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.
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.
posted by Jon & Katie | 12:46 PM
1 Comments:
Keep on honing those texting skills and maybe by the end of 2 years you'll be as efficient as I am :) Cuídense!
--Jen
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