orientation

Hello all…and welcome to my blog. ☺ I hope all is well with you. I have heard from a few already, and it is so nice to stay connected to my community at home while I’m gone. I look forward to more communitcation. And by the way, I’m writing this on Tuesday night, but I have to post it Wednesday sometime because the internet connection is no good right now. Just so you know…
I have been gone a week now, which is hard to believe in many ways. It seems hard to believe that only one week ago I was sitting in Jim’s Jungle watching Indiana basketball. A lot happens in one week, I guess, eh? I have been in Santa Cruz, Boliva with my Seed group and a few leaders, doing orientation to MCC programming. When a few of our participants were not able to go to Akron for orientation, MCC made the decision that we could come here instead, which has been a great adventure and a lot of fun. We are staying at the MCC center, getting to know a lot of the MCC workers here. Our days are spent meeting together, discussing and learning about MCC programming and how the organization works, as well as visiting the places and hearing the stories of MCC’s work in Bolivia – to give us an idea of what MCC does and how they work.
We got in last Thursday morning at 930am and began meetings at 11. It was a busy first day and I must admit, not the most fun. We were all very tired and for myself, I think the lack of sleep made me homesick and a bit hesitant of what I just signed up for. This all passed, however, very quickly after a night’s sleep and it has been a great week. Meetings are not the most fun, but it is wonderful getting to know the people in our group. We are meshing well and seem to have good chemistry, which is key. The meetings aren’t all bad, either, as we learn interesting things about MCC programming and such.
Over the weekend we went to Moro Moro, a rural campo about 7 hours away from Santa Cruz, which was great. It was nice to get out of the heat and up into the mountains and see the work going on out there…working with a water project to bring water to rural houses. I love the campo so much more than the city, anyway, so it was sweet. If you have the 2009 MCC calendar, the front picture is actually taken in Moro Moro. We met those in the picture, which was cool. I also got burnt in Moro Moro, which was not exciting, but almost everyone did, so…oh well. I’ll be more careful, mom. You’ll all be proud (and relieved) to know, too, that today on the way back from Moro Moro we stopped at some waterfalls which were beautiful and fun to play in but I did not fall down them, so I am still here and kickin. Probly wouldn’t have surivived this fall…there has not been much water and the landing would not have been pretty. Haha…I was safe…and my group all thought I was crazy for my story of falling down the falls in the DR. That’s my life, though, I guess.
We are now back in the city for two more days and leave very early on Friday morning for Bogota. It has been a good week of orientation, but I’ll be ready for Colombia now…get there and find out how it will be. We’ve moved past uncomfortable not-knowing each other, too, so we’re ready to dive in together, I think. I, too, will be excited to hear from Erin, my program director, who just spent time in the area where I will be living so possibly I’ll get a bit more information…? We’ll see.
My Spanish has come back quickly, which is nice. I still say things with the wrong conjugation all the time, but I’m definitely learning. The Latin@s teach us new words every day, but it is so hard to retain the 50 words per day they try to explain to us as we increase our vocabulary.
It is hard to know exactly what to write…haha…I’ve never done a blog before. I like personal letters better for sure. So…any communication is welcome. If you have questions, definitely let me know and I’ll talk about whatever in this blog. It’s an experiment. Hope this is a small picture into my first few days here. I love you all and hope you are well. Talk to you in Colombia!
I also am going to try to upload a picture of the group…we’ll see if that works. It is a picture of our group with the two leaders of our orientation – Amy Zorilla (HR director of Latin America) and Dan Lenoard (not sure what his title is…he created this program…seed). Great people. Lots to learn from them. …you can also check out the page on MCC’s website that explains a bit about the seed program if you’d like… www.mcc.org/seed. Much love…