Three Months In

They say that the first three months of Peace Corps are the hardest. Well, I’ve passed by the three month mark and I’m feeling pretty good. Maybe my challenges are still to come, or maybe I’ll be coasting from here (haha–but one can dream). We had a big training last week where we learned about all sort of different projects and did lots of objective setting and annual planning activities. It was a little overwhelming, but also really exciting.

Since my last post was pretty negative, or at least luke warm, I’m going to highlight what’s going really well at the three month mark.

THE NEW ESCOJO GROUP

I love adolescents! I’m training a group of  12 to 14 year olds to be sexual health educators. I love them. We have so much fun, they come to my meetings, they get excited, and I feel really good about every workshop. They are great kids. We’ve done workshops on values and decision making, and next week we get into the nitty gritty stuff with reproductive annatomy. Such fun! I’m a big fan of comprehensive sex ed for adolescents, and so far I love teaching it.

TAKING WALKS

For a while, I wasn’t allowed to take walks outside the batey by myself, but I’ve started flouting that rule. I take Lili and we go for forty five minute walks around 5:00 when it starts to cool off. It is so wonderful. Since I’ve started walking, a few big wigs in the community have mentioned how good it is to get out and exercise, so it seems like they’re loosening up on the no walking rule. Now if only I could get Lili to stop picking up dead frog carcasses…

MY BOYS

So, you’re not going to believe this, but I am a huge hit with the 12 to 13 year old boys. I had to go looking for girls! They come visit and hang out on my porch. It’s kind of nuts, but really fun. I’ve never been a hit with boys before, never even thought of it as a posibilty, but apparently I’m kind of cool. Crazy, huh?

MY HOUSE

I love living in my own house. There’s so much freedom and general wonderfulness having my own space. I can eat what I want (as long as I can find the ingredients and cook it), get up and go to sleep when I want, and do whatever I want without worrying about other people. It is lovely. Even if I have a lot more sweeping every morning.

I’ll try to be better about updating from here. I’ll keep you posted on more things that are going well as they fall into place.

Hope everyone is doing well!