November 10, 2012
I’m
great. I getting to know the layout of Coro a lot better. Little by
little I’ve been traveling around the local area in about an hour
radius. I’ve been to the tropical sierras to the South and several
beaches in the peninsula (including the volcanically formed rock
waterfront that is the farthest northern point in Venezuela).
The
other day I went to the City of Punto Fijo. It was one of the original
oil towns in Venezuelans and was largely built by American
capitalists. After the government seized the industry in the 1970’s the
Americans left the city and it was fascinating and almost and almost
haunting to see the abandoned and fading American infrastructure.
Leaving on Sunday, all the inbound exchange students in the district are
taking a weeklong trip to the Andes. There will evidently be river
rafting and donkey riding and I’m super pumped.
My
Spanish has improved immensely and if I know a person well I can
understand almost everything they say at a normal speed. (In fact I’m
having trouble remembering big words and structuring my grammar in
English right now writing this). My family continues to be awesome.
I’ve
been going to rotary meetings it seems like every week, recently. Its a
lot more involved down here and we were recently visited by the
district governor. Also last weekend all seventy some of the outbound
exchange applicants district 4380 were in town and we had rotary
sponsored parties both Friday and Saturday night. Only a few dozen will
be accepted to go and the club president told me to tell you people in
the US to take Venezuelan exchange students.
I do have two problems. One’s more or less taken care of and the other hopefully will be too soon.
The
first one lies with the school. I’m in
two classes that I learn something new: castellano (Latin American
Spanish) and Venezuelan geography but besides that all the material is a
repeat. Also the school system is a little bit different here in that
the students graduate at 16 or 17 and then have 5 years of college, so
I’m the age of a 3rd year University student. I’m accepted but it often
feels forced, like I’m a square peg in a round whole. Therefore, me
and and rotary here have decided that I would do better
splitting my time between the high school and the local university. I
will be taking tutored classes in spanish and phonetics, a class in
spanish literature, and some calculus in the university as well as
continue to take classes like Castellano, geography, and history in the
high school. This plan hopefully will go into effect as soon as we get
back from the Andes.
My
other problem comes courtesy of the US Army. Before I left the medical
team at West Point told me they were fairly confident that I wouldn’t
have to jump through any more hoops for next year and I could travel to
Latin America without worry. However now they have re-reviewed my file
and decided that I should be tested for asthma, heart dilation, and the
healed fracture in my skull that’s already been checked two or three
times. So I’m going to be going to Caracas sometime soon to get those
done and I’m praying I can pass them. I was going to stay in a hotel
but the governor of rotary has vowed to write a letter to the embassy
demanding a room or free hotel. I doubt they’ll give it to me but I
think I’m in good hands and the situation is being dealt with slowly
but surely.
But yeah, overall I’m feeling good.
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