Timing Is Everything

Sunday, August 22

I spent today giving speeches introducing myself at three separate mass services. 7am, 11am and 4pm. The mass services were surprisingly short, only 50 minutes give or take. However there was not a seat to be found in the church. There were anywhere between 200 and 300 people in each mass. This was a great opportunity to explain why this gringo was going to be wandering around town trying to teach with bad Spanish for the next 2 years.
Monday
I put on my nice clothes and headed out to the Junta Parochial. The Padre is on vacation the next two weeks and will only be around on the weekends, so I feel a little lost. This is the best place to go, I assume, if I need some work.
I thought right. The president whom I met on my previous visit was very excited to share her plans. She said there is a lot of work to be done. Which is good, I would rather have tons of work than none.
Conversation translated roughly:

“We just taught a customer service class to the local hotel, hostel, restaurant and tienda owners. Can you design a marketing class to teach them?”

“Yeah, I can come up with an outline. How many classes?” I asked, my first mistake.

“Can you design a yearlong plan by Wednesday?”

Eager to please, I smiled and said “si.”

I left the office trying not to kick myself thinking “you dumbass. You know you can’t do that.” After a little internal debate I decided the following points of action. One, I don’t technically work for anyone, I volunteer.
I drew up a plan that came out to 11 classes, about 2 hours each. This could be spread out over a three month period. We will see how it goes. Maybe they will like it, maybe they will not. Or perhaps they would rather learn something else or just say to hell with this gringo.
Tuesday
I did some more work on the Marketing outline. I also read up on the Community Assessment Tools we are supposed to do in the next few months. Still not sure what to do about those, on the back burner they have been placed.
After lunch I decided to venture further up the road into the more rural part of Baños. Not 30 meters out the front door I ran into Isabel (my new host mother). She was about to head up the same way I was headed to buy some herbs. So I thought.
The dirt road is uphill the whole way (like the Manayunk wall but worse). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manayunk,_Philadelphia,_Pennsylvania#Manayunk_Wall_.28Landmark.29 Then we came to a small little town center that looked straight out of an old Wild West film. Big circular dirt patch surrounded by some buildings in a shambles, others not, and a little run down chapel. We continued past the little center then suddenly veered off this little cow path between gardens. We followed the winding path till we hit this patch of what I thought was weeds.
Isabel whipped out her pocket sickle and started hacking the grass and pilling it up. Now I am confused.

“What is that for and what is it?”

“It is kind of like lemon grass. It is for the cuy that we have that I showed you.”

I guess my puzzled expression said what I wanted to say.

“Oh I didn’t show you? Yeah, we have 70 cuy in a house outback of the house, my uncle has 200.”

Huh, yeah, did not know that. She would not let me use the sickle. I guess she figured I would use it as badly as my Spanish and only cause more work. So curiosity got the better of me and I started wondering around the property (her brothers).
As I turned the corner of some kind of building in the middle of the field I scared the hell out of a very large turkey and myself. Oh crap that is no turkey! It was the Godzilla of roosters. This thing was a good two and half to three feet tall of pissed off rooster. So what did I do? I ran. What did it do? It chased me for a good 20 feet.
Isabel thought this was hilarious. There are three official goals of the Peace Corps. We joke that the 4th unofficial goal is to be a source of entertainment to the community. Yeah, check that one off the list.
After that comic relief, we bundled up the grass stuff and walked to the road. I was not looking forward to carrying this the whole way back. But once we hit the road, she dropped her bundle and sat on it. She informed me that would catch a camioneta (truck taxi) back to her house.

Song for today: Sic ‘em On a Chicken http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E4MAqttvgM

Wednesday August 25, 2010

I got to the Junta around 9am for my meeting (mistake number 2, not scheduling a time). So, I chatted with the secretary and found out the President was not in yet. She called every number she had to reach her, nada. Ok, I will stick around for awhile. Two hours later I called it. I will just email her the stuff and ask her a date and time to discuss the class. Lesson learned.
So now what to do with my free time today? Read, write, play guitar and learn some blues??? Sounds like a good plan.

¡Hasta luego!