Youth Group Kickoff

We had our youth group kick off this week and it was amazing. One of our biggest projects while we’re here in El Seybo is to work with a group of high school students on a technical project, guiding them through a structured process but letting them dictate the theme and giving them the opportunity to have some hands on experience, which they get so little of here. I was fortunate enough to be given my very own opportunity to head one of the three projects, and of course, we’re making a documentary. My team is awesome, they’re as excited about the project as I am. And the jovenes seem to be dedicated and genuinely interested as well. In just one meeting, we were able to give them a charla on the nature of information through the media, responsible documentary production, and how to conduct and effective interview. We were also able to decide on a topic from ideas that they pitched and voted on. It’s actually rather perfect because the topic they chose is to introduce or expose their audience to the two factories in town. This allows us to split up the project, giving them more personal experience and making production efficient at the same time. We plan to film all of next Saturday and spend the entire next week editing. I’m going to give my team an editing tutorial before I give the lesson to the kids, so that we’re all on the same page with the wonderfully advanced editing program: Windows Movie Maker.

All this also means that I’ve had the opportunity to break in my new camera! I had some issues with the quality of the image at first, but eventually figured out that I was retarded and had the gain turned on in broad daylight. It’s a good thing it happened during the training sessions and not during the real meat of the project. The kids won’t actually be using my camera, for a number of reasons, but the primary reason being that we as a PCV team hope to put together a documentary of the experience. A sort of movie within a movie, or behind the scenes, if you will. So they will be using the video functions on some of our still cameras as we look over their shoulder and try not to be too obtrusive with our slightly larger camera.

Our first planning meeting for the project was hosted at my house and I decided to splurge and order us a pizza. I figure that since I don’t spend money on alcohol and generally end up with more left over at the end of each pay period than the others, I could afford to treat them. And a few days later, since we had already borrowed the projector for our charla, I hosted a movie night. I wanted to provide food for this too, so went on an obscenely long search for chips and salsa. After bringing back the bottled salsa and explaining to my doña that I planned on adding fresh ingredients, I took a nap. When I woke up, a gigantic bowl of salsa was already made along with fried eggplant and a carrot and potato dish. The movie night ended up costing me as much as the pizza, so I don’t think that I’ll be hosting anything else while in El Seybo, but it was definitely a success and a lot of fun.

My new novio sat with us throughout most of movie night, though he couldn’t understand a word of it. He sat right by my side the whole time and had a heyday with a newly discovered treat: popcorn. I’m so in love with this boy, he’s the most adorable 2 years old ever. He’s actually being raised with manners, to cover his mouth when he coughs, to be respectful, and he’s quite intelligent too, I think. He calls me E-isa, he knows me, remembers me every day and is my ever devoted eating compañero. When I got back from the beach today, he saw me coming down the street and ran to bring me home.

Which brings me to Playa Esmerelda. Today we finished out the week with a much needed escape to an amazingly beautiful bay, which we had almost to ourselves. Ann, the best trainer ever, manipulated some funds to rent us a gua-gua and take us there for the day. However, a few of us chose to sit in the bed of her truck on the way up which was the ride of a lifetime. Not only did we have 360 degree panoramic views of the lush green mountains, but we got to experience the cool rain as we drove through them. I loved it so much that I rode in the bed of the truck on the way back, too – though this time I stood up, holding onto the railing of the cab, the whole hour and a half back. It was amazing. The beach itself was wonderful, the water was warm and for practically the whole bay it was shallow enough to stand. Palm trees and mangroves shaded the area, Sabrina brought her water-polo ball, and when the sun finally did come out, it washed our stresses away.