Some Photos of Life So Far

Finally got around to putting some photos up. Not very many though. I will be swearing in on Friday (finally!) and I am so looking forward to getting to Ahuachapan and starting my service. Tonight is my last night in my training community. Bitter sweet. It is also the anniversary of the death of Romero, and the church outside of my home is having what seems to be an all night celebration. I think it will be a long night.

Anyway, I put up some photos, but they're pretty much totally out of order. More or less in reverse. I don't have the patience to change it now.

I've been missing all my friends and family back home, but I am so excited to get to my new home and see what the next step brings.

Family Fiesta Day. Left to Right, Greg, Jamie, Dan C
Danny Sanny! Pato, Carmela, and the Preacher.
These are the best community pals a person could ask for.

Stooping in Tepetitan with the COED group. Celebrating finally finding out our sites.
Daniel (L) singing along and Clayton (R) appreciating the scene.

Breakdancing during the intermission of our movie day fundraising event.

Relaxing with the COED group at Costa Del Sol.

Our bread-making friends' home. Check out my friend Daniel ¨Pato¨ H's blog http://danielhinkle.tumblr.com/ for more photos of this little oasis.

Sweaty Men working in the kitchen. ¨Los dos Danieles¨

Skateboarder at Moje

Building a Kiln at Moje, a non governmental organization that helps former
gang members and at risk youth learn artisan skills and keep their lives on track.

Working at the wheel.

Futbolistas of our Community

Torro and David during our Campana de Limpieza which was unfortunately cut short when the mayor showed up with his team to fumigate the park. Recently there have been higher than normal levels of Dengue for this time of year. Even some of my fellow trainees have been unlucky enough to be diagnosed with this. We'll see what the rainy season brings.

Our little pal Torro, hanging out in the Park

The Marker of the Meeting point of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Three nations in one day.

The from the top of a virgin forest. I was standing on the spot where Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala meet, after a hour long hike through the National Park, Monte Cristo.

Erica in the back of the pickup that took us to Monte Cristo. Long Drive.

La Cancha of Istepeque. On that hill runs the Pan American Highway.

The Volcano, Chinchontepec. Last November a large landside came down from this Volcano and wiped out entire communities. In my host community there are whole families who are living in the casa communal because they have been unable to rebuild after this tragedy.

My Home for the Next Two Years

Well, I found out where I am going to be spending the next two years of my life.

I will be living in the department of Ahuachapan in the far West of the country.

My home will be a short 4 kilometers from the beach Barra de Santiago (Google it, I dare you) which is generally unspoiled, beautiful and less busy than other local beaches. It also has some great surf, for those who are into that sort of thing. :)

I will be working with the local ADESCO, a health promoter, the local elementary school, a breadmaker and a pinata maker, among others

I am so excited to get there next week. I will be perpetually sun burned and sweating like a swine, but I can not wait.

But, I´m Licenciada...

Yesterday stunk. It was ¨Friday,¨ it was uncommonly hot, I was uncommonly cynical, and we had a lot of stuff to get done.

After I spent hours messing up the preterite form during spanish class, I went with my COED pals into San Vicente for a DCA session which was also pretty rough. When it was over, I was so excited to just get back home to Istepeque.

The hottest part of our day is getting on the 4:45 bus. The lowering sun hits the windows just right to heat the vinyl seat covers to a scorching temperature. Everyone in the bus is sweaty, and every seat is full. Yesterday we were just in time to catch the bus, we packed in though the big back door, being literally pushed in the door by the cobrador. There was literally no space, it was a sweaty situation. Someone took my bag for me though, and I found space on the handrail to grab on.

Then I realized, I got caught in a Dan sandwich, or as it was so perfectly stated, a ¨Danny Sanny.¨ The ¨two Daniels¨of the group happen to also be the two most sweaty men in El Salvador, and there I was, stuck between them as their sweating kicked into high gear, being soaked by sweat that was not mine. I was laughing so hard my muscles were failing me, but as ¨the other Daniel¨mentioned, we were crammed in so close that even if I couldn´t hold on to the rail, and my legs buckled below me, I would stay in the upright position.

Later that evening I started the process of making ice for the soda we would be selling at our social service project. In general, everything in El Salvador comes in a plastic bag, and soda is no different. To make the ice, then, I decided to just put just enough water in each of the plastic bags, toss it in the freezer, and then when we sold a soda, we could just pour it into the same bag. Soda, Ice. Simple.

I started my little, simple project. My host mom noticed what I was doing, and it became much less simple. Wanting to help, she was filling the bags all the way up. I explained my strategy. She kept looking at me like I was insane. ¨These are not the right bags,¨ she kept saying... ¨This isn´t right, there is too much.¨

¨Too much what?¨ I asked. ¨Too much ice? Too many bags? I don´t see any problem.¨

Eventually it turned into a 5 minute conversation over how to make ice, how to best sell soda,
how the bags I bought were wrong, and how no one will understand what is going on.

I was surprised to find myself getting frustrated. About ice.

¨We are not accustomed to such large bags,¨she said.

¨We´re not filling them all the way,¨ I said.

¨You don´t understand,¨ she said.

And I didn´t. I finished making my bags, put them into the freezer, and feeling totally stupid, and doubting if maybe, in fact, I had any idea how to make ice after all, visited Daniel H to vent and chill out.

He was sitting in his backyard eating, so I said hello to his mother and sat down. She came out and said something with her mouth full, I asked her to repeat herself. Mistake.

She went on for a minute about how I don´t know Spanish. I don´t understand anything, and I can´t speak any Spanish, either. Snap.

Despite my responding that I did, infact, understand everything she was saying, and Daniel explaining the same, she was pretty sure I´m totally hopeless.

So I was feeling pretty low about my life in El Salvador by the time I got home.

This morning I slept in till 7:30 and got some chores done before it got too hot. Productive, successful.

My host mom called me from my room. ¨Come look at your ice,¨ she said. It was still water. ¨The power is out,¨she said. ¨But, my ice - the ice in these little bags - it´s still frozen.¨

I successfully completed a University education but in El Salvador I can´t make ice. In that moment I knew exactly what I wanted to say in English, but when presented with a freezer full of water, all I could muster in Spanish was ¨pues.....¨

Don McDonald had a farm....

One month down, one more to go.

For the last month and some change I have been doing my damnest to adapt to life in San Vicente, El Salvador. Some days it feels like I have been here a year, other days I feel pretty fresh from the United States. I have been trying to think of stories to tell people back home when we talk, and I always feel like things here have gotten pretty routine, but really, my life here is totally different from back home.

I have been living with a host family in the little community of Istepeque, in the department of San Vicente. I live with host parents, Niña Juana and Don Rafael, an older sister Magdalena, and a younger sister, Lupita. They're incredibly warm and kind and I really couldn't be happier.

My house is pretty nice here. Niña Juana keeps a pretty flower garden in the front, and a vegetable garden out back. We have chickens that are better dead and in my soup than alive and keeping me up at night. As my friend Alfredo put it, you hear one rooster start crowing down the street, which gets it's neighbor chickens going, and so on, and you can gauge just when the chicken right outside your house is going to start screaming. This happens about once an hour every night.

There are chickens everywhere. Those raised "free range" are called pollo indio. You can always have a conversation with Salvadoran women over what is better, pollo indio, or farm raised chicken from the super. As my spanish teacher pointed out, pollo indio isn't injected with chemicals, which is better. As a fellow trainee responded, the chickens at his house drink his soapy bath water and from the scummy gutters along the street. As for chemical content, the jury is still out. For us gringos, the health benefits of killing pollo indio rest primarily in the hours of sleep we get back once they are dead.

I have heard that some of the other trainees have been having a hard time adjusting to the close proximity of animals to people. It hasn't really been an issue for me, so far at least. Every day herds of cattle walk down my street, and they also graze by our "cancha" which is the football field. One of my fellow trainees lives next door to a little pasture where a group of cows and bulls live. Sometimes we forget why cows are kept, then we remember...

A few weeks ago the newly elected govenor of San Vicente, who is from this community, thew a barbeque in the next town over. He was going to be feeding a bunch of people for free and had one of the cows that lives in the little pasture slaughtered for the party. Though we missed it, the neighborhood kids told us all about it. Two whacks to the face, they told us, laughing hysterically, then they slit his throat. The first hatchet strike between the eyes didn't take him down, it took a second, apparently. Who kills a cow that way?! The kids loved telling us the story, and loved acting out the blade getting them right between the eyes, their tongues lolling out.