Best Days
1. Norberto calculating payroll with Excel completely on his own.
2. Successfully negotiating better prices with 3 of our biggest tourism clients.
3. Wearing a paperhat and hitting a piñata at my surprise birthday party.
4. Girlscout Camp invloving Family Planning seminars and hourly snacks
5. AIDS Day in my site with several communities, volunteers, and the ministry of health.
6. Making and printing our first marketing brochure.
7. My chief phoneing me one morning that I should immediatly jump in a boat to head down river to attend a meeting.
Worst Days
1. Getting sick from the water and having to use the latrine with no roof in the rain while termites crawled up my leg after nearly falling down my log ladder because of a bum ankle.
2 and 3. Awaking to tourists taking my picture or climbing into my house during the 2 times that I got sick from the water.
4. Being banned from an Embera-only meeting (which is why number 7 above was so great).
Biggest Fears
1. Falling off of my house.
2. Falling out of the boat.
3. Falling off my ladder.
4. My house being struck by lighning and then falling to the ground.
Goals for next year
1. Our marketing project will be funded.
2. We will create a cultural and botanical exhibit and tourist pathway.
3. We will negotiate better prices with all current agencies.
4. We will establish relationships with new agencies and recieve a consistently higher level of tourism
5. We will sell more handicrafts.
6. The elementary students will have a better understanding of math and be able to read more proficiently.
7. Members of my community will operate the computers effectively without me.
8. More income will come into the community.
9. The community will learn methods of saving money to acheive their goals.
10. I will work myself out of a job.
So, to celebrate one year of service, the other volunteers and I spent 2 nights at a resort. It seems wrong, but it was wonderful. Here are some of the photos.
