Win, Lose, and Rain

December 12, 2008 (pictures incoming)

Sunny with a few showers.

Haha… Just random frustrating obstacles that have crept up are erking some of my projects.

The first of which has been my computer. The machine itself is fine, but a laptop is worthless if you can’t charge it J The charger has been out a few weeks and has put a hold on some of my work here….and the blog….sorry fam. More on that later.

So let’s see. Since Thanksgiving I have been focusing in on the stove project and getting the models built. Yesterday, after helping take the municipal trash to the ‘dump,’ I went to the sugar mill and bought 27 gallons of molasses, the last ingredient I didn’t have, and today I went around in the municipal trash truck to all the cantons dishing out the stuff to the houses that are going to build the model stoves. The guys that helped me out are awesome guys…. I will have to go help them take out the trash more in the future. Now all the families have the part that I and the NGO have promised them, and I have to coordinate now to get the builder guy out to our town. That should be fun. I have to provide food and shelter for him til he gets them all built J I’ll cook, haha. I haven’t quite mastered the art of cooking beans and Salvadoran tortillas.
In other news, some more money came in for the church reconstruction project, so that was good. They are in a real bind right now here at the end of the second stage of building the façade and we are SOOOO close. Very frustrating, and I’m not even building the thing. From what I gather, they are about $8,000 from finishing the front. But little by little they will eventually get it all done.

My English classes move along, although sometimes I have to move the class times and move the weekday schedules around to fit around my main project emergencies, and I can see that it is frustrating some of the students, but…. what can I do? You can only volunteer so much of your time, hahaha.

Today, also, one of our scholarship collaborators/organizers from the Louisiana, Dr. Thomas Hymel, visited us, and hung out with me for the evening after our meeting with the scholarship students. He’s a real nice and laid back guy that is easy to chat with. He does a lot of good work for us/the San Pedro community. I hope he keeps doing so. He also brought me the charger that is sustaining my computer for the moment. My computer recognized it wasn’t my old one and won’t let it charge the battery, even though it seems to be the same power level as my dead one. So, looks like I will still have to get that new charger….I can’t decide on the versatile 65watt one that works in an airplane, car, or outlet, or the faster charging and better functioning 90 watter. Either way, I’ll order it soon to have it at the house when I get there.

Speaking of wonderful instruments of technology….my phone is reaching the limits of its existence and/or the limits of my patience level, haha. The battery doesn’t last a day, that was a given due to its age, but now it has a hard time getting signal everywhere and keeps cutting my calls short. I will remedy that while in the states as well hopefully.

My biggest problem right now with an ongoing project is a shortage in funds that the NGO that is my counterpart for my stove project. They have committed to about half the number of stoves (the parts they help out with) that I think people are going to want here in our municipality, after previously telling me earlier in the year there was no limit, so I am in the process of searching for possible sources to help out there. We’re talking approx. $3,500. I have one fund that I could occupy for like 1,500, but I am already collaborating on that fund to try and get our roof fixed on our community house and some other odds and ends there. I also had some problems getting affordable (free) exams (blood, urine, heart, HIV) for my people who need eye surgeries, especially with the electrocardiogram, but now of my first group I just have one lady who just needs the electrocardiogram, and then in January we can get the surgeries (hopefully). So we’ll see.

In visiting with Habitat for Humanity recently, I think there might be another opportunity there for us in the housing sector, so we’ll see how that works out in the next month. All projects will pretty much be put on hold in the beginning of January due to the elections of Mayor, in which I will be waiting to see if I will have the same mayor for the rest of my service, or if he will change….should be interesting.

It’s coming toward the end of the year, don’t forget the donate tab for all your write-offs and skymiles. All these projects come at some kind of cost, and the more I have to work with, the more I can help on these projects, and smaller ones that search me out from the families here.
I’m in basketball and soccer tournaments here. I play defense in the soccer games on Sundays and center in the basketball games on Saturdays. They play basketball every evening in the main town and it kills me that that I can never make it to play (and they rag me for it too). But such is life in the canton.

Just 10 days til the states. I bet its cold up there. Blast.

"Not to be encompassed by the greatest, but to let oneself be encompassed by the smallest--that is divine."

Holderlin in Hyperion, quoted in Introduction to Christianity by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger