Last weekend, a volunteer in my province held a youth camp for kids from all over. There were more or less 40 kids being kids for 3 days and 2 nights. They were given various lectures and workshops, and a lot of fun stuff was thrown into the mix, and being a whole bunch of adolescents camping together, they were surprisingly well behaved.
More or less.
Last week, however, was super stressful for me. I was not only trying to get stuff done for my community diagnostic, but I also had my site visit (director of the youth program in Peru came to visit my site and observe me. She's super chill and the visit went really well, but doesn't mean having my boss visit me at work and home wasn't stressful!), I was trying to get everything ready for this camp (I found out the Sunday before that this camp was actually happening and had less than a few days to go to my municipality and ask for money for the camp, talk to the kids who were interested in the camp, talk to their parents, deal with kids calling and not calling, deal with kids not going and finding other kids who were interested in going, run around like a chicken with its head cut off, talk to the local bakery to see if they would be willing to donate bread, and so on... it was just god awful... but it got done!), and I was asked to teach at a second school all week, adding to my teaching already in another school and the comedor. On top of that, I had my normal weekly things, like meetings and such, so yea...
I was seconds from screaming and all it seemed that everyone else was doing was either adding to my pile of work or just disappointing me with bad news.
Still, the camp was a success (my emotions got the better of me for a moment there and there were about 5 seconds worth of tears, but I got my act under control pretty quickly) because it seems like the kids learned a lot and benefited from their time away from their homes, and in the company of new friends. The kids who went with me from my site have asked me to tell the other kids HELLO! but I have no idea who these other kids really are... so I just told them that yea, I totally would... pretty sure I'm totally not.
This week is round 2 of my most stressful week in my time in Peru. It kind of sucks that my 2 most stressful weeks are one right after the other, with a weekend of work instead of rest in between. I am definitely feelings its effects too. On top of that, this is the week before the week of Thanksgiving, which means a whooollleee lot of disappointment and frustration are going to be headed my way (I've made reservations for all the volunteers who are going to come up for thanksgiving, but I've already had a whole bunch cancel on me during stressful week round 1, and already more are cancelling this stressful week round 2. I expected it, though, so at least I have that... ah well, at least a ton of people I really miss are still coming up! So I'll still get a family that I love to be with during this Thnxgiving).
I think I really need a drink.
I've also more or less given up on NaNoWriMo. I just can't do it. There's too much going on right now, and none of it feels very good anymore. It would be pretty awesome to finish, but I have to get my priorities straight.
But I can truly say that right now, I am not happy. It's not a good feeling, and something I'm definitely not used to, and I just feel terrible... I don't think I deal with unhappiness very well. It's as if I can't just feel upset or sad, I have to feel intensely depressed. I have so much to do right now, but it took almost all of my energy to just get out of bed this morning. I have zero patience for anyone, and I was teaching English at the comedor and when it hit 5, class was over but the activity wasn't. The kids, however, weren't paying attention so I just grabbed my things and left. No goodbyes, no threats, nothing. I just grabbed my things and walked out because I was too tired to try calming them down so that we could finish what we were doing. I went home and tried to watch cartoons, which usually make me feel better, but ended up passing out in bed until my alarm (thank God I set it) woke me up for a meeting, which was 2 annoying hours long and I was squirming/falling asleep through the entire thing. My host mom goes to these meetings with me and she was just making everything take longer than it should, which she normally does, and when she asked me to go with her and another person because they needed to do stuff, I just looked at her and went "no."
Well, not entirely, I did explain that I was exhausted and needed to sleep. But still, I have lost all patience with people. Whenever it feels like someone's wasting my time, all I can think is, "I hate you" and nothing else. Because of this, I've had this continuous headache too. Well, the headache started last Friday, but I've been medicating myself steadily with ibuprofen and acetaminophen- definitely not good, but the only way I'm gonna get through the day.
Bah. All I do is complain. Sorry about that. Just needed to jot this down before bed, or else it would have plagued me all night. Now I'm going to go and pass out for a few hours before I wake up again and teach some more.
Great.
Love and Peace. I'm gonna need some more of those.
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