Busyness

11/September/2010

I started out today watching CNN International remembering all those Americans who died unnecessarily 9 years ago in NYC, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. I remember being at the PC office on this day last year, spending a minute of silence and reflecting. Then messages from President Obama and Director of PC Williams to all PCV’s all over the world were read, followed by the ominous ringing of “the bell”. “The bell” is rung when PVC’s complete their service, when PCV’s or staff pass away, and for other special circumstances. When it rings through that silent atrium it’s truly moving.

Let’s flash backwards to earlier in the week. The kids were totally out of control, since the biggest fiestas of the year are this coming week, and there’s no school. I had given my proposal for a Mapa Mundi to another school a few days prior, in which I went to the school to talk to the Director. There just so happened to be an all teacher meeting, so I ended up presenting my idea on the spot to all 8 or so teachers. Obviously I was caught off guard, but it ended up being great to get everyone in the loop and onboard all at once! After a couple days, I hadn’t been contacted so I decided to go back and see what the official word was. I got to the school and there just so happened to be a meeting with EVERY director of EVERY school in LPC and Momotombo, including the Delegada (like a superintendent). How lucky am I?! Then I had the chance to get everyone else in the loop, including the most important, the Delagada, who has the most power to make things happen in the schools. I talked about wanting to get maps in all the secondary schools, including Momotombo. Things are NEVER this easy and efficient. I was stunned that in a total of 2 or so total hours, I was able to talk face to face with everyone and more about my project. On my way home, I passed by a house under construction to contract an albañil (I think it’s a mason in English) to chip away the paint on the outside of the school in order to put cement on so we can have a flat smooth surface to paint on (the schools are painted brick). So I found a guy who said he’d start the job 2 days later. Say what?! I mean, you just can’t do that in the States.Since my “permiso” to change the structure of one of the outside walls of the school was expedited, we got “permiso” to start in under less than 2 days. As we speak one of the guys is chipping away at the paint and cement pillars to redo it with a flat finish! This was all remarkably smooth and easy to organize, but hiring someone to do the cement part is way more expensive than I thought. About 50 bucks total for supplies and manual labor. Ok, that’s a steal, but relatively speaking that’s a lot.

The new Deputy Ambassador, Robert Downes, came to my town yesterday to see how PCVs live. He’s sort of on a tour of the country to get acquainted. Along with his right hand man, Tyler Sparks, we went to my school along with 2 of my kids to see where I work. We checked out the Mapa Mundi and talked about resources (or rather lack of) that we have in the schools. They were disappointed that none of the classrooms weren’t open (because there was no school). So we looked through the bars that line the sort of open air windows we have. Then they saw that there’s only a white board and chairs. Not even lights (we really don’t need them), just wires hanging from the sockets and they realized maybe a tour of the classroom wasn’t a big deal after all. They also met my counterpart then were back on the road after about an hour. It was an honor to be visited by people from the Embassy to check out the grassroots work that goes on outside of their air conditioned office jobs. And they may have outfitted me with up to date Magazines, pesto (which I haven’t had for a YEAR!), Sangria, Jif peanut butter (impossible to find) and some other goodies. A great plus to the visit.