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.