The Week Back

This week – I was actually busy! Who knew that could happen.

Anyway, I spent a good part of the week setting up things for my presentations that were on Friday. I gave one presentation about gender equality and the other about adolescent pregnancy, though, on the second one I had a nurse come in to give the talk about birth control methods and the condom demonstration.

Thankfully, the groups were small – only 8 students in the morning and 8 in the afternoon. I find big groups hard to control. Especially since teachers like to leave while I’m giving the presentation – they take it as a break. This makes it difficult to maintain the students’ attention and present the material.

During the week, I also built the final fuel efficient stove. I was using some of the sugar mixture from the first stoves. But, it smelt as if some of the sugar had begun the process of fermentation. That stuff smelled incredible strong, it almost knocked me down. But hey, its all good. I’m also in the process of testing the stoves. So far, they seem to work. I’m not sure how much wood they save. There seems to be some concern about the distance of the pot from the fire. I don’t know.

I also got cornered by the Priest of the Church. Well, first he invited me to mass and then to talk afterward. What am I going to say, no? You have to go once the priest invites you. So, after mass, I went back to say hi. I had to wait for a few minutes…so I began to imagine him starting to question me about the homily. He didn’t, instead he asked why he had only seen me at mass for Christmas – damn. I explained that it was difficult for me to come to a 2 hour long mass because I can’t listen to Spanish for such a long period of time without getting lost. We then moved on to topics that were even more fun. He initially though that Peace Corps had something to do with the Peace Accords that had been signed in 1992 down here (to end the civil war). I explained that I had nothing to do with that and then explained what I was here for. He then started to ask for help with the Church, since it is in desperate need of repairs. Unfortunately, I can’t make it one of my projects since the we have to be a religious, as well as a political and things of that nature. Though, I’ll still see what I can do.