(I WROTE THIS ON DECEMBER 7 BUT THEN HAD COMP PROBLEMS)

Today was a pretty good day for me. My counterpart and I stayed in the Municipality organizing the program for the 7th Annual Mangrove Festival. Using old programs as a guide, we arranged a schedule of events. To my surprise, all the educational events were geared towards the academic and professional crowd. For the general public there were fútbol (soccer) tournaments, volleyball, traditional dance demonstrations, and other cultural things. I easily convinced my counterpart that after the bicycle race to the mangroves, since everyone was going to be at the mangroves, we should provide nature walks to the general public. So I might be giving a guided tour. I´m also going to try to grab other PC volunteers to my site so we can do more kid-oriented, FUN educational activities like plays, environmental relay races, art contests and more. January is their school vacation time, so they have nothing to do besides come to our events. Plus, he wants Prima to come to help give a health talk and I definitely have some in mind that are geared towards mothers and that are related to our environment. He was also really into the idea of offering an organic agriculture or lombricultura (farming using fertilizers from worms) demonstration for the many farmers in the area. So we´ll see which other volunteers I can get to come so we can do a lot of different, more practical activities that target a much more diverse audience than in the past. Today was a great example of how thinking ¨outside the box¨ is just something Peruvians don´t do very often. My counterpart even wanted me to type up the program exactly as they had done it in the past. I, the incorrigible rebel that I am, probably won´t listen to him, and have already made minor changes that make the program easier to read. Ah, the little rebellious changes one can make here. There were a lot of culture shocks for me today...such as the fact that my counterpart wants to set off firecrackers at 6AM on the first day to announce the beginning of the Festival. And that he wants to do a trash clean-up that starts at 8:30AM.

If all goes well, it should be a really great introduction of Cuerpo de Paz volunteers to the general public! It should also be fun reuniting everyone to work on activities. I guess I have a lot of work to do...and a ton of laundry waiting for me at home. Seeya!