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 :)