Yes... I'm famous.

Just so you all know, I am now officially famous.

Recently one of my bosses has been obsessed with trying to get some media out to the interior to see what the Peace Corps is doing out there.  He has been working tirelessly to this effect, and eventually convinced four people from the US Embassy and two reporters to visit my site as well as two others along the river. I played host to all of them about a week ago. I made sure their presence was announced, I got them a meeting with my head captain and some basias, I made sure people would be around to represent the various sites they wanted to see: the school, our barbershop, the tourist shop, and the "solar powered movie theater" in the meeting house. All of these sites have solar panels, and I work with all of the people that were involved in those projects.

It was stressful! I was running around for at least a week before they came to my village to make sure everyone was on the same level and knew what their roles were when the news came to visit them. But as a perk, after they had gotten the full tour, they took me with them to the tourist camp. So I got to be a tourist and I even got to visit the other villages and get led around by the volunteer that was hosting there. Plus a free ride into town!

Anyways, as a result of this fiasco, my village got some exposure! Here is what I've seen so far:

An article based on the interview with the head captain of Nieuw Aurora.
http://www.starnieuws.com/index.php/welcome/index/nieuwsitem/13145

Pictures at least in two places:
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/peace-corps-volunteer-kispersky-assists-native-womens-organization-photo-141522762.html
http://topics.wsj.com/subject/s/Suriname/4016/photos/3f6f1022d2ec49cc8588373bca005e02#photoId%3D4

 So yeah, I'm teaching people how to run a store in the Wall Street Journal! What have you done to change the world lately?

Enjoy!