Rain, Rain

Rain, Rain Go AWAY!! and don't come back!

In case you couldn't tell, it's been raining here like crazy for a week straight. Two tropical storms have come through and have decided to let open the flood gates on El Salvador.

PCVs, we have been on stand fast since Wednesday meaning that we can not leave or travel anywhere. This wonderful weather has not only brought down tons of rain, turning streets into rivers, turning soil to mud, destroyed homes, flooding, and more.

Yesterday, I decided to go for a walk in the rain and I walked up my street as far as a could. A small river had emerged and stopped me from continuing. It was more than 5 feet wide and was carrying water, trash, mud and god only knows what else. On the other side of where the street normally is there is a yard where kids play soccer and behind that an adobe (hard clay) house. This river was running right through this yard and through this person's house. They had put wood and plastic outside their doors to try to stop the water but I imagine they still had a few inches of water and mud on their floor. But I could see someone swinging in a hammack. And just kinda accepting there's nothing he can do just relax and wait it out.

It's so interesting how here people are just like yep its raining staying inside and try not to get wet. They aren't really upset that they can't do anything nor are they panicing. Yet, when we have like a baby storm in the US people freak..the world is going to end, buy all the food you can and batteries you can before anyone else. Watch the news 24X7 and increase the panic and fear and doomsday like theather. Yet most people are fine in their well (or at least not clay) constructed houses with cars, blankets and food. Maybe we need to learn a lesson or two on how to just chill, accept and wait that the storm will pass because it always does. We should just be thankful that we pass it safely and dry.

Since my walk, I haven't really left my house. No one wants to travel anywhere or step foot outside their house (myself included), but I am going a little stir crazy.This lovely weather has given me a cold :( and has made everything mold and damp.

So here are two links one is in Spanish but ya can see the pictures amd the other in english.
The towns below me on the hill are some of those most effected in the eastern part of the country! I'm very happy to be living in the pueblo on the hill!

http://www.laprensagrafica.com/el-salvador/social/224152-lluvia-afecta-a-oriente-este-fin-de-semana-en-el-salvador.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/14/ap/latinamerica/main20120357.shtml

2 de octubre

I’m back in El Salvador after going to the states for a few weeks for Beth’s wedding! I’m sorry for those people I didn’t get to see or call.

But yes, since being back I’ve been working on trying to get the Adesco legalized, which is a community development association (kinda like a town association). I have been super impressed with them because while I was gone they had various meetings, recruited more people and have gotten serious about it! Hopefully, in the next few weeks they will be sworn in as an official legalized!

In the school, I have been trying to get this environmental mural done. Unfortunately, the school is going to be going under reconstruction and many walls are going to be destroyed and so where we had originally planned to do it we can’t. But the other day I was like damnit I want to get this doneee so I went out and bought the base coat and tomorrow hopefully we will start!

Last week, Nicole and I started a vivero (a nursery). We planted like more than 50 tree seeds, which we hope can turn into something big poco a poco that the community can take over! Another environmental/ green thing I’m working on is a community garden! This woman Emerita and her husband approached me about making an exemplary community garden in the church to teach and motivate others to grown. The past few days we have cleared the land and started to till it. The land is fertile but holy it was filled with weeds, grass, trees, plants, bean vines all at least up to my waist. On top of it, for the past who know how many years people have thrown random junk there or burned plastics. And the nice little creatures we have come upon…. Biting ants, termites, poisionious spiders, millipedes and other things. But I have a feeling that Emerita and Santiago are going to work with me and we are going to have an awesome garden!

Speaking of creatures…the other night I came home from Ana’s house. I turn on the lights, get some water and am putting stuff away to go to bed. And holy shit right near my water/ kitchen area a GIANT tarantula. I jump onto a chair and think what am I going to do. I wanted to like drop a cup on it and capture it because I didn’t want to get close to it to like attempt to kill it. However, all my cups are ceramic so I couldn’t do that. Eventually, me moving my chair scared it and it ran away but I’m a little bit scared of where I may find it next.

So Julie the kids asked for pictures…so while I was on top of the chair I got my camera and took a picture of the tarantula.

Rigo

In my community, my best friend is named Ana and she is great. She is this tiny 24 year old who has lots of spunk, likes to joke around, is very curious about the world, is an extremely hard worker, got a little bit of an attitude and well is awesome. Ana works her butt of and is a superviser in a tuna canning plant. She lives with her sister Claudia, 27 who is also wonderful. She's a bit more shy at first and more independent and a bit more rebellious i think. She has a 20 month year old baby, Gabriel who is one of the few babies I like. He's a pretty cool little guy. Also, Ana's mom and aunt live in her house.

Pretty much every night I go to their house to hang out. We talk, play with Gabriel, do errands, do some chores and then around 8 watch the telenovela "triunfo de amor"...i didn't really like telenovelas but i have to say im kinda into this one. Anyways, at night Ana's brothers usually come over too, Riego and Carlos. Carlos is more quiet and has 2 kids who are cute and we have like basic interactions. Riego on the other hand loves to talk and at first I literally didn't understand a word he would say to me. He spoke spanish with most caliche words. Ana would be like Riego stop laura don't understand and she would have to translate for me haha. He liked to tell me stories about his life (his teacher he loved, his believes on life) and lots about construction. He is a brick layer, carpenter and like did tileing. Very knowledgable and skilled in his craft especially for his age, 33. He was very friendly, funny and willing to talk and learn.

So about 2 weeks ago when I went over there Rigo was just laying in the hammack and not looking so good. His face was puffy and his skin had a yellowish tint. He went to the doctors and they told him he had anemia. Every night for about a week he just laid in the hammack not really talking much and not eating dinner either. Claudia took him to various doctors and they told him he had fluid in his lungs and problems with his kidneys. One doctor said he needed diaylsis, another natural doctor said herb medicine. He was sick, but with the medicine, his youth and his strength i just figured he'd be better in a month.

Monday after the bus charlas and soccer pratice I was walking home and Ana's aunt told me to go to Rigo's house because he wasn't doing well. I ran home changed and then went to Ana's house because I didn't know where Rigo lived. When I walked into Ana's house, a group of older women were praying and Rigo's body was lying on a cot. Rigo, the hard working, friendly, outgoing, warm, funny, young guy I knew had died.

Since monday, I have been with Ana and her family helping them cook, hand out food, go shopping and basically anything they need. Here after someone dies that night they pray, give bread and coffee to everyone and stay up the whole night. After 24 hours they bury the body. However, since Rigo died at like 5:30pm they had 2 nights of praying, food, and visitors. Ana and her family have been so strong especially since they have already lost their father and 2 sisters, all in the past 10 years or less.

I'm shocked how quickly Rigo died and how young he was. Also, that someone so young had could have such complications from their kidneys without any previous symptoms. Death is so close to life here. Also, I know I'm not the best at communicating from here sometimes but everyone at home especially my family (Dad and Beth especially you are wonderful) and friends I miss you and you all mean very much to me!

To Rigo, thank you for teaching me caliche, about yayantique, your trade and being so welcoming and friendly to me. You will be missed and very much remembered.

Buses y basura

A martian, Jesus/Campesino/Rat, Plastic Bag, Banana Peel and a Coke Can all were waiting on the side of the road to take a bus to well anywhere. Brenden, Megan, Nicole, Keri and I decided to do some bus charlas about trash and throwing trash out the bus window on Monday!

We took various buses going to Santa Rosa- Joroco- San Miguel route. Brenden and Megan would hop on the front of the bus. Brenden, the martian, didn't know what to do with his chip bag and so he decided to throw it out the bus window (common practice here) when all of a sudden a campesino ref comes up to tell him that he shouldn't litter or burn his trash. Then pops up Nicole, a "sexy" bolsa aka super selectos bag to talk about how plastics need to go in a trash can. Megan sneaks up on the bag as a rat and talks about if ya throw trash wherever rats, mosquitos, cockroaches and other lovely creatures will come with their diseases. After this encounter, the martian thinks he's got it all figured out and that all trash goes in the trash can. But it doesn't! So I, the coke can tell him about recycling cans, glass, plastic bottles and how ya can earn some $ for it too! So now we got waste and recycling...until the martian eats a bananna. This bananna happens to be Keri, the bananna peel's "rica" little sister. She explains about organic vs. inorganic trash. At the end, the martian gets what to do with trash BUT he wants to know THE TRUTH of the universe. Luckily, Jesus Cristo (aka Megan, the campesino and rat) is on the bus and says how God created the earth and humans and he didn't create it for humans to just trash it. At then end, Jesus asks for a donation of trash! And that was our trash skit!

The reactions to us were: indifference, picture taking, applauses, people trying to help us throw trash out the window, others telling us that americans don't litter, a grandma that thought we were just precious, a cobrador who thought we were pretty great and yeah!
It was hilarious and I'm going to try to put a video up of it.

Oh yeah, you are probably thinking why did we do this on the bus and why were we not kicked off. Well, I'm glad we didn't get kicked off or charged for bus fair. But here like people sell everything on the bus from God to toothbrushes. So people screaming on the bus is pretty common. We decided to take advantage of this and talk about the environment!

HIV/AIDs Race Winner!

The race's happy winner!

HIV/AIDS Race

Last Thursday I had my first big event that I planned! I got a VSAT grant to do various workshops and a road race for HIV/AIDS awareness. During last week was El Salvador's National HIV/AIDs Awareness Day and so the health workers were doing free HIV testing throughout the country. I worked with the health workers to plan and organize this event! We advertised with flyers, word of mouth, in the schools and the best was the ambulance! The ambulance driver, Elias, who is 23 and lives in my town and I drove to a neighboring town blasting Merengue, Bachata, and Salsa music along with the siren. Every few miinutes one of the two of us would announce about the event...I think we got people's attention or at least got a laugh at us zipping around in the ambulance.

The day before the event I was stresssingggg. No store had medals or enough medals for all the winners so I had to buy little prizes and make prize bags. Also, no place had face paint, but the guy at the libereria said that watercolor colored pencils work. I was a little skeptical, but it's true they work. Also, Coca-Cola had told me that they would provide water, poweraid, announcing and trash cans. However, I called them like a stalking girlfriend all day, and by 5 o'clock still had no answer. I was a bit worried. At 7pm they had called and were on their way to my house to drop stuff off!

On the day of the race, the morning was a little hectic. The school was suppose to let kids leave who wanted to, but 4 teachers, the principal, and vice principal decided not to show up that day and kids aren't suppose to leave the school without a teacher. However, there wasn't a teacher to go with the kids. That was kinda a bummer because like 20-30 kids were ready to go when we arrived. But anyways, the health promoters, nurses, Megan, Nick and I set up for the race, and some other clinic workers went to the start of the race to begin!

I waited at the finish line hoping their would be more than like 2 people and there were! A guy from my town won and then this like 11 year olf boy who I asked to run earlier in the morning, but who told me he was "too busy" with errands that he couldnt shows up at the finish line as the 2nd place winner. Glad his errands included the race haha. Also, there were a bunch of young girls which was awesome to see, and then 1 middle aged woman and 1 older woman came walking and then with all the clapping and cheering came running across the finish line. Nicole with some girls from her school came too! Overall, there were like 20 participants!

After the race, there were 4 booths set up. Nick talked about and did condom demonstrations which was a big hit and HILARIOUS to see. Megan gave info and asked people how you can contract HIV and some myths about contraction/ around HIV/AIDs. Nicole had the patience and artistic skill to paint little kids faces and hands. And the nurses, took blood tests!

To end the event, we announced and crowned the winners. Yes, I bought and made them wear silly plastic crowns. And then it wouldn't be El Salvador without 2 pinatas (one for girls, other for boys) and the mad dash, pig pilling action for some candy.

I am very happy and glad that it turned out okay! And hopefully, the workshops will go just as well.

Caminatas!

The past few weekends we have been going on caminatas (hikes) to various parts around my town. The first week we went to this place called la corquinta, which is this cave where the indigeous use to come to make sombreros and brooms from palm leaves. To get to the cave we hiked around this river bed, and water pools and tiny caves. When we stopped for a minute at this watering hole, we started this beautiful white owl from the cave. It looked like Hedwig from Harry Potter....why a white, furry owl is in El Salvador no idea but I understand why it was hiding. Anyways, when we reached the cave we had to climb down slowly and quitely because above us were these holes in the bedrock where tons of bees were swarming around their nests. The cave was so quiet and cool. I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to see the alleged cave paintings of a serpent, sun and moon. However, one wall of the cave had shattered and falled down into large turned over boulders. Apparently, on that wall was where the paintings were.

The second week, we went to Cerro Capulin. It is the cerro above my town. Our "tour guide" Guillermo took my friend Ana Ruth, Nicole, Mya, Narciso and I to the very top. Literally the vary top..top of the antenea! The pictures are of Ana Ruth climbing up to the top and the zoomed in shot from the top of us waiting at the bottom. I only went up like a 1/3 of the way. Just enough to see the Gulf, Nicaragua and all the way to the volcano of San Vicente! It was an amazing view! On the way up and down Guillermo told us about the history of Yayantique and some other stories.

Yayantique is named after an indigenous named Yahyai who fled from Civil War in Guatemala to this area. He led a serious of protests that led to the authorities to finally name the land after him. Yayantique use to me one of the largest and most important lands in the East of El Salvador!

Other less believable stories included a plant that looks like any other normal plant and when you look at it you immediately get lost. The trick is because it is an ordinary plant you don't know if you saw it or not only if you get lost than you did. Apparently, some guy got lost till like 8 o'clock on the hill because he saw it.

Another believable or no so believable story was about how a guy got stung by these african wasps and had a temperature of over 200 degrees.

But Guillermo is awesome and always is willing to talk to me, help me and wants to better his community. And has some factual and other interesting stories to tell!

Oh yeah, this past weekend we hiked to El Raton, which is like a cave/ little water spring. It was a very muddy, slippery and a bit difficult climb down to it. But we all made it and where we were was so green and lush with these giant vines coming down. The birds were all singing and the water was slightly trickling down the rocks. It was like a george in the jungle scene minus george, and monkeys. (we did have the screaming scared Jane role covered by the three gringas: Nicole, Mya and I) haha jk. After El Raton, we hiked up to this other hill where you could see the other cantones of my town, and then we hiked down to this natural watering hole called El Hobo. El hobo apparently is a type of tree that use to be there...I saw it was a homeless man haha.

This weekend we are going to go to a "lake" in El Socorro which is a canton (smaller town/part) of my town.

Eco- Camp

About a month ago now (wow time flies, sorta) we had an environmental camp! It was awesome and the kids were great. For me it was like a mini summer camp, but even better. These kids have never really left their towns and especially not without their families. Nor have they had the opportunity to know kids from other places. The kids were so happy, fun, energetic and BOLD! Yes, here kids are usually too embarrassed to do anything (fucking pena) and kids are very harsh on anyone who is different or does anything new. Kids are tough on each other here. But at this camp we told them that pena doesn't exist and it was a place for everyone to be themselves without judging or making fun of others. It worked!

These girls here were amazing. They made these creative outfits from recycled material and then weren't embarrassed to walk around with it. The were models in the fashion show we had at night! Hopefully, they can remember that they are beautiful and can be bold back in their communities.

Duck

Yes, this is a picture of a dead duck. It was alive about 1 minute before this picture was taken. So one afternoon my friends Brian and Karl bought a duck for $2.00 from a friend. This was a pretty fat little duck they got. Anyways, so the boys killed the duck. I couldn't watch all of it, but I had to document it. I have never witness an animal being killed, chopped up, cooked and then eaten. Also, I'm in El Salvador..people do this stuff all the time here but I'm usually too much of a baby to witness the killing part. It was something that I felt I had to do while being here.

SO the boys killed it, cleaned it (what a bitch it was to get the feathers off), cooked in and then made a gumbo. It was delicious!

*Now, I know at home and even here I try not to eat that much meat, nor do I really like meat. But if I'm going to eat it, I like it fresh and local...I couldn't have gotten it much more fresh or local.

Teacher Taller

The past two weeks three other volunteers and I did a teacher workshop in and around San Miguel. We taught them these lessons called APA- Actividades Participativas Ambientales or basically Participatory Environment Activities. They are a series of Science lessons that gets kids active, thinking, experimenting and then reflecting on the activity. We gave and taught 21 teachers some of these activies and brought them on field trips to show how you can teach outside the classroom. It was awesome and I think the teachers really appreciated it and learned a lot. Here, most teachers just teach by dictating to studies or having them copy down information. Hnads on, analysis and reflection aren't incorporated that much, but hopefully some of these teachers will now start to include these techniques.... Actually 2 of my teachers that went last week asked me yesterday if we can go on a mini field trip to a river and do one of the activities that we taught them in the workshop!

3 de marzo

The other day I step out of my house and my vecina, the landlord, la senora (lots of names for her) anyways she is outside my house and we start talking. She tells me how good it was that I had visitors and that I must feel lonely now...yeah thanks for the reminder. Anyways, she has 2 daughters in the US that see misses a lot, and one is a citizen/has papers. So anyways we start talking about why she and her husband don´t want to go to the US. The Conversation goes something like:

La senora: Here, I can be outside all the time. The doors are open. I can feel the breeze and fresh air, but there you are closed in all the time. It´s cold. Theres snow and hail. I´d die.

Me: Ah, yeah it is cold there. ANd it is nice here. I like that its warm all year round and I can be outside a lot.

La senora: yes, yes exactly. My husband was going to go to the US too, but you know what?

Me: What?

La senora: People live in small apartments in Washington (aka DC). You can´t hang a hammack. And its cold so you can´t sleep in a hammack either.

Me: Yeah, apartments are small and hammacks aren´t that common there but you could hang one up.

La senora: Oh no. My husband he told me he could never leave here. He can´t sleep anywhere but his hammack. He said he would rather be here swinging in his hammack all afternoon then be in el norte (US).

......moral of the story is that well hammacks are pretty great. I can´t lie, but to sleep in everynight, nah. haha i thought it was funny that the reason why her husband didn´t want to go to the US was his love for his hammack!

Love and miss you all!

Christmas in El Salvador

Christmas in El Salvador was an experience that wasn't as bad or dismal as I had heard it was. Here, they celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. Basically, the christmas celebration includes first making "special food." Special food included tamales (corn batter cooked with chicken, duck, pork, and sometimes beans wrapped in banana leaves then cooked in a giant black pot for a few hours), panes/sandwiches (gross white bread sandwiches with mayo and meat..no me gustan)and pan dulces (pastries/ sweet bread). I luckily avoided the sandwiches!

On the morning of Christmas eve, I woke up early to go to my friend Mari's house. She owns the "chalet" or little restaurant in my town, and has received some training in baking. She was fortunate enough to save up with help from people to the states to buy an oven. Anyways, so she was en cargado (in charge) of making a pineapple bread/cake called volteado. It is like a layer of caramel, pineapple on top of a bread that tastes sweet kind of like a muffin mix. Anyways, so we spent all morning cooking, cutting fruit and mixing matter. She was in charge of making about 20 of these cakes and mixing the batter so it was smooth was ridiculously hard and tiring. Imagine a bowl that was as big as me making a circle with my arms full of matter that you had to beat with your hands until there were no grains of sugar or lumps of flour. But all the hard work was worth it cause it was delicious.
After cooking all morning, I stopped by the house of the lawyer, Matias in town. He's like 27ish and is great to just have a higher intellectual conversation with. Also, his sister is super sweet and has 3 girls ages 12,7 and 3 that are really cute. So I went there and we talked about our christmas rituals, differences in schooling in El Salvador and the United States, differences between life in the campo and San Salvador, what I possibly want to do in the future and what he wants to do with his practice, and mas. It was good talking to him after cooking all morning and talking about housework and the weather. Well I was there for a good few hours because you just get sucked into staying places and its hard to leave.
When I could break away, I went to my best friend in my site Ana's house. She was still sweeping so we listened to music, danced, sung and did the housework. She made me dinner of scrambled eggs with tomates, beans, cheese and tortillas. Afterwards, we waited for the posada to pass by. The Posada is a statue of Mary and Joseph they carry on wooden beams on the shoulders of 4 boys (think of like how they carried pharoahs on those bed things. They bring the statue into the houses and then a chorus comes in to sing to you. It's kinda like christmas caroling except they are singing about baby jesus and the 3 kings and stuff. After they sing 2 songs they move onto the next house. When they finish going to all the houses, they enter the church and mass starts. I went to mass with Ana and her family. It was nice and I got to see a lot of people and at the end you shake everyone's hand and say feliz navidad y paz (merry Christmas and peace). After the mass, a guy in the band was hanging around with his guitar singing. We went to join him, and we sung christmas carols...feliz navidad and rudolph the rednose raindeer. They sung in Spanish and I in English. We sung feliz navidad a bizlion times because they wanted to learn the English part and also because it was my FIRST song on the guitar that I could play!!! I was happy to try to play, teach them some english and sing with friends.
After our session of christmas carols, the jovenes (youth) in the church had made food baskets for the poorest families in town, and so we went throughout the town giving them out. It was around 11:00pm, which is super late for people to be out, but for Christmas eve everyone tries to stay up until 12pm. When we finished giving out the baskets, I went back to Ana's for a bit and then came home.

CHRISTMAS DAY

Christmas Day arrived! I woke up to go paint my friend, Ruth's wrought-iron doors. Ana Ruth is 17 and is super sweet, loves the environment, animals and is a vegetarian! A salvo vegetarian is really rare. She's awesome and super sweet, but doesn't like painting that much so I helped her. Then we had breakfast of beans, tortillas and a carrot smoothie. Carrot smoothie or liquado doesnt sound that good but trust me they're delicious. After breakfast, I showered and then left to go meet Nicole, the volunteer near me. We walked to meet each other, and then went to another little town called El Pastor to give the Christmas cookies we made a few days before to our friend Chevy who is super helpful and generous. He lived in the states for like 20 years and is a US citizen and very grateful for the opportunities and money he made in the states. While he has an America house...I walked in and was like, "oh hello America!" he is very humble and giving to his community. After our visit, Nicole came up to the pueblo with me to spend Christmas.
We had our little Christmas with christmas music, banana bread that we made, guacamole, hot chocolate (thanks to beth!), some red wine, cuajada (type of cheese) and crackers. I also open up my gifts from Dad and Julie, Beth, and Nana Dee and Ed! Thank you guys! It made my Christmas! Nicole and I both talked with family and friends and just hung out. I definitely missed everyone when I talked to them, and I wish I could have been there celebrating! Hopefully, everyone had a good christmas!

Overall, I'm glad I got to see Christmas from the lives of others...it was less stressful then in the US and kind of like an ordinary day here with some different food. But lacked friends and family from home!