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.