Community Based Training

Constanza is amazing. We are up in the mountains for the next five weeks. It’s cold at night (multiple quilts cold) and hot during the day. The food here is great too; so many fruits and vegetables. Constanza is known for its vegetables and flowers. We have training everyday from 8:30-12 then Spanish class on Tuesday and Thursday from 2-5. Some nights we meet with our youth groups. We are planning an event for our last week here. There are five youth groups and each one has to plan, fundraise and execute some sort of event. We are planning to do a softball tournament and have to raise funds for balls and a trophy. My group is great; they are very well organized, and can’t wait to take us gringos out to teach us how to dance. We have a spaghetti dinner planned for Tuesday. I have taken up running since it’s not so hot her. And by running I mean running a little but mostly walking since it’s up and down steep hills. I walk up and run down. Luckily my Dona is nice enough to boil my water for my bucket showers or I might not bathe because the water/air is freezing. I sleep much better here because it’s not so hot and I have leaned to put my earplugs in correctly. The roosters here really have no concept of time. They crow all day and all night an frequently get into competitions with the roosters next door. I live with a woman who is one of fifteen children and she has four daughters of her own who also have children. So I am getting a lot of training with youth just living here. Yesterday I brought out my softball and got a group of five of my primos to play with me. Then they took me up the loma (hill) and I picked up a few pieces of trash and before I knew it they were all picking up trash with out me having to say a thing. The only problem is that there is no where to put the trash. The garbage disposal in this country is non-existent. There is trash EVERYWHERE. They just throw it in the rivers and in the streets or they burn it. Even though I was showing that you shouldn’t just throw trash anywhere, we walked over a mile until we found a small zafacón (trashcan). At first the trash made me so angry, but really what are they supposed to do? Why throw your trash away if no one is going to come and pick it up?