A Cubit of Snow

One of the keys to staying productive & active, & therefore ultimately happy, in this job is to simply keep moving. As I’ve phrased it before, to stay out of the office. More precisely, not to get stuck in the inertia of the place simply because there is no obvious need to be elsewhere. Today was a good case in point, as another power outage, as usual, snuffed out productivity in the office along with the lights & computers. How did we get by again without these funny boxes of light anyway?? After a bit of sorting through notes and chatting with Linda & regretting my Economists current residents at the bottom of the hill I decided this was a fine time to play with my new camera, get some shots for the tourism council & continue to marshal reasons why the PC should approve my desired new abode. (Side Note: Sheila Chan, my Regional Manager (RM) is coming out on the 24th to see my sight! She started with the PC in April, so she has been busy making the rounds to all of her volunteers and seeing where they kick it. Conveniently she will also be able to clear (or not) my housing which PC needs to do before I move in anyway.) Anyway, with all this in mind I set off up the short hill to Acocoy, where the hospital & fish hatchery & the native house I hope to live in exist. I did end up with a few pictures, though nothing too breathtaking on account of the ubiquitous clouds and I even managed to see the inside of the native house, but much more interesting than any of that I got to chat with Ronald from the Ag. Office for awhile. They were there, at least in part, to collect some semen from the boar for AI (which I still want to see exactly how they managed to accomplish that) & I’m not sure what else, but we just sat under one of the houses & shot the breeze for an hour or so. We just chatted about my camera, where I’m from, his life & family, and some of his views on politics. Those boiled down to the problems of corruption & the tension between politicians and career officers. My favorite quote, referencing our previous discussion about having to plow roads in MN, was along the lines of “To move that cubit of snow would cost a million pesos.” Another way to look at our own old cliches of toliets & hammers. This is the “work” I love doing. Listening & getting to know other people’s realities. Its just so much harder here with the language barriers. Not too many people feel comfortable enough with their English to just sit and chat and my Mayoyao isn’t ever going to be able to sustain that level of conversation. But still, the best part of it all is that these “cultural exchanges” are two thirds of the overall Peace Corps goals for my time in this country! (The last goal is to provide technical assistance). I love this “job!”