Four months (July 17)!

            I have a house!  A really nice one, actually, and sometimes it makes me feel guilty.  Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to live in one room wooden houses with an outhouse and no electricity, not a three bedroom concrete house with flush toilet, four hammocks and a fridge.  But I have decided not to complain, because this was literally the safest and most economical house in my community to rent.  And I have already made friends with my neighbor´s dogs, so they come and hang out every once in a while.  I also have a calf in my front yard that moos at 5:30 every morning (it belongs to my neighbor) and there are plenty of chickens running around making a racket every morning (also my neighbor´s).  What I don´t have (much to my frustration) is my cat.  This will be necessary soon, because when I am by myself at night, having a cat for company alleviates silly fears and loneliness.

            I have been here four months now, and in the past month I had my community analysis meeting.  For the first three months I got to know practically everyone, asked a bazillion questions about the environment and the community, and have been working on a community analysis document to send into my boss.  At the end of those three month, every volunteer in my sector has a meeting with the community to present to them what they learned (we played a very competitive and loud game of jeopardy) and discuss what projects and activities I, as their volunteer, would do with them for the next two years.  A good showing to these sorts of meetings is typically 20 to 30 people, but I am very proud to say that 50 plus people attended!  It was, in fact, a very successful meeting, and I felt very loved by the people who came (let´s be honest, who wants to walk 30 minutes with a chance of rain to a meeting after a long day of work?)  The meeting was also really good because I now have a direction to head in.

            I have been working a lot at the school, primarily in the subject of agriculture.  We planted green beans, cucumber and sweet pepper, and although the sweet pepper has yet to make a showing, the green beans and cucumber are coming along pretty well.  Of course, we are now facing our first pest: leaf-cutter ants.  These ants cut up leaves and carry them back to their nest where they cultivate a fungus, which they then eat.  In an objective sense, they can be seen as farmers, just like my community members, but in reality they are responsible for massive amounts of defoliation in the tropics, including our precious, green bean seedlings.  Today I went to check on the garden and all that was left of one of the plants was the tiny stem.  So we are in search of effective and environmentally-friendly means of completely destroying the ants´ nest.

            Also, a soccer update: the muchachos have started passing the ball to me!  I think I impressed them when I dribbled the ball for the first time, instead of just kicking it frantically to the nearest teammate.  Slowly but surely I am eking my way into their hearts.