Wednesday, September 16, 2009

I finally finished my proposal for a project I´ve been working on for about three months. The Mayor´s Office, and a small community two hours north of my town and I are working to rebuild a once-dirt floored, open aired class room. The walls, and most of the corrugated zinc roof is up. Still, there is no floor, gaping holes in the corrugation, no windows, doors, or floors, much less chalk boards. Hopefully USAID will help us out with paying for all the rest.

Between getting that application in and working towards the first annual business competition, I´ve been quite busy. This October 2nd, all of my four classes of high school students will gather in the park to compete for the best business innovation and planificaiton. They have spent the better part of the year working on creative businesses that fill specific needs pertaining to the community. We´ve spent the last month writing the business plans. I´m actually quite proud of the majority, and can´t wait for the regional competition.

This week was also Central America´s 188th year of liberty from Spain (September 15th). There were a lot of college age kids and recent grads around hanging out at the pool, and staying out until all hours of the night. Except for the fact that I live with small children and have to be extremely quite entering at early hours of the morning, I almost felt like I too was back in college. Except that my host brother playfully pointed a gun to my face the following morning interacting what would have gone down had I not been me. The gun fight in the mountains last night that kept me up until 5 in the morning didn´t help to calm my nerves. No one else has mentioned it, but it was the first time I had ever heard anything like that. Ever.

1 comment:

Lori said...

Hi, Owen. Great work you're doing. Lena showed us photos of her trip. A fabulous visit in a country different from the U.S. Looking forward to seeing you in person when you're back in the Midwest.

Love,
Mrs. White