per your request.. a little more

Sitting in the gallery of my second floor apartment surrounded by the cock-a-doodle-doos of the chickens and the roar or the motorcycles going up and down the side road I find a pleasant satisfaction in the dark green color of my yerba mate (tea). This small action gives me such a warm feeling. Having brought a French press and the Yerba Mate was a good call. I didn’t want to use it during training because I knew when I was more settled this little bit of “my life back in the states” would help me find my routine here. And it has! It is that little bit of home life that lets me feel at peace here within this new space.

Depending on the day I do yoga, go to the gym or just wake up and start my day. Either way, I am cooking breakfast and making my tea. I bring it all up stairs and enjoy the lush green trees as I sip tea and read my book for the week. This week it’s The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. It is very good, he seems like the kind of professor I could have used. I have not seen his last lecture, which you can see on YouTube. I hope to get it next time I am at the Peace Corps office (because of the high speed internet)!

Yesterday I had a very successful planning meeting with my board of directors (consejo). We broke down the town into the various barrios and started a schedule of who can go with me to which areas to start carrying out the diagnostic question. Although I had plans to meet up with my project partner at 9AM, he called to push it back to 9:30AM… so is the life. Also if it rains here, any plans are postponed. Those are the types of things that will slow my process down, but for now I feel on schedule.