El Salvador!

So sorry I never posted till now...I've been in El Salvador since Sept. 16 and this is the first day I've had a good stretch of time in an internet cafe! Of course, too much has happened to write about it all, so I'll just give you a brief outline. We flew into the capital of San Salvador and were immediately fed Pizza Hut, and we were all starving because they don't feed you on planes anymore. After that we went to the nearby city of San Vicente, where the Peace Corps training center is. For two days we stayed in a hotel and ate tons of traditional food three times a day at a nearby restaurant. First horror story of the Peace Corps: when I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I unknowingly decapitated a lizard. We found it dead on the floor in the morning.

After that, we went to meet our host families. I'm one of four volunteers in the rural community of Las Cañas, about a 20-minute bus ride from San Vicente. We all meet at one volunteer's house for Spanish classes in the morning (very easy for me with my Spanish minor) and to work on community projects in the afternoon. All the ag-for/environmental ed volunteers are supposed to do an environmental project with the community youth group. But since there's no group in Cañas, we have to form our own, which is much more time-consuming. Our first meeting is on Monday; we invited 54 youth hoping at least 10 would show. Otherwise we'll just have to eat all the cookies and soda ourselves. So I guess failure wouldn't be so bad.

Speaking of food, we get far too much of it. The girl you all know who lived off of granola bars and coffee is now eating three full meals a day. We're literally forced to because our Salvadoran host mothers will cry if we turn food down. So far it's been delicious. All you pupusa lovers are probably green with envy. Every day I also eat delicious mixtures of beans, rice, tortilla and egg. It's so starch-heavy that I will probably gain weight, contrary to what you would think about a girl in a Third World country.

You will want to know how my host family is. I love them. The father, Don Felipe, has a brother who lives in Langley Park, two minutes away from my college apartment. It's a small world after all. The mother's name is Doña Lorena and they have a 17-year-old girl and two sons; one aged 13 and one 4 and adorable. They're nice and funny and laid-back and I'm glad I came here knowing Spanish because I love to just sit on the porch (in a hammock!) and talk to them.

Here's Doña Lorena on the porch of our house:


It's not all R&R here, though. The rest part has been severely hampered by the roosters that start crowing at literally 2 a.m. and the ant bites that wake me up in the middle of the night feeling like my feet are on fire. We've also had a lot of fun work trips. Today we visited a volunteer at a nearby site and helped him plant vetiver grass to slow erosion. Yesterday I helped Don Felipe dig an irrigation ditch. We've also visited the elementary school in Cañas to observe how Salvadoran public schools work. The kids here only go to school for half a day, and a lot of them don't even do that -- they stay home and help their parents out instead, since there are no truancy laws.

This country is so green and beautiful it's hard to imagine it has any environmental problems. It's the rainy season now and it pours every day, but that ends in November.

There's only been one major drawback to my service so far, and that's my job description. I soon came to realize that while I actually like planting things, I don't think I'm qualified to have the more technical agroforestry position that I've been pushed into. When I was first invited I was under the impression that I would be doing some field work but my primary task would be environmental education in schools. Last week I found out that's not the case -- that's a different kind of volunteer, a fact which had not been made clear to me or several other trainees. And just today I found out that it would be "very hard" to switch. I have a meeting with my director about it Tuesday. Keep your fingers crossed for me because I really don't want to be given a job I can't do. I'd hate to let a whole community down and I wouldn't be happy here, and who knows how long my service will last if that's the case?

More updates soon (a week or two?) but drop me a line and tell me about your lives! No cell phone yet, but I've put my mailing address on facebook. You'll see it if you're my friend.

Paz y amor! More pics when my friends aren't rushing me out of the Net cafe :)

The Adventure Begins!

I'm sitting in the lobby of a very nice hotel in Arlington, fired up after my first day of pre-departure orientation! I guess there are about 20 trainees in my group and to my relief, I met a lot of cool people today.

That doesn't quite make up for all the people I left behind, but since I haven't yet left the area I grew up in, none of my goodbyes seemed really final. I might see some of my home friends tomorrow, actually, and my mom has volunteered to drive to the hotel and pick up anything I decide to ditch if my suitcases come in over the weight limit (a fear that has been gnawing at me for days, since I first clumsily tried to weigh my mammoth bags on our tiny bathroom scale. How do you pack for 27 months in 80 pounds or less???)

On my last night in Cheverly, my mom and I went to Five Guys for dinner and picked up cannolis from the Italian Inn for dessert. Along the way, something reminded me of the old stuffed dog I used to own -- Toto, my constant companion and the only thing I had that survived our housefire when I was 6. I casually asked my mom where he was, we couldn't find him, and somehow this became a catastrophe in both of our minds. Maybe it's because I was leaving for 27 months and I needed to pay homage to my entire childhood spent in the same little house.

Eventually I found him, petted him and put him back in his basket in the basement. But the next morning, when we get in the car to drive me away for years, there Toto was in the backseat. My mom claims he wanted to see me off and got there himself. Somehow she knew exactly what I needed.

We said our goodbyes without pain or tears, knowing we'd talk soon. Orientation was fun, but the most surreal part of it all is that most people are from much farther away than Arlington. Half my group is in bed now because they had to get up at 4 a.m. for their long flights. My roommate called me "Ms. 20 minutes away" as she was falling asleep at about...noon.

Other orientation highlights:

• Rumors circulated that John McCain and Sarah Palin were staying in our hotel, which is near their campaign HQ. Some, including me, said that was impossible because McCain probably had a house around here. Others pointed out that even if he did, he probably didn't remember it. We wanted him to come talk to us, considering he could be our next boss. However, the rumors were later dismissed.
• We had to draw pictures of our aspirations and anxieties on a big sheet of paper. Some of our aspirations included dancing, ruthless soccer playing (mine) and feeding a monkey a pupusa.
• We were given debit cards with the American flag on them that said "We The People" and were ordered to take large wads of cash out of the ATM with them because they wouldn't work in El Salvador.
• Drinking at the hotel bar, because the Peace Corps is classy like that.

Well, it's time for me to get to bed, as I somehow have to function at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow. I miss you all and if I don't update tomorrow, my next post will be from EL SALVADOR!

Three Days Grace

At last, the Peace Corps blog is up and running by popular demand! (Read: the demand of three people.)

If you were expecting this post to be filled with exciting stories about scorpion bites and soccer balls to the head, I'll have to burst your bubble with the news that I am not yet at my post in El Salvador. In fact I'm still sitting in my room in Cheverly, Md. My 27 months of Peace Corps service start in three days with a two-day orientation in Arlington, Va. Seriously. My orientation could have been anywhere in the country, and it had to be 20 minutes away from my house. I had to call the travel agency to say I wouldn't be needing a flight to orientation, and the agent was genuinely confused.

Agent: How are you getting there?
Me: My mom is driving me.
Agent: Will you need reimbursement for your miles driven?
Me: Sure, you can give me like five bucks.

Until then, my life is a whirlwind of packing and farewells. Today was my last day as a volunteer gardener at Behnke Nurseries in Beltsville, a job I took to prepare for my agroforestry/environmental education role in the Peace Corps. I genuinely had fun at that job and will miss my wonderful colleagues -- and I learned a lot about plants! If you ever want to know how to grow spider plants or save Brazilian Fireworks or crape myrtles from untimely deaths, I'm your girl. And working outside in long pants during the hottest days of summer prepared me doubly for field work in El Salvador. Too bad the Peace Corps won't give me a little walkie-talkie to radio for help when I don't know what to do.

I walked out of work today with lots of blessings and two offers of part-time employment after I return (why not?) Many of my co-workers knew I'm leaving soon and had lots of questions, which I'll answer again now for the benefit of you readers.

Alia's Peace Corps FAQ

When do you leave?
Like I wrote above, my pre-departure orientation starts Sept. 14 and lasts two days. Straight from there, I hop on a plane to San Salvador (the capital of El Salvador, if you slept through 7th grade) Sept. 16.

Then where will you be?
For the first three months, I will be training in San Vicente, a city kind of near San Salvador (a two-hour bus ride away.) According to the Salvadoran Spanish professor I had last semester, San Vicente is a good-sized city, but more rural than the capital. I assume my group is training there because it would be harder to plant and compost and all that good stuff in the capital. After training, I will probably go to a still more rural village, where I will remain for two years, although I could switch villages if I complete all my projects or if the first one they assign me doesn't work out for some reason.

Can you come home?
Yes, kind of. I can't go anywhere for the first six months or the last three. I get sweet federal-government vacation time (an accumulation of two days per month) and can use those days for a trip back to the States, but I would have to come up with the money myself (donations will be taken at my goodbye party! Kidding.) I can quit whenever I want, but I wouldn't bet on that happening!

What will you be doing?
I don't know for sure and probably won't know until near the end of training. And even then, over the course of my service, projects will start and end and everything will be in flux. My official job is, like I said, agroforestry/environmental education. From what I gather from other Peace Corps volunteers, this means I will probably be assigned to a school. I guess I'll be holding classes and workshops on recycling and environmentally sustainable farming practices like composting and "agroforestry" (planting trees for the good of the environment and other crops.) I will probably also do field work in those areas and will start secondary projects like English classes and youth groups. I'm determined to teach a drama class as well or even put on a village play. You can take the girl out of the theater but you can never take the theater out of the girl!

Are you nervous?
No.
Seriously.
And I can't figure out why not. By all accounts I should be terrified by the prospect of going to a strange country known for civil wars and gang violence, doing work that has nothing to do with the degree I so recently acquired (journalism? What's journalism?) But here's what balances all of that out:

• I won't be alone. I train with a large group of new volunteers who apparently will become close and supportive friends. I don't doubt that -- after all, I spent a semester in Spain with a group of strangers, and I couldn't have made it through without them.
• I've traveled extensively before, even in Third World countries. I've never been to Latin America, and spending time in Bangladesh and Vietnam won't automatically prepare me for this much greater challenge -- but from those experiences, and from my semester in Europe, I've learned how to handle the frustrating aspects of lengthy stays abroad.
• I minored in Spanish and have a good working knowledge of the language and the culture throughout much of Latin America. Since I got assigned to El Salvador, I've been doing my best to learn everything I can about that country specifically.
• The Peace Corps seems to devote the time and resources to prepare me for the challenges I might face. If you know me well, that might sound strange coming from me -- the sometimes cynical aspiring journalist with an innate distrust of the federal government. But our training also incorporates things like cultural adjustment and health and safety, so I feel like I'll be able to handle things.
• I'm really excited!!!

Will you be able to keep in touch?
I better be!!! I have reason to believe I could have Internet access a few times a week, between school and visits to Internet cafes or whatever. Or I could end up getting online as infrequently as once a month. But I really want to KIT with everyone as often as possible. Snail mail is another option, albeit a less reliable one. And I am 99% sure I will have a Salvadoran cell phone. But that's the main purpose of this blog: to keep everyone who is interested informed about my life in the Peace Corps. And I would love it if you all would comment or email me individually and keep me in the loop about your lives too!!!

So that's my future in a nutshell. And it's weird -- as I drove home today I literally felt like I was reviewing my past. I drove past the University of Maryland, where I just spent the best four years of my life, walking through the old-fashioned brick buildings and grassy fields and dashing across Route 1 to the bars with my friends as I saw all the students doing today. And then through Cheverly, where I grew up in a quiet, close-knit town with a few thousand others who perpetually bike or walk their dogs under a continuous canopy of huge trees.

I'll miss it all, but I can't wait to describe San Vicente to you in a similar post five days from now!

Besos (kisses),

Alia

(The packing is not going so well.)