woo hoo my life doesnt suck right now

finally. was able to talk to joao this morning, and get everything figured out. plan below:

Does this have to be the price of development: health and environment organizational assistance and in São Luís, Maranhão

1. To assess the operations, capacity, and difficulties of 2-3 health and environmentally related organizations in São Luís and how with limited resources they can best work to provide help to the community concerning ­­­­­the specific issue of water pollution and contamination.
1. to assess the similarities, differences, and areas of individual focus of these organization
2. to assess what members of the organizations think needs to improve, in their own organization and São Luís overall, to address the problem of water contamination
3. to assess how this coincides with popular opinion and community needs in three barrios of São Luís

yesterday i was able to interview somebody from the urban union and somebody who works here at ASP. today i got another ASP interview, along with 2 interviews in Monte Castello, and 2 in Sao Francisco. i need, up until wednesday evening, interview ~2 from the urban union, 1 more from ASP, an environmental journalist who works here, hopefully ~1-2 from CAEMA, the governmental water organization, and do ~5-7 interviews per barrio. which adds up to 4 more in Monte Castello, 4 more in Sao Francisco, and 6 in Coroadinha. in total, that means...19 interviews in...6 days? like...3 per day. very, very doable. the actual interviews are pretty easy. it takes about 5-10 minutes. the hard part is simply finding somebody around the street who is alone and able to talk, ie not working and not busy, which is hard to do unless you go deep off the main street, which id like to avoid doing for safety and not-getting-lost reasons. right now i am in ASP office typing up my interview notes for the day and will need to ask francesa to call the urban union for me and get an appointment to interview 2 people tomorrow. maybe call CAEMA too and get a meeting for next week. lucky me, Sao Francisco is the big beach place. so that will be my weekend. researching, if you want to call it that, on the beach. very cool.

so, i apologize for the last rant. i feel pretty good about my isp right now. it will be tough to do like, 6 interviews in a day, but its not impossible. i think once this weekend passes and i realize how little time i have left it will make the process a lot easier. today was good, i walked to Monte Costello, buying cheap (50 centavos...about 25 cents) cups of agua de coco and traditional amazonian guarana shakes. so good. tonight i need to type up my quiz that i still havent gotten from carlos/gustavo, and type up a revised copy of my 2nd tcr. maybe keep translating the history of sao luis's development book i have from ASP, or try and get some more info via the CAEMA web site. other than that, it looks like this might be a good way to top off brazil after all. and i think i know how i will write it up too, so, no worries. i get back to Belem on thanksgiving, and then that weekend, if i can get a lot of work done friday, i might take a bus to the nearest beach in Para for sat/sunday to relax and process the past two weeks. we'll see how the work goes, but id like to get that.

thats it for now. back to work.