A Very Uncomfortable Place

Ok, not that uncomfortable, the title just seemed funny if you get reference...

I have been living with a toilet that didn't have any water going to it for about two months. That means I have been flushing by filling a guacal and dumping it in the bowl after I was finished with my business. Well finally after bugging my landlord he installed a tap above the tank of the toilet to fill it, which is better than nothing for now, but presented other problems. After the inaugural flush I noticed that there was quite a bit of dirt going down the drain. That in and of itself wasn't shocking, I expected a little dust and debris. What was shocking is that a colony of ants had decided to take up residence in my own personal toilet. They have probably actually been there longer than I have, and have been enjoying the generally secluded, dry tunnels provided by the inner-workings of a busted toilet. However I am making it my personal mission to drive them out. With every flush more and more of the little buggers go swirling to their doom. I underestimated the tenacity of ants though. Every morning they are back and working up a storm in my toilet, and every morning I flush a horde of them to kingdom come. I wonder if or when they ever give up and move on? They had my entire yard to choose from, and they chose the one place I have to actually sit my ass on.

Everyone talks about how there are only two religions here, Catholicism and Evangelical Christianity, and how the subject of religion will inevitably come up rather quickly in conversation. I was rather surprised by how I managed to escape that subject until now. But it caught up with me and three times in the last day I have had to explain that I don't want to go to any of the churches here and that I am in fact Jewish. The problem is that I have to explain what Judaism is as well and thats not the most comfortable thing in the world to people that only understand that Christ is the savior. To them, if you don't believe in the son, you don't believe in the father. I try to concentrate on similarities, and explain that Christ was in fact a Jew, a rebellious one, but a Jew. Still I don't think most people quite get that I believe in the same god, but in a more limited context. I just have to hope that by now I've made enough of an impression that they don't think I'm some monster who hates Christ, and that news doesn't spread like wildfire that I am not a Christian. So far so good, the people that know don't seem offended except for the one lady that keeps trying to drag me to culto and convert me.

On the upside I have been getting along great otherwise. A new volunteer stopped in on Monday to see the Pueblo and she is currently staying in the Park with one of the curators. She has the option of living in the Park or in the Pueblo. This presents me with the option of exploring new housing under the guise of looking for housing for her. Plus I have been meeting more people by doing that. I like my house, but if I can find something cheaper and in better shape I may jump on it for the new year. I'll wait to find out what the new Volunteer wants to do though.

As far as work goes things are settled pretty much now. I work on my computer forming documents to put in a binder that will be used to train community groups for the most part. We are forming zonal committees and at the same time training them. I am working right now on teamwork, but we already pretty much made info for leadership and project planning. The overall plan is to create 9 modules, 8 of which we will make, one of which a team of women from a local university will make. The three I already mentioned are part of the second module, to be used in December. I am still going to lots of random meetings though, which I just chalk up to learning the culture and getting my face out there. I am hoping with time more people will advise me of important things. Right now I rarely get notified of most things and only a few people do the inviting, and usually on the day of.