Its officially Fall but its still 85, sunny and humid here everyday and to make matters worse, my second fan (one that I bought only 3 months ago), is failing me.  However, I am finally seeing some work done with the court, not as fast as I was hoping but enough to make me happy and I have almost completed writing out a grant for the local medical clinic and started on the first steps to actually implementing some of it.  Its a little more complex of a project but I think that is even better because it required me to really investigate some more options and bring in more services to the community for the first time in their history which has already been pretty cool.

Basketball Court

Finally!  We have all the lights installed!!! Just so everyone has an idea of how frustrating this process was.  A month ago we had the lights bought and ready to be installed.  It took a week for the ADI to meet and write out an agreement that they were going to contract X person to install the lights.  At the same time, the colegio also contracted the same dude to construct bathrooms at the high school and apparently that contract was more lucrative than the lights so he spent the next three weeks working there on weekends to finish that job.  I went a couple days to help, subtly drop hints about the lights and ask when he was going to install them, etc.  But still, although all that was required was connect the lights to the existing wiring that was already installed, I could not get a straight answer from him or a commitment.  So then I had my host mom, also VP of the ADI, call him and ask when he was planning on coming.  He said "Monday, the 26th at 6am" so I went up at 6 in the morning to help. 6am passes, 6:30, 6:40, finally I call the president of the ADI and ask if the contractor is coming.  He calls the contractor and is told that he is going to the colegio to finish the bathrooms...Finally, he shows the next morning and installs the lights in an hour and we can finally cross that part of the project off the list. As for the fencing...another headache.  After installing the 9 poles for the fencing when the other PCVs were in my site, we were waiting around for the pastor of the church to come and weld the fencing onto the poles.  During this time, someone pointed out the poles were crooked or bent or something and now the ADI wants to take all the poles out and redo them with an experienced contractor.  Hopefully tomorrow this actually happens but as you can tell, nothing planned rarely happens.

 **Update...it actually happened and we installed the 15 meters of fencing all in one day!!!**see below

Medical Clinic Project

These past two weeks have been fairly busy writing up the grant and finalizing the design of the project with the committee.  I just ran the grant by the grants coordinator at the office and was told that it all looks pretty great and required NO changes, which I am pretty proud of.  We got the initial bids from the construction supply stores as well last week and although they are a little high, I still think getting the minimum 25% community donation should be possible but it will be a challenge now.  

We have already begun working with the social worker from the larger city of Guacimo to start the project and she has already come 2 times to give presentations to the 7th graders in the high school about the importance of safe sex, the risks of unprotected sex and the importance of identity as an adolescent.  She is coming back for the last 2 sessions (each trip is "2" one hour sessions) this Friday but has been a huge help during this past two weeks and has helped me reach out to another organization called IAFA (Instituto de Alcoholismo y Farmacodependencia), Institute of Alcoholism and Pharmaceutical Dependence, so that they can do similar sessions about the risks of drugs and their negative effects somewhere down the line. Lastly, we managed to get 28 seniors in the community and surrounding communities to sign up to receive courses on how to organize themselves into a group or organization, the importance of self-esteem in old age and helping create a mutual identity of the group.  I am really excited about this project and the effects that it could have on a couple groups of individuals here in the community and the fact that these three organizations are making their way into our small community for the first time.  The colegio teachers for example are all surprised to see the social worker there giving presentations and the first day had a ton of questions about how to make sure she comes back again.

The next step is to finalize the budget, revise my objectives and goals with the CED staff and then post the grant online and hopefully get some funding!!

Bus Stop

My final small project I am working on is a copy of the benches idea from last year.  I went around, asked for small donations, got a lot more help from the ADI this time and then coordinated the labor with the pastor of the church to help cut and weld the material.  Again...the speed of the project and having to depend on others to do the bulk of the work certainly slows everything down and even though all the materials were bought weeks ago, we only got started last Thursday...and even then only got a little done.  But its progress and one other project I can say I helped with.  Now all we need is a bus!

Good news is that apparently the ADI is working to finalize a contract to have a bus maybe come in once a week starting sometime next year (hopefully i'll be able to take advantage of that once or twice before leaving)

Lastly, I was invited to the regional science fair that my colegio had two projects in, including one my host sister is a part of.  For a small, really rural school, even one project is an accomplishment but two is incredible.  Of the 65 projects, 6 were chosen, 3 from colegios and 3 from escuelas...our colegio won 2 of the 3 spots!!!  My host sister, Monica, and 5 of her classmates get a 3 day trip to San Jose, food and housing all paid for and present their projects over a 3 day period in November.  Really cool to be a part of the experience and see how happy everyone was when they announced the results.  Way to go Linea Vieja!