September
has been a very busy month and, as I say at the close of every month, I can’t
believe it’s already over. However, the end of September is actually kind of
significant for me because in September we had 2 pretty big milestones: the
celebration of the independence of El Salvador (and all of Central America)
from Spain, and our 1 year anniversary as PCVs.
First,
I’ll tell ya a little about Independence Day down here. As in the US,
Independence Day is a pretty big deal. One advantage (or maybe disadvantage…I’m
not sure) that El Sal has to us is that theirs falls during the school year, so
they get to celebrate it in the school. More than anything, they do this
through national pride parades. My school started preparing for their parade in
July, when the school band began practicing a couple of times a week. Don Mario
is a very skilled musician and has created a pretty strong music program in our
school, so even though it’s small, our school band has a pretty good reputation
and is in high demand. Therefore, while a normal school will have 1
parade/celebration for Independence Day, our school band ended up playing in 3
separate parades. On Thursday, the 13th, they played in the Gotera
Kindergarten Parade. On Friday, the 14th, they played in the parade
in my community, and on Saturday, the 15th (actual Independence Day)
they played in the Gotera parade.
My
favorite of the celebrations was the parade in the community on Friday. All
week, the school was abuzz with preparations for the celebration. Each day,
different groups of kids would put on different cultural performances, all in
competition to decide who would get to perform on Friday. And Friday, we all
got up very early and met at the end of my street (about a mile away from my
school). The band, the dancing girls, the color guard and about 75% of the rest
of the students dressed in traditional Salvadoran clothing (long flowy skirts
for girls and loose cotton tunics for boys), all arranged themselves in
marching order and we proceeded to parade from my house all the way down to the
school. All community members came out to watch the parade go by and it was
really just a great community bonding-esque event. There were some slight
mishaps, such as running out of water less than halfway through the walk, and
holding up the bus on its normal route for about an hour, but in the end,
everyone arrived at the school safely and in 1 piece.
marching through the center of town
traditional salvadoran dancers
causing a traffic jam with the bus
Then,
once we got to the school was time for the ceremony. This involved singing the
national anthem, reciting the pledge of allegiance (which is about 50 times
longer than America’s and very hard to say), and then the best performances
from the preceding week doing their acts for the audience. I served as Master
of Ceremonies for this event, which was fun and not as terrifying as I had
anticipated. A lot of people showed up, lots of cute little kids did cute
little dances, and it was a fun day.
The
parades in Gotera were nice, too. The kindergarten parade was great because,
aside from the bands, all of the groups marching were solely kindergarteners,
so it was really really cute. And the parade on the 15th was nice
because it was all of the best bands in the area, so there was some pretty good
music, although it was an absolute madhouse since so many people turned out to
see it.
master of ceremonies
the interminable pledge of allegiance
some very cute "indio" dancers
On
September 17 Tricia, Jamie, Kara, Andrew, Tyler, and I completed our first year
as PCVs. This means we also entered into our final lap as PCVs, since the
assignment is for 24 months. This past weekend, in celebration of this
momentous occasion, we headed out west as a group to party.
First,
we headed out to Ataco, one of the cute, touristy, artisanal towns on the Route
of Flowers in the department of Ahuachapán. I visited Ataco when my family was
visiting last Christmas, but it is a beautiful, fun, funky little town and I
was very happy to get back. We bought some souvenirs, ate goat cheese and
eggplant pizza, drank amazing coffee, and went to a restaurant called the
Portland Grill that had real cocktails (collective intake of breath), and had an
all around great time. The next day, after Andrew and I talked each other into
some ill-advised henna tattoos from the man on the corner of the park and ate
chocolate covered bananas the size of my forearm, we all packed up our stuff
and headed south to Tacuba to hike EL Imposible .
the ladies (jamie, kara, myself and tricia)
andrew and i embrace our inner gangster
hanging out in downtown ataco (andrew´s shirt is off so his tattoo dries, not just for fun...)
Tacuba is a little town on the edge of the biggest
national park in El Salvador, El Imposible. On Sunday, we went on a 6-hour
waterfall hike through El Imposible. The hike was incredible – we basically
wound our way down a river, jumping off at various points (waterfalls) into the
freezing cold water. The jumps were slightly terrifying at times, but it was
awesome to be in pristine nature and surrounded by such beauty, and we all had
a really fun time. The evening was spent horizontal, playing card games and
planning our next group trip (Nicaragua, baby!)
Now I’m
back in site, experiencing the post vacation blues. But these upcoming weeks
are super busy, and I’m sure we’ll manage to squeeze in some fun excursions and
activities amongst all the work.
view of some volcanoes in Guatemala
KOWABUNGAAAA
wet & freezing, but pretty happy
the original slip and slide
the whole gang: tricia, tyler, me, kara, andrew, and jamie
As those of you who read my blog semi-loyally may know, getting a new water tank is something I've been trying to help my community with basically since my arrival here in February. We've been back and forth with various NGOs, trying to find funding for a new water tank so that the whole community can receive potable water directly to their home.
A couple of weeks ago, the water committee informed me that they had gotten approximately 1/2 of all the materials they would need to build a new water tank donated by a branch of the Salvadoran government. This was great news, since finding sufficient funding for all the materials in one place was pretty daunting. Therefore, I started looking around for an NGO or some other organization that would be able to donate the rest of the funds (around $1000) so that we can complete the water project.
Well, this morning the committee broke ground on construction of their new water tank, and last night I received notice from an American NGO called Water Charity that they are going to support the other half of my water project!! While Water Charity is going to send me the funds immediately so that the committee can finish their construction project all at once, I need to get down on my knees and beg that all of you consider donating to this project (as they will need to re-stock their funds after sending me the money)!! Check out the website, read about the project, forward it to your family and friends, whatever you can do! Seriously every little bit counts, and I will be VERY appreciative. :)
I’ve
realized that my last blog post (before the trip home) was kind of negative
about progress in site, so I would like to give a general update on what’s
going on here in Sunsulaca.
First of
all, we got the wall repaired (very quickly and for free!!) and have started
painting all over it. My idea originally was to have the wall broken up into 3
sections and to paint a map in each section: the world, El Salvador, and
Morazan. The owner of the wall (it belongs to the tienda next to the school) is
also the one who repaired it for us. Mid-repair, he decided he would like to
add a window to his store, effectively poking a hole in the middle of my
theoretical Morazan map. Never fear, we re-planned and things are moving
smoothly. The kids have gotten a little paint-happy and have added all sorts of
adornments to our map project. I maintain power over the world map, which I
have a Peace Corps guide for and is a little tricky, but other than that the
kids have free reign. It should be an interesting finished product, but they
are enjoying themselves immensely and are very proud of the work they’re doing.
One thing I will say…they traced the map of the world while I was home in the
US, and when I got back I noticed that they had forgotten El Salvador…Honduras
was just extra fat. Sad day.
This
past Saturday was graduation for the English class that I’ve been giving to
English teachers in Gotera. All in all, I did not like teaching English. I
don’t think I’m a very good teacher (lacking a general sense of patience and
compassion for people who don’t understand things after hearing them once), and
so to teach my native language was especially challenging. However, we
graduated 21 students on Saturday and all of them improved their level of
English to some degree…so I was happy. They also were very appreciative of all
that I did for the course and presented me with a sweet gift ( a giant beach
towel with a map of El Sal on it) and took us (myself, my co-teacher, and my
PCV friends who came to the graduation for moral support) all out to a free
lunch! Woo hoo.
Other
than English and map painting, my time has been divided between environmental
education classes for the 5th and 6th graders at the
school and working with the water committee in my town to try to get a new
water tank (see post below for more details about both of those projects).
All in
all, things are going pretty well here. I’m still finding time to do fun and
cool things, too. Sunday I went up to Corinto, which is Tricia’s pueblo, for a
Festival de Maiz (Corn Festival). Every municipality has a corn festival during
the harvest, so I wanted to see one before my time here ended. All in all, it
wasn’t really that cool. Basically tons of stands selling pupusas and other
corn food items. However, in typical Salvadoran fiesta tradition, they elected
a “reina” (queen) of the festival. Since this festival was corn based, all the
candidates made dresses and accessories purely of corn…it was pretty cool, and
maybe Hallowen costume inspiration…stay tuned.
some students painting
me painting
mesa de honor (table of honor) at english graduation
When I
was home, a request I received from a lot of people was “describe your typical
day down there”. This usually resulted in me huffing air loudly from my
nostrils or giving an indignant “ha!”
Why, you
might ask? Having someone describe their typical day is not like asking them to
solve a Rubik’s cube in under 10 minutes. Nor is it brain surgery. Well, for
me, it may as well be. While there are certain staples to my days (eating
tortillas, lying in a hammock, sweating profusely), each day is as unique as
the snowflakes that are too terrified to show their faces down here. But, for
kicks, I’m gonna describe for all of you a very atypical day – Thursday.
Wednesday night I got home from San Vicente where I had a meeting with Peace Corps. I came back laden with goodies – pan dulce from my favorite San V bakery, toothbrushes that an NGO had donated to me and I had promptly forgotten at a friend’s house for months, and 2 bags full of worms…yes, worms.
This past month I started a series of environmental education lectures for the 5th and 6th graders at my school. Peace Corps El Salvador has an awesome book filled with environment activities for kids and I am slowly working my way through that book with one a week. And what did I do this week? WORMS!!! What do worms have to do with the environment (besides, duh, being alive and part of the environment)? Well, worms, and more specifically worm excrements, are an excellent fertilizer and you can pretty easily set up a small worm “nursery” that produces lots of this fertilizer. For a country that is heavily agrarian, but short on fertile land, this is therefore very relevant. Plus, it sounded fun to get dirty with some creepy crawlers with a bunch of kids.
So let me get back to describing my day.
Thursday morning I was up with the sun. My host family is convinced that cows only poop in the morning. And cow poop is the best worm food. Ergo, we had to go retrieve the cow poop while it was still hot (I mean literally…it was steaming). So at 5:30 AM Lucia, Gerardo and I set out from the house with some plastic bags and a shovel and spent an hour literally following around a herd of our neighbor’s cows, scooping up the freshest, juiciest pies for our wormy buddies.
After rushing home and taking a shower I was off to a meeting in Gotera with the community water committee. They finally found an organization willing to donate the majority of the materials we’ll need to build a new water tank, but they wanted me to come along to meet the people and see what else we may need to finish the project. Upon our arrival at the “meeting”, I realized quickly that this was not actually a meeting, but rather a retrieval of some of our donated materials. Namely, 2000 bricks. Unwilling to be branded “delicate”, “feminine”, or any of the other kiss of death words for female PCVs, I quickly hoisted myself into the back of the truck and started loading bricks with the men. An hour in my fingers were scraped and bleeding, but we didn’t stop till the truck was full. Covered in red dust and exhausted I headed back to my community to visit the school and have lunch with the teachers.
An hour later I was back on the road with the water committee, headed to yet another “meeting”, but this time in Cacaopera. What were we actually doing this time? Retrieving 100 lb bags of cement for the water tank. Yet again, I got in there with the boys, hauling and loading the bags of cement onto the back of the truck. As we loaded the last bag, one of the guys turned to me and in perfect English said, “I need a beer”. Amen. We did finally have our meeting; by the way, so while I’m not positive, I’m pretty sure the committee didn’t lure me into all these trips just to get some free labor out of me.
I headed back to my house that afternoon for some R&R…building a worm palace and transplanting my new friends. My host dad and I quickly constructed a worm heaven on earth – a tomato crate lined with black plastic, then filled with fresh manure and worms. Once we had the worms tucked away snugly in their home, we moved on to the next problem: keeping away the critters. Ants, chickens, and pretty much all other living creatures in El Salvador will jump at the chance to eat some nice juicy worms if the opportunity presents itself, so we needed to find a way to keep these suckers safe. Genius conclusion: we hung the box from the roof of the tortilla hut. Now, swinging gently in the afternoon breeze we have a new ornament, which also serves as an odor-enhancer and a conversation starter. I replicated this project at the school the next day, much to the delight of the 10 and 11-year-old boys who bellied up to the box and got manure up to their elbows in their glee at playing with worms.
That night I showered off brick dust and cement dust, desiccated worms, and cow poop, and rolled into bed around 6:30 PM to sleep a solid 11 hours. I still can’t lift anything heavier than a cell phone thanks to my brick/cement workout and my fingers are still scabbed and essentially useless, and my host sister swears she can still smell cow poop on me even though I’ve showered about 5 times since then, but such is life in Peace Corps, I guess.
So…was that a “typical” day for me down here in El Salvador. In a word – yes. It was typical for me in the sense that every day down here is so spectacularly atypical. Will I ever muck around in fresh cow poop before dawn so that my worms don’t go hungry? Maybe. Haul cement? I hope not. But, I still can’t say that that was my weirdest day in Peace Corps to date. And I’m sure there will be weirder days in the future. So no, I can’t describe my typical day for you. But I can give you some weird stories that I find pretty amusing.
