Big changes in The Savior

There has been some groundbreaking stuff happening in El Salvador recently. As a group, we PCVs have received flak from PC staff and RPCVs for gossiping and speculating as to what is going to happen to us. I’m going to do it anyway because, quite honestly, Peace Corps is my entire life right now, so even the smallest change will affect literally every minute of every day. Also, I think my friends and family in the US have a right to know what is happening with me here in El Salvador. So here goes the rumor spreading and speculating…

In the wake of the robbery in my site and my general freak out, Peace Corps El Salvador hit us all with some very surprising news. Last Friday, as we were all arriving to San Salvador to spend the weekend together, we received an email from our Country Director and the Central America Director. This email was sent to all volunteers in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras and basically informed us that all new training groups had been cancelled (so much for the fringe benefits of living near the Training Center and spying on new volunteers…) and that new safety and security policies were going to be implemented soon. Cut to: about 15 PCVs hanging out at the hotel speculating as to whether or not we’re going to shut down (overwhelming majority: yes definitely) and what the hell they’re gonna do with us in the event of a shutdown (new country assignment? Send us home with our payout?). Since Friday we have received an email from our Country Director telling us that shut down is not on the table at the moment, but that PC El Sal is going to be a “whole new ballgame” after the changes that are going to be made.

Yesterday I received the news from a friend that PC Honduras has been suspended for 30 days while all volunteers get sent home and PC conducts evaluations on whether it can continue operating safely. What brought this on? And why isn’t El Salvador going through the same process? The only conclusion that we can reach is that recently a volunteer in Honduras was shot in the leg during a bus robbery, which really brought to the forefront the danger in Honduras, maybe causing Peace Corps to take more immediate action there than anywhere else. Honestly though, I would be none too shocked if something like that happened here. Obviously I don’t know all of the facts and I don’t know what specific factors played into Honduras being suspended and El Salvador not, but if it is based on anything like that I would have to say they’re splitting hairs between Honduras and El Salvador safety.

While talking to the other El Sal PCVs, the overwhelming sentiment has been “yeah, it’s really dangerous here, but I always feel safe in my site. ” Unfortunately, for me that is no longer the case. Tuesday the PC safety and security coordinator and one of my bosses came out to my site to check out where I live so that I can stop worrying all night every night about every sound I hear outside my door. Their assessment was that the house that I’m sleeping in is safe, aka once I’m in there no one’s going to get me. Their suggestion was that if I still feel endangered I either look for a new family to live with or consider a site change, but that in general my site has always been very calm and safe and I shouldn’t be too worried. I related this to my host mom, who answered “Yeah, you brought the violence with you. When the other volunteers were here it was very calm. Now it is very dangerous.” Another comment I got the other day from a 9^th grader here in Santa Paula was “The gangs have arrived in San Vicente.” Oh joy. Yesterday morning my host mom informed me that a family in the caserío over from us, right next to my school, was robbed at gunpoint the night before.

So this is my thinking about the whole safety and security in El Salvador issue… I have only been in my site 3 months. That gives me 21 months left of service. Do I stick it out in my site and try to make it work, with the niggling thought in the back of my mind that I probably won’t see any of my projects to fruition because we’re going to get shut down? Or do I consider a site change and go somewhere else in El Salvador where I don’t have to worry about my safety? And if I do that, am I just going to settle into a new community and then be sent home because the country is closing down?

I imagine that 3 months into site is a hard point in anyone’s service. I don’t quite feel comfortable in my community, I miss training and all my friends, and I am casting about fruitlessly looking for some inspiration for a project to start. Add to that the constant worry that we are going to be shut down, suspended, or prohibited from riding buses every again, and it is just impossible to muster the motivation to get anything done. One way or another, I hope that Peace Corps can make a decision soon and stop sending us cliffhanger emails that lead me to waste hours of the day in phone calls with various volunteer friends and renew my internet subscription every day in case we get the email today.

Some light reading on the subject:

• PC Press Release on Guatemala and El Salvador
• PC Press Release on Honduras
• NY Times Article on PC in Latin America 

Giving in the holiday spirit!

Here in El Salvador, public high school and university are free. However, the staggering majority of students stop studying after 9th grade (if not earlier). Why? A combination of reasons. But mostly, it is that families cannot afford to not have their children working and bringing in money, and on top of that they can't afford to pay for their child's transportation and school supplies. Therefore, thousands of kids who want to continue studying are missing out every year. In combat of this, Peace Corps El Salvador has a committee called Women and Youth in Development (WYD), which grants high school and university scholarships of $250 and $450 respectively per year to outstanding applicants who demonstrate academic prowess and financial need. Scholarship recipients go through a rigorous application process that involves many essays, recommendations from professors, and a financial need assessment. As you may know, this year I inherited a WYD scholar, Sofia, from the volunteer who was in the site over from mine. Sofia is incredibly intelligent, shy, funny, and beautiful. If it weren't for WYD, Sofia would be working full time in a pupuseria and helping her mom around the house. Instead, she is about to enter her second year of high school with plans to attend university after that. Please consider donating to the WYD scholarship fund this holiday season so that the committee can grant more scholarships to deserving kids like Sofia all over El Salvador. It is tax deductible and every little bit counts. 

Merry Christmas! :) 

Volunteers and WYD scholars at the WYD camp in December

DONATE HERE

Swimming hole!

Yesterday some kids in my site took me to a swimming hole called La Bruja (the witch) that's about a 20 minute hike from my house...very cool!

the hike

some chicas playing

cuties

Danger, danger

I can’t help but feel that PC El Salvador is Peace Corps, light. Apparently, other Peace Corps countries refer to us as Cuerpo de Playa, or Beach Corps. In some ways, that is most definitely true. We have a lot of volunteers in a tiny little country with great roads and an extensive bus system, so we can get to each other in a day’s time. We have the beach, a modern capital, and plenty of places to basically act like an American tourist. Also, every single one of us has electricity, and most of us have cell phone service and access to internet if we want it. Within Beach Corps, I have an even “lighter” situation than most. I live on the Panamerican with easy access to San Vicente and San Salvador, my host family has a nice house and a real toilet, my school loves Peace Corps and is willing to collaborate, and et cetera. On the other hand, I think El Salvador brings to the table something that many other PC countries do not…namely, the threat of violent crimes. El Salvador was determined to have the highest “violent death” rate (read on...) in the whole world. That is, people aren’t just getting murdered, they’re getting murdered in the most violent ways possible. For example, a couple weeks ago a bus driver was burned alive inside of his bus for not paying rent to the gangs. Lovely. Unfortunately, this violence is pretty widespread, and my proximity to the highway and major cities actually makes my site more dangerous. On Wednesday night, my host uncle (and neighbor) and his family were held up at gunpoint in their own home and robbed by 4 masked men. Everything was taken from them, from their car to their clothing.  This, for me, is terrifying. When I am traveling around El Salvador on the buses, or walking around the city, I know that I am in a dangerous area and am on alert. However, I’ve always felt pretty safe here in my site. Now I’m always afraid.  Walking from the main house to my bedroom is heart-quickening adventure every night and every sound (and believe me, there are lots) is a potential assailant. It’s hard to know if I’m overreacting to this or not. What I know is that the police in El Salvador don’t do much, four men got away with a lot pretty easily, and even if those specific men don’t come back, I am very vulnerable where I am. That being said, tomorrow I am heading to San Salvador to mentally recuperate for a few days and see some friends before the holidays. And luckily, my family comes next Friday! 

My first wedding

Today, as my title may hint at, I went to my first wedding in El Salvador. I was sorely tempted to skip and stay home and do some work (aka try to make wallets out of recycled chip bags…working hard), but I had never been to a wedding in El Salvador so I decided I may as well go. So I headed out with my host mom and brother to my first wedding…and an Evangelical wedding at that. There are 2 main religions here in El Salvador, Catholicism and Evangelicalism. The majority of people are Catholic, and in Santa Paula almost everyone is, so I haven’t had much interaction with evangelicals. What I’ve always heard, though, is that they are religious zealots who go to church every single day and refuse to listen to music or dance. Scary shit. However, when we arrived at the church we came across a raucous scene. The bride and groom were seated facing the audience, and on a stage behind them a band (a keyboard and some guitars) as well as a few men (assorted pastors? Priests? Whatever) were singing their lungs out. The audience was standing, swaying and singing along. This carried on for about an hour, at which point an older gentleman got up and started preaching about the sanctity of marriage. He actually ranted for about 10 minutes about gay marriage, which amused me because I don’t think anyone in El Salvador is anywhere near to accepting homosexuality, let alone gay marriage. So, after a 2 and a half hour mass, the happy couple was finally married in a ceremony that lasted 10 minutes. Apparently, Catholic weddings are much better (aka they only last 1 hour). We stayed for the free lunch (of course) and headed back home.

All in all, my first wedding was pretty boring. While I was able to follow the preacher’s sermon (sometimes I can’t), it wasn’t all too interesting. The most interesting thing to me was the unabashed religiousness of the audience. Maybe if I had grown up somewhere like Alabama or Texas I wouldn’t be so bemused by overt religiousness, but in Boston religion is something that people are often sheepish or tongue-in-cheek about. It is rare that you meet someone who is very religious and very proud of it. Here, though, almost everyone is super religious and they are not afraid to show it. In my house, my host family prays almost every night and goes to church every Sunday. Most Evangelicals go to church every single day and still pray at night. Religion is just not something that Americans, or at least New Englanders, are invested in in that way. I caught myself smirking from time to time during the ceremony today when grown men would shut their eyes, raise their hands in the air and shout something like “Amen!” or “Hallelujah!” (those words are the same in Spanish). But honestly, it’s really nice how religion brings the communities together here. I may not agree with their messages all the time, aka I wanted to kill that guy when he started ragging on gay marriage, but at least the whole community was together for a few hours.

Aside from my deep reflections…this week has been pretty low-key. It seems to be a “thing” that the first week back after PST2 is pretty low for all volunteers. I’ve been eating lots of chocolate (thanks, Mom), and watching TV on my computer. Also trying to get a feasible work plan ready for the next year, which really just involves me going on my computer and taking a facebook/email break every 10 minutes or so. Monday I head to Suchitoto for a scholarship camp. I inherited a PC high school scholar from the PCV who just COSed (close of service) who was in the caserio next to me, so it is my duty to take her to an end-of-year camp in Suchitoto. It should be fun because it involves both seeing some other PCVs and going to the beautiful town of Suchitotos and the waterfalls nearby. Yippee!!

Merry almost Christmas :) 

Thanksgiving, Swearing In Party & back to site...

So Peace Corps training is now officially over for good and I am a legitimate Peace Corps Volunteer. I suspect this means I am supposed to start working…on what I am as of yet unsure. This past week we had 3 days of Spanish “reconnect” classes at the training center, Thanksgiving with host families from the US Embassy, and our swearing in party with all the current volunteers. On Wednesday afternoon, Ashley, Morgan and I (and most of the rest of our training group) hopped on the bus from San V to San Sal and headed to our host family for Thanksgiving. The 3 of us stayed with a woman named Michelle, who does economic development work for USAID and served in the PC in Ecuador in the 90s. We stayed with her, her Peruvian husband, her Peruvian sister in law, and her 2 daughters. The family was amazing, and so friendly and warm. They made us feel at home immediately and were incredibly kind to us lowly, dirty volunteers. At midnight on Wednesday Michelle took us to the midnight premier of Breaking Dawn (the newest Twilight movie for all of you who are not in the know), and on Thanksgiving we had a Christmas cookie decorating/wine and cheese party with some neighbors and then a huge dinner with about 30 people all together. All the people we met were incredibly interesting, and almost all of the Americans present had been PCVs at some point in their lives. Therefore, they were also very sympathetic and understanding of our plight (aka, our desire to eat 9 plates of Thanksgiving food each) and we received many offers to spend weekends at San Sal apartments, beach houses, etc.  They may live to rue the day they made those offers.

snowmen in the embassy neighborhood

christmas cookies!!!

my thanksgiving dinner

On Friday we said goodbye to the glorious house and family with a sigh and headed to the hostel that PC uses to prepare for our swearing in party, with a short stop at the Sheraton hotel to lie by their pool and have a Bloody Mary first. Our swearing in party involved dinner and then drinks and dancing in Zona Rosa, which is a really nice upscale area of San Salvador that basically looks like any American city. We all had a really good time and definitely celebrated hard.

morgan and i being george and martha washington at the sheraton pool

tyler, jamie and i at dinner pre-swearing in party

Now, I am back in Santa Paula to start my real service. I have 22 months left in site, and no more trainings, so basically no more excuses to not be working. While I was gone I missed the last weeks of school and 9^th grade graduation, so the next 2 months of “summer vacation” I will most likely spend trying to figure out exactly what it is I will be doing next year. While PST2 definitely loaded me up with lots of good ideas for potential projects, I still feel pretty lost as to what I want to focus on in my site. A lot of that will need to come from the community members, so I need to get back out on the road and finish visiting all the houses here in Santa Paula and figure out what we need here. Also, in about 3 weeks my family will be arriving here in El Salvador to spend Christmas in my site and then travel around the country a bit! I cannot WAIT for them to be here! While I could handle Thanksgiving alone in a strange country, it will definitely be nice to have my family here for the most magical time of the year! :) 

ready for xmas in el salvador :)

One character that I have not given nearly enough attention to on this blog recently is Manny. My malnourished, on the doorstep of death kitten has transformed into a rambunctious, gangly adolescent cat in my 3-week absence. He now spends his nights bounding around my bed, alternately attacking my toes, iPod, fingers, and face, instead of sleeping curled up in my arms. Yesterday I received a package from home that included some kitty toys, and he has officially turned into a psychopathic nut job, bouncing around my small bedroom chasing balls with bells in them and a hot pink mouse.  

my devil kitten trying to attack me through the mosquito net

PST2

So, for the last 2 weeks my entire training group has been in San Vicente for PST2 (Pre Service Training, take 2). For me, this was not a huge change, since I go to San V almost every week, but it has been great to all be together, and to finally learn the technical stuff we will need to be effective volunteers in our sites, such as how to write grants, make pinatas, and get eco-friendly stoves for our communities! 

For PST2, Peace Corps decided that I could not stay in Santa Paula, although it is only 20 minutes from San Vicente. Instead, they decided to move me to Apastepeque, aka my pueblo, which is 5 minutes from Santa Paula. So 2 Sundays ago I had to pack up my stuff, say goodbye to Manchita, and head 5 minutes down the road for 3 weeks of training. To get to Apastepeque, I decided to hitch a ride with the softball team which had ordered a pickup to take them to the tourny in Apast for the day. We all squeezed onto the pickup, with me and my luggage barely fitting, and headed to the field to watch the softball game. Santa Paula won (obviously) and instead of allowing me to walk from the field to my new host family house (about a 5 minute walk), they decided to drive me in the pickup. So we all loaded back into the pickup, me really not fitting this time, as we had acquired some new riders at the field, and set off in the alleged direction of my host family's house. We arrived shortly thereafter at a house in the town. Upon knocking on the door, we learned that a different Nina Rina, not my new host mom, lived in the house, and that this Rina had no idea who "Maestra Rina" was. So we set off aimlessly again, until luckily a member of my team spotted someone she knew on the road, and through a shouted conversation discovered where my new home was. So I was delivered to the door of my new host family by about 25 Salvadorans in the back of a pick up truck... what an arrival. 

Everything in Apastepeque has been good, and training has been very informative. This past week we went on an extended "field trip" which involved trips to San Salvador as well as Ahuachapan, which is the department in the far west corner of El Salvador. We spent a night at a beautiful hotel in the touristy town of Ataco, where we ate spinach lasagna, roast chicken and pancakes, and took a hike to an incredible waterfall where we got to swim and play. 

que chivo

the drive home...my San V volcano, aka Chichontepec

One sobering part of this week was my first firsthand experience with the violence of El Salvador. On Wednesday we were heading from Ahuachapan back into San Salvador when we hit a lot of traffic. Eventually, we passed the point of traffic, which was a man lying in the middle of the road with a bullet hole in his forehead, gasping for breath. He was barely alive and there was no one around him or helping him. Our car, like all the others, just drove past and left him there. I am well aware of the 15 murder/day statistic here in El Salvador, but for me seeing this up-close and personal was really shocking and sad. According to the older volunteers, the sight of dead bodies is something we'll become a little hardened to over time, but right now I think that all of us who were in the car are pretty shaken up by what we saw.

Anyway, back on another positive note...this week we have Spanish lessons to get us back in the swing of things, and then on Thursday we all head to the capital to spend Thanksgiving with Embassy host families! The families from the US Embassy open up their homes every year and host groups of PCVs so that we can eat turkey, gravy, and stuffing (and drink good wine, have hot showers, and use washing machines...) so that will be great! Then on Friday we have our swearing in party, which is a party for all volunteers to welcome us as the new group to El Sal. So this week should be busy, but very fun and filled with gringos! Back to Santa Paula next Sunday to get back to work!

Día de los Difuntos

Today, November 2, we celebrated here in El Salvador Día de los Difuntos (Day of the Deceased). This holiday is celebrated by visiting the graves of deceased family members to enflorar (which is not a real word, but basically means putting flowers on the grave) them. 

To give you a really clear idea of what this day is like, you first need a description of El Salvador cemeteries. When a person dies in El Sal, they are invariably buried. To mark their grave, there are 2 options: either a colorful above ground tomb, or a colorful cement cross. These grave markers are piled pretty tightly on top of one another, as there is not a lot of space in the cemeteries. On a regular day, an El Salvador graveyard is a pretty busy place. So when you take that cemetery, and add about 10 people per grave, laden with armfuls of flowers (real and plastic), along with vendors peddling their goods (fruit, water, candy, paint to touch up graves, plastic flowers) up and down the paths, you have a packed event. 

We traveled to 3 different cemeteries today - one in the caserío next to Santa Paula, one in the pueblo of Apastepeque, and one in the city of San Vicente, to enflorar various graves. The cemeteries got more and more elaborate, as well as more and more crowded as we moved from caserío to city, but one thing that was constant was the sense of celebration and duty. All day I kept thinking about what it would be like in the US to have a day like this (mainly because people were shocked that we don't have a day like this in the US). I don't think there is any way in hell that entire families would devote an entire day each year to visiting the graves of their various family members just to pay them memory. But here, it is done without question. Even the little kids who never met these dead relatives partake without complaint. I think that this is in part because death is more frequently a part of life here than it is in the US, because almost everyone has a sibling/cousin/child who died pretty young. Therefore, death is something that people are always aware of. This is pretty inextricably tied to the strong religious faith that everyone has here. People don't shrink away from talking about death or spending an entire day honoring their deceased relatives because people aren't as afraid of death here as they are at home. For example, on our ride home at the end of the day, my host aunt Dinora told me that she didn't like the idea of being cremated because she didn't want to show up in Purgatory burned. I guess if you were 100% sure that there was something coming after death, it wouldn't be so scary.

Host family at the grave of their father

host mom's father's grave 

vendors outside the cemetery

San Vicente cemetery

Stop. Hammock Time

new hammock chair

One of the best, and sometimes worst, things about PC is that you have tons of downtime. While being a volunteer is considered a 7 day a week job, we are only expected to do about 4 hours of work every day. That leaves 20 free. A lot of this time is occupied with other things, of course, especially when you are trying to get to know a community and a host family. But, there are still quite a few unoccupied hours every day. This free time coincides nicely with the Salvadoran tradition of having many hammocks in the house. Salvadorans string hammocks where Americans would have couches or lawn furniture. I suspect because they are cheaper, but also because it is so effing hot here that you don’t want to be snuggled into cushions. When you’re in a hammock you can still get nice breezes from all directions, and the gentle swaying can lull you to sleep in seconds.

When we were in La Palma a couple weekends ago for our volunteer conference, I bought a hammock chair. Good timing, because I have had plenty of hammock time lately, as it has been raining steadily across El Salvador for over a week now. The government has declared a state of emergency, and there are flash floods and mudslides going on. This means all schools and agencies are shut down and we PCVs cannot travel (and who would want to). Mudslides are a really scary natural disaster. With an earthquake you can get away from tall buildings, hurricanes usually give you enough warning to batten down the hatches, and volcanoes are just plain rare. But mudslides are frequent enough here, and if one is coming for you there is literally nothing you can do except stay inside and hope your house doesn’t get swept away. In November of 2009 there were devastating mudslides in San Vicente that killed many people and wiped out entire neighborhoods and towns. Luckily, Santa Paula is not in mudslide territory, but just thinking about it is scary.

On a happier note, due to this interminable rain, I have been spending a lot of time in the house just reading and lounging. Due to boredom, I sniffed out the kitten (who lives behind the refrigerator…not sure why) and have de facto adopted him (the family calls him my hijo, aka son). Every afternoon we hang out and nap together. He is a little freakish looking because his mom never feeds him and I think he is malnourished. He also has fleas. A little girl in my town has named him Manchita, which means "little stain" due to a white splotch on his back. not the cutest name, but it has stuck and it seems to suit him. He is a funny little guy and keeping me good company!

view of the volcano on my "commute" to school, when it isnt raining that is

no one likes the rain

malnourished, flea ridden kitten

Assorted Pics

Here are a couple pics that I haven't had a chance to post yet. The first 2 are of the outside of my house and the family compound I am living in. Below are some pictures I took today in the San Vicente market. Unfortunately, it's pretty dangerous to go flashing a camera around the market, so I could only grab a few pics in some of the less crowded areas. Some day I will try to get pics in the really packed alleys.

outside of my casita

host family compound

san v market

san v market

san v market

Settling In

I have now been in site for a little over a week. So far, things are going pretty well. Everyone here is really nice and welcoming, and the community seems to be very motivated and organized. The other day I spent 4 hours at a meeting at the school to plan for the next school year (which starts in January). Santa Paula’s school is trying to switch over to “tiempo pleno”, which is full day school like we have in America. The normal school here is 2 4-hour sessions, with kids either attending morning school or afternoon school. In tiempo pleno, the kids would have 8 hours with a lunch break and some vocational stuff (such as arts and crafts, cosmetology, or what have you). Santa Paula is one of 4 schools in the department of San Vicente that was chosen to do this program, so it’s pretty exciting!

I have started playing with the softball team. They are way better than me, but in general are very patient. The first game I played in was on Thursday, when we played a coed game against another team. San Vicente is the epicenter of gay and transsexual life in El Salvador. Apparently, the softball teams around here started playing coed games occasionally so that people from that community could play too. While the guys that played with our team were all apparently straight, there were a couple gay guys and one transsexual on the other team. What amazed me was that I got harassed more than them! In fact, everyone was very respectful to them during the game.

Other than my involvement in the softball team, I have been spending most of my time with my host family trying to get to know the community. I have spent some time in the school and some time with the Santa Paula health promoter, who will hopefully be able to help me figure out some health related stuff to do in the community.

There is still a ton for me to do to get settled into this community (aka the dreaded house visits where you just sit staring at the host for an hour+), but in general things seem to be going smoothly.

I've included a panamoric set of pictures of my room, because I assume some of you are curious! I will put up more of my site in general when I have a chance to take some!

view from outside my window



Santa Paula

So I have officially been in my site, Santa Paula, since Saturday. Last Friday we moved out of our training communities and into a hotel in San Vicente. Early early Saturday morning we all headed into San Salvador to a hotel for our “Counterpart Day”, which is when 2 counterparts/community guides from each community come and we get to meet them and have a mini conference type thing. Only 1 of my counteparts came, Don Rodil, the director of the school in Santa Paula. As I am the 4^th volunteer to come to Santa Paula he really knows the ropes. Thank goodness! After a pretty boring morning of meetings we headed out to the community. Luckily, PC offered to drop most of my baggage off in Santa Paula for me (since I’m so close to the office) so Don Rodil and I only had to travel with my computer bag and a mini suitcase (in case PC didn’t drop my luggage off on time).  Don Rodil and I boarded a city bus and ended up at one of the bus terminals in San Sal. This is where my adventure began. As we are being bombarded with taxistas offering us rides, Don Rodil somehow figures out that the bus pulling out of the station is going to pass by Santa Paula. The cobrador (man who collects money on the bus), grabs my suitcase out of Don Rodil’s hands and starts chasing the bus, banging on it for them to stop. As it is a coach bus, he then opens the under compartment and tosses my suitcase in, amongst some leaking cans of gas. The bus starts to pull away, so I nimbly (or not so nimbly with laptop bag and mosquito net in arms) leap onto the bus and secure a window seat. As we are pulling out of the station, Don Rodil says, “It’s good that you have a window seat.” “Why?” I ask innocently. “So you can see if anyone tries to steal your bag.” Oh…great. The next hour was passed in an interesting state that varied between sheer exhaustion and constant vigilance. But, luckily, no one stole my bag and I arrived in Santa Paula with all of my luggage accounted for.

These past couple of days have been a whirlwind. My arrival is overlapping with Alayna’s departure from Santa Paula, so she is introducing me to everyone while saying goodbye to them. I imagine it is really hard for her having me come in as she is having to say goodbye to her home. However, all in all I am thrilled with the parts of the community I have gotten to know. There is a vibrant women’s softball team that I have tentatively (pending ability) been invited to join. ON Saturday we watched a friendly game, and then on Sunday we traveled to the pueblo of Apastepeque to watch the team in an all-municipality tournament. Today I went to the escuela to meet the teachers. There are 12, including Don Rodil, and everyone seems really nice and committed to their job. Unfortunately, last night someone broke into the school (which is right on the Panamerican Highway) and stole a photocopier and all of the food from the snackbar. The community itself is safe, but its proximity to the highway makes the school an easy target I guess.

As for living situation, I am living with a very nice host family. I have my own room that is in a little house separated from the family’s main house. The bathroom, bathing area, water, and kitchen are all in the main house. My host mom is an amazing cook, which makes me very happy! At the moment I am just trying to make my room as homey as possible for the next 2 years. This means buying some drawers for my clothes, hanging pictures from home, and what have you. Yesterday I spent 2 hours in the San Vicente market looking for various furnishings. The only thing I could not find anywhere was a lamp! Looks like I’ll be using flashlights till I can get to San Sal. A cat at my house had kittens about a week ago, and one of these has already been offered to me. Yippee!

Anyway, I will be able to post more once I have had more time to settle in and process everything that is going on, but in general all is good and exciting here!

Swearing In

Today we had our swearing in ceremony (or juramentacion) to become real live Peace Corps Volunteers. This was exciting, as these past 2 months we have just been "trainees" and not actual volunteers. The event took place in a hotel in San Vicente and the US ambassador came to give us all of our diplomas. The whole event was in Spanish, except for our oath (same oath the President takes, but sub "Peace Corps Volunteer" for "President of the United States"...pretty cool). All of our host families came, and after the ceremony we had a mini reception with cake and coffee and such. It was a nice close to training.

Tomorrow is El Salvador's Independence Day, which means no training or work. I will be spending the entire day packing up, because on Friday we move out of our host family homes! Saturday we head to San Sal to meet our site "counterparts" (community leaders who have agreed to show us around the first couple months), and then we head to our sites! Wooo!

getting my diploma from the ambassador

the entire training group, finally volunteers!

ashley and i and our host parents

Site Assignment Day!!

These last couple of weeks of training have been incredibly busy. Every day we go to San Vicente for lectures and etc. But this Thursday was the most important day of all, because it was Site Assignment Day!! To find out our sites, PC played a mean game with us. We were divided up into 2 teams and played Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Every person who got a question right got to pick a numbered star off the board, and read the back of that star, revealing a person’s name and where they were going. We then had to come up and place our stars on the huge map of El Salvador that covers one wall of our training room. I found out my site third. My site is actually really close to where we are right now – I will be in a caserio (tiny rural neighborhood) of Apastepeque, which is a pueblo like Tecoluca, but about an hour north. I’ll be about 30 minutes from San Vicente by pickup. My site is named Santa Paula; it has 425 people and a school of 220 kids. It is rural and located near the Pan-American Highway, so travel will be very easy. I am replacing a current volunteer named Alayna, who will be in the site for a couple of weeks to help transition me. 

At first I was a little bummed that my site is so close to the city and the training center. Now, however, I am very happy. I like the idea of being close to the city and the PC office if I ever need anything, and I really like the atmosphere of the city of San Vicente. It will be great to be able to get away to the city if I ever need to, even just for the day. 

Anyway, I have had a stomach infection of some sort, and I am feeling out of it, so this is the end of my post. But here is the wikipedia link to my municipality and some pics of our stars! 

Apastepeque Wikipedia

before the big event

me!!

All the assignments - i'm the blue star smack in the middle

Pupusas

My favorite food here is still pupusas. Last week, our Spanish maestra taught us how to make them. She sent me the recipe, which I translated into English and am posting here along with some instructional pictures!

Pupusas

·      Masa de maiz (corn flour, can be bought at the supermarket I think)

·      Water

·      Cheese

o   Here they buy 2 types of cheese – really soft and bland queso fresco and really hard and sharp queso duro (shredded), and then mix them together with their hands till they are completely blended. This way the cheese is soft, but has the sharp flavor of the hard cheese. In the US, the best comparison would probably be to buy mozzarella cheese and then kneed in some shaved parmesan

o   Also, here people often add to their queso chopped loroco (the national flower - its buds are a common seasoning). Loroco barely has any flavor so leaving it out will not harm the taste of the finished product.

·      Filling

o   Most common filling here is fried pork skin and refried beans. Pork skin is not my thing, so I prefer to leave it out and just use refried beans. You can buy refried beans, or make them yourself! (If you buy the refried beans, make sure you heat them up a little on the stove with some oil so that they are warm and malleable when you start forming the pupusas)

·      Vegetable oil

Mixing cheeses (Kara is mixing dough in the background)

Pupusa ingredients [top left: dough, botton left: cheese; top right: loroco; bottom right: beans]

Directions

·      Mix 2 cups of masa and 1.5 cups of water. Mix until a soft dough is formed. Wet hands, and form a small ball of dough (a little bigger than a golf ball). Poke a hole in the dough, and add a little bit of cheese and a little of beans. Re-roll into a ball, with the filling in the middle. Flatten the ball into a fat tortilla.

o   The only thing I can compare making pupusas to is how Mio makes rice balls. Therefore, as you can imagine it is really really hard for me (since I still haven’t mastered rice balls after 22 years).

Making the pupusas

·      Heat a little vegetable oil in a fry pan over medium high heat. Place pupusas in fry pan and cook, flipping occasionally. Cook until browned and cheese inside appears to be slightly bubbling

Cooking our pupusas. They usually don't look this messy

Salsa Roja

·      Large (roma) tomatoes

·      Green pepper, chopped (optional)

·      Vegetable oil

·      Onion, chopped

·      Garlic cloves, chopped

·      Cilantro

·      Salt (as needed)

·      Hot pepper such as jalapenos (optional)

Amounts will vary depending on how much salsa you’re making

Directions:

·      Blanch tomatoes in boiling water, remove and place in bowl. Remove skin of tomatoes; blend (in blender or food processor) with chopped pepper, cilantro, hot pepper (if using – people here usually don’t use it, but I prefer it!).

·      In saucepan, heat oil and cook onion and garlic till slightly brown. Add tomato mixture and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add water and salt as necessary

·      [Salsa here is very liquidy (resembles tomato soup) and is served hot over the pupusas] 

Tomatoes and peppers in the blender

salsa and beans on the stove

Curtido

·      Shredded cabbage (not too fine)

·      Sliced onion (not chopped)

·      Sliced carrot

·      Green beans (cut in half)

·      Beetroot (optional)

·      Cauliflower, cut into small pieces

·      Vinegar

·      Water

·      Oregano (optional)

Directions

·      Mix all ingredients together (should be ¾ vinegar, ¼ water) in a big bowl, put in the fridge. You should have about equal parts all veggies, although more cabbage than anything else. Not sure on exact measurements, but should kind of look like coleslaw.  Here, they use a vinegar made of fruit, but I don’t think it matters what kind you use as long as there is no specific flavor to it

Veggies for salsa and curtido

Curtido   

Eating

Salvadorans usually peel their pupusa in half (so they have 2 round tortillas with filling on top) and then put curtido and salsa on top of these halves, tear them into chunks and eat with their fingers. I prefer to tear my entire pupusa into chunks (so the filling remains in the middle) and put curtido and salsa on top and eat it all with my fingers. This way, I am able to keep molten cheese from sticking to my fingers and burning me (most of the time).

[Note: pupusas are NEVER eaten with a fork. That would be sacrilegious]

Finished product!