No news is good News

Well the bike rides continue and they are beautiful and I take fotos and it is like my foto diary of me and zeek. By and large things are the same here. Still fighting to get my projects in place. Trying to lay down the law and start new ones. Somedays I want to just shake someone but then I just breathe do some yoga or ride my bike and come back to positivity. And dancing has come back as well as the rainy season ends the parties start again and my dance group is back in action. So I work all day and dance all night. Lots of meetings lots of official stuff lately. Plus giving kids prizes in the library for the reading competition. It is incredible how hard they worked for a backpack. I am not completely in agreement that people should constantly provide incentives for behavior change. But 20 bucks says I will fall into the same trap when I want to get projects moving. This week I am getting the paperwork and coordinations ready for a improved cooking stoves-healthy households project. I began the monthly health promotion program in the high school. I will be starting with sex education in April. Started the healthy mouth promotion program with the intern dentist. Then there is organizing the parent school where we educate the parents of the students in four schools here about life themes such as domestic violence, alcoholism, communication,etc. Planning to do three vegetable gardens in three schools here hopefully getting the seeds and organic fertilizers donated from a NGO. My community garden is mostly my garden because I have been abandoned by my helpers. Cant blame them they have to work and so I keep it up. What can I say seeing things grow gives me hope. And well if I can make it work I have big plans for it in the future. If you build it they will come? Oh but I am starting a recycling project with my youth group. Tomorrow we are going to do a clean up day of the town and then take pictures. I am going to educate in the community and in the schools. Then all the stuff we collect we are going to sell to the recycling plant (which looks more like a junk yard and is super informal but at least I know that this stuff is out of the dumps or the streets). Then the idea is slowly but surely we will gain enough money to buy sacks for the houses in the community and by the end of the year recycling bins for the major streets of the community. And perhaps I will get the municipality to buy trash bins for the community as well because we lack that. The infrastructure here is much better than in other communities but I think it gives the false illusion of progress. If the people never change, the things they build will eventually deteriorate and then everyone will be back at square one. So sustainability man that word drives me bonkers. I will admit that lately I have been feeling discouraged because well I do not know that we can make projects that are sustainable. It insinuates that we have to make the people care about certain themes. And well if it does not fit into the cultural belief system or their everyday life I think it is just about impossible no matter where you are in the world. Behavior change is a pain in the ass. I get advice from people they tell me I need to be patient, and that is true. But everyone wants things for free and without work and well that I think is the difference between the developed and developing countries. If a country is constantly depending on handouts from other sources it will never be able to manage itself. So I stay, I work, I dance, I write, I ride my bike when I am frustrated, and I keep trying. I admit that I miss you all terribly and I am incredibly bothered when I cannot be there for your successes and your sorrows. In these moments I wonder whether it is better to be of in a distant land making a difference in the lives of strangers or to be home and making a difference in the lives of your loved ones.