mucho trabajo!

I had my first meetings monday to figure out what it is I'll be doing for the next 9 to 10 weeks. I met at 8 at the oficina de mujeres de la municipalidad, with Tita and Eunice to establish what I'll be doing. I will be working mainly with Eunice, who is in charge of the social work program at the women's office, and 2 interns from the universidad de san carlos. I'll be working 3 times a week there, Tuesday through Thursday, from 2 to 6 pm. I'll be working in the field, in the communities. OMM works with 11 communities and basically gives workshops, trainings, lessons about things like women's rights, hygiene, reproductive health, family planning, community organizing...For the first 2 weeks I'll be observing the work OMM does in 3 communities. Then they will give me more responsibilities little by little, until I can ultimately teach a workshop or take on a role to really contribute to the organization. When I asked what workshops I'll be teaching, the answer was pretty vague and up in the air, and that seems to be the way of things here. They said, you'll see as you go what people need and what they want and how/what you can contribute. They seem very glad to have me there and are a very welcoming bunch of ladies. 

In the afternoon I had a meeting with Valeria, the editor in chief of the Entremundos magazine. The magazine focuses on development and human rights in Guatemala and the international community. Their may-june issue, which is what I'll be working on, focuses on the theme of project HAARP, a science research project the US government is funding in Alaska through the Pentagon, apparently sending radio waves to the ionosphere to study its behavior, the sun's effects, mitigate its effects over low-orbit satellites, and develop low frequency waves that can be used in submarines and to discover underground activity. But it might affect the magnetism of the Earth and could potentially cause terrible natural disasters, and Entremundos has chosen this theme as a jumping off point to discuss the effects of US policy onto small countries like Guate. So I'll be writing an 1 100 words article (and translating it into spanish) about that theme. I'm pretty excited. I'm also going to be helping with copy editing, which I've never done before, translating, and creating a photo bank. They need pictures to put in the magazine to complement the articles because they have none right now, they look for images and paintings on internet to include the visual aspect of the magazine. I'll also be writing smaller blurb sort of things about NGOs Entremundos works with to promote and highlight them. I'm going to start with the organizations Kate and Allie are working for. In addition to all of that, I'm going to do the cover art and help with distribution of the february-march issue. I'm also going to get to just observe the layout and printing processes. 

I'm very excited about all these opportunities and I hope I will live up to the expectations of the organizations I'm working for. I have a very full plate, and that's exactly the way I want it!