Age: 27
Location: Sonsonate, El Salvador
Michelle is a volunteer for the Peace Corps in El Salvador. Her program seeks to educate youth and teachers in the areas of English, Information Technology and other civic related projects.
« November 2006 | Main | February 2007 »
Well, my dad came to visit this past week to celebrate his 50th birthday! Here are some videos from the visit:
View #1 from Cerro Verde (with Nathan)
View #2 from Cerro Verde (with Dad)
Singing Happy Birthday to Dad on top of Volcano
Dad freaking me out with the Christmas present re-usable mouse traps...
Dad and Sam's thoughts on top
To read about the week, visit here.
So, the school year has ended. I spent the last 5 months with some of the graduating seniors talking to them about life/career prep and teaching them how to plan and implement a project. Or at least I hope that's what I did. I bonded with them so much, and learned so much about their lives outside of school and their dreams and aspirations. Of the 9, there were 7 guys and 2 gals. 3 have aspirations to be computer engineers, 1 a high school math teacher, 1 an architect, 1 a police officer, 1 working in International Marketing, and 2 undecided. 1 of the 3 computer engineers will start college soon. Another is still determining if he can afford to attend college. The third is looking for work. The high school math teacher started working in San Miguel and I'm still asking him about his teaching plans. The architect and police officer are looking for work. The International Marketer will start college soon. And 1 of the 2 undecideds is looking for work; the other is working with a guy in my town that is trying to start an agricultural company.
In the last meeting we had, they gave presentations on how they think the Ciber Cafe should run. How much to charge per hour, what costs will exist, who should perform which tasks, along with a list of offers for the year and projections of how much $$ the ciber would receive from those offers, by month, etc. It was a HARD task for them. And I definitely gave it to them straight. I made them show me the presentations the day before and just tore them apart. Why are you using PowerPoint if you're just going to fill up the slide with words? Why is that font larger than the others? What is going to happen when that worker is sick and can't come to work? What is the point of that offer? Why do you think it will generate those hours? Why do you keep saying, "HE will do this and HE will do that? Can't a woman do it too?" Stuff like that. And I was so proud of them on the last day when they gave their presentations to the community members and defended their decisions. After the presentations, we sat in a big circle and talked about the last 5 months - what went well, what didn't go so well, and made each of them critique their classmates, telling them what they thought they could do better in presenting themselves, working with others, etc. And at the end, I made them tell me. And I thanked them for spending the last 5 months working with me and believing in the project and told them that they made my year and I was so happy I had the chance to work with them and get to know them. Then I was about ready to cry knowing that I may not see them again until graduation (March) and gave them all hugs.
But...I guess it's all for the best. I really hope I've made a difference in all of their lives. I hope they continue to dream, the continue to throw their trash into TRASH CANS and not the street, they continue using and learning about computers, they continue working on projects that benefit their communities, they act as good workers and role models to their peers and family members, and they continue to be happy.
If you're interested in viewing their presentations, you can click below. I liked group 1's presentation the best, but the community in general liked group 2's better. (They were created in PowerPoint, but those files were too big to upload here, so I saved them as PDFs.)
We're having some funding issues, but I'll get them resolved soon enough. We're doing this project!! I received a REALLY nice email from one of them that is working in San Miguel now. You can read what he wrote here.
