I know what my site is like!!

Hey everyone!! Well, I just finished visiting my final site...it is awesome!! The people there are SO motivated and really want to improve things in the area, so I'm PSYCHED!! And everyone was so welcoming and excited that I was there!

I'm going to be living with a family there. There are 3 other people that live in the house - Monico (dad), Jesus (mom), and Ana Emma (daughter). Monico and Jesus have 4 kids. 3 of the four are married with 3 kids each, and Ana Emma is the last single one, which is why she's living at home. Monico and Jesus run a store that sells paper, notebooks, pens/pencils, and makes copies for people in the front of the house and they live in the back part. My room will be right next to the store part. When the earthquake hit in 2001, their house (along with all the rest of the houses in the community) came crashing down, so everything is new, which is really nice. They have a bathroom inside the house (WOW) WITH running water (SUPER WOW). They have deadbolt locks on all of their doors and bars over their windows, so it's very safe and secure. The community itself has about 2000 people in it, so it's pretty small. Everyone seems to know everyone else, so pretty soon, I think I'll be pretty incorporated. Ana Emma (the daughter) is the principal at the elementary/middle school so I'll be working with her and my counterparts, Jose (principal at the high school) and Doris (coordinator for FUSAL...non-profit that works with families that have their kids working in agriculture to get their kids back into school). All three of them are very motivated, especially Jose and Doris, my counterparts.

I attended lots of meetings this week to meet people. Two of the most important, in my mind, included meeting with the Directiva de Escuela (basically the PTA) that's made up of teachers, parents, students, and community leaders, and another meeting with all of the leaders in the area. During the Directiva meeting, they talked about improvements that they're working on for the students, and actually assigned tasks to people at the end of the meeting!! I was PSYCHED about this! They actually have good processes in place to get stuff done and people actually follow through on things!! I feel so lucky to be placed in a community like this!! Then, during the meeting with all of the community leaders, Jose basically introduced me and said I would be working there for 2 years, I gave a little background about myself, and then we didn't have much else to talk about. So I said, "I want to learn about your community from you, so can I ask some questions?" So we made this big list that had 3 parts:

1) Things I like about my community
2) Things I don't like about my community
3) Things that I envision in an ideal community (the perfect community in my head)

This gave me an idea of what they think is important to work on, which was really exciting to hear. Two of the things that I'm pretty psyched about working on include (1) getting internet access in the community (yeah, I don't know HOW I'm going to live without that!) and (2) getting a Casa de Cultura in the community (basically a community center where people can check out books, play sports, take classes in various areas - art, music, theatre, etc. These are pretty big goals, but 2 things that I agree are pretty important and would benefit the community a lot! Also, they said they don't like the fact that youth don't have more activities. So I think that's going to make my job that much easier...they've already identified that they want a bigger focus with their youth. I'm tellin' ya...I'm SUPER lucky with this assignment!!

So this was all pretty serious, I know, but this wouldn't be a Michelle email without a good story. So here ya go...the Michelle story for the day...

So at the Padres meeting (the PTA thing), they started talking about this fiesta they are going to have this week, with lots of food, music, etc. One of the members says, "Wait! Michelle isn´t going to be here!" And everyone was like, "Oh no!" So after some conversation, they decide to have a miniature celebration after the community leadership meeting the next day. I was kind of like, "Wow! That's pretty nice!" So the next day comes and we have this great leadership meeting and afterwards, these people show up with corn on the cob and atol, two things that I totally love! Atol is this soup-like watery food/drink. There are tons of different flavors, but I usually eat the maize flavor. So to make it, you boil milk or water, then add this powder mix and water and boil again. Then you add sugar and cinnamon and eat/drink it. It´s some good stuff!! The problem is, I can only eat stuff made with bottled water, even though the locals drink the lake/river water. Those of us from the US haven't built up immunities to all the parasites and amoebas and stuff like that. So I was a bit nervous about eating the stuff, but I thought, "These people went to all the trouble of making this for me, I'd better just suck it up and eat it!" So anyway, I was all excited and was happily eating it when one of the students says, "Don´t drink water with that." I was like, "Why not?" He says, "Because it´s not good for you." I said, "Why not?" He said, "Because one is hot and one is cold." Yeah. Ok. Another weird thing they think here. Anyway, so I finish eating and talking to everyone, and walk home and hang out with the family for the night. Fast forward 4 hours later - 12:30 AM. So I´m happily dreaming in my bed, and then suddenly wake up with the worst pains ever in my stomach! I immediately got up and went into the bathroom. Let's just say that I stayed in that bathroom for FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS with constant pain, diarrhea, and the feeling that I was going to throw up at any moment. It was great fun...it continued to come and go in waves and I was thinking, "Oh my goodness!! I TOTALLY have parasites and amoebas!" So I finally make it to the bus to go back home and manage to make it 2 hours without having a problem (thank goodness!). When I get back to my host community, San Rafael Cedros, I'm telling my family about the experience, and how I'm kind of upset that I got sick from the crappy water. And Danira, my host sister, says, "You didn't drink water with the atol, did you?" OH MY GOODNESS. I was like, "WHAT? Why are you asking?!" And she says, "Oh, if you drink water with atol, you'll be in the bathroom right away for hours." So....after much conversation about this topic (with still no real understanding of why this occurs), I've decided that the most important thing I learned at my site thus far is, "Listen to the host country nationals when they're saying weird things!" Totally a Michelle moment. I couldn't BELIEVE that I got sick because of something I did as opposed to the contaminated water!! :)

Well, that's about it for this email! I miss you all tons! Hope you're having a good time up there in the states!!
M