I´m losing my voice

I have been incredibly busy this past week coordinating details and running errands for the Mangrove Festival which starts THIS MONDAY. My counterpart also decided to leave to Lima this week. Good timing. Ahhh, why did they arrange the Festival to fall a week after the Christmas/New Year´s holiday??? We just started publicity late in the afternoon Friday. Hmmmm...I see where my most important role will be next year: PLANNING AHEAD OF TIME AND STAYING ON SCHEDULE. Unfortunately, most of the week I spent writing oficios, which are highly formal government documents of communication. A lot of hassle about nothing, really. I don´t know why they made me write them, of all people. Talk about stress and misplaced use of personnel.

Yesterday, I sat at the table with the mayor, a biologist who studies my mangroves, the director of the regional Natural Resources government office (INRENA), and two of the mayor´s aides for a press conference. Even though I had prepared a few short statements just in case, I was extremely relieved nobody asked me to speak or answer a question except one-on-one. Then we went to the visit the mangroves. It was more beautiful than last time. We saw a flock of a few hundred white birds fly up in a fluttering cloud from the ocean to the sky. I also decided that the mangroves are too far for me to bike to and be happy about it. Darn. On our way out, the INRENA truck decided to do some off-roading and got stuck in sand. We spent 15 minutes trying to get it out until a John Deere tractor came and pulled it out like a piece of cake.

Then after eating ceviche with the reporters, I went to Piura with the INRENA folks. We went postering. Ah, it reminded me of the good ´ol PIRGIM days, especially when the gray-haired engineer began tearing down other people´s flyers so we could use their thumbtacks to hang up our poster. And sticking posters in doors and other not-for-poster-use areas.

By the time we finished, it was dark. I was tired and starting to feel sick, so I stayed overnight in Piura. As usual, I was able to find other volunteers staying in Piura. We ate chifa, Peruvian-Chinese food, which is always an awkward experience for me. I know everyone´s like "oh, the China like chifa." It was decent.

This morning, I woke up from a terrible night´s sleep due to an abundance of mosquitoes and heat in my room at night, and now I´m losing my voice. Which is really unfortunate because I have to do three plays this week. The one I´m writing now has a migratory bird cameo that only says "Yo no sé" because it is a gringo bird from the United States. I hope it will make the people laugh.