Happy New year

Let me start by wishing the obvious Happy New Year to the maybe 7 people who read this blog. I missed the opportunity to wish anyone a Merry Christmas or Happy Chanukah, but my internet schedule was limited in December.

I had big plans for December, and most of them that were work related wound up falling through. I had planned to run a little workshop for my social promotion team to teach them how to run a meeting better and how to give a more effective informal training, but it got canceled. I had planned for one of the Volunteer Coordinators to come out and help me, but alas, since it was canceled she couldn't come. My plan to teach them some ice breakers went awry and got canceled as well because the meeting that I was to present them in went way overtime and my chance was lost. The city hall closed on the 22nd, so after that there was no working in that capacity. All work I did after that day was either done in the Peace Corps office or shut up in my house on my computer.

As much as work failed I did manage to get along pretty well otherwise. I went to San Sal a few times for meetings for other projects with Peace Corps Volunteers. Also I met up with a work friend of my mother's and spent Christmas Eve and day with them. They took me to a nice beach and to a town that is literally all pupuserias. I managed to eat a few pupusas that stand out in my mind as some of the best I have had, which is hard to do considering the sheer quantity of pupusas I wind up eating.


cslom

I also hung out with some community members who are part of a festivities committee and we went to a waterpark in a different department. I spent the day back and forth hanging out with the kids in the kiddie pools and trying to convince the guys to go down the water slides. Eventually I got some of the guys to go down the big, slow, curvy slide and some of the guys and a few of the kids to go down the slide that used the inner-tubes. There was a third slide, a big red one that had about a thirty foot straight down drop that nobody was going on all day. I figured it couldn't be that bad and so I did it and got a standing ovation by the people in the pool below. I wound up being one of only 3 people to go down that slide all day. I would have gone down it several more times, but I almost lost one of my brand new contact lenses on the first go and that was enough for me not to encore my performance. But now lots of my community members are talking about my trip to the waterpark and especially my love of slides.


cslom

We also had a bit of a holiday party with the social promotion team, complete with secret santa gifts and a home grilled hairless sheep. It was good fun and good bonding. I left just in time for everyone to start drinking, which I am not fond of sticking around for, for various reasons including my inability to understand drunken spanish and my desire not to promote drinking. Either way it was fun and a good chance to bond with the people I work with.

Now I am back in the City Hall and preparing to get back to the grind. This month I plan to get out and try my hand at translating, first for some engineers in a friend's site and second at a children's camp at a gorgeous lake. I have never translated before and I think this will be a good opportunity to see how I do. also this month I will finish up some work with other volunteers getting some charlas together and head out to play a soccer game. All in all I'd say it looks pretty exciting for January.