Some Photos

A year and a half of Peace Corps service can mean lots of photos. For purposes of this blog I try to hold on to certain photos for when I get to a specific post topic (lots of good ones coming! Enjoy the other new posts and stay tuned for more!). There are lots of others though that don't fit so neatly into my topic system but are worth sharing. Here are a bunch. Hope you enjoy.

Park Cleanup

Every now and then during town festivities or a holiday, some of the local teens think it's a good idea to go to the local park and smash bottles. Seeing as there is no police in my town there is not much recourse for this delinquent act. I've noticed that when this happens the park - usually a bustling center of youth activity - is quiet and nobody uses the mini soccer field due to the glass. In an unplanned effort to try to encourage volunteerism, twice I've gathered groups of my students and brooms, dust pans and plastic bags to clean it up. Seeing the kids use the park again immediately following the cleaning is a fantastic feeling.

No soccer going on today

Park covered in glass

Some awesome helpers

Getting it clean!

Enjoying the clean field with some exercises!

Impending Storm

My school has an annual kite day. The students make their own kites at home (sticks, thread, plastic bags) and then all go out to the softball field to fly them. Seeing the clouds turn into a scene close to the end of Ghost Busters I asked if we were still doing that and received a quizzical "Uh, why wouldn't we?" from a co-teacher. You can see the kites flying in the background.

Looks like a great day to fly kites!

Future Drums
In my main secondary project (about which I will post soon) I am working with a master drummer and dancer. Below are the wood bodies for drums that he made with some of our students. The tall ones are for tambor alegre, the wide short ones for tambora, and the small short ones for llamador. More info on what that all means soon!

Going to make some great sound!

Boat

A loaded chalupa coming back from the market. In the background you can see some factories on the other side of the bay. 

Coming back from the market and bringing goods to the town

A Nice Pet

Some host family down the street have this turtle as a pet. Here he or she is, munching on a mango.

Hi there!

Going to Class

A few students on their way to class. 

Time for school

Bring The Youth Some Knowledge 

My co-teacher, José, hard at work with the eleventh grade class preparing for an exam that is more or less like the Colombian SATs.

Dinner!

A family friend dropped this fish (sábalo - one of my favorites!) off for our dinner. Here it is on the chopping block waiting to be hacked into chunks for our family and the neighbors. Machete to the bottom right, my host brother's little feet to the top right.

Tasty sábalo!

Machete
A neighbor was doing some work and took a break, during which he left his machete stuck in a little stump.  Learning to wield a machete in town is almost second nature, next to swimming and running in the street. Seeing little kids walking around town with machetes in hand is nothing alarming - they're probably just doing some work around the house.

Machete. Or, locally, "soco" or "rula".