Updates

We finally heard back from Peace Corps Washington about the security review here in El Salvador. In an email sent to all PCVs it was stated: "The team concluded that Peace Corps can continue operations in El Salvador given the current safety and security environment if aggressive risk mitigation measures are taken and enforced."


So what are these "aggressive risk mitigation measures" you ask? Well, first things first, we will never be allowed to travel on buses that cross departments. Therefore, from now on I can only take buses within Morazan. Seeing as El Salvador is the size of Massachusetts, and there are 14 departments, this means that our travel on public transportation is pretty severely limited. For the time being, PC is running a shuttle Monday, Wednesday, Friday every week from each major city to the capital, so that volunteers can get to the capital if they have some official business there, or to transfer to another shuttle and go somewhere else in the country (to visit another PCV, or for personal travel, or whatever). 


Also, all volunteers who are living in determined "unsafe" areas and departments will be relocated. Luckily, most people are safe. All volunteers from San Vicente are being moved, as well as the other southern departments (La Paz, La Libertad, Sonsonate). But there are so few volunteers in those areas it ends up only being 3 or 4 people needing site changes. In the future PC will only be placing volunteers in the "northern corridor" of El Salvador, which is basically northern La Union, Morazan, Chalatenango, and Santa Ana. 


And lastly, the San Salvador office is being closed and moved and the training center is being closed and moved from San Vicente. This is a huge blow to PCVs and to staff. First of all, San Salvador is the only large, modern city in El Salvador. To move the office will mean moving it basically to a pueblo somewhere else. For staff, this is awful. Almost all of PC staff lives in San Salvador and do not want to have to commute hours away from the city for work every day. Rumors have been circulating that about 50% of staff will probably choose to leave when the office is moved (sometime in the next 6 months). 


There are still a lot of unanswered questions and uncertainties, but this is the basic gist of how things will be proceeding. Unfortunately, all of these changes have led to a lot of PCVs making the decision to opt for early Close Of Service (COS). The last possible date to take advantage of the early COS option is April 13, so people are starting to flow out of the country fairly quickly. Some of my best friends are leaving, which is very sad and hard to cope with. PC estimates that there will be about 20 volunteers left at the end of April. When we got here there were 140. My plan is to stay and ride it out, though. These changes won't really affect my day-to-day life, only when I choose to leave Morazan, which is about once a month. The biggest difference for me will be fewer PCVs to talk to on the phone...which is sad but something I can deal with. 


So this week we are heading to Tunco to do a despedida for Ashley and Cory, 2 of my friends who have decided to leave. It will be very sad to see them go, but it is also going to be awesome to get together with all of my friends after almost 2 full months of house arrest! I can't wait to get on the beach and enjoy the sun, sand, ceviche, and salvadoran beer! 

Hello all,

It's been pointed out to me that it's been quite a while since my last blog update. I was kind of waiting for a safety and security update before doing my next blog post, but since god knows when we will get that information I may as well do a post now about what I've been up to in the meantime. So here goes...

Things have been going really well over here in Sunsulaca. I miss my host family in Santa Paula still, but this seems to be a community that needs a PCV more and there are more obvious projects to get involved in. Integration has been smoother here, too, probably because it is the second time around. I really like everyone I've been meeting and there are lots of people here who want to collaborate.

From the beginning, somethign I've been doing is "art" classes in my house. There are tons of little kids in my neighborhood, and apparently over vacation Morgan was teaching art twice a week to all the kids that wanted to come. When school started back up all the kids started asking me when I was going to teach art. I hadn't planned on doing it, but now we do once a week informal "art" classes together. A lot of the time we just sit on the floor and draw, but some of our cooler projects have been water colors, valentines, and paper bead necklaces. The kids are sweet anad love to get together, the only problem being that every time they see me in my house now they come in thinking it means painting time. We're gonna have to work on those boundary issues

watercolor class

some kids and their artwork

paper bead necklaces!

Another thign I've started is English classes, both in my house and at the school. I've been hesitant to teach English, mainly because I have zero interest in it. But everyone in the community has asked for it, and seeing as I am the only one who speaks it it seems kind of rude to not comply with their requests. Also, Peace Corps provides us with lesson plans, so it is minimal effort and big rewards. The classes are going well and people are really enthusiastic, although for me it is really frustrating (aka, I don't know why you need to put "do" in a question, you JUST DO DAMNIT!)

The past few weeks, my school director Don Mario, a teacher Nina Graciela, and I have been going to Gotera to receive training on how to form a volunteerism-based youth group. This Wednesday we had our first activity with our new youth group - a trash campaign at the nearby river, Rio Torola. We got 24 kids to come and we spent a couple hours picking up trash all along the river. It was awesome! I was very happy with how many kids came and their commitment to actually picking up trash and not just messing around. We are going to continue with weekly meetings and hopefully participation will remain high.

Rio Torola

girls getting trash

some of the group

The last "project" that I've been working on is getting a new water tank for our community. A lot of people in our community get water from a tiny, borrowed tank that doesn't work very well. The rest don't get water at all, because the tank is not capable of pumping to that many houses. Therefore, the water committee here in town wants to get a new tank system, so that everyone can have water. There is a Salvadoran NGO that was already in contact with members of the community via the former PCV here, and I have been facilitating communication between them. We turned in a grant a couple of weeks ago, and it seems that the NGO is very interested in working with us, so hopefully soon we will have a new water tank (with a water treating system) pumping potable water to all the houses in the community!

The rest of my days are taken up swinging in my hammock, eating tortillas and beans, wandering around the community, and visiting with Tricia (who lives very close and is easy to visit). Last week her host family took us down to Playa Cuco for a day trip. It was awesome!! So beautiful and really fun to get down to the ocean for a day.

That's all for now. I'll update as soon as we get more news from PC/Washington, or as soon as something cool happens!