Monday, July 05, 2004
Sontule
Hey all
So on the 22 I moved to my new home in Sontule, the community where I will be workng. Lets just say its alittle more rustic than Dona Corinas, and the food a bit more standard al campo. Meaning lots of beans and no produce, and I feel pretty bloated gross all the time and sweat beans. For those of you who dont know, I often say I am alll beany when I am sweaty, and this came from working in the field and smelling like beans all the time. I know, isnt it pleasant?
Anyways, I have had mondo problems with assistants, and am pretty mad at this one girl Sandra. So when I got here, Salvadora hooked me up to work with this guy named Diego. Then when I left for Miraflor, he sent me an email saying he couldn{t work. I emailed Salvadora nd she hooked me up with Sandra, who told me that she would LOVE to work, but couldn{t come until june 20th. SO I thought, fine. Then june 19th I get an email, saying that because shes working on her thesis project, she has to go to the field, and so she'll come later. Great. SO I wait for her until the 28th, then she shows up, and tell me she cant stay and Miraflor and work, and could only come down on weekends because she talked to her prof and he said her thesis is more important and she cant do both jobs!
I mean what the hell?! She TOLD me she could stay and work here, and I wasted almost two weeks waiting for her to get here, and then either she doesn{t talk to her prof until late, or doesn't tell me, and then tells me when she gets here, and now what am I supposed to do? I am training some guides, but they cant work all the time, amd some CURN students (CURN is a university here) and coming in middle of Julio, and god help me if they decide they cant work every day either, because I NEED someone to work every day, and if this stupid girl had told me earlier, then I could have made arrangements for someone else, but now it feels like its too late, I should just wait for the students, and I want someone experience so I can run 10 nets, because alone I can only run 2-3 and with inexperienced help maybe 5.
So I am pissed. And I am losing time, and wont get good data, and wont get any grants and wont be able to come back here.
Blah
On the plus side, I really like the family I am staying with, everyone is really nice, and noone wants me to work alone, so everyone like the guides and all are switching their schedules around to come work with me, although one day I worked alone because 4 said they were coming and then noone showed up. Funny thing is, I think they got into trouble with Dona Isabel and Dona Lucia because these two women worry about me out there all alone, although its not even that isolated.
People refresher: Lucia and Rogelio are the parents of MArlon, who is a guide and current president of the Sontule cooperative Oro Verde. He is married to Mayra and they hava 14mo son, Marlon Mauricio. Lucia and Rogelio have tons of kids, but the other that lives in Sontule is Ivan, who is married to Daniela and they have a son Ivancito. Daniela is the only sister of Nelson, who loves to go out with me and look and birds and actually carries a notebook and writes down things I say. He could never go to school, but loves to learn. Mayra is finishing secondary, and Marlon is in university. (Side note, for those who have to work during the week, you can go to school on Saturdays, but it costs money,while diario is free, meaning people with the least money pay the most to go to school)
Dona Isabel is married to Don Francisco, who's the brother of Lucia. They have a mountain of kids as well, and their son Francisco lives with them with his wife Letvia(19 now, was 17 when they got married), and their son of 1 yr Brian. Isabel also has a 12yr daughter Araceli at home and a 3yr old son who I am pretty sure has mild autism or some other disorder because he is 3 and only knows 5 words, and gets mad a lot and hits people and can be very unresponsive.
So on the 22 I moved to my new home in Sontule, the community where I will be workng. Lets just say its alittle more rustic than Dona Corinas, and the food a bit more standard al campo. Meaning lots of beans and no produce, and I feel pretty bloated gross all the time and sweat beans. For those of you who dont know, I often say I am alll beany when I am sweaty, and this came from working in the field and smelling like beans all the time. I know, isnt it pleasant?
Anyways, I have had mondo problems with assistants, and am pretty mad at this one girl Sandra. So when I got here, Salvadora hooked me up to work with this guy named Diego. Then when I left for Miraflor, he sent me an email saying he couldn{t work. I emailed Salvadora nd she hooked me up with Sandra, who told me that she would LOVE to work, but couldn{t come until june 20th. SO I thought, fine. Then june 19th I get an email, saying that because shes working on her thesis project, she has to go to the field, and so she'll come later. Great. SO I wait for her until the 28th, then she shows up, and tell me she cant stay and Miraflor and work, and could only come down on weekends because she talked to her prof and he said her thesis is more important and she cant do both jobs!
I mean what the hell?! She TOLD me she could stay and work here, and I wasted almost two weeks waiting for her to get here, and then either she doesn{t talk to her prof until late, or doesn't tell me, and then tells me when she gets here, and now what am I supposed to do? I am training some guides, but they cant work all the time, amd some CURN students (CURN is a university here) and coming in middle of Julio, and god help me if they decide they cant work every day either, because I NEED someone to work every day, and if this stupid girl had told me earlier, then I could have made arrangements for someone else, but now it feels like its too late, I should just wait for the students, and I want someone experience so I can run 10 nets, because alone I can only run 2-3 and with inexperienced help maybe 5.
So I am pissed. And I am losing time, and wont get good data, and wont get any grants and wont be able to come back here.
Blah
On the plus side, I really like the family I am staying with, everyone is really nice, and noone wants me to work alone, so everyone like the guides and all are switching their schedules around to come work with me, although one day I worked alone because 4 said they were coming and then noone showed up. Funny thing is, I think they got into trouble with Dona Isabel and Dona Lucia because these two women worry about me out there all alone, although its not even that isolated.
People refresher: Lucia and Rogelio are the parents of MArlon, who is a guide and current president of the Sontule cooperative Oro Verde. He is married to Mayra and they hava 14mo son, Marlon Mauricio. Lucia and Rogelio have tons of kids, but the other that lives in Sontule is Ivan, who is married to Daniela and they have a son Ivancito. Daniela is the only sister of Nelson, who loves to go out with me and look and birds and actually carries a notebook and writes down things I say. He could never go to school, but loves to learn. Mayra is finishing secondary, and Marlon is in university. (Side note, for those who have to work during the week, you can go to school on Saturdays, but it costs money,while diario is free, meaning people with the least money pay the most to go to school)
Dona Isabel is married to Don Francisco, who's the brother of Lucia. They have a mountain of kids as well, and their son Francisco lives with them with his wife Letvia(19 now, was 17 when they got married), and their son of 1 yr Brian. Isabel also has a 12yr daughter Araceli at home and a 3yr old son who I am pretty sure has mild autism or some other disorder because he is 3 and only knows 5 words, and gets mad a lot and hits people and can be very unresponsive.
