Go team, go

Just a quick blog...things are kind of picking up work-wise which feels excellent.  I'm putting up a poster on the town hall to announce that English classes will be starting in July.  Hopefully I'll be able to start an English club in the elementary school at the same time.  There's an empty building that's pretty run-down and I want to clean it to use as a classroom with the people who sign up for my course.  I can use the same building to meet with the local youth to perhaps form a youth group – this idea is still nebulous.  Ideally I'd like to get a group of young people together and see what they think needs to be done in the community.  And then do it.  My ideas are along the lines of picking up trash periodically, planting trees, starting a community garden, etc.  But I trust that the young people, or jóvenes are going to be so much more creative than me and I'm really excited to see what can be accomplished.

Those are secondary projects, of course.  My main focus right now is a diagnostic of my town.  This is a tool that I can use to arrive at a better understanding of the potential for projects for my town.  If I do it right, it'll also be useful for the people in my town who are interested in knowing the same thing.  What opportunities are there for projects?  What projects are the most necessary in this moment?  What are some obstacles to development that my town faces?  At least these questions, and hopefully many more, can be answered by the diagnostic.

Working on the diagnostic has brought me into contact with a slew of committees in my town.  After attending meetings and speaking with the people on these committees, one idea keeps popping into my head.  It's not a project, per se, just a feeling that needs to grow.  I think there's two ways to look at obstacles: 1) a piece of the road that's missing, like in Oregon Trail...it's impassible.  Or, 2) a hurdle that one can assess at a distance and plan to gain enough momentum and overcome.  I think until the first few projects come to fruition (after the diagnostic is complete in August...I'm not supposed to work on any projects until that's wrapped up) I'm going to be playing the role of cheerleader in a BIG way, trying my damnedest to get people to approach obstacles to success in the 2^nd way.  After people have seen what they can accomplish, I'm hoping that I can ease off the cheerleader a little bit in order to serve in other capacities.  But energy and enthusiasm are my two buzzwords for the moment, and I really hope the feeling's contagious.