Not a whole lot going on this week. Right now, we are in between our two field-based training trips. Basically, that means two weeks of training in the center until we leave a week from tomorrow for Coban. We still do not have much information about our sites. We should be getting our assignments the week after going to Coban.

We did spend some time this week working to rebuild from some of the damage of the hurricane. A couple of the villages around Antigua took some serious flooding that left a lot of houses and property buried. Our work was to help dig out what we could. In this area, help abounds as many tourists from Antigua have lent a hand. From what I have read, many of the communities in the western part of the country have it worse. As such, some of the sites our director had picked out may have to be changed.

While working, we met a bunch of other PC volunteers who had been stranded in Antigua and could not get back to their sites. Having met about six ag. Volunteers, I would characterize them on a scale from seemingly normal to utterly crazy. One year working out in the field seems to have a strange effect on some people--some far more than others. The three that stand out more than others are Sara, the 50 year old ex-hippie, Justin the misanthrope and Billy, the far too happy cowboy from Nebraska. I don´t have enough time to elaborate on their complexities, but let´s just say it offers an interesting insight into how we might be in a year.