11-03-09

Read the other post from today first:

OK lets try this again. So Andy and I have pretty much all of the deatils of our trip figured out location wise. We still need to figure out what we are going to do when we get to our different hotels, but that is a much smaller problem then not having hotels or an itinerary. I have been worrying about getting this planned out and signing up for classes for awhile now so it feels great to have at least one of those things not having over my head anymore.

So about the new volunteer situation. The other exciting email I recieved today was from Ernesto the project manager at OTEC. The first email that I recieved said that there would be a new volunteer arriving tommorow and that he would be staying with me and teaching the officers. So I emailed Ernesto back because I was super excited at the prospect of having a new person to speak english with. When I emailed Ernesto back asking when the new volunteer would be arriving so that I could meet him at the bus station he replied within a minute that he had miscommunicated in the email from yesterday and that the volunteer was ¨probably at home right now¨. I was pretty confused by that statement, was he at my home here? was he at his home in the states? So I asked Ernesto that very question and his reply was, oh hes at the house in Fortuna right now.

That was the moment when I just posted my first blog and headed out to the house to meet him. On my way back to the house I ran into some of the officers who were patrolling in the park. So I stopped and asked them if they knew if the new volunteer had arrived yet. That question was met by some blank stares, even by the chief of this weeks group. Obviously they hadnt been expecting another volunteer. Up to this point I have repeatedly been told that I was the last volunteer for this year and that they werent even signed up for the program next year for sure. Andres has been under the impression that I was the final one because he has been planning this big graduation ceremony with the town and government officials honoring the officers as having completed their english training course. After talking to the officers in the park either Ernesto was full of shit, or this was another prime example of how great an organization GeoVisions is.

I went back to the house and of course the new volunteer was there. His name is Cooper and he is an 18 year old college student taking a break before heading off to Brown. He is down here for the next three months, so I dont know what that means in terms of the graduation ceremony, but if I have to push the test back after all of the bull dealing with moving it forward Andres is getting a piece of my mind. He is living in the room where Heidi the other border used to live. It should be nice to have someone to hang out with, plus he did a study abroad program in Chile last year so He should be able to help me communicate in the classroom. I was a little down in the dumps lately because I havent done anything outside of class in the past week and a half but its amazing how great I feel right now. This last month looks like it will be alot of fun. Pura Vida