September Recap

I'll be honest, September kind of sucked. It wasn't totally awful, just not my favorite month so far this year. This was largely because of the teacher strike and how everything I had planned to do got postponed, but I suppose it worked out in the end. Here's what I have for your September summary...  

-The teacher strike started on September 5th and lasted until October 9th. Some kids have had classes because some teachers are still going to work. The contracted teachers are still working. The ones who are striking are like the equivalent of teachers with tenure (from what I understand of all of this). In a nutshell, this caused most of what I had planned for the month of September to be bumped to October... and I'll be home in the States for a visit for pretty much half of October. Stress. Lots of stress. And disappointment. And worry. That too. Stupid strike. A few nice things came out of it though...

-So as I said, the strike sucked and I was worried a lot about projects and stuff. But after about a week or so, I just stopped worrying and decided to embrace the extra free time I had to prepare for the things that had been postponed on me. This meant a lot of time spent at the UGEL (school district office). Since I couldn't spend my time in the schools, I went there and got to work on things for the future. It's like I have a pretend job there, and I love it. I have my own desk area. I have friends, free internet, a guy who passes through to sell chocolates and comes to find me everyday. It's like a real job, only I don't get paid and I can take as many snack breaks as I want :) Excellent. 

-I kept teaching the English teachers, even though there was a teacher strike. And to my surprise, half of them still showed up every week in spite of the strike. They are great people and dedicated teachers. I love that they trust me with this project and come to class with the open minds and work ethic they do. Working with them has helped me to not generalize, and to not be angry with the teachers for this strike. As with all things, some of them work hard and some of them don't. It's a pleasure to work with some of the good ones and to see their efforts, successes, and curiosity to learn. Inspiring. 

-I planned a dental health day with 3 of the 4 preschools in Ascope. We had local dentists and a volunteer group from Trujillo there with a parade (of course). It happened on October 3rd, so a lot of September was spent getting everything together for it. I'll write a full post on this later, but it took up a lot of my September time and is something I'm really proud of. Definitely one of my favorite things of the stuff I've done so far in Peru. 

-I got my donation from the Sugar Company! Again, I'll give you a full post on this one later but I had to share. Biggest success of September :) 

-Biggest failure of September? Getting the worst sunburn of my life. I was physically ill on account of my own carelessness. Dehydration and heat rashes for a week and a half. Itchy peeling for like 3 weeks. Plus the pain and general discomfort of a sunburn. Stupid move on my part. No bueno. But there is a silver lining- I wore my new jungle hat to the beach that day, so my face was left unscathed. Great investment of 15 soles. 

-It's springtime now! So... winter lasted like 3 months? So strange. I love the spring weather though! Beautiful days and more to come :)

-On account of the epic sunburn and it turning my body into one big prickly itchy heat rash every time I sweat, I couldn't run for awhile. I mean, I did anyway, but not until it calmed down enough so that the rash was only like 25% of my body and not leaving obnoxious red patches that I was afraid might make scars. But I digress. Anyway, one morning around that time, I ran into one of my adorable little old lady neighbors. That morning she was carrying a full load of firewood on her back and looked like she had come from the field. When I said "good morning" to her, she stopped to peer out from her giant straw hat and said, "Amiga, I haven't seen you run in over a week. You have to do your exercises and take care of that body!" Can't really argue with that. Especially from someone carrying half her weight on her back in worn leather sandals and a sweater under the sweltering sun. I have no excuses. 

-My internet remains spotty. Sorry for the sporadic lack of updates and corresponding update purges. Oh, and when I do have internet, it can't really handle photo uploads. Apologies in advance. 

-My recent accumulation of lactose intolerance is getting worse. Attempts to thwart it with yogurt and pizza have been futile. Boo. 

-I'm going home next month!!! YAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

That's all I've got for you for September. See a lot of you (assuming that only Mom and maybe Bridget are reading this, perhaps all of you ;) very very soon!