatoes) for plantains, sneakers for zapatillas (sandals), chancho(pork) for mariscos(seafood), mountain views for ocean views, cold blustery weather for temperate days and breezing nights (at least for now), early bedtimes for active nights; here, no one uses the sierran “jjaa,” but then again no one uses the letter “s” here either. It's definately a different place and definately a different lifestyle. At times, when I look back at the first two months I spent in the Sierra, I can hardly believe that this is really the same country!

I have complete my first month at site as a Peace Corps volunteer and it as been wonderful, incredible, stressful, and frustraing all at once. Certain things have been easier than I ever expected possible. For one my host family; they are super wonderful people and I often wonder how I was so lucky to have run across them in my frantic search for a place to live during my site visit. Upstairs in the house, is Karla, her son Carlos and I. Downstairs Karla's father and brother live. I have been welcomed into the family 100%. In fact, Don Jamie, Karla's father, tells people in town that I am one of his daughters and that I have recently returned from college in the States and I am working in Bahia, and to people new to Bahia it is a believable lie. And all the little kids in the family call me "tia" (aunt)! Ha ha!
Overall my current living situation is quite comfortable. As far a locale goes, I live in a beautiful residential neighborhood in a super nice house, with my own breezy bedroom, closet with tons of space (and not a lot to fill it with!), complete access to the kitchen, my own bathroom, and freedom to come and go as I like, pretty much the ideal situation. I watch CSI, Criminal Minds, HBO, and Latin America Idol with my host family like its my job at night, and just about every night the whole fam takes a “vuelta” (spin around town) in the car to watch the sunset over the ocean, catch a little breeze, pick ups a few things at the store and sometimes we even stop for a cheese empanada or pan de almedon snack on our way home. Don Jamie constantly compliments me on my command of “castelleno” (spanish); but he really does think of me like one of his daughters, so in that sense, I am basically perfect; I can do no wrong in his eyes. It is a super comfortable living situation for sure, and if it werent that my work here is taking on a different role, I could see myself living with them for the entirety of my service.

Work is where my challenge has come. What I understood as my proposed “job” and what thought I was going to be doing here has changed completely. And that has also been the source of my furstration and anxiety in my first month. My first week at site, I spent every day on the road, traveling through the Cantones (like counties) of San Vicenty, Jama, and Pedernales, with some of the INFA staff to complete evaluations of the Creciendo con Nuestros Hijos (Growing with Our Children) project. My first impression was thus, being overwhelmed by the reach of my INFA (Instituto de la Ninez y Familia – Institute of the Child and Family) and I had still only seen a portion of the territory!

The next week was a little more “tranquilo.” I hung out in the office, saw how things opperated, chatted up the Tecnicos about their work and started making some conclusions. This is what I found: INFA is a government agency that works super hard, making sure the basic needs of it's local projects are met. The tecnicos are generally stuck to their desks filling out mountains of paperwork and getting signatures that prove to the national government that monetary resources are being used appropriately and the basic needs of the children that are being served are being met. When the Tecnicos get out of the office, it is to go to their assigned communites and to do a physical check that what the government paperwork says is the reality. Needless to say, the tecnnicos are busy. Super busy.

Thus, my role, as my counterpart wants it to be, is to be creating workshops for tecnicos to organize and give in each of their communities about health, parenting, prevention, etc., and to be creating training programs for the different projects' promotors to improve the reach and services of the local INFA's office, in terms of daycare, preschool, parent groups. Additionally, I was under the impression that I was going to be working within easy access of the communities from Bahia, not up to 2 hours away with more than 250 projects and even more promoters working under the guidance of the Bahia office. As I have discussed many times with Karla in my frustration, the way this has all been presented to me, I feel like my counterpart thinks that I am here to save her INFA office! At present the tenicos dont have time to be working in the communities doing workshops or trainings, its not a matter of them not wanting to, or not valuing work at the community level, they simply are just too overloaded by the paperwork side of their jobs to spend any real time making connection and impacting communities in such a way. And in that sense, it is super frustrating for me to think of the time involved in creating, preparing, presenting, and training a staff to do something, workshops and trainings, they don't have time to do...nor do they have relationships in the communites they are assigned to, to actually make an impact. The basis of what my counterpart wants me to do is so anti-Peace Corps that I spent the next week and half paralyzed by the task ahead. Not to mention that my counterpart also threw some other tasks at me that were so beyond my realm of ability I was speechless...She needs a professional consultant and a child-development specialist, not a Peace Corps Volunteer! And I am still trying to navigate this situation with her. I have talked with her about what I can do, and what I would like to do...but she either doesn't understand me, or doesn't want to hear that I can't save her INFA office (i think it is more the latter...)

But there is a silver-lining to all of this...I have become good friends with two volunteers from Spain who are working on a project for Special Needs children in the Bahia area. They are working through the Parroquia in Leonidas Plazas (technically, Bahia, but slightly different-its the part of town before you arrive to “resort city”) and when I met with Padre Pedro, I was welcoimed with open arms into their circle of community work. The Parroquia in Leonidas Plazas has a foundation called “Corazon Solidario” (Heart of Solidarity) and is run by Padre Pedro Jesus, who might be the most amazing individual I have met in my life.
The reach of his work extends to all of the surrounding “campo” sites of Bahia, where he is working to organize communities, and empowering them to exert their own power to sell their own products at a better price, to have their own community store houses of foodstuffs, local pharmacies, etc. To this end, he offers micro-finance loans with low (or this year, no) interest rates to local farmers and small business owners to allow them the oppertunity to improve their state of being. Likewise, he has a network of local health promotors that do education in their own communities and report back to the foundation about the needs that need to be met. The foundatoin also works in outreach, support and prevention of HIV/AIDS, as well as supporting people, from children to adults, with Special Needs and disabilities. The foundation also offers assistence to distressed families, providing lunches to close to 200 kids daily in a local barrio, and promoting activities and oppertunities to help youth make good choices, stay in school and stay out of trouble.

In a nutshell, Padre Pedro and his foundation do just about everything. And they do it super well. To spend a week with him in the community leaves you in awe of his passion for service and social justice, and the impact that he makes in peoples lives is indeed awesome. He is quite possibly the biggest celbrity in the Bahia area for the great work he does, and I am so happy to have found a place with him and the foundation.

So what does this mean I am doing? Well at present I am still following people around the like the little lost puppy I am. But everyday, I get a little spark more of what I can be doing and ways that I can be of service. I think that with Padre Pedro as a support and mentor to me, I am going to be able to make some great connections in the Parroquia and get off on the right foot to making some lasting projects with the local communities. It is nice to be collaborating with someone who already has a understanding of sustainable community development because I can pick up where the foundations outreach has already started and build from there. I am super excited about my prospects here in the Bahia area, and every day keeps getting better it seems! I'll keep you posted as things develop...