Monday, April 4, 2011

Alright, sorry guys, I'm back

Hey! So, I have been a combination of busy and bored, which has been perfectly surmised by my friend Trisha who said, "Healthy Schools is either feast or famine." Let's see how well I can explain that sentiment.
As you may remember, I went through a long period of boredom from October through January when there was no school. Then classes started, and my time started to disappear. The peak of the craziness came in March. We scheduled 4 big workshops to cover all 150 of our teachers. We covered the topics of dynamic-lesson planning, trash management, nutrition, self-esteem, gender, HIV/AIDS, and sexuality. Each workshop was 4 hours, and the most stressful part about them was by far the logistics. Every night I would have trouble falling asleep wondering if anyone was going to show up, and if we were going to have snack. Snack is pretty important for workshops down here. If you don't have snack people get grumpy...

At the same time as these workshops, we had Peace Corps Trainees from our program coming once a week in groups of 4 to learn how to do what we do. That was pretty fun, but a little stressful because every time they came I was unsure if there would be school, if the teachers would prepare what they were supposed to, and if we would actually be able to do anything. That, of course, was a perfect lesson for how life was going to be for them once they got their sites. We gave them a part in one of the workshops, and they got to come with us to a party that our teachers had to celebrate the beginning of the year as well. Overall it was a successful but stressful March filled with activities and very little free time.

I thought April was going to continue in the same vein, but then the famine came (metaphorical famine, not an actual one, there is a lot of food here right now, especially mangoes, which are delicious). My schools started cancelling on me, and now there are strikes, so I went from tons of things to do to suddenly having nothing at all. Fortunately I just got the show Battlestar Gallactica, so I'm not worried about have nothing to do, just having nothing productive to do.

For those of you who may have lost track, I now have less than a year left... So that's a good benchmark. I'm excited to see what I can accomplish in my last year, but also will be ready to be home when it's over.