Email #11 "Dear Jos..."
Dear Jos,

Hey baby! I know that getting a typed letter seems really formal, but typing on a computer seems like such a luxury, and for some reason, it seems alot easier than hand-writing. Plus, there are just so many cool fonts. I must’ve spent 20 minutes picking this one. Anyhow, I hope with all my heart that this letter finds you well and happy. I decided that I may as well write some of this letter in a format for you to use on the website.

I apologize for being such a slacker over the last six months. Things have been crazy busy, and I was really in a rather foul mood. All of the second year volunteers had told us that people tend to go into a funk for pretty much the entire three months between having been in country for a year and having been at site for a year (the time we spent in training last year). And let me tell you, a funk it was. I think I scared my parents at one point because I was being so negative about everything, and my mom said, “But you’re happy, right?” and I just kind of gave her a blank stare. Then I tried to explain that I didn’t do this to be happy, I did it cause I kind of felt like I needed to. So it wasn’t really so serious that I hated the people I came here to help.

Things are going better. I am still not a big fan of many things that are going on here, but that is something that would take much more than a letter to explain. But since we celebrated our 1-year-as-volunteers birthday on Friday, and now that there’s an end in sight and many, many projects lined up on the horizon, I’m in a bit better of a mood.

Below is a short project summary. We’ve attached a copy of the full project description.

PROJECT UPDATES...

• The LATRINE PROJECT will begin in a few days, as soon as I get the cement truck (not actually a cement mixer or anything, just the truck that will drive 100 50-kilo bags of cement out to my village) out there and people to come pick up their cement. I’m very nervous and expecting all kinds of nightmarish, only-happen-in-africa problems. Ça va aller. 55 people are signed up for the latrine project, but only 13 are actually ready right now. So I’m rather curious as to a) how many people are going to back out cause they thought it was just talk; and b) how long it’s going to take to finish the darn thing. Time will tell.
• The WOMEN’S HEALTH PROJECT is waiting in the wings. After my parent’s visit the project actually seems real to me which is very exciting because I wasn’t sure it was ever really going to come together. They brought a heap of t-shirts that my old company from San Diego donated to the project, as well as some cold cash money, and the polaroid camera which, I’m sure, will be the cause of some market riots. The translating women are mostly ready, but Leo (female), a good friend of mine, has to get some minor surgery before we can start. So it’s slightly on-hold.
• LOCAL HEALTH WORKERS... I recently found out that all of the local health workers in the villages surrounding mine have started coming to my health center for training on the last Thursday of each month... and I’m quite sure that my nurse is not doing much of anything when training them. I’m going to try and do some AIDS work with them over the next couple of months.
• 5TH GRADE GIRLS... I’ve been trying to organize a group of the 5th grade girls to do a “girls club” before they finish up this year and go off to the big cities for 6th grade next year.

Love always, Erin