I'll take it as a good sign that I haven't updated in awhile, and chalk it up to being busy... haha. I've officially been a volunteer for a year! They always said that the first year was the hardest, and that the second is when things start to click, or fall into place. It sure is true. I've got a good amount of projects going on and feel like I've done some good things here. At least my students seem to like me; one class even made chocolate cake! (yes, i can be bought with chocolate.. smart kids!)

July was a rather busy month. I had Camp VALOR (50 teenage boys for 2.5 days....) and then right after that (at the same time actually..) the new trainees (now volunteers) came up for FBT... the week of practice in the field to see what its "really like". They came to my site and taught Vocational Orientation to 3 of my 4 classes. I think I need to take them with my every week, because even the worst behaved classes were angels. (that's also when they made cake...) Then I went down to Lima for a training session about working with Community Disability Organizations and a surprise (for me) session on goal 3.2. I had about 1 hour to whip up something. I got to spend Fiestas Patrias with Isa and some of her friends; ate yummy food, had some good drinks and good times.

August started with the PEPFAR conference-- a 3 day event talking about how to create HIV prevention projects. I had a whopping FOUR socios turn up! Three were sent as replacements for the people I invited, but it ended up working out for the best. I finally got an in with the health post. For the rest of August, I went at least once a week to the health post to meet with the doctor and/or obstetrician to plan our project. I submitted it last week and is approved pending paperwork that I am turning in tomorrow. The basic gist is that we are doing monthly sessions with the 4th grade high schoolers (2nd to last year, about 14-15 yrs old) about HIV prevention and have a t-shirt design contest with the winning class getting t-shirts. And us too, of course! The culminating event is a parade (known here as pasacalle) for World AIDS Day on Dec. 1st. I didn't want to do another one, but got talked into it by the doctor and obstetrician. They promised they would help me and that I wouldn't be as stressed as last year. After looking at my pictures they told me it looked like I had a great parade last year and they didn't understand why I was anxious. I'll take it as a good sign that I mentioned it to my school director and he offered up the school band's support!

Nicole, my sitemate, and I are also hard at work planning a College Fair. This was a new concept to most people we talked to, so there was a bit of confusion. Some of that might have been that at first we referred to it as a "Feria de Carreras". Carrera can mean race or career (how they refer to majors in college). Now we are calling it a "Feria Vocacional de Universidades e Institutos" which more or less translates to a University and Institute Vocational Fair, and the idea gets across a lot quicker. So far, 3 of the 4 institutions we have invited have confirmed that they are coming. We still need to invite a LOT of institutions, so there's a lot of work to be done still. We are also compiling a University and Institute Guide to give to each High School that has basic information about majors, costs and admissions requirements. The idea for this started because even though we are only 1 hour from the city, many of our kids and their families don't have money or time to spend a day or more in the city going from school to school getting information. We wanted to bring the information TO them and also make it available to our youth in caserios (small rural areas away from town center). For those kids, the idea of going to a technical institute might be a whole new concept, since their families are mostly dedicated to agriculture or animal raising. It's all very exciting, and a bit stressful as the days pass. But I think it will end up being a great thing for our kids and their families.

So right now I'm in Lima for mid-service medical exams. Tons of fun. I've been poked and prodded just about everywhere, but turns out I'm A-ok. Got to go to the dermatologist and get some persistent acne checked out and have my psoriasis looked at too. The fish oil mom brought has been awesome, but he wants me to use some stronger steroid too. Hopefully that will get rid of the bit that's still there.

I'll look through photos and see if there's anything fun to put up. I lost my camera at the end of July, it literally disappeared, so no photos since then. just got a new one brought from America, so I get to take more pictures! yay.

Really missing home and everyone there, but buoyed by the small successes I'm having here.