That’s quite a TB test you have there…
At first, I was going to take a few shots because it was such an eye-catching circle that the lab drew on my arm, and why not? It’s surprisingly hard to take a good shot of the near-elbow region of your own arm, so the challenge was interesting. The other spot outside the circle is […]
The Some Birds
The title is in honor of my good friends and the great times visiting them, and even helping them with a work event. The tequila and movie-going were fantastic, but I also had a good time working at the city park where they were assigned and trying to wrangle group after group of teenagers to […]
Take the good with the smoky
And other lessons being learned in the stove project. We are in the monitoring and evaluation phase doing a final round of surveys to try to quantify fuel savings after a few months with the efficient wood-burning stoves. Since the families typically only buy wood once or twice a year, we switched to measuring wood […]
2 days of flowers and work
I mean work and flowers. Definitely in that order. To work on the super-secret, super-awesome soccer ball project, I got to tag along on the practicum visit of a couple of trainees in the natural resource management program. The visit was to the Bosque La Primavera in Guadalajara, and it was definitely worth a second […]
My favorite type of day
Full of good people talking about good things over great food, and I have a new certificate of appreciation for the solar stove and efficient cookstove work.
Before and After
The stove installations are actually almost all done. I saw 4 yesterday and 1 today, and I look forward to going back and taking all the “before” and “after” pictures. The installation is a quick process, except for configuring the chimney. The women typically have to drill holes in the walls of their kitchens or […]
Burning, burning wood
But now so much less wood. The first few efficient wood-burning stoves from our USAID Small Project Assistance grant have been installed. They seem awesome, and the woman are reporting excellent results. The reduction in wood usage is immediately apparent, but I will wait to take measurements until all the stoves are installed and they […]
Have solar oven, will travel
Although the climate in the state of Puebla is significantly cloudier and rainier than where I live, I packed up my solar oven and took it with me to a science fair this weekend in a small community there. The fair was organized by another Volunteer for the children and parents at the school where […]
Community Participation Tools
Taking a step back to the second-to-last day of Mid-Service Training and away from my oh-so-self-important reflections, I want to share some pictures from our group field trip to one of the communities in which we have been working for the solar stove project. But, before I do that, I will explain how this outing […]
Aspirations
For Part 2 of the MST essay series, we are going to take a look at one of the touchier-feelier activities we did on the last day of Mid-Service Training. This activity was rereading our original Aspiration Statements from the Peace Corps Application. I feel that it deserves capitalization and the be recognized as a […]
Underutilized and misplaced
First off, let me say, not me. Well, not me outside the office. The problem is that I don’t want to be utilized or placed in the office. More on this later in this post. I’m struggling a bit with tone in these essay posts. My voice is my voice, but it starts to feel […]
Mid-week Mid-Service moment of zen
As long as I can keep running and doing a bit of multi-tasking then I expect to make it through the week just fine. It will take some reflection to write something longer, but there is plenty of reflection going on this week during mid-service training. It is a different perspective entering the second year, […]