So besides being Alive

Sorry for the abruptness of the previous post but I was running and also I have a really hard time remembering exactly what has happened without my handy dandy planner. It basically runs my future and remembers my past for me. That way I can save those brain cells for something more productive. Held another training for 30 mothers in another sector of my site. It was a great little educational talk about diarrea and then I weighed and checked the height of 30 kids. If they were not scared of me before the little ones sure are now. It was hectic with little kids crying and screaming. It does not help that parents say I am going to vaccinize their kids if they don´t behave. I know when parents have done this because they start crying the second I show up. I also held a educative sesson with about nutrition for a group of 20 women. I am definately getting the work experience necessary for international nutrition. I know that I am more exciting then the majority of meetings held here. Had one of my friends leave unfortunately, she is a teacher and got transferred to a site up in the mountains far away. We went dancing one last time to say goodbye and celebrate the friendship. That is what is sad about my site that people are constantly leaving. I make a friend and then find out for work, education, or family reasons they are moving away for anywhere between 6 months and indefinately. Success and failure run very closely here. I pretty much succeed and fail in something everyday. Which I think has been a great lesson for me and for the people of my community. I think we are all surprised at my resilence and relentlessness. I am surprised because my fear of failure in the past left me paralyzed and now I just brush it off or work at it until it resolves itself. For example, I had a girl ask to use a shovel and she went to town in the community garden. This was a success not only because she is a girly girl that I would have never expected to do this but also because culturally women don´t do that kind of labor. The failure would be that the group of youth working with me are not really keeping up with the project so I am probably going to completely change the project to involve more of the community and instead of making a business make a share crop. In the sense of sustainability it is a failure because if I did not keep working hard to maintain the project everything would die. I´ll let you know what happens. Schools back in session which keeps everyone busy. I am designing a monthly health promotion program in the high school. I have been assisting the dentist in getting a mouth health promotion program started in all the schools here. I started this past week training on my bike. I got this idea that I wanted to travel to a nearby town to buy bananas. So I hopped on and took pictures along the way in total the trip was 17 miles and I did it in an hour and a half. The second trip I headed in the opposite direction for a 22 mile roundtrip in two hours. I am going to keep aumenting the distance in the hopes that someday I can take a trip to a far away place on my bike. Plus this is a great way to exercise, sight see, and take photos. The surprising part is that I did not get tired and the next day my legs did not even hurt. I think that with a road bike I could totally win races when I get back to the states because my current bike is a mountain bike so with a lighter bike made for road travel who knows what I could do or where I could go. I went to a birthday party and danced for four hours followed by a cake fight. Keep in mind that tommorrow is International Women´s Day so celebrate, burn your bras ladies, men put one on, and everyone hug your mom. I liked this quote I recently saw by emerson
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could some blunders and absurdities have crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Keep in mind it is better to screw up trying than to be frozen in fear of failure. Also look for new nonesense because expired nonesense just stinks.