August Action (pics below)

'Slow and steady' should be the mantra for August, which is fine with me.

The boys from the water projects had to return to their primary duties of meter reading and fixing the city's water tanks, which left Marcelino, Saul, and I to continue with the trails and fencing in the park. We lost a bit of momentum, but for our numbers we are advancing considerably. Marcelino and I worked out a system where he would go ahead of me, digging holes where our fence posts would go. I then follow, inserting the posts into the holes he dug and filling-in the space around them to secure the posts in their place. We're focusing on the posting first and are getting pretty efficient at it, having covered about 1km of our 1.5km trail.

The unexpected parts of working in the park have been both the most trying and entertaining. For example, we ran out of posting two weeks ago and had to bring in some more from a nearby coffee plantation. After the load was dropped off, we had to somehow get it from the entrance of the park to the point where we had left off with our work...about 1km away. With the very few resources that we have in the park, both economic and human, Marcelino and I had to haul 80lb loads of wood on our backs down into the park, using a what's called a 'nekapal' (pic below). The first three loads were fine, but after the 4th and 5th, supporting that kind of weight with essentially just neck and upper back muscles started to take its toll. But this is Peace Corps right? This should be expected, and it was actually pretty fun.

Another highlight of August (so far) has been the start of a new soccer league (pic of field below). I pried and searched all over to get myself on a team, and found myself one in '12:30'. 12:30, the team's name, is a San Rafael team made up of a bunch of young guys who I had met in town. Yours truly debuted at goalie, but after realizing how boring that position actually is I asked to be moved to forward. We have a big game on Sunday against 'The Machine', the team currently in first place.

In signing off, the best part of the past two weeks has been moving into my new house, but that is a whole other post in and of itself. More to come.