Books That I have Read So Far....

  • I haven't read any more books cuz I'm dedicating my free time to learning the ukulele
  • Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
  • The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
  • A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
  • Night by Elie Wiesel
  • Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
  • Atonement by Ian McEwan
  • Finding Fish by Antwone Q. Fisher
  • The Memory Keeper´s Daughter by Kim Edwards
  • The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
  • The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
  • The World According to Garp by John Irving
  • Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Happy Holidays

Im coming home to Seattle for Christmas in less than a week! I am definitely excited to come home and see my family and have a vacation.

Things in my site are going pretty well...the biggest thing at the moment is trying to promote a community recycling program that will be starting in january. The municipality will be coming around each week collecting organics, non organics but recyclables, and non recyclables, each in a separate bag. This past week we had different charlas to explain this program to the community members. I went door to door in different neighborhoods of the community inviting people to these charlas. We had different charlas specially for the people who live in the different neighborhoods. One of the neighboorhoods I visited had about 75 houses and I went to every single one with a member of the development association to invite people to the charla and only 10 people showed up.... I went around in another neighborhood with about 50 houses and only 4 people came to the charla.....

We knew that this would be difficult to get the community members to do. Many people burn their trash either because they are lazy or because they havent been educated on the bad effects this causes. Other families throw their trash in the river or in other places in the community. This is terrible because the river is the number one tourist attraction here and if people continue to pollute it the town´s reputation will be at stake. We definitely have our work cut out for us, but we also have the resources to work with. There is the Grupo Ecologico whos members are educated on recycling and are prepared to give more charlas. There is also the Colegio which is an Environmental high school....all of the students receive mandatory environmental education classes. Using high school students to motivate the rest of the community to recycle would be key. The problem is that these kids receive environmental classes and then continue to throw their trash on the ground....it must be that using the garbage can is "uncool" just like in many high schools in the US.

Still working on the community newsletter. I sold 120 of the publication for November and December. I am using that money as well as what I have charged for placing an ad in the next edition to make the copies for the next one which will be ready for January. The idea is to make one every 2 months. I am still looking for a group of community members to take over this project so that it can be sustainable. I would love to turn it over to a student organization in the high school. This way if there are people who are interested in studying journalism can get some experience while they are still in high school.

The weather is getting hotter and dryer, we are heading into summer (the dry season). Highs are around 30 degrees celsius....which is about 90 degress ferenheit (if my calculations are right).

I took a spill on my bike a few days ago. I was going too fast down a hill full of big rocks. I hit the front break on my bike at the same time that I went over a really big rock and ended up flying over my handle bars. My hands, knees, and elbows got scraped up pretty bad but nothing serious. And nobody saw me crash and burn which I consider to be the most important thing!

Hope all is well and Happy Holidays!!!

Emily