Bicicleta, Bicicleta

I am at the mayor's office trying to, wait a second, the mayor just walked in!
(Super fast spanish, on his part, me trying to get to the point, he is a busy man) And success!
I am here to solicit transportation for a break dance camp that I am taking my kids to this next week. It is going to be at the Lago de Coatepeque and I was invited by two other volunteers that have put it on. I am taking 4 high school aged guys from my site and there is going to be workshops on different break dance moves. The coolest part about the camp is that most kids that are into break dancing feel like it is a bad thing because of the stigma that only delincuents are break dancers. Through the camp they get to meet other kids who are into it just as much as they are, they learn it is fine to enjoy break dancing, and in fact it is a healthy and artistic outlet for them. We also ask that when the students return back home they volunteer 15 hours of their time to community service.

I have been waiting all day for Don Adrian (the mayor). I am in Jutiapa where there is another volunteer who is in the Municipal Development program. There is only one bus that leaves for Jutiapa in the morning and it is at 630am. The problem is is that if I would have gotten there at 7 or 730am and then talked to Adrian for 5 minutes and gotten the OK for transportation I would to have had to wait for the bus to leave at 12pm. And if he wouldn't have been here this morning (like he wasn't) I would have totally missed him and wasted a whole morning. So this morning I left on my bycicle from my site all the way to Jutiapa. Close to 20 kilometers or 13 miles. It was super hilly, really hard at a few points, and overwhelmingly beautiful with the most fantastic views of El Salvador I have seen. Jutiapa is at a higher elevation than my site so it was cool to get to a few spots and just stop and look down at my site, all of the green and brown and dried up corn fields.

Things are getting busier every week. Last week me and about 15 kids had our first meeting to discuss forming a dance team. I tried forming a dance team about a month ago to no avail. I have learned that things do not have to be so hard here, and when you give more responsibility to the people they will at least try to do their part. Instead of creating a meeting and time for the dance team this time I asked Mirian, a 16 year old 8th grader, to be in charge and find out what day and time we could have a meeting. An hour later she had the day and time and I made a little poster to remind everyone. At the meeting we went through all the questions, why we want a group, where we will practice, and who will teach. We made a plan for all the questions except one, the teacher. I said I would search for a teacher, having no clue where to go, who to ask, or how it would work. It is exciting. It is the same feeling I had in July when I was in Washington DC. Clueless about the country I would soon be living in, what I would be doing, how I would be helping. I decided to talk to the director of the Instituto Nacional de Ilobasco. A really nice high school in my nearest pueblo. I explained the situation and he told me to come back the next day to meet a kid that could possibly help. I came back, talked to the kid and the guidance counselor, and tomorrow we will have our first dance team practice with our teach Eric. Success!

Time goes by slower
Acabamos de llegar
Learning bout success.

Money it is not
Nap at least once everyday
We need to slow down.