First day at El Proyecto

Today has been busy and it's only half over. Today my host dad Cesar went with me on a 'chicken bus' to El Proyecto (one of the spanish names for CommonHope). The bus ride was kinda crazy, very squished and doubfully safe but I got there without a scratch. This is the bus that I will take every day to and from El Proyecto. Cesar was nice enough to show me where to get on and where to get off the bus and gave some pointers as to important landmarks. The ride each way is 1.5 Q (8Q in a dollar, so pretty cheap).

^not my picture, i don't have my memory card reader with me right now.

At El Proyecto I met Abigail, who I have been in contact with for the past month or so. She showed me around the place and I finished up some paperwork. I learned tons about CommonHope. It is such a positive place! (seriously, EVERYONE smiles and says hello to everyone else). I learned that commonhope is really supportive of the families but explicitly does not want them to be dependent on the services provided. They do a really good job of helping the families take ownership in what they are given. For example to get a house from commonhope, a family must work at El Proyecto for 200 to 400 hours doing things like cleaning, sweeping, or helping build things. They also provide a health clinic, social workers, psychologists,and a dental clinic for people who are a part of the program. There are aproximetly 8,000 people in the program in all, which includes all the members of the families. Within each family, only half of the children can be sponsored by 'Padrinos' or godfathers. This helps the family out a bit with school expenses but encourages them to work hard and meet El Proyecto half way.

After the priliminary tour with Abigail, I went on a tour with Louisa, a woman from Moorhead, MN (LOTS of Minnesota connections here). She and her boyfriend are both long term (at least 1 year) volunteers with CommonHope and she's probably the most swedish looking person I"ve met here. She gave me a tour of San Pedro de Hertas, a town near Antigua where CommonHope does a lot of work. In the center of the town square there was a clothes washing station with lots of women aroud it. It seemed almost like going back in time. With the new presidnet (elected last year) all students are required to go to school until 6th grade. However no one is enforcing this. In the center square in Antigua there are plenty of little boys looking for shoes to shine or little indiginous girls with their mothers selling their handmade wares. El Proyecto does a lot of work encouraging and promoting education. For some it is a value and for others they need all of their children to be working so they can feed themselves. At El Proyecto no family is accepted into the program without already having one child in school. This demonstrates that they have a committment to education eventhough they have a difficult lifestyle. Usually only th eldest boy in the family attends school (and only to the 6th grade at that). Middle, high, and vocational schools all have an 'enrollment' fee which is far too expensive for most familys to afford. El Proyecto provides (thoough the godparent program) all of the fees necessary for enrollment, materials,, and uniform).

Oh, last night I met the other two people living at the house with me. They're both boys who live upstairs. (with the only bathroom with hot water. luckily i've been invited to use that one ). Justin is a college student from Maine and Antonio is from Belgium. He's here teaching first aide and volunteering with an afterschool program. He's been here for 2.5 months already, so he showed me around the town a bit and we went out to eat last night (no meals provided on sundays) at a place where they had a live band (think peruvian pan pipe music). It was really nice though i was super tired stil from all the traveling. I can't wait for Melanie to come, it'll be nice to have another girl around the house and someone to play cards or something with. It gets a little slow at night since the sun sets around 6 and I don't want to be walking around alone. Good thing i brought so many books.

Now i'm off to lunch and then lessons from 2-6 at Academica Colonial. Please keep me and my travels in your prayers.
(also, totally sorry for the horrendious spelling but spell check here is in spanish, so unless i want my blog to be in spanish, you'll all just have to put up with phonemic spelling for every big word).