Friday, September 15, 2006

Frustrated and Up in the air

Here´s the latest update with me: for a while it was difficult to get out of bed, but strangely enough things turned around after I moved out of my contact´s house and into a new family. Ironically my living conditions got much worse--sharing a tiny bed with a 13 yr old sister and having 6 brothers who don´t talk to me. Oddly enough the only one fascinated by me is the youngest 1 1/2 yr old brother. His name is Jesus and boy does he cry! Ha! Anyways, I was able to eventually win my brothers over by playing cards with them :) woohoo! Also, slowly I started to meet new people in the community---Most are incredibly nice....luckily :)

So things are definitely a mess at my coop since my contact was fired for stealing from my coop. The weird thing is that living with her and working with her I suspected she might be because of the way she kept track of the money, but I gave her the benefit of the doub because her family treated me well. So things are strange between us since she doesn´t want to talk about the situation. My plan is to lie low with her family for a while and see where things go. Sooo I´m frustrated because my contact didn´t work out and now I feel pretty much abandoned. I have to deal with housing on my own :( That´s going to be a pain!!

Also, recently I moved to a new house--that is an hour walk away from my coop. My ex-contact obviously did not take into consideration how much I would have to walk!!! She just chose people related to her :( The family is great, but it´s just soo far to be walking in 90 degree plus weather. I actually almost fainted yesterday because I was given a bike that didnt work...so I stopped every 10 minutes to take a 5 minute break because I was gasping for air. I guess I should have taken it as a sign that I was dehydrated...duh!!! So once I got to my coop and explained about the bike not working---I was told I was too fat to be riding it in the first place...then I was asked how much I weighed...that´s when i decided too take advantage of a free ride and go home. Of course I was laughed at for being at the coop only 30 minutes, but seriously I didn´t want to deal with anything and physicially felt like shit. My plan is to lay low with the coop eventhough things are a mess :( Since i live so freaking far away...I will just study guarani...sigh guarani!!!
Finally other volunteers!!! There is an overwhelming amount of volunteers in my region. It´s frustrating because I don´t think Peace Corps took into consideration other volunteer organizations in the area like JICA and Amigos. Why is this frustrating? Since there are a lot of volunteers, there is little work : ( People always talk to me about other volunteers and they ask if I am from the same organization. Sigh sigh sigh It´s interesting because the people in my region recognize all the problems within their country, and their solution is always migration. A mass majority of people have a relative working in either Spain or USA and rely on the money that is sent to them. So how in the world is sustainability supposed to be taught to a group of people that who think like this? I seriously don´t know :( Ayaya

Sorry I have been complaining quite a bit in these blogs, but I seriously hope that everything is well for each and everyone of you guys.... You have no idea how homesick I am starting to be :( I miss a million things from there and all you guys as well too...

Hugs and kisses :)