Happy 2009 everyone! Despite some scary times ahead I'm excited for this next year. We rang in the new year with a great party at our house and some dancing until 4am. It was nice to spend new years with a bunch of good people who were all having a good time. Had some more parties today, including a brunch at Linda Smith's house. She is an ex-volunteer who started up a cool nonprofit, Reading Village, working with literacy in Guatemala. I hope to make it down there to volunteer with them sometime this year.
Photos of new years and the baptism party.

It was also nice to randomly run into other Intercambio volunteers and ex-vols at the party. I also got to talk to some folks who've done work in the Amazon with indigenous people. We talked about the difference between European and U.S. global philanthropy, and how European support tends to be longer term general support while U.S. international funding tends to be more short-term project based. We discussed the logistic difficulty of communicating with people because of lack of technology down there. Peter who works at Global Greengrants told a funny story of how we was a godfather for a family in Peru, and the family got internet and email. He sent them various emails and they never responded. Years later he reunited with them in person and said that he sent them emails but he assumed that they never received them. No, the mother said, they received the emails but they didn't have Peter's email address to respond to.
I met an Iranian Jew there, a really nice guy with interesting perspectives. I chatted with Alice Swett, a cool woman who referred Rachel, our awesome new Academic Coordinator, to Intercambio. She works with a program, YOAB, to get youth involved in philanthropy and leadership.
A few hours after that party I went to a Mexican Baptism party where I was the only white person of about 300 folks. The actual Baptism took place yesterday, and the party is a regular party, with a live band and dancing. An abundance of kids were running around like crazy, some nearly getting stepped on near the dance floor. It's a little chaotic but cool for them to be free, running around playing with other kids, many who are family members. I saw a few of the kids who come to the office with their parents for the dance class and who were in the Boulder Magazine picture with me. Most of the guys have sombreros, fancy belts, and cool boots. I saw a bunch of people I know and was excited to see, and most of them are somehow related too.
The dancing is funny, everyone has their own style and there's lots of movement around the dance floor, and people bump into each other like pinballs. And after each song there is silence - no applause. I'm always almost the only one applauding for a song just out of habit, but just as I start to clap my hands together I realize. I didn't dance much because I didn't really know who it'd be okay to dance with. Pretty much every woman over the age of 18 was with their husband, and I don't want to give husbands the impression that I'm trying to steal their wives, which I'm absolutely not. Usually at parties like that there are women who ask me to dance, but not tonight. It was still fun and I love watching and listening to the music, although I think I'm deaf in my right ear temporarily because it's so loud. Ivan, my friend who invited me, said that the parties in his hometown are just like ther are here, only they're bigger there and they dance outside on the dirt and kick up dust. It's a privilege to be able to experience events like that here.
On Friday I hung out with some of the CU students who helped start SWAP, which is like Intercambio on campus linking workers with CU students teaching English. Claudia just got back from Chiapas, Mexico and was telling all about the Zapatista movement there. Sierra is home for a break before going back to Costa Rica, where she's using Intercambio's books to teach some English classes on the side.
Finally, I'm happy with the support Intercambio received at the end of the year. We received some new foundation grants and new individual donors, which makes up for the Foundations and individuals who are decreasing or eliminating their gifts because of the market.
2009 is going to be another interesting, exciting year.