We Have Been Counted

Yep, we are officially a part of the population of El Salvador. Yesterday, the sixth official census of El Salvador found us and took down all of our particulars. It did throw the two census guys for a moment when gringos answered the door, but they recovered, and we managed to understand and answer all of their questions. We probably really skewed the statistics of the community all up in the area of education. Katie and I both have about twice to three or four times as much time in school as most of our neighbors. Hopefully it will not make our community ineligible for education grants.

The population of our community also went down by one last week, and potentially the population of the US went up. Yep, a guy we know pretty well here headed of to the US last week. He didn’t even tell us he was going. Probably figured we’d get him in trouble with our government or something… He had to pay a coyote a little over $6,000 to take him across. That is the going rate these days. As border security gets tighter (even if only in the news) it just makes the coyotes richer. I don’t think it slows the flow, though it probably does increase the risks, not so much from getting caught, but from exposure in the deserts. I am bordering on things I probably shouldn’t say too much about without reminding you to read the above disclaimer, how this is my opinion, and not the US government, ect… Anyway, being in El Salvador has really been a learning experience in terms of the effects of illegal and legal immigration.

To switch topics some, I realized that we have not really talked too much about our living conditions down here. So, the rest of this blog entry will focus on that. One of the most dramatic things about our living down here is cellular communication. Everyone, even people without electricity, have a cell phone. They are cheap, and the cost of calls is inexpensive as well. This has really changed our Peace Corps experience from those of generations past. We can call to the US for less than 5 cents a minute if we plan it right. Considering that there is no monthly fee, connection charges, text messaging charges, taxes… well it is a hell of a lot less than I was paying in the states! Pretty much all of the volunteers have them. The most used feature by volunteers, always looking for ways to be cheap, is the text messaging. So, Katie and I have become more proficient than I ever wanted to be in texting.

Beyond cell phones though, we are living a bit more classic third world. We do have electricity, and it works pretty much all of the time. We have somewhat running water, meaning it runs in the morning. So, if you take your shower in the morning, it falls on you through a showerhead, but if you wait till after 11am, you get to pour it over your head with a guacal. Oh, not warm showers, but very cold by the way. For cooking we have the mighty MABE propane stove (see photo), it is a big step up from a Coleman (no pumping to keep pressure), but still feels a lot like car camping every day. Also in the photo you will notice a Crockpot. This we bought in the States and sent down. It has helped to add variety to our cooking. Below the table notice the coffee maker, very important. I should take the time to say all of these are not normal for our neighbors. While many of them have something like a MABE, they hardly ever use it. They have adobe stoves that burn wood (I will try to get a photo soon). Part of it is that a lot of the stuff they cook (aka beans and masa) take a long time to simmer. The gas stoves suck at simmering, and long cooking times probably would get expensive. They use what is called a comal to cook the tortillas, it probably wouldn’t work on a gas stove either. Oh, and for coffee, they just boil water over a wood fire. Before leaving this photo, you should take note that out the door you can see the ears of our damn chucho, hanging out, hoping for chicken bones.

This is our sink. This is probably my most missed thing while cooking. Keeping your hands and utensils clean, especially while cooking chicken can be a real pain without the endless water source of an American sink. The cubbie on the right is our water for tea, cleaning, ect… meaning it is not potable, but fine after boiling. The bucket on the left is our filtered water. It is a clay filter system, and seems to work great judging by our relative health. We are lucky in that there is a lot of water up here, and it is relatively clean. Down below we wouldn’t be so lucky and might have more problems even with a filter. To the right you can see our amazing array of food items, most of it actually boils down to teas, pastas, sugar, eggs, limes and potatoes. Oh, and below the sink you can see three sizes of guacals, in case you didn’t know what a guacal was.

The last picture is of our dining room table. It is not quite as expansive as the one we used to have, but then again, our old one would take up about half of our current living space. This one does the trick, though it is often overcrowed with… stuff. In this case my “cachucha” (ballcap), my “pachinga” (water bottle), stuff to study Spanish, the latest Newsweek International that we picked up in San Salvador, ect… Katie started out trying to color coordinate our “furnishings”, but… sometimes we just had to go with what we could get!

Ok, well now I’m sure you all have a better understanding of how we are living. It is cozy, but actually pretty comfortable, and more efficient than that huge house that we had before. I still haven’t shown you our closets, bookcases, ect… I will save those for another time that I’m not quite sure what to put in a blog.

¿Como Tejer?

We had a somewhat deserved “working vacation” from our usual site activities. We went to what is called IST in Peace Corps acronymphyllia. It stands for In Service Training. At roughly six months in site (has it already been that long!), they call you all in and let you share experiences, also they provide additional language training. It was nice to re-connect with everyone and see what has been going well, or poorly for them. You really get to appreciate how everyone’s experience in the Peace Corps, even in the same country and program, is very different.

However, the highlight of our time back at the training center in San Vicente, was the time spent with our family in San Isidro. This was the family that we lived with during our first 10 weeks in the country. I hadn’t seen them for almost six months. Katie got to see them a while back, frequent readers will remember the shower episode. Anyway, it was really good to see them again. Our improved communication this time was proof that yes indeed, we are still improving our Español.

Here are several pictures from our visit. Katie spent every night teaching Carmen, Alma and Vanesa how to knit. Knitting is called “tejer” in Spanish, and as a not so interesting aside, in Spanish, spiders “tejer” a web (the word for knitting and weaving is the same). The first night there was quite a bit of frustration, I think they thought is would be easier, but they learned the fundamentals. By the last night, I think they might actually have been having fun. We will see when we go back to visit in August, if they still want to learn more.

To keep the kids busy during the knitting lessons, I broke out the crayon box that was sent down by my aunt Toni, and we bought some coloring books that had tear out pages which I would pass out to the kids. They had to share the 64 crayons, which resulted in a few broken ones, but overall, they had a great time! They even begged to do it again the next night. Of course I had to look at each finished drawing and give praise.

It was Dia de Madres while we were there. They celebrated on Thursday the 10th of May. For our part, Katie made fudge, which we had discovered previously that Margo (our family’s mom) loved. Katie brought all of the ingredients, and she made it in between knitting sessions. Alma, the more entrepreneurial of the two sisters, took notes and watched carefully as she is sure there is a market for the stuff here in El Salvador! We also bought Margo some flowers, which is a traditional gift down here as well. All in all, it was a very nice visit. It felt a lot like coming back to really good friends or family.

It was interesting to note how different our interactions are with that family in San Isidro, compared to the people in our site. To some degree we have really spent more intense time with that family, they cooked for us, helped us with language and culture, and protected us during our early time in the country. We have spent more time “around” our people in site, but not “with” really… also the people up here are just a bit more reserved than the people down there. The lesson is; we still have a long way to go in gaining more “confianza” in our site. I now understand better why so many PCVs say that it wasn’t until after the first year that they felt they were starting to accomplish something.

The Hidden Life of Chuchos

So, as anyone who has traveled in the so called third world knows… dogs have it pretty tough in most of the world. To be honest with ourselves, it’s not like all of the dogs in developed countries fair that well, many are still mis-treated, mal-nourished, ect… Still, it is in countries like El Salvador where you really get to see an important step in the social evolution of dogs.

Chuchos (also known as dogs) provide an important insight in the pre-pet phase of dog development. Here is a picture of Katie with our chucho (whether we want him or not) being treated as if he were actually a pet. It is a strange concept for both him and the rest of our community. Here dogs “associate” with a family, the bond is there, but it is not that strong. The dogs have some loyalty, and are protective of territory, the people appreciate that just enough to occasionally throw the dog a bone… literally.

Overall, dogs are tolerated, but not companions. Sure, they get kicked, have rocks thrown at them, and are generally targets for anger or fun, but really, no one would go way out of their way to persecute a dog, they aren’t worth the effort. It never ceases to surprise me how in the middle of the night, if dogs start making a racket (fights, barking, howling, or sex) not a single person will get up to yell at “their” dog, or even throw a rock at it! It seems strange at first given other mean behaviors that happen to dogs, but over time I have realized that no one expects anything different, they are just dogs being dogs after all… and who knows, their barking may be helping to keep a bad person away.

This is kind of the fundamental point of this phase of development… dog behavior is driven by their own needs or desires, limited only by behaviors that contribute to their survival. That could probably be better stated, it’s not like I’m trying to write some kind of thesis… but the point is, none of a dog’s behaviors are actively altered by humans. Sure, it is a stretch of passive when feet and rocks are used, but the reality is that all of the “training” is passive, no one purposefully trains their dog. Sure, if you yell “vaya” and wave your hands away from you, most of the dogs here know to leave the area, but no one really taught them that, they have had to pick up on it, usually through pain. Though the dogs here do mostly have names, they are not trained to pay attention or come to them.

The end result is that dogs have their community and humans have theirs, with the overlap being very thin. The dogs are very opportunistic, if they think they can take an unattended piece of chicken they will. They also look well outside of “their” family for food. This is partly how we came to be owned by our chucho. We were living with his family, but we were cooking across the street in the schools kitchen. He smelled food and would hang around us… we acted the typical gringo and were nice to him, even petted him, which was a rare treat. Then one day we cooked chicken and needed to get rid of the bones, voila… he was ours, or we were his. [before we get people saying how chicken bones are bad for dogs, well, maybe the soft northern brother of the chucho can’t digest them safely, but our chuchos down here are raised on pretty much nothing but chicken bones and tortillas]

So, basically we have a dog… but it is only when he wants us, which is mainly when we will pet him, or when we have food. For this he hangs out around our place for a few hours every couple of days. Sometimes he shows up at night and hangs out on our porch for a bit. It is all on his terms though, and I’m not really sure how he decides how to divide his time. It does make us look foolish quite a bit when we wander down the road and he sees us and rushes over all excited and making silly noises, and then we have to pet him, and he follows us… all of which makes us quite a spectacle to the onlooking Salvadoreños.

So, I have pretty much run out of steam on this subject, but before I close it out I do want to say that there are exceptions to all of this, some of the folks here do take pretty good care of their dogs, even spoil them, though this is relative. Even now the kids in the family we live with are getting used to petting our chucho when he is over visiting us. Puppies have always been the exception to all of this… the way most people end up with their poor despised chucho is that it started out as a cute puppy.

The thing I will close with is just a couple of random pictures from the last week. These are of our families kids. One is on our porch (you can even see the chucho with his nose in our room), the other is some of the girls at our shared Pila. Enjoy!