September 27, 2005

Jason: Quite the soggy week. It rains almost every day, but today, the storm was so strong that we had a river for a back yard. These corrogated tin roofs sure are hot during the day, but they keep the rain off effectively. Right now, I'm sipping hot coffee, writing in the living room, enjoying a slightly overcooked, yet tasty, sweet potato (called camote) with carmelized honey on top. There's a light leak at the peak of the roof, where the tin panels don't quite overlap, but all the rooms are warm and cheerily lit with flourescent lights. The insulated electrical wires run exposed along the rafters to the electric meter affixed to the outside wall of the coral-colored, painted concrete house.

On the walls, pictures of family members and posters encouraging Catholic devotion proudly hang, framed in inexpensive, yet tastefully hand-painted wood. My host mom is in the process of blending fruits to be bagged and frozen for the popular posicle treats the local schoolchildren, and even the adults, enjoy.

My ring continues to elude me, but I have a good hunch that I took it off at the waterfall to avoid loosing it in the river. I think I put it by my shoes and bag, and it got thrown to the side in the rush to catch up with the rest of the group. They had started leaving while I was photographing some marvelously large spiders. I intend to go back in search of my ring, but this rain makes it quite possible that the ring is now washed into the river. I'll hope and pray that isn't the case.

In two days, my training group and I will be giving a small presentation about the USA and Peace Corps to a group of 7-to-9-year-olds in their small, two-room schoolhouse. I've never done anything like it before, so I'm admitedly a bit nervous.

Tomorrow, all the trainees are visiting a farm near Miraflor for a day-long technical session. I'm excited to see something new.

We should know where our sites will be in a few weeks. I'm trying to focus on Spanish right now, though, so I haven't really thought too much about what service will be like. It's probably best at this point, because any expectations we have will brobably be wrong in light of how little we still know.