I`ve gotten through another week here! I am halfway through training! And I find out my site assignment in a week and a half...Things are moving quickly!
It was another busy week with classes. On Thursday my spanish class gave a charla (a presentation) to anyone in the community who wanted to come about Dengue fever. Mostly just our host families came to support us. But I think it went really well. I am starting to feel more confident presenting in front of people. And I am glad to have learned more about Dengue myself! It is carried in a mosquito that bites by day, and is endemic to all tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The virus isn`t usually fatal unless it develops complications. Usually, you just get a high fever and achy bones and a terrible headache. Although we have the mosquito in the southern US, we do not have dengue epidemics, because of the quality of our health system and the fact that we don`t store water for human consumptions outside in open tanks. Anyway...it was an informative week, and it was great to start feeling confident about the work that I will soon be doing!
Besides that...Yesterday, my spanish class was ¨on¨ again--we facilitated a workshop for fourteen teachers and the other PCVs at the school. We presented to them about techniques for integrating environmental ed into all subject areas in schools (for example, writing a paper about endangered species for spanish class, counting percent decrease in endangered species for math classes, and learning about the regions the species live in for social science). After our presentation, we all paired up (a volunteer with a teacher) and planned lessons that we are going to help the teachers present on the upcoming tuesday. In all, the workshop went very well, and it was another great confidence booster! I have never taught before in a classroom, so it was very intimidating for me at first to be thinking about teaching teachers...but I have been realized that I am qualified to do this. And the thing about facilitation is that you don`t have to be the all-powerful, all-knowledgeable one, you just have to lead and direct the learning. Many of the teachers were very receptive and cooperative, and I felt confident speaking in front of them in spanish. So, I am feeling even more ready for my upcoming work!
This week, in technical classes we worked on making a flush latrine (latrina lavable) and a water cistern (pila). So we mixed cement and dug holes. I asked a lot of questions of the man who has been teaching us. I also have been hanging out with the kids that inevitably come to watch us. It was a fun and active week! My trainer told me that she is glad to see me so inquisitive and integrating so much into the community, because it will really help me at site. The integrating part, asking questions and meeting people, is really the fun part for me. And now that I am building skills at organizing people and facilitating meetings, I am starting to feel very ready to get going! I am sure I will learn more in the days to come, though...
will write again next week.
Jennifer
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