Orientation/My Fellow Volunteers

Things have been moving along pretty fast here and unfortunately my internet connection has been almost non-existant, so I'll have to gloss over a lot to cover everything. This week we started our orientation. The lady in charge is named Erika, she's the volunteer coordinator here. She's a super sweet lady from Sweden who reminds me SO FRIGGEN MUCH of Cyell (for you WGA employees). She looks like her twin sister and acts exactly like her: really kind but also totally scattered. It's actually kind of nice to have someone around all the time who reminds me of home.

The training has been going pretty well though we're covering all of the boring stuff right now (company hierarchy and the like). I finally got to meet the director of the clinic today along with the head nurse there. They seem really nice, though I think they're a little disappointed at my inability to speak fluently. Due to international licensing issues, I'm probably not going to be doing a ton of hands on stuff here (wish they had told me that before) but it actually works out in my favor. I had been worried that I was going to miss something pretty big in the clinic due to language issues, and now I dont think I'll be doing a lot of that. We're going to discuss my duties more tomorrow, but for now it looks like I'll mostly be in charge of doing workshops for the kids. Workshops including....(drumroll)....SEX ED! Woohoo! I'm seriously psyched about this. I'm a huge advocate for early sexual education for kids and I'm really happy to be helping them with that. I have to wait until my language gets a little better before I start doing the inservices, but hopefully within the next month or two I'll be good to go!

So tomorrow is my first actual day in the clinic. I'm nervous but also excited. One of the other new volunteers is going to be a doctor in the clinic and she and I are pretty much in the same boat as far as our language skills go, so I'm glad to have someone else to pal around with. Her name is Nicole, she's a very shy/quiet vascular surgeon from Germany. Let me give you a little run down of the other volunteers here. Well not everyone, but the main people I've been interacting with. First there's Holgar, my roommate. He's a handsome 40-45 year old German man who speaks fluent English. He's actually going to be the English teacher here (which I find kind of funny). He seems really nice so far, though we're still getting to know one another. He went to school to be a priest, but then changed his mind last minute. He's very religious but seems to be pretty open-minded too. I like him.
There's a girl from Germany named Anni who is going to be the speech therapist. She seems pretty quiet too, which automatically makes me like her, haha. She taught us a German card game last night which was fun.

My two closest friends here so far are the two American girls who arrived here the same time as I did: Stephanie and Charlotte. Stephanie is pretty awesome, she reminds me of a mix of two of my old friends, Angie from NAC and Tara R who I grew up with. She's really cute and funny and we tease each other a lot. Her Spanish is a lot better than mine so I constantly ask her how to say things. Stephanie used to work at a camp for kids with developmental disabilities and she's going to be working with the special needs kids here too (she's a tia which means she'll be basically helping them all day with everything they need- ADLs, meals and school). My other friend Charlotte is going to be a tutor here. Everyone in her department is gone (the other volunteer left early and the teacher is out on maternity leave) so she'll need to run the show on her own which is a totally intimidating thought. She seems pretty well put-together though, plus her Spanish is really good, so I think she'll pull it off.
Here's where I'd insert a pic of us if I had one. Well, I have one of me and Stephanie in Antigua, here we are.

I dont have a lot more to talk about in this post, so now I'm just going to share some random pictures. Here is the room I'm staying in now, and the volunteer house. There are three volunteer houses in total, I'm just staying in this one until there's room for me in my PERMANENT house (which should happen in about three weeks). They have it nicely decorated though!

We have a dog here too! Her name is Marie. Actually its a stray dog, she just hangs around here a lot because another volunteer used to feed her. She's dirty like other strays but she's a lot friendlier. She wags her tails and runs up to people when they walk down the path. She's really sweet.

The orphanage produces a lot of it's own food here, particularly it's meat. We took another tour and saw more of the animals. Here are some goats (mostly used for milk) and some baby pigs (which will be dinner in a few years.)

They have a pretty large farm, too. Check out the plants! They also grow their own flowers for landscaping here.

Lawnmower

And here's where all the cooking is done for the orphanage. They have almost 400 kids and over 100 staff who eat their meals here. The stoves are low to the ground because the pots are so huge

And you know those really colorful buildings I posted a pic of last time? Turns out they're a Montessori school. They're so cool inside, check out this castle library: