...No Creative Title...

Has it really been two weeks since I’ve written something of substance? The time is flying by here so quickly, I’m not quite sure what to do with that thought. I bought some Christmas cards (and by some, I mean two, about a month and a half ago…I wasn’t too ambitious) to send out, but it’s getting to that time where if I send them, they will get there late anyways. Then I figured out, better to just wish people Merry Christmas via email, or depending on how ambitious I feel about that, via blog. I am usually a pretty big fan of celebrating Christmakkuh (shout out to my fellow O.C.-fans), but sadly I don’t think I’ll be able to find any Hanukkah wrapping paper here. And also sadly, I don’t think handing over Christmas gifts to family and co-workers in Hanukkah paper would have quite the same acceptance rate as it does at home. Not that people get excited about my crazy attempts to infuse other cultural or religious practices into our traditional Christmas celebrations, but in somewhat understanding me, my family somewhat understands my attempts. That said, I hope someone at home has the heart to buy Hanukkah paper and wrap their Christmas gifts in it, since I will not be able to.

This past week has been a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions. Simply put, there was one day where I realized that I’m not quite sure what my job is. Not that this is a new realization at all, nor is it a realization that any other Peace Corps Volunteer hasn’t had, but it was just one day of, “Hmm…what do I do?”. It hasn’t been the only day like that, nor will it be the last. Fortunately, that night I made up my mind to figure out what my job is the next day. This is easier said than done, however, since discussing what I will be doing and actually doing them are two different things. I did manage to get a much more concrete understanding and more of a solid hopefulness than I had before.

Friday, I went with one of my counterparts to a new community where we will be targeting our outreach program with supplemental feedings, child weighing, early childhood development activities, and classes of different sorts for the mothers. The area we went to had a pretty low level of educational attainment (typical for poorer areas here, and everywhere, for that matter)…anywhere from completion of Grade 2 to some high school grades. There were a couple who had finished high school, and it seemed that all of the children were in school as well. We arrived in this small community to interview the mothers individually about their families, their children, and any problems they may be encountering in their households and community. Between two interviewers (my language skills aren’t quite up to par yet to do in-depth interviewing), we finished about ten individual interviews with mothers. In this time, I was able to observe activities around and the children. Mostly, women and children were busy tending to washing, which takes up a majority of the days here. There were a few men around, who seemed to be tending to the roosters. It was obvious that many of the children were not where they should be developmentally (from just observing, physically and behaviorally). There was another observation I made as well—in seeing just a small amount of families, there were two children with cleft lips, one child with other physical impairments (I couldn’t quite narrow it down, perhaps severe malnutrition…but facial features weren’t completely formed), and one woman with what looked like a large tumor. It was so interesting that there was such a high concentration of noticeable physical deformities in one place (is deformities a correct word here? Not sure if disability would be appropriate…hm.). It occurred to me that we don’t really see cleft lips in the United States very often, simply because it is fixed by surgery shortly after birth. The occurrence of cleft lips worldwide is 1 in every 600-800 births, and they are most common within Native American and Asian populations. There are several different causes, which include genetics, maternal diet and vitamin intake, seasonal causes (ex. Pesticide exposure), or uses of alcohol or other drugs during pregnancy. Chances are within this area, the major cause would be a combination of genetic and nutritional, although I am by no means an expert. (Thanks Wikipedia, my trusted and very scholarly resource…).

This community on Friday really helped me to feel much better about my job and what I’ll be doing. The social worker and I discussed possibilities for classes that we can hold with the mothers, as well as a training for the teenagers within the community to conduct early childhood development activities for the youngsters. We’ll be sitting down next week to come up with a schedule for 2009 and a list of areas we would like to tackle. I’m pretty excited about this endeavor, because coming into the Peace Corps, I was really undecided about whether to pursue youth development or health, but with this project I’ll be able to target both areas. I also decided to change my schedule from here on out, which will hopefully help to make me much more productive and useful at my center. From now on, I will be working afternoons and evenings, which means I’ll be able to work with the kids at tutorials and get to know them much better, which obviously wasn’t really happening when I worked just during the daytime (they were all in school).

All in all, I feel much better about the roller coaster that was occurring last week. Yesterday, there were visitors at our center so I was privileged to be able to perform again in the program we put on for them. Of course, I love dancing, especially in front of hundreds of people when I obviously look like I don’t belong. I showed up yesterday at my appointed time, all ready to dance. Having being told the program starts at 3 PM, I was quite surprised when I rounded the corner at work and the program had already begun. Feeling slightly embarrassed at being late (and muddy because of the rain), I took my seat by the visitors and chatted with them a bit (I get to sit by the visitors because I haven’t quite yet established my presence as an “insider”, nor am I quite a “visitor”, but I guess sort of an “ambassador”). In looking around, I noticed that all of the other co-workers were dressed pretty casual (jeans and nice tops), which was a contrast to me in my skirt (granted, I was wearing my flip-flops as if I were going to the beach, but nonetheless, I was still in a skirt). The day before, I was told I should wear a skirt for the dance, which is no big deal because that’s what we did last time, so why wouldn’t we? Well, since I showed up in a skirt, many people started laughing at me (perhaps with me, I’m not sure). Apparently the dress code had changed somewhere in between the night before and the performance, but no one told me. It’s all good, of course, until I feel like I’ve been laughed at enough, and then it’s more just sort of annoying. I find myself wanting to explain…but, but, but….and to no avail. Ah, well.

On an upnote, it’s a chilly 77 degrees today where I’m at, which finds me in my one long-sleeved shirt (not quite fleece weather yet, I’ll wait until it drops below 75) and sweatpants. Brr, the rain really adds an extra bite.

I’ll be watching the big boxing match today between Pacquiao and De La Hoya with the rest of my family. It’s a pretty big deal, as Pacquiao is representing the Philippines and there’s a lot of pressure on his shoulders. I will compare it to the Super Bowl in the US….hardly any traffic, large gatherings to watch the fight, my family even shut down the catering business today (they had MANY requests for orders) for the holiday. Soooo fun, about to start.

Ciao.