It´s off to work - but where?

Today brought to a close our weeklong orientation with the Foundation for Sustainable Development. They´re the ones coordinating this experience for me and 5 others, or atleast trying to. Everyone is now with their host families and I´ve returned to mine. It´s good to be ¨home¨, although staying in a palace of a hostel and eating amazing food all week sure was a good time... Work starts with a half day tomorrow and then full-time starting next week. More on that in a minute

The other group members are cool folks. We´re all very different, but we get along well. We range in age from 18 (the only dude) to 27, so I´m well within the range, which feels good, and we´re from all over the US and one woman is from Japan. I think they will be good companions for this journey. We´ll meet weekly to learn about different topics concerning Bolivia and development, so I look forward to learning with and from each of them.

So, about work... I´m still struggling to finalize things on the job front. The only certainty is that I´m going to one of my two options tomorrow morning to check it out and will decide for sure tomorrow afternoon. The thing is that I was assigned one project in July, which changed a few days before I left, and I´m still in love with the first project. They are both distinctly different and each have their pros and cons and it ends up that both are still options. The first one I was assigned would involve living in a rural area two hours outside of the city Monday thru Friday, learning some Quechua, and working in a very well known malnutrition reduction project. This would put me in a beautiful place with unique challenges. The second project here in the city is still quite unclear what my roll would be. Chances are, the job would involve working with residents of the Southern Zone on food security issues. This would present plenty of chances to develop my Spanish fully and be in contact with all that the city, my host family, and FSD workshops have to offer. The problem is that the community food security project is dependent on me as the volunteer and is not led by an organization staff member. So, tomorrow morning will bring some difficult conversations with the staff of ProHabitat all in Spanish about some complicated concerns that I have with the current project I´m assigned here in the city. If they are will to be flexible with me and allow me to participate in other projects that the agency specializes in, then I think I will stay with them... I´m certainly anxious to have it settled and to know with whom and what I ´ll be doing over the coming months. I feel lucky, though, to have two strong options at my finger tips and to have the decision entirely in my court. If I decide to head to the campo, the FSD director said he could work it out to have me there by Monday. In short, I´ll be sure to let y´all know what comes of this over the weekend.

I do realize that this blog is getting pretty boring without a chance to see anything that I´m talking about, but I plan to change that tomorrow when Internet access and my photos on the FSD laptop meet up... Until tomorrow!