Kids at my house!

I'm finally feeling comfortable here in Sija. Well, actually about a month ago I was, but I haven't written a blog until now.

I made a comment to someone recently that in Chahal, the neighbor kids would show up at my house on their own accord to play but that kids here in Sija don't do that and probably won't. I was wrong!

This afternoon SEVEN kids came over to play. Patita is a magnet for them. Although Guatemalans seem to be wary of dogs, they love mine because she's actually clean and behaves herself. The kids went crazy. Running all over the house screaming like Patita was a monster chasing them. It was adorable.

When they showed up, I was pooper-scoopering the patio, tossing the turds into the wheel barrel. When I finished I asked, "who wants to dump the poop in the field across the street?" They all went crazy to be the one who got to do the job! Child labor, hmm.... I could take advantage of this.

Then they discovered my hammock. They were quite organized and formed a line, but I suggested we play an elaborate tournament of rock, paper, scissors called Evolution, to see who got to swing on the hammock first. Juan de Dios won. The only problem was when Rudy, the youngest of them all, started playing rough. When I tried to talk to him, he got very angry with me. So I had to banish him from my house. Afterwards I found out that the only discipline the kid knows at home is being whipped. No wonder he ran from me when I tried to talk to him. Poor thing.

I still don't think that Sija will ever have quite the feeling of community that Chahal had, mainly because Chahal is much more isolated, whereas Sija is a commutable distance from a city. But it's okay. I had my ideal experience in Chahal, now I have to be tough and make Sija a positive place, which as you can see, it's already becoming that.

In addition to having kids to play with, I'm getting a roomate next week (an environmental master's student from the capital). I enjoy living alone, especially with the move to the new house. I have windows!! But life gets boring, so the company will be appreciated. I'm also getting a site mate next month from the Youth Development program. In Chahal I wouldn't have liked that, but I'm not possessive of Sija. And I see potential for colaboration on projects.

Speaking of projects, I'm finally out in the field working more than I am in the office wasting time. We've started building the trail on the mountain here; planting 18,000 trees (Mexican weeping pine and fir) in a reforestation effort and for our sustainable logging project; and have begun the conversation about how to attack the waste management problem. However, there's not enough people out working on these projects to finish them in the amount of time alloted in the proposals, which is frustrating. They had these projects planned out before I got here so I just have to tag onto what they're doing; I didn't have a say in the planning process. Most frustrating, though, is that I seem to be the one most interested in all of these projects even though they are not for me nor my brain children. But I think that's a typical challenge of a volunteer: to make the locals realize that these projects are actually to benefit their well-being. So poco a poco voy. Just over 9 months left! 2/3 of my Peace Corps experience has past. Crazy.

P.S. Thanks to Joy and Mara for coming to visit and see what my life is like here and help out with the projects. You rock!