Sigo marchando...

Time marches on!

It's Friday, and the supervisors are trickling back into the house after their first week on route.  They seem to be, overall, pretty upbeat and relaxed.  Cheka went to meet the Rivas supervisors in Rivas for their weekly meeting with the Ministry of Health to go over project progress, plan for the weeks ahead, and troubleshoot if need be.  I'm here in Granada, working on planning our youth encuentro, and getting ready for the meeting with the Ministry of Health in Granada at two.  Because we work in two states, we meet with state Ministry officials in each state on Friday.  It's looking like Cheka and I will try to switch off between the two meetings so that our contacts can get to know both of us.  All three of the Granada supervisors are home from route and just relaxing before the meeting.

This week went pretty well.  We took a couple volunteers to the doctor, all for bug bite related problems (aka very minor), and spent the rest of our time getting ready for the youth encuentro (roughly translates as encounter) that we will be hosting next week on June 26.  We are, again, having two encuentros--one in Rivas and one in the Granada.  They will be one day events where volunteers bring the youth counterparts with whom they are working in their towns to the city for the day to participate in team-building activities and a CBI workshop.  As many of you already know, the CBI is the Community Based Initiative, a sustainable community-based project that the community is interested in developing and sustaining.  Every community has a budget of approximately $350.  Examples of past CBIs include community gardens, community centers, sports teams, sewing cooperatives, improvement to the health clinic in the town...

Every town is supposed to have their CBI solicitude ready by the encuentro (after two weeks in community), which means that if we're lucky, half will have theirs ready.  Those who don't have their solicitudes should at least have an idea.  We're thinking of doing an activity where each community makes a poster of their community and CBI idea and presents it to the group.  We'll have experts from the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education on hand to give advice, troubleshoot, and help with ideas on where to solicit additional donations.  We did something similar in Panama last year, and it worked very well except the group was a little too large.  Because we are splitting into regions for the encuentro, it should be a more manageable number of people.

In the morning, we're planning on team-building activities and maybe route competitions.  Something fun and a way to win cool prizes like soccer balls and art supplies for the communities.  Then, we'll have lunch and segue into the CBI activity.  That's the plan anyway...

So we spent the week planning these encuentros, reserving the venues, planning the food, etc... We have a pretty generous budget, so we're hoping to buy some cool prizes!

Yesterday, I went to Managua to take out money from the bank and go grocery shopping.  We had to take extra money from the bank to give to Jesse, the Chontales Project Director, because he wasn't able to set up a bank account.  So, we spent the afternoon with him, had a nice lunch, and bought cheddar (!!) and cereal from the big grocery store in Managua.  Jesse was in town to pick up a 2-day-late Taylor Martin (Austin Chapter vol).  Poor kid...  But he finally made it!

Today, I've been taking care of things from home that needed to be done.  Calling UT about my financial aid, paying my credit card, talking to my future roommates about things to be bought for the fall.

Now, I'm planning a nice turkey sandwich with fresh juice for lunch.  And I'm going to bake a cake to surprise the sups this evening, I think.  Should be fun!

Keep in touch with me.  I love hearing from everyone.  PAZ!