Thursday, September 24, 2009

Projects and creations

Geesh, getting people to write all those articles, digging for pictures, and everything it took to put the whole thing together was a lot of work. That's why they say Peace Corps is a 24/7 job! I spent a lot of days last week waking up at 5:30am, getting to the office at 7am, working there until close at 7pm, and then working in my hostel until 2am just to do it all over again. Next time I should have more help. But I'm happy how it turned out. (Did you notice though that I wrote June on the cover instead of September? No one else noticed who looked it over before print, so I'm not taking full blame. hehe)
My next project is putting together a training manual for my sector, mainly on environmental education. I'm also waiting on my Program and Training Specialist (assistant director of my sector) to finally hand back his corrections on my Bird Education Manual that I translated and adapted from an English guide I have. I know I have Spanish words in there, and verbs conjugated... but I'm not sure if people would really say some of the things I want to. That organization in the states (Council for Environmental Organization) will be writing about me in their newletter that goes out to all national parks, nature centers, and anywhere else environmental education is taught. So I'm keeping myself in the game for my return to the states and jobmarket.
We have our Regional Meeting tomorrow, when all Peace Corps Volunteers in my Province (Cocle) join together to present what we've been up to with the government agencies we work with. And then all the Volunteers and someone from headquarters are all coming out to my site for the other half of the meeting and to spend the night. It should be fun, as I've planned it at a cool organic farm. And the wifes of the guys who work on the farm have started extracting essential oils from plants like mint and vanilla to make into soaps, and using the same process have made some all-natural alcohols out of pineapple and mango harvested from the farm. :) Oh, and in a Volunteer Advisory Council meeting I was in last night, I won a grant to finish off my Leadership seminar series I've been doing with groups in town. I've definitely been keeping myself busy!!!
Oh and my new favorite drink is to climb up a coconut tree, chop one down with my machete, open it up with the same tool, and blend coconut with run and frozen papaya. Mmmmmm. Don't worry, I don't climb up the tree too much to make it a regular treat. It's a fun drink for when I have visitors!