It´s hot here in the desert...weird

Hi everyone! I hope all is well at home and people are having fun getting ready for the holidays. This is definitely a hard time to be away from everyone, but I´m trying to just keep busy and not think about it too much.

Things are going pretty well here. I´m trying to get used to not having a schedule and really be self-motivated, but doing that in Spanish in an unfamiliar place is definitely a challenge. I have to admit that I was a little down the forst week at site, but I decided to be proactive and get moving. Since then I´ve started running (although not as much as I´d like) and I´ve already finished interviewing one sector of my community (there are 8 in total and I decided that I can only do a portion of the community since there are about 1000 houses). I´m excited that the Red Cross is working in my community - although the circumstances (being the earthquake) are unfortunate - so I have already talked to them about working together and they seem excited. They will be here until 2010 as well, so I´m excited to have their support.

I can´t say that anything real interesting has happened. I still feel like I´m settling into my site (this is week 3) and getting to know people. I went to a nearby laguna on Sunday which my town is cleaning up in hopes of turning it into a tourist attraction. The laguna is beautiful and right smack dab in the middle of sand dunes, so the vistas are amazing. I will try to post pictures soon, but I´m still working on an affordable computer situation in my town.

Sorry for the short post, but I´ve already been at this internet cafe for 2.5 hours and I need to get back to my site before dark. I hope you are all doing well and have a wonderful holiday season. I love and miss you all!