Hello again, everyone!
I'll expand a bit more on my work here as a Peace Corps volunteer, since I have gotten some questions about that from the few of you that I can keep in contact with.
Peace Corps has mandated that we not begin any work in the first three months of our service. I have been faithful to that, except to continue the work on the toilet project that my predecessor passed on to me. Which is progressing nicely. My counterpart will be coming in to the city to receive a check with the donated money soon. Together, we will begin purchasing raw materials. I had some trouble motivating the village to pull sand out of the river, since that was a part of what the community had promised to contribute to the project. I tried to make the community meet several times until I gave my counterpart the job of getting people together to do the work. He finally got them to pull the sand. (Lesson learned: PCV's should be behind the scenes. Pick a local, trusted leader to get people on board with the project.)
Since I've come to the city, the focus has changed. All of a sudden, talk revolves around our future projects. We've been shown how to write proposals for grants, how to assess the community we live in for potential projects, and how to use the resources and databases that are available to us. We also spent time learning about Edutainment from a group of Jamaican entertainers, as well as learning about education through sports from an organization called A Ganar. In fact, we were playing with the most ingenious thing in that session. A soccer ball that never goes flat! I thought is was fascinating, so I found it on the web so you guys could enjoy this:
http://oneworldfutbol.com/the-simple-power-of-a-durable-ball/
This ball was invented in Oakland, CA (yay NorCal!) and is made out of the same material they make crocs from. You can puncture it and it will retain its shape. The site I linked to has some cool media on the animals that have chewed but not destroyed this ball. Also, I played with it, and it was AWESOME! I can't wait 'till someone from Peace Corps starts a project in which people can buy these soccer balls to send to our villages. As of now, we'd have to buy one and send it to my address, and then a second one would be donated to an organization of your choice. But not Peace Corps. Poop. I'll let you know if that changes.
Anyways, I think indestructible soccer balls would be an incredible gift to villages in Suriname, since they are always destroying their balls and having to buy more. Usually, the kids play with whatever they can find, which often means a citrus fruit of some kind. I would love to find a way to bring these soccer balls into the village. (Hmmm... Project idea?)
Time to get back to work! Until next time.
