May 08 2009

Today started off with another 5:30 workout, but this time I skipped the basketball. I was pretty sore from yesterday, so nothing went as well as I had hoped and I decided to cut the workout a little short. After a shower, shave, and some breakfast, it was time to head out to more villages with Alvin.

The first village that we went to was San Bartolo, where we found ourselves walking in on the middle of a Mother’s Day Event. (Mom, if you are reading this, happy Mother’s Day a few days early). There was quite a crowd, since all of the mothers of school-aged children were there. By the time that we realized what was happening, we had created a bit of a disturbance, and the principal and administrator came over to talk to us. I felt badly, but they did not seem to mind. They talked with us, or more appropriately talked with Jose, for quite a while. They told us that they have a list of all of the heads of the households in the town, which will make it much easier for us to keep track of who we have and have not talked to.

As we were getting ready to leave, I thought that I picked up something about an announcement, and I saw Jose get a little embarrassed. Sure enough, within 30 seconds, Jose was in front of about 100 people, telling them about what we are doing and that we will be coming back into their town in a few weeks to talk to them. Although I didn’t understand a lot of what he was saying, it seemed to have gone well.

We went to several more towns, including one in which Alvin helped to form a school and build a church. Everybody in town knew him, and he and Jose talked to the school principal for a long time. Meanwhile, some of us wandered through the church and admired the view over the valley from where we were.

Because Jose does most of the speaking, there really is only need for one other person to be with him to take notes, while other people are free to do other things. Derek and Alex spent the time mapping towns and discussing how we will be sure to cover all homes, but I decided to try and use the little Spanish that I used. To my amazement, I was able to talk to a boy in one of the towns a little bit, and found myself crowded by about 40 kids pretty soon. I couldn’t say much, but I tried to ask him if he liked school, his favorite subjects, and simple things like that. By the time we were leaving, children were chasing the car down the street waving. It was pretty awesome.

I think that we visited a total of seven villages by 1:00 pm, and then headed back to the compound. After lunch and a 20 minute siesta, we headed back out to the bilingual school. When we got there, it was obvious that we were walking in on another Mother’s Day presentation, so we waited outside, out of sight of the assembly. Jake saw us and came to talk to us. He said that the presentation was likely to last a few hours, and that we should try to come back another day. Our plan was, yet again, to walk to Valley of the Deer but, yet again, the clouds were looking extremely menacing. We decided to head home rather than risking getting caught in a lighting storm, and it was a good thing. By the time we got back, it was raining, and pretty soon it was coming down in buckets.

I decided that this would be a good time to try and work some more on my Spanish, so I hopped on my computer and started doing some of the oral lessons that I have on my computer. This and some blog writing took me pretty much up to dinner.

After dinner it was still raining, so we decided to hang out and do some reading in the outdoor commons area. Jake and Vincent, somebody who works with the scholarship program for the bilingual school, came by to hang out since it is a Friday night and there isn’t too much night life here. We ended up in a great conversation with them about microfinance, what we are doing, and how everything will work together. Since Jake has lived here for a while, he had some insights into La Union and specific troubles which we may encounter both in a microfinance effort and the study this summer. We also talked to him more about translators from his class, as well as La Union as a whole. It was good to talk to somebody who lives here and understands La Union much better than we do, or even could in the three months that we are here.
That is pretty much it for today so, until next time, adios.

Patrick