Mexico II

Hi all!

Sorry about the delayed posting on my part. It took twice as much work and twice as long to find an apartment, so I'm running behind on email.

So that is my big news that I found an apartment that I like which is only a couple of blocks away from the central square. Last night proved to be very exciting. September in the month of independence festivals so last night the queen and the princesses were crowned in front of "La Parroquia", the giant church across from "el jardin", other wise know as the central square. People filled the streets for blocks trying to get a glimpse of the new queen as she rode in by horse and carriage. After that as I headed home, the local Lions club had a musical procession honoring the princess who represented them. It just so happened that it went right along Aldama, the street I live on. There were also hundreds of fireworks all over town, which made it a great night to stay up reading since I would not have slept anyway.

As for work at CASA, things are beginning to settle down. My first week consisted of visiting everyone of the nine or ten departments that CASA has. Then because of the way the internship program is set up it then became my responsibility to create a work plan that would both fulfill the needs for earning credit at school and leaving a lasting impression on CASA. At times I have felt very frustrated when trying to come up with my plan, but I think I have come up with it. I have chosen to divide my time between working with the "promoteres", the group who go out within rural communities. My goal is to strengthen their environmental program. At this point they have very superficial information that does not really address the problems these families face. Another project I'm working on is getting children’s books donated to the library because at this point there are only 300 books, which serves the local community and the daycare and preschool at CASA. It is very apparent that there are not enough. The rest of my time will entail trying to improve the way the internship and volunteer programs are run because it is currently in disarray, this is a goal that the other two interns and I are working hard on.

So that is it for now. I hope you enjoy the pictures, one is a view of downtown from the roof of the house I was staying at, the other is the playground at CASA. If you look closely at the one of downtown you can see "la parroquia" standing out from the rest of the buildings.

Saludos