Crossing the finish line!

As I procrastinate on the few remaining final reports I have to write (and not until Thursday), I can't help but look back over the year...and the chaos of the final two weeks of my internship volunteer work.

Aside from sleeping until noon everyday and taking naps later on, it hasn't all been fun and games. There was the election chaos last Sunday, as the ruling party faced an embarassing defeat. Of course, the only way to recover from that is to distract the public, by creating buzz about something...something you probably should have publicized a long time a go, but held back in fear it might create negative feedback in the face of the elections...

SWINE FLU!!!!

Within 48 hours of the elections, most of the country's universities were closed to prevent the further spread of the flu and the Health Minister of Argentina resigned, due to differences in opinion with the political regime and their handling of the flu and previous dengue outbreak.

Luckily for us, the public schools held off a couple days before shutting down for "extended winter vacations"...meaning we got to finish our workshops! (The decision to close literally came during the last workshop!)

They ended with a successful bang--we brought a fabulous cake for the kids, along with soda, then they surprised us with a baked cake, flowers, and hand written thank-you notes.

Our cake, with the name of the program, "Todos somos únicos!" It was filled with strawberries and cream and dulce de leche for a richness and sugary sweetness typical to Argentina.

Their "graduation" gifts. A notebook, highlighter, glitter glue, pencil sharpener, fancy pencil, lollipops, and pen that writes in four colors.

Mariel, passing out certificates of completion to each child.

Magali and Melany, with the cake Magali made for us.

The flowers we were given. They seem to be lasting forever! And they match the colors of my kitchen!

Behind the scenes, prepping the goodies for the celebration.

The kids, listening, as the director imparts a few final words of wisdom.

And finally, relaxing before the sugar high kicks in. (Yes, this is BEFORE we loaded them up with cake and soda.)

As you can probably tell, it was a great finale to the year, and we were all touched by our impact on one another. Now to find a bar that hasn't been closed so I can celebrate...

El Bohio's Weekly Produce Delivery

It's been a little slimmer than usual lately, but there's a bag of potatoes, 12 dozen eggs, parsley, leeks, squash, a box of apples, one of grapefruit, etc...

The End?

So, a year has passed (the anniversary of my arrival was June 19!), and many of you are starting to wonder how things went...and, well, I'd to answer that, but in typical developing-country, non-profit, latin-american style...the end is still a ways off.

I've finished my internship with FSD--their program has a one-year maximum, however, we haven't finished the workshops. Delays in getting grant money, holidays, staff exhaustion and strikes all played into the scene.

And then there was the bomb threat. Yes, we were doing quite well, only a week behind schedule despite all the delays, on my last "official" day, we marched in for session 7, with a clear plan to move things one step closer to conclusion.

We manuevered the extensive opening sequence of ¡Todos somos únicos! and were starting to introduce the idea of goal-setting, when a grim-looking janitor entered the room. (Janitor? Is that still considered PC?)

The teacher and him exchanged hushed words, he left, and a moment later the presentation was interrupted. The news was met by a series of moans and groans (which I'll take as a compliment, because whenever we had an excuse to leave the classroom, we were always quite excited about the opportunity), and the students quickly returned all the group supplies and filed out of the room.

A bomb threat to an elementary school?! I'd never imagined such a thing. Kids aren't typically used as tools here. But apparently it happens all the time. My roommates think some of the (elementary school-aged) kids did it to get out of a test. My coworkers think some hoodlums did it, to go in and rob the school after everyone had evacuated. The kids didn't seem to have been in physical danger.

Yet, we evacuated. And now, my work has been extended out another week. =)

It's Interview Time!

Yeah, actually it's way past interview time, but FSD just sent me the questionnaire, and I've been too lazy to make my own for all you loyal fans...

Morning:

- What time do you get up?

o 7 am with the host family, 7:30 in my apartment, which is a bit closer to work.

- What factors do you take into consideration when deciding what to wear? (ie: weather chances, cultural appropriateness, etc.)

o The weather is the main deciding factor. While it doesn’t snow or hit freezing here for too long, it’s colder than I’m used to—AND, the buildings aren’t insulated like at home. In one office I was in, it was probably around 40 degrees during the winter, which makes it difficult to sit still at a desk and type or read for too long.

- What do you eat for breakfast? At what time?

o I eat breakfast when I wake up, before going to work…around 7:30. With my host family, they had store-bought sweets—cakes/cookies, and toast with dulce de leche or jam. For a while they had peanut butter, which I loved. I also ate fruit. In my apartment, I usually eat bread/crackers with cheese, avocado, or homemade hummus.

- How do you get to work?

o I take the bus.

- How long does it take you to get to work?

o It takes between 20-50 minutes, depending on the bus and the time of day.

Work Day:

- Walk us through your workday (this can be a bulleted list)

o I get in at 9, and greet everyone. We work until lunch, recently my work has been translating documents and going to print/make photocopies of documents for our workshops.

o At noon, we eat lunch together.

o My workday ends at 3. Between lunch and 3, I will sometimes teach English classes, work on the workshops, or research grants for the organization.

- What are some of the challenges you face during your work day?

o Communication is a big challenge, as finding the people you need to talk to and finding time to talk to them can take days in itself. We are under-staffed, and therefore everyone is VERY busy. I also find it challenging to determine when is a good time for someone to talk/explain something.

o Communication has also been a challenge with respect to the language difference. I’m not 100% fluent in Spanish, and this limits what I can do and can be a challenge in explaining ideas/interacting.

- What best describes the communication style of your work colleagues?

o My colleagues are frequently out in the community completing administrative tasks, and communicate by telephone. In the office, face-to-face communication is all that exists. Occasionally, I’ll leave someone a note, however it’s hard to know if/when they’ll find it. Passing messages through co-workers almost always results in miscommunication. We have no internet, so email isn’t used, however it was about equal to passing notes when we did have it. Face to face communication is always the preferred method.

- What are the communities in which your NGO works like?

o My NGO works with addiction, which is a disease that affects everyone alike. As we are not a posh treatment center, our clientele generally isn’t wealthy, but low-to-middle class. We accept all forms of insurance, including that given by the government for those who have no income.

- What time do you eat lunch?

o I work in a day-treatment program for drug addiction. Part of the rehabilitation skills taught are cooking, and therefore the patients and staff cook lunch everyday. We eat at noon in the organization’s kitchen. Sometimes the clients and therapeutic staff eat separately from the administrative staff, sometimes everyone eats together.

o Teaching healthy skills is an important part of our program, and so our meals are much healthier than the typical food eaten in Argentina. Nearly everyday we eat salads (during the summer there are some days when we only eat salads, with a few different varieties). About half the time, the meals are vegetarian, using lentils and eggs for protein. We eat a lot of pasta, and meats such as hamburgers (which are more like meatloaf in hamburger-shaped patties), fish, and menudo,

- What time do you head home?

o My work day officially ends at 3, however I sometimes have errands to run after 3, or leave the office early to use the internet.

Evening:

- What does your evening routine look like?

o Living with my host family, I would go to the gym or nap in the evening. While living with the family, I spent a lot of time exploring bars, restaurants, and cultural events in the city. Living on my own, I usually catch up on email/read/work when I get home from work. I go to the gym in the evening, and eat dinner around 8-9. Depending on the day, I may go out with friends, watch a movie, or take it easy at home.

- What time do you eat dinner?

o I usually eat between 8 and 10 pm. I’m vegetarian, so my host mom would cook separately for me, or occasionally cook vegetarian for her and her husband as well. They ate a lot of chicken and pasta, or milanesas (fried, breaded meat, shaped like a pancake). I ate a lot of eggplant, stuffed squash, or vegetarian milanesas (made from soy).

o When I cook for myself, I cook what I like, but spices are hard to find, especially hot (picante) spices, and ethnic seasonings. Anything “specialty” is also hard to find or very expensive—tofu, couscous, many cheeses, fish is expensive, imported goods are often double or triple the price of domestic products.

- What time do you go to bed?

o I love to sleep, and go to bed around 11-12 if I don’t go out. Going out could mean anything from 1-2 am (during the week) to 7 am or later (on the weekends).

Host Family:

- How much “family time” do you spend with your host family?

o My family made it a point to include me in everything they did. During the week, they worked until 8 pm, although since they owned a store together, one would frequently come home earlier. They would also sometimes be around during the day, but I wouldn’t see them much outside of evenings—dinner time and a bit of TV.

o On the weekends, it would depend on what they had going. They worked Saturdays, so I wouldn’t see much of them during the day. If we had a party or dinner to go to, we’d spend at least 4-6 hours at the event. On Sundays, they generally had “chores” to take care of, which I could have done with them, but they were generally work related. We also spent lots of time together with their family/friends, so I didn’t feel it was necessary to go with them to purchase items for their store, etc. However, it’s worth nothing they have a very active social life (compared to my family), with events happening at least twice a week.

- How do you navigate personal/alone time?

o This was sometimes a challenge with the dinners and celebrations they would go to. However, in the house, I always felt comfortable going to my room, and they worked a lot, so it wasn’t a big issue. I’m sure if I continued living with them, and spoke with them about it, it wouldn’t have been a problem.

- What has been the best part of living with your host family?

o I met so many people, and had great opportunities to practice the language and learn about the culture.

- What has been the most challenging part of living with your host family?

o Adjusting to their schedule.

In General:

- How do you keep in touch with home?

o Internet access is great, however not great enough to rely on Skype 100%. I can always get an email out.

o One huge advantage to living with a host family was the use of their phone, which made calling home very affordable. Since then, I’ve used payphones (my apartment doesn’t have a landline), which aren’t ideal, but work. I also call via Skype, which ranges from good to unbearable. Unfortunately, it’s usually poor, but so much cheaper and more convenient, we make do.

o I talk with them a few times a month.

- Food tends to be a big consideration/source of anxiety:

o I am pretty open-minded about food, and most weird food contains meat, so it’s easy to avoid with the “vegetarian” excuse. However, I’ll always try something (vegetarian), and explain I’m not hungry it I can’t eat it.

o Refusing food is often seen as an insult to the chef—a sign that you don’t like their food. However, there is an easy answer—say you’re on a diet. It may lead to a discussion on whether or not you need to lose weight, but it will save the cook’s feelings and be accepted, whether or not you really need to lose weight.

- Was there something you did not pack that you wish you had brought with you?

o 501 Spanish Verbs was the first thing I missed. (I brought a dictionary.) I also didn’t take the warning about hot sauce seriously, but anything ethnic or spicy is easiest brought from home, although most can be found in Buenos Aires.

-------------snip!

Yup, that’s it…I’m missing me some Mexican food…and Indian, Thai, sushi, Chinese with fake meat…thank god they have pizza!

Up to my ears!

No time to write, as things are busily finishing up, but here's some photos from our workshops (you can see the boys start early, perfecting their shaggy do's):

Working on "Defense Cups" during our unit on Feelings and Defenses.

Experimenting with communication styles during our workshop on Communication.

Patiently waiting to be called on in a discussion (yeah, this was the only time it happened, and I caught it on camera!) =P

Is it the brightly colored surprise box that's animating him to participate?

Yeah, I'm here too, and for those who haven't seen my Celebrating Families signs, these are them!

¡Todos somos únicos! --Take One

As I wrote the program developer, Rosemary Tisch, El Bohío’s adaptation of the ¡Celebrating Families! program is moving along, right on (Argentine) schedule! Back in January, I planned to start the first of the eight sessions at the beginning of April—and May 13 it finally happened!

I only have five weeks left of my internship (can you believe it?!), so it will be cramped squeezing in the remaining seven workshops, but…we’re going for it!

Our adaptation, ¡Todos somos únicos! (We’re All Unique!) is being presented to a group of (about 15) 11-year-olds at a local elementary school.

The staff were a little nervous--although they have given literally hundreds of talks in schools before, but never with this type of curriculum (very interactive and scripted to include TONS of information) and never covering such a wide variety of topics (the first day alone covered and introduction to the program, relaxation techniques, personal values, and nutrition)—they usually stick to drugs and addiction.

However, they have the experience, and are totally at ease presenting information to groups. Additionally, the kids were precious! The epitome of innocent and curious, which is what I love about the age group. (When they get a bit more comfortable with us, they may lose their charm, and be more apt to present what I hate about this age group.)

I had to sit down for most of the group because as soon as I stood, everyone’s attention turned to see what The American was doing and any attempts at classroom control were lost.

But the presentation was a huge success. The kids are very excited to learn about the topics were presenting, and VERY curious about drugs and alcohol. They all have seen/heard something about someone they know, but are unsure how it fits into the big picture.

The topics we’ll be presenting in the following weeks include:

· Communication and Healthy Friendships/Relationships

· Feelings, Emotions, and Anger Management

· Facts about Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs

· Chemical Dependency Is A Disease

· Making Healthy Choices and Goal Setting

· Healthy Boundaries and How We Learn

· Everyone’s Unique Celebration

Veggie Management

Another task I've been assigned recently is helping with our produce. At a mental health agency? Yes, this is one of the more ingenious ways our employees are keeping afloat during the ongoing funding crisis. El Bohío goes to the produce market every Friday, and receives a LOAD of fruits and vegetables, all donated by local vendors. As a non-profit, the donation benefits the vendors, who would likely have to throw out much of the produce at the end of the day, and El Bohío is able to bring in enough to provide lunches for all staff and clients every day of the week, plus send large packages home with the employees, to help feed them and their families.

However, it also involves a fair amount of work. Much of the produce is getting close to the end of it's lifespan as potential food. Some has already gone bad. And with 10 employees, plus the agency kitchen, a lot must be done to divvy things up fairly, plan for the coming week's meals, and preserve anything that needs some TLC before its completely lost.

So, Friday mornings, the center looks more like the site of a produce stand explosion, than a mental health clinic. While Maria José goes to the market to pick up the goods, Cecelia cleans the kitchen, unloads the refrigerator, and sorts through the leftover goods from the week before. The fridge is cleaned (obviously!) and anything that hasn't made it to the plate, or survived the week is tossed,. The rest is put back in, to be eaten first.

Maintenance is done too.

For example, on a recent Friday, I spent 2 hours going through a giant bag of baby onions. Due to moisture, the flakey skins were rotting, and ruining the onions. So, we had to go through each one, peel it, discard all the skins (and rot, these jobs require a certain sense of adventure), and place them in a crate to dry in the sun.

So, I’m a bit relieved to be returning to the relative safety of my office job…

Clean Argentines

As I was waiting for word on my grant, I was frequently drafted to help clean El Bohío.

Argentines seem to love to clean. Cubans are notorious for being clean, but Argentines love TO clean. My host mom swept the kitchen floor at least daily, and my current roommates completely clean the kitchen (stove burners included) every time they cook anything. We have an extra room that's mostly used storage that's cleaned regularly, despite its lack of use.

El Bohío clients and the nurses (El Bohío nurses are more like caregivers than medical nurses) spend most mornings cleaning the building, a task the nurses usually continue all afternoon. When I first arrived, it seemed having 5 people spend about 10 hours each cleaning every week was a bit of overkill (the building is about the size of a medium house, probably similar to my parents'). But, I reasoned, the clients are learning rehabilitation skills, and learning to take pride in their work.

However, as we've continued gaining and losing clients, and now have no clients to help in the mornings, the nurses are still responsible for upholding the same cleaning schedule. All the staff takes great pride in the presentation of the building, although we rarely have visitors. Last week, when I was looking for something to do to keep busy, the head nurse, Cecilia, asked me to clean one of the rooms, including a television which hadn't been used since January. Maybe she was just really stressed, because the next day she asked me to clean the TV again.

Chemicals are used at large, which I try and ignore. Especially when the Raid spray comes out right before lunch, to drive away the flies circling our table! They have similar products to our household cleaners, which I personally avoid at all costs. (Disclaimer: I’m a die-hard EWG fan, and think chemicals are responsible for about half the problems in the world. I know some people would love such a “sterile” work environment.)

And, yeah...perfume. No disinfection is complete, without leaving the room heavily perfumed with the scent of flowers, baby powder, or a similar sugary sweet coating. They love perfume. I have to remind the laundromat not to perfume my clothes each week. Cecilia raved about an automatic perfume sprayer she saw in a store (every 15 minutes, it releases “air freshener” into the room, automatically), stating it'd be like having a personal assistant. If only Americans were so easy to please. =)

Getting Up-to-Date

So, a lot has happened since my last decent update, when…*ahem*…somewhere around January I was writing a grant, asking FSD to fund an adaptation of the Celebrating Families program, here at El Bohío. Here’s a summary of the last three months (hopefully I’ll get a chance to fill in the details shortly…):

The waiting game

I submitted my grant—typically they take a week to get approved/rejected. Mine took 5 weeks! They wanted me to rewrite a few parts, but decided that one of the San Francisco based directors should tell me this, since she would be visiting. I’m all about personal touches, but in this case, I had to wait for her to arrive, wait for her to have time to meet, and then do a fairly simple/straightforward rewrite and re-submit it, adding another week to the delay…

Pretending to be useful

While I waited, I had little to do in the office—the first week was fine, after that, I was searching for anything I could find to do—filing, scrubbing the floors, cleaning vegetables. It was a difficult time to motivate myself to go to work.

Approval!

Finally, the grant was approved, and everything took off! Since then, things have been rolling

along very smoothly, and I’ve been keeping really busy, but in the best way…

I prepared a 3-hour training for the El Bohío staff in the CF! Curriculum. Up until this point, the director had a certain amount of blind confidence in the program and my support of it. My job was then to teach them about it, and sell it, so that it would be kept as close to its original form as possible. Luckily, I got support just in time (see below), and the training was a huge success. Everyone is thrilled to be a part of the workshops!

U.S.-Argentine collaboration

The delay in getting my grant written before January was the wait for the translation of the CF curriculum. Finally, I decided we would wing it with my rough translation and the staff’s expertise. However, when I contacted the CF director in San José, she noted my timing was perfect. The translation was 70% complete. The missing section was the adolescent piece, which I should easily be able to translate using the parent text as a guide. On the published text, I’ll be noted as a translator, and El Bohío will be acknowledged as a pilot site. We signed on the dotted line, creating a partnership the president of El Bohío has been looking for since the beginning. Meanwhile, I’ll have some nice filler on my resume for this crazy year!

Grantwriting with FSD

Ah, remember that grant I was working on several months ago? Hoping to get funding for a Celebrating Families! spinoff in Argentina? Well, I finally submitted it to FSD. The process is meant to be equally educational as helpful, so it's a little different than typical grant proposals to foundations.

It's submitted through our local site team, and must be based around sustainability. I had this part made, as education is typically considered very sustainable. However, I'm weak at selling my ideas, so this part took a lot of effort. (I spent the entire month of January writing my proposal—a request for just $500.)

Once the grant is submitted, your project may be fully funded, partially funded, a re-write may be requested, or it may be rejected. If the evaluating committee feels some piece of the project is a poor use of funds, they'll choose not to fund that portion. If they think the idea is promising, but they're not 100% sold on certain aspects, they can request a re-write, to clarify those aspects.

In regards to my project, a re-write was requested. I'd under-emphasized a few aspects of the project, such as the universal nature of the themes (showing the project could translate across cultures) and the fact that it had been replicated by other cultures (especially Hispanic populations) successfully.

It takes at least a week for the committee to respond to any submission, so I found the request for a re-write a little frustrating. I waited a week to get the re-write request, another week to find out what needed to be re-written, and then submitted it a few days later, where I'm still waiting for a final answer.

The grant proposal was also a lot of work, for just $500 (dollars), honestly, the hardest I've ever worked for so little money. (Although it comes close to the summer I spent baby-sitting full-time for $2/hour.)

So, the project has been delayed, and I've been killing a lot of time at work, waiting...

Work Update 2:

Not any sooner than I settle back into work, than I'm told the administrative department is closing for summer vacation, so I should just work from home for the next 12 days. Which in my head, translates to working from the beach. I called a friend who has an apartment there, and I'm packing my bags, and moving to Mar del Plata!

Back to work...

After a wonderful 2 week vacation (photos here), I'm back in the office. The patients were given a short summer vacation, and the staff is hard at work. One therapist has switched from his normal khakis to board shorts and a T-shirt, and is re-painting the front of the building. There was still no internet.

I met with my supervisor to discuss the strategy for the new year. We finished 2008 with a large increase in our debt, and the sustainability of the center is being examined. They are currently budgeting for the next six months, while planning a full-force attack to increase publicity and seek additional funds during the slow summer months of January and February. However, the message is that if things don't improve dramatically, the organization will be forced to shut its doors in June. I'm sent home to use the internet to follow up on any potential funding leads. Sadly, I come out empty-handed.

My second task is to begin the FSD grant proposal for a Celebrating Families! based program. I quickly find the FSD grant proposal guidelines have changed drastically since they were introduced to us in the beginning of the program, making the process much clearer, but much more involved. And so, I set to work.

Otoniel, my unofficial other officemate, and the son of Sandra (my official officemate).

Still plugging along...

Work feels like it has hit a standstill after several busy months. With the holidays coming, I know a lot of foundations will be closed, and the rejection letters are piling up. We haven't had internet at work for about a month now, because we couldn't afford to pay the phone bill (interestingly, we have been keeping up on the internet bill, so we are connected on a local network which no one uses). When we did pay the phone bill (about two weeks after the line was cut), we were informed it would take 15 days for them to reinstate the service.

Monday will marked the 15^th working day. In the meantime, I've been coming in every morning, mainly to show my face, and leaving for the afternoon to actually work. It's been disorganized, and generally adding to the feeling that I'm not making much progress. Countdown: 3 days until vacation. Hopefully I'll return with renewed spirits and a functioning workspace. [crossed fingers]

A Celebration!

On Friday, one of our clients, Cecilia, completed the treatment program she started almost two years ago. Appropriately, this was celebrated by all. One of the therapists, Susana, explained to the new clients that because of the group modality of treatment, success for one person really is a success for all. Everyone contributes to the others' treatment.

Therapist Pablo, Therapist Susana, Cecilia, Social Worker Débora, Therapist Mariel

To this end, Friday was spent cleaning and cooking, as everyone worked to prepare the site for Friday night's celebration. I helped the nurses prepare food and clean the kitchen, as the patients scrubbed down the building.

Afterwards, the patients watch a movie (Along Came Polly), and got to snack on some of the cookies for the evening.

At 6, everyone went home to spruce up (or to the bathrooms), and at 7 the guests began arriving. Cecilia's family and friends were invited as well as the social worker from her insurance company (these social workers do regular audits on us, to ensure things are going well for their clients and the patients are improving), the families of all the other patients, and the kids of some of my coworkers.

Things opened with the national anthem, and then the President, Débora, spoke of Cecilia's accomplishments in treatment. It was a really nice speech, where she basically said that love was the heart of treatment. Everyone at El Bohío loved Cecilia and cared for her success, and everyone invited to the celebration was part of that success, due to love. (I was especially surprised that God wasn't credited or thanked, as the program is very spiritual, and God tends to been seen as the center of everything that happens at El Bohío.)



Snacks consisted of deviled eggs (the yolk was mixed with mayo, herbs de provence, and carrots!), sandwiches de miga (pictured above, simple ham and cheese sandwiches served for every occasion of any importance, oven double- or triple-deckers), pigs in a blanket (although this term was new to them, they just called them hot dogs covered in dough), and little pastry shells filled with either a ricotta-olive mixture, or ricotta-ham (also pictured).

Lots of pictures were taken--like in a wedding. Cecilia and family, Cecilia and staff, Cecilia and original patients (pictured below, with me, the original beginning English class I taught), Cecilia and all the patients, Cecilia and friends...

Jenn, Emiliano, Cecilia, and Pablo

The evening was wrapped up with cookies, cake, and Argentine folkloric dancing. It was a beautiful, festive evening, that left us all feeling really proud.