Charlying the blind

Well the last few days have been sort of an atomic ball of hecticness, excitement, and human pilas... lots of pilas (think human energizer batteries here folks)... Exhibit A: Little Esther is doing her Influenza Charla for the first time in front of her large groups of promotores to the waiting room, aka an audience of one elderly señor..... As I start my `Ah Ah Choo!!!` dinamica (thankfully all the promotores were willing to role play as patients....) I get to my old senor, shoving my big poster in his face.... asking him what the difference is in the two drawings.... I get no answers, I get a whisper of a name, but I keep shoving the poster in front of him, trying to extract an answer.... until I look at my partner Kati in despair and read her lips in English: Esther, he cant see!!! sshittttt, I think crap my only audience is blind and just keep on going with the promotores like nothing happened.... nonetheless the senor seemed to get a kickin kackle out of hearing people take turns saying ah ah choo.... the bad news: it was sort of a disaster.... good news: it was hella funny

Our activities with our group of women is really kicking off and Kati and I are even petitioning the mayor and the munnicipality for some snacks and support for our weekly meetings.... I can honestly say that I really enjoy these meetings and feel extremely close to all of these women.... three new women showed up, one a teacher, one a university student studying to be a social worker, and the other a 17 year old!!! It`s amazing just to be talking and seeing women nodding and taking notes..... Kind of like holy crap!!! the Gringas are kinda damn cool.... Alot of the activities that we do consist of bonding activities, and it sort of feels we`re sort of building a women support team but with a health twist to it in the community.... The women are even meeting next week without us gringas (we will be on a site visit) and our tecnica is giving a charla on self esteem!!!! What a damn pila!!!

Other big news, Kati and I will be giving a large workshop to a middle school in two weeks.... this ain`t no small activity here folks, in the course of two days we will be giving the workshop to 160 kids, and will have to train the school`s teachers.... although this is a requirement of training that we are all doing, I`m pretty damn proud to have been able to arrange this, and although our trainer is really happy with our work, Im pretty freaked out about actually doing the workshop to the sea of antsy annoying preteens.... We`ll keep you updated on the hysteria....

Kati and I have taken to visit a local library that partakes in a sort of afterschool reading program for kids in our pueblo.... Its pretty amazing given the fact that vvery few guatemalans are readers, and am thinking that I will try to start the same sort of program at my site..... I think that books are one of the very few resources that these kids can use to dream, travel, and just philosophize!!!

In supernatural freaky news, anyone that mildly knows me that weird shit sometimes just happens to me.... that is no different here in Guatemala.... ie: doors opening, chocolate necklaces mysteriously opening, et al.... But just another day in the life of Esther.....

Talking of spirituality, the group was able to attend a Mayan ceremony last weekend, which was pretty amazing and left me really revitalized.... The Mayan had it right man, uno a uno con la naturaleza, spirituality, and our ancestors....

As far as for more of inner self reflection, well I guess you can say that I just feel alive finally, and realizing that all the things that have happened, all the fuck ups that is my life have all led me for me to be here, and to do this. Very dramatic I kknow (did you expect anything less?)

Saludos.