Flooding

This has been a great week in my life as a PCV. I finally feel like a community member. From our Western Perspective I have ‘accomplished’ very little since I have arrived, but I am realizing that I have created relationships and become a miembro de la comunidad – and that is significant and meaningful. For me, the work I have completed so far is worth more than a years worth of 9am-5pm weekdays of paperwork and conventional ‘productivity’.

Its difficult to explain, but I’ll try. Structure and schedule are familiar. They provide comfort and help me feel in control and useful. During my first weeks I physically craved the familiarity of to-do lists. It was a slow process to accept my new pace and style of life. Cada dia that I woke up and felt like I had no reason to get out of bed (because my planner was empty for that day), but that I still got up and ate breakfast and chatted with my host family and played futbol with the kids – that was productivity. Por lo menos I spoke Spanish all day, and I get practice points for that!

Now when I leave the house I know the names of everyone I run into on the way. And people know my name. They are interested in what I am doing. I am getting invited to meetings (without having to beg). This is all earth-shatteringly important. I am learning how to change my perspective to see the value in relationship building. I will not be able to create cambios sostenibles in my community unless I really know who lives here, what their lives are like, what are their values, how do they make decisions, what are their priorities and in what ways are they open to change. There is value to spending days visiting houses just to see the spaces in which people live their lives. There is value in playing futbol with the jovenes during a downpour, while everyone slips, slides and laughs. There is value in my existence here.

How did I come upon this…

Wednesday: Went with my female cousins to visit houses in their community (one of my satellite communities). The mud road to through their community is 6km from the center of my town to the center of their town. There are houses all along the road. It was down pouring all day long. I went barefoot because my sandals kept getting suction/stuck in the mud. We laughed for a good majority of the day and I think they said “Cuidado Chelsea” three million times, and believe it or not I never fell. That night we watched one of my American movies with subtitles in my bedroom.

Thursday: Visited houses in my town with a female high school student from my English class. I like that when I ask my students favors they rarely say no. By the end of the afternoon we had a possy of 6 kids following us to each of the houses. It was wonderful! After English I played soccer with the kids in my community in the rain slipping and sliding in huge mud puddles. I did fall, slipped and landed flat on my back, and it was hilarious! That night I had dinner at a community member’s house and she helped me edit my diagnostic of the community (which I have to write in English). I stayed over their talking with her and her husband until 9 o’clock and it was really enjoyable.

Friday: Walked to the bus stop at 4:30 to catch the bus to my nearest biggest city.  One of the dogs in my family followed me the whole way there. When I got to the bus stop I knew everyone’s name at the bus stop and we all chatted casually until the bus arrived (small potatoes in the states, hugely valuable when you are integrating into a new community and speaking a foreign language). Then I spent the day hanging with Biiftu and running errands. Ended up crashing at her place because I couldn’t get a ride from the bus stop and we made spaghetti for her family along with a wonderful banana dessert invention.
Saturday: Stumbled upon my counterpart in town and he offered to give me a ride home. Gladly took the ride and it turned out that the road is pretty intensely flooded. At one point in time a man was walking on the side of the road and his legs were fully immersed! At other points I could look out the windows in all directions and only see water. If you have never seen flooding it is a breath taking site. Got home safe and sound. Then that afternoon I went to a quincinera of a community member. There was food, dancing and ceremony. It was lots of fun and I had people to chat with (mostly children, but a few of the girls from the women’s soccer team).
Sunday: Walked 6km in the morning to a neighboring community that was having a feria. Spent the morning helping out in the kitchen and then in the cantina for the afternoon. I also played soccer with the womens team, but unfortunately we lost in penalties. The event was to raise money for food for the elementary school, which hasn’t been able to provide lunch for the kids in a while. There were lots of people there and everyone thought it was a huge success, expect for the rain in the afternoon. Ended up walking home in the dark with a group of 20 people (all the people who attended the feria from my town). Cars can’t drive on that road after a good rain because its too muddy and they get stuck. I had my recently purchased rubber boots, which making walking in mud much easier (even though I have a huge blister now). But the downside (besides that I had already been on my feet all day) was that it was dark and all the kids kept trying to scare me with stories of tigers and other animals that eat people. All in all, quite an adventure.

            That’s all for now, because now I have to get back to work. There are diagnostics to get done, soccer to play and English class to teach.

Love you all lots,

Chelsea

P.S. T minus ONE WEEK to my BDay J