A-OK: AKA SNAFU

I already discussed my appreciation for a clever, Wheel of Fortune-esque, "before-and-after" phrase, but I recently came to notice that I also delight in an original acronym. Let's be clear about acronyms (and really, who wouldn't want to be clear when it comes to acronyms?), I am not a fan of unnecessary or excessive acronyms peppered into conversation like pepper on a steak au poivre. Rather, I enjoy the innovative and practical acronyms which make our speech efficient and/or more practical. Hence the title of today's blog entry. A-OK is an acronym with disputed origins and meanings, but most acronymologists agree on it's status as an acronym. AKA has a much more certain meaning, "also known as." Lastly, we have the originally military acronym which is now found in widespread use, SNAFU. This acronym has a slightly stronger meaning, "situation normal: all f****d up." Since this is a family blog I had to clean up the meaning a bit, but feel free to tell the kids that it stands for "funned," and the asterisks are "fun stars." The above title is not only jarring to look at and interpret, it also happens to be an apt description of my Saturday. I'm just kidding, things weren't that bad. I just had a really hard time finding acronyms that read like a sentence. Still, let's do a weekend debrief.

I met Victor Ortiz (Buena Voz alumnus, current employee at GEA, and Buena Voz's middle reliever-esque team member. Let's call him VO today.) and Victor Luhan (Buena Voz general coordinator and 7-year participant, principal at Juan Valer School, and Buena Voz's chatty catcher. He will be VL.) at the GEA office bright and early Saturday morning at 8:30 am. We had hired out the taxi services of Pedro because we had many stops to make in Callao, and it's much safer to have a car wait for you than try to find a taxi on the streets up there. Once they arrived, we gathered some materials from the office and then took the coastal expressway up to Callao. Our first stop was the Ramon Castilla School. We had to make an appearance there because this was the first Buena Voz workshop for them and it's always helpful to have some seasoned vets on hand. And if you don't have 3 seasoned vets, send 1 seasoned vet, one hungry up-and-comer, and 1 white guy who acts like a space cadet and seems to always end up in the most disreputable wig shops. Another reason we made a visit to Ramon Castilla was to greet the corporate sponsor of the school and show him the program in action. So we arrived at Ramon Castilla at 9:15 for a 9:30 program start. 9:30 rolls around and we only see 5 students, no teachers, and 1 roof dog. This was not the turnout we had hoped for (although you didn't hear anyone complaining about the roof dog). By 10:00 we had our 3 teachers but still only 5 students, and unfortunately, the corporate representative had arrived. Rather than a robust leadership and environmental workshop with 40 young minds excited to learn, we were able to show him a robust leadership and environmental workshop with 5 young minds excited to learn. The content was not a problem, but numbers are important and 5 looks a lot less impressive than 40. Well, nuts. Not a great first impression for our sponsor. I don't want to point fingers or play the blame game with this situation, but it was everyone's fault except mine. Especially Melissa's. The first workshop is typically a bit shaky while everyone learns the system, and it wouldn't have been the best demonstration for a sponsor but that's when he wanted to come. I should have reinforced the importance of attendance to the teachers, but what's done is done so I'll just be more attentive to these issues next time. I doubt this is the last mistake I'll make, but I've noticed that this sort of firsthand learning is really what I need to learn the system down here. And as the saying goes, "Even Thor dropped his hammer on his way to defeating Mothra."

We left Ramon Castilla once the workshop was about half done to drop off some Buena Voz shirts and backpacks at the Augustin Hipona School. After that we picked up the Callao youth coordinators at the Jose Olaya School and departed for the coordinator workshop in Villa Maria del Triunfo. I'll skip over some of the mundane activities and get right to the good stuff. Once we dropped the kids off at the coordinator workshop we went to VO's house (he lives in Villa Maria) to pick up some sandwiches his sister made for the youth coordinators. We put the sandwiches in the car, and then VO asked me if I wanted to see his pigs. Um, does Jean Luc Picard like his Earl Grey hot? You're darn right he does! So he takes me over to the pig houses down the street from his house. I know pigs are supposed to be very clean animals but these suckers sure generated some kind of stink. Any negative feelings related to the smell were wiped away once I saw his pregnant sow named "Gringa." Hmmm, thanks VO. She was HUGE. We're talking about 200 kilos big. She was literally the size of a black bear cub, but unlike the black bear (this may or may not be true), she was very friendly and social. I wanted to give her a pet, but VO advised against it. After seeing the size of her mouth and the vigor with which she ate her pig dinner, I agreed with his advice. Still, I had a great time with Gringa and the other pigs, and seeing a pig in person gives you a much better appreciation for how massive these animals can get. When I got back to the Casona at 8:00 pm I was beat, both from the busy activities of the day and the excitement of meeting a doghouse-sized pregnant pig. Nothing a nice little dinner at Gaston Acurio's "Panchita" couldn't cure, but I'll save that for next time.