I will throttle you, sir.

I was as surprised as he was when I said it... `You must be totally crazy.´

My wicked scoundrel of a counterpart didn´t think this day would come. From site development on he pleaded for a woman volunteer. Women are nice, easy to handle, and would never speak up against any lies, stealing or shady business. Hell, women probably would never even NOTICE the corruption.

Oh, but wait, Tio Richard. If you're going to invite yourself into my home, sit there and insult my intelligence, talk to me like I'm a 14-year-old and then tell me that maybe I wasn't worth the phone cards and meetings it took to get me into El Cocalito, I will demonstrate to you how your ideas about women are incorrect.

But I will not stoop to your level. Because I will level with you. If you're going to go around behind my back, throwing snarky comments around about me and hinder my progress, I will speak my snark right there to your face. If you want to use intimidation and cohersive measures to keep your position of power over my community, I'll just have to tell you that those measures you took were unethical, unfair, and against all the statutes of your own organization.

When, the next day you call my boss to 'offer suggestions' as to how I should be behaving and such, please keep in mind that if you spent a fraction of the time you spent talking ABOUT me to other people talking TO me, you'd waste a hell of a lot less saldo, and maybe you'd actually get what you asked for: a badass woman volunteer who would get your ADESCO in fighting shape, so a second volunteer could help you all get a Casa Comunal.

But if you think that's what is in store for you, Tio Richard, you are totally crazy.

Scattered.

Another night in the city. This month has been chock a block with out of site time, but it's all been for the greater good: desarollo.

There happen to be quite a few new little tidbits of "chambre" to pass along. Blogging in bulletpoint:

• After damn near two months of medical vacation in Washington DC, the delightful Erica Matsumoto is back in action in the savior. A big thumbs up to her as well as the unknown organ donor whose ACL our fond friend will be using from now on.

• The one and only Ms. Clelia will be making the trip to El Cocalito in the coming week to check out the climate (and I'm, for once, not talking about the opressive heat) and maybe, hopefully, using her fierce jefa power to break the Cocalito curse.

• Thanks to my counterpart's love of selling trees and small plants at 100 percent profit, an organization will be implementing a two year environmental project that includes a compost site, contra-littering education and (drumroll) a regular garbage pickup service! Yes!!!!! oh, and I have some exciting project plans of my own for the coming months, including a leadership camp for rural youth. Fun!

• My nightly yoga has paid off in a peace corps appropriate manner. I can hover endlessly over unclean toilet seats or prickly brush for the duration of even the longest pee. I would much MUCH rather be running, but whatever. My self image is algo low but my hopes are high.

• I'm frustrated in oh so many ways currently. But technologically, I'm a mess. ipods and radios and broken laptops and podcasts and CDs. Jesus. I feel like I have my foot in two techno paradigms. Like I'm installing a Garmin in a Ford Model T. Just send me mix CDs, and make them count.

• Selfishness, or rather, greediness is a recurring and frustrating theme here. In a world where the over uttered "prestame" and "regalame" mean the same thing in the end, my patience has been thoroughly tested and my trust broken. I wish people would stop asking me for money. I wish folks would stop asking me to gift them things. I wish I could just say no without feeling compelled to give an excuse or feel selfish.

• I saw my friend Philip Shilts bearded salvadoran twin at metro centro today. I think that pretty much rounds out my salvo twin spotting. I've seen damn near every one of my friends and enemies in this country. The little kid down the highway who looks like my second cousin Emry, the cobrador on the nice 259 bus that looks like my uncle Tony, my neighbor Oscar, who is the spitting image of the cartoon character Bobby Hill and now a coffee cup frequenting Philip Shilts whose surprising cameo this evening brought up a chain of thoughts:
* I told my friend Dan Hinkle that, due to his chronic inability to keep a hangout date, the verb shiltsed was created. No matter who was standing me up, it became the commonly used word for myself and my dear roomate Kelsey.
* I recently read a book by Sarah Vowell called "Assassination Vacation" in which she wrote about the rivalry between Edison and Westinghouse. After inspiring the creation of the electric chair by zapping animals with AC electricity in an attempt to demonstrate its greater danger over DC, Edison suggested that the verb to describe the act of dying by electric shock, which we now call electrocution, should be "westinghoused."
* the shower in my hotel room has an electric hot water shower head. In many of the hotels here, these things electrocute you. It varies from a slight staticky shivering felt on the knobs, to a full force Westinghouse to the body. Dan Hinkle calls them widowmakers.
* thinking of widowmakers my mind strays to the palm fronds that regularly fall from my trees. I did a little online research, very little, and could find no true statistics on the deaths caused either by falling fronds or coconuts. I'm kind of disappointed. I still won't hang my hammock in my front yard, though.

Hello, my name is Jessica...

But sometimes I'm not really sure who I am here.

I love El Salvador, I love Peace Corps, I love my community and my work...

But sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in my own head a lot. Despite the time I spend with my fellow ahuachapanecans and the occasional meet-ups with PC friends, I feel like I have lost touch with pre-corps Jessica and the inner gringa.

That's the point though, isn't it? Break down cultural norms, challenge yourself, blah blah blah.

The thing is that maybe I've gone too far, I've gone campo, I've gone soft.

Being here in El Salvador has forced me into making compromises and sacrifices... Force me to take bucket baths every morning, to pour water into my toilet, to have filthy feet... Whatever. I dig that stuff. Just give me the ability to tell grodie boys to eff off when they make lame comments on the street, to go out in the evenings without my neighbors playing 21 questions, and to go running at will so that everyone in my town would stop telling me I'm getting fat every five seconds.

At what point do I get to say "hey, let me do my gringa thing. Let me tell you boys to go to hell, that I'm going to walk the three meters to the market, and if you force me to eat your tortillas, and make me uncomfortable when I run, you can't always be saying I'm getting gordita.

I need to tell people when they're shredding my self esteem, and making me self conscious. Of course it's a cultural difference. They aren't trying to destroy me with their over protective vigilence and compliments on my salvo-squishy middle. But It's all too much, man.

In other news, I'm in San Salvador for the night after a PAC meeting, so I'm missing a fiesta rosa in my community.

I'm not going to the aventura concert, or anywhere else, tonight. Too poor, too uninteresed in hangoverland.

Heading back to site tomorrow... Aye dios.

I need a pick me up. I need to get control of mi vida

Something about the Climate...

and I feel like I'm home.

Apparently I should brace myself for the downward slope of month 11, but I am way to stoked about how happy I still am, here in month 8.

Can't complain.

But I will... for a moment. Unfortunately, someone has 50 of my US dollars and my memory card with ALL MY PHOTOS on it. I don't know how it happened, but I knew I didn't like San Salvador for a reason. With that in mind, all the photos I had hoped to share here are now... somewhere.

Things in El Cocalito have been wonderful, and I have some stuff going on with youth and my women´s group is still going strong. I was recently inspired by the sad state of my skin and the high price of St Ives apricot scrub to learn how to make facewash and then grind up coconut shells (which, as you may guess from the name, are in abundance in El Cocalito) to put in as an exfoliant... Stay tuned for that one.

In other news, things have officially (and yet somehow, unofficially) come to an end with the Payaso Ave. He is not "the Salvadoran to change my life," as everyone hoped he would be. I'm one hundred percent okay with that. I only wish I would have gotten a photo of him, to go with the book I may write on our ill-fated, but highly entertaining, friendship. If only I had thought ahead.

I recently spent a phenomenal weekend in Concepcion de Ataco for a regional meeting with almost all of Ahuachapan and Sonsonate's finest gringos. But I got to meet the new volunteers, who are quality, stroll around with my homeboy Dan Clarahan, and then hit up the food festival... All under the clear skies and warm Ahuachapanecan sun.

Pretty much blissful.

I came home to a happy community, and a happy host family, as it seems that people are really getting Pollos de Engorde, that my first friend in El Cocalito really is coming back to El Salvador, and people actually do want to buy ecocinas after all! Oh yeah!!

Probably doesn't hurt that I will be in the US in several weeks, too.

If my friends could see me now...

So it's the day after El Salvador's Dia De Independencia, and thank god. Watching little bichas shaking their stuff in fishnets, heeled boots and a pound of makeup was not my idea of freedom.
I spent my morning sitting in the wafting aroma of pupusas, hanging out with my vendadora friends on the El Cocalito football field. By the coffee hour I was sipping a weak brew in the Plaza of Atiquizaya and by noche I was sitting on Ave's bed, waiting for the next good story, and ready to bob and weave.

Let me backtrack...

Last week, de repente, I found myself being kissed by a Salvadoran. I won't get into details, but let's just say it was not so great. The lingering sabor of cigarettes, fruity gum and fear didn't really do it for me.

We had plans to hang out this week, so I didn't break them. I generally enjoy his company, though I have to admit that I spend a fare share of our time together discreetly chuckling at him rather than with him. His nearly constant movement, his romantic view of everything, his cliche phrases, and his tendency to overshare are like a fuente of entertainment. He's just so weird, but it is hard to remember sometimes that I am not in Kansas anymore, and nothing is like it is back home.

Which takes me to this scenario. Sitting in the Ave's bed, listening to music and talking about one thing or another. I was a little on edge, assuming he would again try to kiss me, and I had to have a means of dodging it. Then, in the next moment, he was doing that thing with his eyes that he must think is super suave, and I know it's time to act.

"Hold on a second," he said in his too cool-for-school voice, and he reached up onto a nearby shelf. "I want to show you something."

So I brace myself. Could be something cool, could be something horrifying.

He keeps his back to me and I hear some questionable sounds.

He turns around and has a two foot balloon inflated and starts making me a balloon animal. A dog. I cringe and choke back my laughter and try to keep cool with every squeaky twist.

"Normally I do this in my whole clown costume, but for you I'll make the exception."

And that's where I loose it.

Not saying that you´re fea....

"I just need for you to be a little more pretty..." said Milena. "You have a iron for your hair, and lots of cute shoes... but you're always in flipflops and your hair is always pulled back"

This coming from a woman whose hair I haven`t seen down more than twice, who never wears makeup and who also only ever wears flipflops.

"I live in a humid, sweaty climate, with dirt or mud roads, and I bathe with a bowl. I don´t think I am game for traipsing around with my hair down in high heels," I told her. "Besides, who cares?"

Apparently, she sure does. I embrace my role as la gringa despeinada. Dirty feet, unpainted fingernails and all. Though, I do wish I could wear my hair down a little more often.

At least I have someone here telling me la verdad!

Thankfully I have had some minor victories to bouy my spirits against such blows.

My first women´s business group meeting had a fantastic turnout of 25 women. The second meeting had 20. We made our shampoo, and it is pretty decent. All the women are excited to make some minor changes, and then a little money.

With a little luck and a modest request, I was able to win a small grant to fund our training and a few batches of experimental soap and shampoo as well as some hardware. Thanks US embassy. Though it is only a little money, the women seem to encouraged by it, and it has definitely encouraged me, too.

The last few days of August will be as jam packed as the rest of this month has been, and September, so far, is looking pretty busy. Thank god.

I can´t believe August is almost over. How time flies in the developing world.

Other tidbits:

1. I am now accepting donations to add to my personal bank account. My Cause? Coming home at some point. My plan had been for Christmas and New Years, but things have been working against me. If you would like to make a donation, please let me know. haha.
2. After a very awkward conversation with the Birdman, my questions have been answered, and all is well in El Salvador. We will continue "caminando juntos" for the time being. I´m glad for it.
3. I learned a lot of good shit during a three day in-service training session in Ataco with all my favorite PCVs. It´s days like those I feel the full impact of my great luck in knowing such chivo people.
4. My veggie garden is coming in full force. I expanded my beds and will be moving around my tomato plants. I´m nerdily excited about it, and my neighbors are impressed that I know how to dig holes and plant seeds. Cultural bridges. White girls also get their hands dirty.
5. My nephew will be turning 7 on the Fifth day of September. He is really cool. Here´s a shoutout to my riot of a sobrino, Connor.

Future Butterfly, attached to my plastic chair

He waits

My Wall of Recuerdos. Thanks to Kelsey for amping

up my photo collection with a recent package.
My Salvi friends consider you a great photo artist.
As do I, of course.

Daily blossoms

Making Shampoo

Making Shampoo, still.

The day I stop being amazed by ants....

Ugh.

SUPER UGH

They eat mosquitos, so I´ve been told. I like them even more now.

Gotta get me a Buzz

The view across Lago Cojutepeque,
where I spent a great night kicking damn near full bottles of rum into
the great depths, making merry with The Hinkle duo and Alex,
and, less fortunately, contracting a horrendo enfermedad.

A Family of worms, eating the leaves off my jocote tree.

Lil´bichos out in front of Niña Carmen´s house at La Barra de Santiago

Look how cuuuteee, and smaller than the word picturesque....
Nothing like a little Jane Austen.

On Tuesday, I witnessed the fall of my best US import. My french press slipped from my soapy hands and landed on the rocks next to my pila. It was a rough moment. But I gathered up the peices, consoling myself with the fact that I still have my big coffee machine that I inherited from the previous PCV. Not all was lost.

At 5:30 a.m. Friday, as I stumbled out to my pila with chelitos in my eyes, I reached out, glass coffee pot in hand, and hit the corner of the cement lavadora just right with the edge of the carafe, and crack. Done for.

El Salvador is major coffee producing country, and you can get some gooooood java in this place, if you have the means to brew it yourself.

Despite the coffee production, no one here uses real coffee. All the best stuff is exported, the next best stuff is bought by those who can afford it, and the rest of the population use Cafe Listo.

To me, instant is not an option. I need that early morning hit that only 2-10 cups of real, black coffee can give. In fact, along with having electricity and not having dengue, the switch from crap coffee to real coffee was a huge factor in the move from my old house to my own house. So now I begin my seach for a new coffee pot.

Upcoming events: Tomorrow we're making shampoo! Really excited to see how it goes. Tomorrow morning I'll also be hosting the Bird for a cup of coffee, and hopefully get a few interesting responses to a few scandalous questions. Wednesday is the start of IST. Very excited to see all my fellow COED and Muni PCVs in the fresco clima of Ataco.