Communication

I've been reading a super interesting blog lately (more on that later) and it's motivated me to try to write an entry a day. I think it's a lot easier to get a feeling for how things are here if you can read about all the mundane things that happen. When I leave the entries to once or twice a week a lot of that little stuff gets dropped. We'll just have to see how long I can keep to that; hopefully it'll force me to put my iphone down a little. One of the other volunteers pointed out that I should still be able to pick up free wifi on my phone even though I stopped my contract. I took it off airplane mode for the first time in three months and sure enough, internet. Now I'm back to obsessively checking my mail and facebook every five minutes, not to mention the unhealthy amount of time I'm spending on my newly downloaded Oregon Trail game :/ (But it's so much fun!!)

So a little story from last week. As you know, one of my responsibilities here is to run the inservices for the kids and also for the staff. Well I didn't realize that this also meant I needed to help coordinate the inservices from outside organizations. Tia Rosa had told me a couple of weeks ago that a woman was going to be coming to give an inservice about HIV. Since she wouldn't be in the office that day, I was going to have to show this woman around a bit, have lunch with her, etc. I wasn't looking forward to it (anti-social personality flares up a bit when I need to try to talk Spanish for several hours to someone) but I had other things to focus on so I put it to the back of my mind. On Monday Tia Rosa comes up to me and starts talking about the lady that I need to meet with the next day. Turns out it's not a lady, it's some kind of group of people from an organization. She tells me that on top of going to listen to the presentation, I also need to introduce them in front of the assembly. I immediately complain because I have no idea what I need to say. Tia Rosa agrees to help me write a speech which she promptly does by herself and then hands to me. She leaves for a few minutes, then comes back and tells me that they had just arrived and wants me to go meet them. "Oh, are they sleeping here?" I ask. She looks at me weird and says no, then we walk over to the other side of campus to the cafeteria. I see all the kids lined up outside the cafeteria and finally it dawns on me. "Um, Tia Rosa, is the assembly today?" And of course it is, and of course since I had no idea I hadn't brought the speech with me, nor do I have enough time to run back to the office for it. Thank GOD the Año de Servicio girl Estella was there and I was able to have her help me write something up really quick. I tried to memorize the speech in the three minutes before I had to present it (which naturally didnt work) so I had to just read off my paper like a doof. All went well though, turns out the group (who I introduced as Los Payasos, though I had no clue what that meant) were a group of traveling clowns!! They were apparently hilarious because the kids were cracking up the whole time. They taught all about myths/safety with HIV, really great stuff. This is part of a series, so tomorrow they're going to come back to do the next presentation in the series.

This is them singing a song about vaginal fluid. I don't need to understand the words to know that it's amazing

On the subject of poor communication, Tia Rosa and I had another issue this week. I had been stressing out about getting my presentation done in time for my workshop this week and losing a full day to a med run didn't put me in a great mood. I had to go represent the clinic in a meeting after the med run so I was looking at a 12 hour day in total. As I was walking to the meeting, Tia Rosa stopped me and told me that the boys in one of the sections were having issues with hygiene and the Tios there wanted me to do an inservice on proper genital care. Awesome, no problem, I'll do that next week. No, actually they want it tomorrow, she tells me. I feel my blood pressure sky rocket. I explain to her that I can't put aside time to prepare another presentation right now because I have to finish my other one. I couldn't figure out what the big friggen rush was. She tells me that they really want it tomorrow so I need to try to figure out a way to make it happen. I grumpily head to my meeting and a few minutes later remember that I have a mandatory volunteer meeting the next day at 3; there's no way I can do the hygiene inservice, it'll have to wait. I talk to Tia Rosa and tell her I'll do it the following day for them. I tell the director of the boys section who agrees as well. So the next day I put aside the PowerPoint for my presentation and start to work on a hygiene one. I ended up having to a do a good deal of research on uncircumcised penis care since I know very little regarding children, only adults. I end up making a pretty kick ass PowerPoint and finishing it up the next day, a few hours before I'm scheduled to give it. I ask Tia Rosa to help me edit it which she gladly does. Finally it's all set to go. I tell Tia Rosa that I'm getting ready to head over and she says, "Oh you don't have to give that presentation, I already gave it yesterday while you were at your meeting." Wait, what? She just spent like 45 minutes helping me edit this presentation, what did she think it was for??!? So I wasted two entire days of work for nothing. Stuff like that happens all the time here though, you can't be angry or you'll go crazy. You just have to shake your head and move on. And hey, at least I learned how to clean kids' genitals really well! That might come in handy one day!

I started using the verbal med-order technique for my conversations now. When someone says something I think is important, I have them repeat it another time. After that I repeat it back to them and wait for confirmation. I can't wait until I'm fluent in this language!!