Wrapping Up

So, I know I didn’t really get to finish off the last entry… but let’s just say that we are very happy with our site, and that we learned a lot about how PC volunteers can be an asset even without really doing anything. We are strangely powerful just as an outside force.

Right now we are starting to pack up to prepare for leaving our families homes, and heading to San Salvador later in the week for swearing in. Yesterday was our Family Fiesta, it is a gathering to say thanks to all of the families who have hosted the volunteers. Over all the mood is a mix of sad and excited. Sad to be leaving our families soon, and our fellow trainees as well, but excited to finally have training over with and to be heading out to our new homes for the next two years.

This afternoon as a final project, and to help say goodbye, the other two trainees in our community along with Katie and I are going to show movies on a big screen. It now seems like it will all come together, but we’ll see in a few hours. We were able to borrow a projector (think powerpoint consultant types) a computer and some DVDs. That was the start of the idea… then you need a place, so we got the church. Well, that meant that one night we had to head down to visit the Padre to get our films approved. We are showing Cars, and Bend it Like Beckham… the Padre had seen Cars, so he thought that was great, I think he just trusted us on Bend it Like Beckham. That was a lot of the worry, he had just heard that some folks from the States were going to show movies in his church, and people from the States have different standards of decency. Once he met us, I think he decided to trust us. That is a big thing down here, we talk about confianza all the time, but it’s true, it is vital to meet and spend some time talking to the people you want to work with.

Other small hurdles are trying to pop popcorn for the movie, have some other foods available, collecting admission ect… Actually quite a few logistics for a simple idea. All of the money we make (which will not be a ton), we are donating to repairing or replacing the water pump for the five nearby communities including ours. Right now the pump they have is inadequate for the number of houses, and many days the communities don’t have any water. Donating money to something when the concept of transparent accounting doesn’t exist could be it’s own separate blog entry… but for now we are just trying to say goodbye and thanks, and maybe give a new idea for fund-raising.

So, the coming week is busy with things like orientation, counterpart day, and finally swearing in…. with the inevitable swearing in party afterwards for all of the volunteers, a good time to meet all of the others working in the county. On Friday we will head up to the site and start figuring things out from there. This all means that this is probably the last blog entry for a week or two… I could be wrong, and I may have time to just type one up on the fly at an internet café, but don’t expect it. Cheers!

The Site Visit

Three small words, but it is an incredibly weird and important moment in your Peace Corps experience. After all, this is your first time being in the place that someone else has picked out for you to be for the next two years of your life. It was a roller coaster of emotions, probably a bit like a microcosm of our next two years.

The first thing we did was head out early on Sunday to get up to La Palma (the biggest “city” near our site) by noon. There was an organic product fair in the central park and we were meeting up with the volunteer who helped put it together. It was a chance to meet a lot of the important people in our area, which we did. A quick aside that applies to the whole weekend is that names in foreign countries, in a foreign language really do make it that much hard to remember anyone’s correct name. Sure sometimes you’ll get the stray Carlos, or Pablo… but you also get lots of Edilberto Isreal, or Ever Fernando. Then the added complication of Spanish names is whether in normal conversation you’ll use the first or the second name… or maybe even a diminutive. All of which boils down to me meeting a ton of important people whose name I’ll never remember.

None the less, we met lots of people at the fair and all of them were very excited to meet us, and were very glad that we were coming to help. The next morning we headed up the road to San Ignacio which is the town whose Municipio we are in. It is also where we switch buses to the one that will take us the rest of the way to our site. It was here that we met up with my counterpart. He is the head of the communities “association”. At some point I’ll try to write about the political structure, but for now, just know that he has a type of political power within my community. He is really a great guy, seems very motivated and able to think about the future. His Spanish is clear, and I can understand him very well, which is nice… he probably can’t say the same of me.

Rather than giving a blow by blow, which would be tedious (the days were packed), I’ll try to give an overview that focuses on feelings. I realize now why we have had to integrate into so many different families and communities during our time here. If we had not had that practice, the whole of site visit would have been that much more intimidating. The whole community is fantastic, and scary. The people are amazing, and they were all more nervous meeting us, then us meeting them. They have never had a volunteer at this site before, so it was all very new. The idea of “pena” is a big deal here… it can translate into embarrassment, or timidity, but it is bigger and more cultural than any of that. We had to overcome a lot of “pena” during this time. Luckily Katie’s counterpart is the Director of the school. So, on the second full day that we were there, we got to participate in a graduation ceremony. I must say that we gave fine speeches! Ours were short at least, but they all listened, and even applauded. This helped with the “pena”, after our speech, people were more wiling to start short conversations with us.

Although the vast majority of our moments were how great the whole thing is, we were not without our moments of “oh my god, this is a crazy thing to try to do and the people are expecting so much of us, and we can’t even really talk to them! “ Within moments of each other we’d feel like, “wow this is why we wanted to do this,” followed almost immediately by “what are we doing here?”

This is cut a bit short cause I have things to do.... I'll get more out later, and hopefully I'll figure out how to get the photos to load up as well. Cheers!

And the Winner is….

Departamento: Chalatenango Municipio: San Ignacio Cantón: El Centro

This will be our new home for the next two years. To quote the information initially provided to us by the Peace Corps… “In the chilly mountains of Chalate there is a farming group that needs a lot of help to consolidate projects they have started and provide additional direction. They are working on community organization, organic vegetables, and lombriculture. They have a lot of great agroforestry ideas and are really excited for you to come.”

That’s right, we come down here to the tropics and they send us up into the pines and cypresses at 6,000 to 7,000 feet! Really though, everyone has told us how beautiful it is. It is quite similar to where I went for immersion days and where Katie went for FBT. There will be lots of flowers, including a ton of orchids. I’m not sure if it would actually be classified as a cloud forest, but it will be quite similar to that habitat. I’ll be able to say a lot more after next week, when Katie and I have spent four days there meeting the community, our counterparts, and looking for a place to live.

Katie will be working with a small school (240 kids in K through 9th) in the canton. Officially, Katie is attached to the school because she is environmental education, and I am attached to the community group because I’m agroforestry. Actually though everyone realizes that we will both be working with all of the different groups. The school director (aka principal) sounds very motivated. He attended a meeting with the PC representatives to request that he also get a volunteer. He has seen what a nearby volunteer has been able to accomplish and really hoped to get his school one as well. It is probably this action that changed our site into a good one for a married couple.

I have been having troubles getting the pictures to load properly into blogger, so maybe this is accompanied by a photo of us pointing to our stars on the big map at the training center, and maybe not. If not, you can pull out your handy map of El Salvador and look almost straight to the north of San Salvador, all the way to the Honduran border… there is the highest point in ES called Cerro El Pital (2,700 + meters). We are a couple of km to the east of that.

On a sad note our shower pig left us today to become chicharones. I had just finished giving him a scratch between the ears when the person came to collect him… Our host family was raising him for another who would sell him for the meat. So, even though Carmen took good care of him, she wasn’t upset at his going because she made some good money from him.

Field Based Training --Katie

Fue bien! Bien alegre! So I went to a volunteers site very close to Guatemala. Our fearless leader 4X4 us into the site up, up, and up crossing rivers as we went. The views were amazing and of course that meant a lot of walking. We walked an hour to one of her two schools where we taught English and of course that was just the tip of the walking we did during the 4 days. In the mornings we walked straight up15 minutes just get to the main street of the canton.

While I was there we helped teach two English classes about fruit and vegetables one with children and one with adults. We helped teach a lumbriculture class and after the class we made smors they were a big hit with the locals and us. We put on a recycling class were we made homemade paper out of old newspapers. Also we took a group of kids out on a trash detail and had them separate it all afterwards and then gave them sugar cookies we made the night before for their efforts.

Attended a charla on proper pruning of fruit trees and learned how to make a bamboo drip system, and he showed us his fields with soil conservation techniques. We checked out a rabbit project. Asked about the cheeses they make and how and to top it off we milked a cow. Then we went to a chicken farm….. that was interesting. For fun we took a biodiversity hike to a waterfall and a very cool large rock for an amazing view with some of her community.

To get to that amazing view from the rock we basically walked in trench that was overgrown with vegetation… and I saw some of the strangest insects I have ever seen in my life. One landed on my back unkown to me but another aspirante said hold up you have a friend and I told him I did not want to know…. ignorance is bliss. During the hike the dogs were always keeping their eyes on us running from one end of the party to the other and in a trench with overgrown vegetation this often meant they squeezed passed you when you needed your balance the most. It was very sweet of them to keep track of us and all but……. Vale la pena! I really did enjoy all of it the flowers, the strange insects, the hike, the view todo! Ok maybe not the plants that attacked me but everything else.

We would be very lucky to get a site like hers. Her community is highly motivated and participatory. The community and class sizes are small and I enjoyed these aspects very much and I enjoyed the fact the exercise is built in to your day no need to make time it just is!

Of Quinceañeras and Difuntos

A couple of different types of festivities over the last few weeks. The first was right after we returned from our Field Based Training days. We had watched them practice for several Saturdays, but the day of the Quinceañera had finally arrived. This is something that I can most closely relate to a Debutant type event. When a girl is going to turn fifteen here in El Salvador. She picks an equal number of boys and girls to be her attendants for her party. I think the number should be fourteen but I’m not positive. These friends then all are part of the big dance that they must perform with her and a partner to the audience of the rest of the community. It is a fairly big event, full of moments that I’m sure we missed the significance of. For instance I know that the father gives the girl a ring, and that her mother gives her “her last doll”, meaning that she will no longer need or want dolls. I know that you have all been waiting for me to post some pictures, so I will post a few of this event here.

The first is the entryway into the fiesta with a couple of the many kids that we live with. The open cement area to the side of our house is the best area for parties in the community, so you can actually see the room where Katie and I are staying in the back of this picture, the window with the bars.

Next is a picture of the dance being performed. They actually had about 4 rehearsed actions, from the entry, then two dances, and then a final toast. Notice the matching clothing. This is not a cheap event! It costs a lot to throw these things. This family had remittances from their relatives in the states, so they paid for pretty much everything. Over one hundred people attended, and you need to feed the lot of them.

Here is a picture of Vanesa. She is part of our family here, and got to be in the fiesta. Technically, the fiesta with this event is called a “Fiesta Rosa”.

This last is of the Quinceañera with her partner. In this case the partner was the guy who was the dance instructor and composed all of the dances. It was a fun event, and we all got to dance after the main event. At one point it was interrupted by rain and a power outage, but it all worked out fine.

Here in El Salvador November 2nd is Dia de Difuntos. It is a bit like Dia de los muertos from Mexico in that you visit cemeteries, but most of the rest is different. The main thing is that you buy a bunch of fake flowers, and then you take the flowers and “enflower” the various graves of relatives. The flowers are mostly hand made plastic. Katie and I both learned how to make at least the most simple of them out of colored plastic bags. We ended up going to two different cemeteries, and at both the mood was light hearted and happy, not at all sad or mournful. About the most interesting part of this whole thing is that everyone really takes part, the cemeteries are crowded with folks, everyone talking to their neighbors or relatives, buying and eating food. Sure in the States we have a memorial day, and if you described what happens it would sound a bit like this, but really not many folks participate. Here, you could watch the flow of people, and when you got on a bus everyone was either heading towards or away from a cemetery.