August 10: The grand tour begins

So I spent Wednesday meeting people around my town…….my town. Ah! I started out at the school. Every morning the kids line up before class, it’s called formation. So I went to meet with Sra. Yolanda, she’s the directora. The Senora introduced me to everyone and explained a little bit about my job. She then gave me the mic so I talked a little bit about myself and the Peace Corps. I thought I was doing really well until I realized I had forgotten to tell them my name :-P oh well. After showing my face at the school Sra. Yolanda walked me over to the municipality to meet the alcalde, but he wasn’t there. I will definitely need to go back over there to meet people again. Back in the plaza we ran into Sra. Doriza on her way to health post, so I went with her. She too decided that I needed to meet the alcalde and immediately walked me back into the municipality….not surprisingly; he hadn’t shown up in the last ten minutes. I met some of the employees at the health post while waiting for a health promoters’ meeting to start. Turns out the OB for the health post has studied some English and wants to learn more. I offered to do a language exchange with her, so hopefully that will happen. The meeting was with a group of representatives from each of the nearby casarias who help the health post get its messages out. Cars aren’t common here and many people can’t or won’t pay to travel to the main health post, so these promoters work to bring the information to them. The meeting was very long, but it’s an interesting program. After eating lunch with the health group, I went back over to the school to say hello to Sra. Yolanda. The school is directly next to my house, so sticking my head in the door to say hello may be part of my daily schedule  Back at my new house I watched some TV with my host sister-in-law Faviola. I love that TV counts as language practice on the days that I don’t feel like working out of a book ha ha ha. Later that evening I walked back through town to the health post with the ladies of my host family. We met some more staff and got invited to walk across the street for the birthday party of the GP’s mother. That was a great cultural experience. I danced the traditional dance from around here. The name sounds like “wine-o” but I know that’s not how it’s spelled, so I’ll have to get back to you on that. Apparently I’m pretty good at it and apparently that’s an endless source of amusement for people in my town :-P We actually went to another birthday party later on that night where I danced again. I did well the first time so now my host mom keeps making me dance. Somehow I always knew dancing would play a key role in my integration :-P