Alright, jumping into it. Things have been kind of stable and routine around here lately, or at least they had been until my teachers went on strike this last week. Really it's not their fault that the government didn't give them the pay raise they were promised, and also hasn't paid some of them at all, but it's hard for those of us who are only here for a limited time, because there really isn't much we can do when there's no school. Of course I mean there are things we can do that relate to Peace Corps goals 2 and 3 (look them up here), but our actual main job is sort of turned off until someone pays the teachers.
Until the strike things had been going pretty well. An organization called Agua Para la Salud worked with us and our mayor to build water projects in three of our schools. Here are some pictures.
You can see that the kids at the Kindergarten school (all kids at this school are ages 4-6) really enjoyed the materials that the builders were using.
This is a water tank that holds about 2000L of water and then there are 8 faucets around the sides for the kids to use to wash their hands and brush their teeth. This school only gets water for a few hours each day, so now the tank fills up automatically and there should always be running water.
This school always has water, but they only had one faucet, so here they built a series of 8 faucets against this wall.
So these projects are a big success for our program for the last couple months because it makes it a lot easier for the teachers to have their students practicing healthy habits. I'm in the process of preparing another one for another school, and if everything goes to plan I'm hoping to do it next week, which would be crazy.
In other news I've been working out 6 days a week with a Guatemalan friend to the videos from the workout Insanity, and it feels great (not so much during the videos when I just want to swear at the guy, but afterward). It's also been fun getting to show that aspect of our culture to my friend.
I'm getting ready for a trip home in September for a friend's wedding, and I'm really excited about it. I won't get to see my family, which is too bad, but being back for a bit and celebrating with my friends should be really nice.
I think that's about it for now. Short update, but at least it's something...
