Anywho…We had a startup meeting last Sunday for the irrigation project.
A word on meetings and public speaking...
Here I don’t do particularly well in meetings. It has nothing to do with speaking in front of people (what qualms I did have about that have been diminished while living here…I am constantly speaking in front of people in broken Spanish...I know I sound dumb). But I really don’t like the echo-ey room where we have meetings and people speak so quickly and all at once.
They ask me to speak about the project…which I had just done this with a woman sitting next to me, rather well I might add. My train of thought and focus seem to go out the window when I am speaking in Spanish…I am too busy thinking about verbs…damn verbs. So I say a few sentences, the people who know the project better than others chime in to help me…then people are just confused and ask me a bunch of point blank questions that I don’t understand.
On top of all that the Association has a new president. The previous president was my host dad and official counterpart. We have had our differences…but he understands my version of Spanish and has been helpful in the grant process, and knows the project very well. The new president doesn’t seem to have as much faith in me…(who would really…this young lady comes in, can’t speak well, and is telling them to build a tank…)
Yesterday we went out and staked the location of the new tank and marked the trees that will be cut down. (Don’t worry they are the invasive Eucalyptus trees that suck water away from native species...and we are replanting at least 10 native species trees in their place.)
As we worked he asked me questions and I was able to answer them. And I was able to back up why I thought this or that was better, he also had some good ideas that we used. It went well and it looks as though, our project is underway. Horray! (I couldn’t avoid the rhyme.)
Other big news…My mom is coming in a week! We are going to the Galapagos…wish us luck for no tsunamis!
I just taught the man on the corner (yep…still can’t understand his name) and my landlord how to eat with chopsticks… Our conversations seem to center around the weather, my comings and goings, and differences between Ecuador, the US and Spain (his son lives there). Whelp today we got on the topic of food…again. This time they were talking about how “Chinos” (which here means most anyone from Asia) eat with sticks. So I went inside and got them all kabob skewers and had them practice picking up trash from the street…Peace Corps fun.
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