On reading and dancing

A couple of days ago I attended a teachers' meeting where it was revealed that our school is doing very poorly even according to Salvadoran educational standards. Some of the teachers, even the ones who teach 4th and 5th grade, were complaining that it was hard for them do follow the assigned curriculum because the kids still couldn't read and write. Still!

"What strategies can we use to teach these kids to read and write?" asked the principal.

Of course, this completely flabbergasted me -- I, who was taught to read at age 3 or 4 and was reading the newspaper in kindergarten. I probably spent most of my childhood shut up with a book, and for years as an aspiring journalist, my life revolved around the written word. I straightened up and prepared to launch into a diatribe about how we really need to get the parents to encourage them, get them to read for pleasure, show them how exciting and stimulating reading can be.

But luckily I stopped myself as I considered exactly how we were to do that. Most of these kids' parents can't read or write themselves, so they can't teach the children the way my dad taught me. They don't have books in their house that they can encourage the kids to read, because they can't afford books. And I have only seen one library in this country so far, and that was in the capital. An area that doesn't have paved roads or potable water isn't going to make libraries its first priority.

It's frustrating to think that I came here to help improve life for these people, but the only way I know how to do that involves resources we just don't have.

Although I've been trying to focus on working in the school lately (I even gave up a trip to the beach this week to teach lessons and attend meetings!) my life has inevitably been taken over by the poor disorganized church youth group.

Here's the deal. They meet every Saturday, and I had missed meetings for nearly two months because of technical training, my trip to the States, a soccer game, a meeting cancellation. During these entire two months, the youth knew that fiestas patronales, or the celebrations that honor our village's patron saint, San Jose, were coming up and it would be time once again to have a celebratory dance. But they did nothing about it.

Then I came back to meetings, and bam! "Oh my God, we have to have a dance, we haven't even started trying to come up with the money, please help us!" says one of the youth group's leaders. It's so last minute that by now I couldn't care less whether we have a dance or not, especially since I am still not comfortable with dances here, as I only dance while intoxicated and am not allowed to drink at my site. But some of the kids wanted to do it, so I told them I would help them as much as I could, being so busy with school and all.

This has turned into the leader showing up at my house every day at about 5 pm, when I am just winding down after a full day of work, and asking me to do this or that with him, stuff he could just as easily do himself. I always say yes, but if I ever tell him I'm too busy to do something or another the next day, he gives me a mournful look and says, "I hope you will support us in all our endeavors. You just have to think positively!"

Yesterday, I finally lost my patience and told him I don't give a crap about thinking positively, the only thing that makes these projects work is enough planning in advance, which he clearly did not do.

So whether or not we have the dance still remains to be seen.

In fairness to the youth group, this is a hard time for them. Their best leader started working as a police officer in a faraway department of the country and rarely has the time for meetings anymore. Other members have left the group to work or attend university. And even the ones who still make an effort are super-busy now that school has started again. And the group has no money, meaning they can't really afford many fun activities, which is even less motivation for them to show up.

Yesterday I walked around with them handing out invitations to all the youth in the community to come to our meetings every Saturday. But I hope the invitations work, as they were two long paragraphs of Bible quotes and then one short paragraph about the meetings, with no mention of hikes or trips or dances or any of the other fun things the group does. I suspect if the youth want to listen to more preaching, they'll just go to Mass more often.

For those of you who are not on Facebook, this is my new favorite photo of myself, courtesy of Peace Corps Volunteer Nick Padowski:
Paz y amor.

My bus woes, and more

There is one thing that still drives me crazy after 5 months in El Salvador, and that is finicky bus schedules.

For example. Sometimes the bus in my site just doesn't show up to take people from the village to the town. Everyone in the village realizes when the bus hasn't come...for months I would be the only one who hadn't a clue. I would stand outside with bags of trash to throw away in town, where the trash truck actually comes, instead of littering or burning it like the rest of the village. But instead of becoming an environmental example, I suspect I became a laughingstock the several times I stood in the street, laden with trash, waiting for a bus that wasn't going to come.

Then I figured out that the bus almost always passes in the other direction 20 minutes before it heads to town. And before it arrives at my house, you can hear it honking for something like 15 minutes.

Today, 20 minutes before the bus was supposed to come, I had seen and heard nothing. I refused to go stand outside and be the only idiot waiting for the bus once more. Then the bus sailed by my house.

I grabbed my stuff (no trash this time) sprinted for it and caught it. Once on the bus, I realized I forgot a crucial thing...to roll up my hammock and put it away.

Since school is now all around my house, this could be a disaster. I fully expect to come home to a hammock ripped to shreds by a dozen brats who decided to sit on it all at once. This would be a catastrophe, since that hammock is expensive, from Guatemala, and a loan.

The other thing that drives me crazy about El Salvador right now is the disrespectful kids who are always around now that school is in my yard. They throw trash all over my porch. Today one kid threw an empty juice container down right in front of me. I couldn't believe it. Then when I asked him to pick it up and throw it away, he laughed. Laughed! I could have smacked him.

The bright spot in my life is this cyber cafe. A new one opened in the town nearest to me, and the computers work reasonably well. I now only have to walk or ride the bus for half an hour to get to the Internet. Before, the trip was an hour at least, usually more, so the simplest visit could swallow a whole morning or, most often, a whole day when I coupled it with other errands.

Just think of how much more work I'll be able to get done now! That's a little sarcastic because English classes still haven't started...I was waiting until after a big youth group gathering that is now not happening either. I still haven't actually given environmental classes at the school because I'm trying to organize a field trip to the zoo. And now my youth group wants to sponsor a dance, but the only place where we can have one has been converted into a huge classroom and I just know that I, and maybe one other guy, will be the only one(s) organizing the entire dance and moving about 60 desks, books and huge sacks of rice. It's one of those weeks where I work all day but it still seems like I'm doing nothing. And the getting sick last week didn't help, nor does the Salvadoran lifestyle in general. How much work can you really get done in one morning when you have to do laundry by hand, which takes hours?

I'm actually not frustrated by this because I like the slower pace...the only annoying thing is when people in the community insinuate that I'm not doing enough. Every group I work with (school, youth group, women who want stoves) seems to think that all my time belongs to them alone.

Wow, this sounds like a lot of complaining. And I know why. I am not allowed to go running or do much exercise until I finish my course of antibiotics. This has made me grumpy, and fat.

So I'm sorry, folks, I swear I like the Peace Corps. Most of you know that I like to complain all the time even when I'm blissfully happy.

Have some pictures.This is Bilma, the teacher from my host family who died saving schoolchildren during the huge earthquake Feb. 13, 2001The standing room only memorial service the family holds for her every year on the earthquake's anniversaryMy boyfriend eating with my host family. During this dinner, my host mom told everyone he and I were getting married, and this country is so Catholic that I wasn't even allowed to deny it.

Paz y amor.

ARGH

I am sick. Again. With a bladder infection, if you must know, another thing that never happened to me ever in the States. I will spare you all the details of having to ride a bus to the capital at night to get tested and treated. The story is not fun. And I had to rush out so suddenly that I left important things (cell phone!) at home.

I wonder when I will actually start getting anything done at my site, or if I will be the volunteer who spends her entire service dying in the capital. And I used to be so healthy!

Well, I'm returning to my site again, feeling better with antibiotics in tow. The last couple of times I came to the capital with some med problem, feeling better and going home gave me the happy feeling that all my troubles were over and I would spend the rest of my two years in healthy tranquility. Now I can't help but think something new will pop up next week. Bring on the black plague, I haven't had that yet either.

Um. Knock on wood. I never know anymore.

Feliz Dia de Amistad

Instead of Valentine's Day, yesterday in El Salvador was Dia de Amistad, or friendship day. I like that concept way better because even single people can celebrate, and we need a Friendship Day anyway. It's worth celebrating!

That said, my boyfriend came to visit me, but true to the Peace Corps way of life, we spend most of the day doing community stuff together. I had a meeting with some teens to plan Saturday English classes, and then we went to a memorial service.

The service was for Bilma, a member of my host family who died in the deadly earthquake that hit El Salvador on Feb. 13, 2001. Every year around that time they have a service for her. She was a schoolteacher and apparently died getting the kids out of school. She left behind a daughter, Rossell, who was about two at the time and like 9 now.

The memorial service was actually like a big party. Will and I spent most of the mass helping wrap up pieces of sweet bread up in napkins, which everyone ate afterwards with hot chocolate. No one seemed sad or crying. Then afterwards, we ate a big dinner with all the relatives who had come from all over for the ceremony.

It's strange how many death-related things I seem to be doing lately. But the week in New Hampshire with my family, and then this, made me realize that honoring the dead is actually supposed to be a little joyful, too. And yesterday made me thankful that my grandmother lived to be 80 and died with her family around her, instead of having a school fall on her in an earthquake as a young woman.

I have pictures of the memorial, which I'll post later. Paz y amor.

My house, por fin

Here are some long-awaited photos:

My house (yes, that is my kickass hammock)
Inside the main room
This is how close school is to me. The temporary building is on the left, my house is on the right.
The pila I share with my host family. This is where we wash clothes and dishes.
Where I take my bucket bath (attached to the pila)Last but not least...the latrine.

Paz y amor.

I could still be ruthless if you let me

After spending three weeks out of site, I left AGAIN this weekend for my first Peace Corps soccer game. Site guilt is a strange phenomenon -- after all, travel is usually marked by hopping around a country as much as you can. And when I first came to Peace Corps I thought I would be getting around the country all the time. But when volunteers, me included, spend more than a few nights out of their sites every month, the "site guilt" kicks in -- the feeling that we're leaving too much and having too much fun at the expense of work.

Maybe it's because there's so much to be done. When I think of the amount of projects I have going -- tons of time at school, revitalizing the community development organization, a stove-building project, Saturday English, youth group -- my head spins a little.

That said, THANK GOD I went to the soccer game. The first week back after my premature trip to the States was really tough, and I needed a healthy dose of fun and gringos. The way it works is, the soccer team plays a game in a different volunteer's site every month, against the Salvadorans from that community. This time, the women's team lost to the Salvies 2-1 on penalty kicks. But the men's team won for the first time in years!

During the pre-departure orientation we had before leaving for El Salvador, I said one of my Peace Corps goals was to learn how to play ruthless Salvadoran soccer. Apparently I was so animated about it that people made jokes about my "ruthlessness" for months. So when we had to pick nicknames for our jerseys, I picked Ruthless...and now all the volunteers who didn't know me before this weekend think my name is Ruth.

The game was timed perfectly with fiestas patronales in the site we went to, so after the game there was a lot of dressing up, drinking and dancing. One Salvadoran band even played Stone Temple Pilots, Green Day, Sublime, Radiohead and U2.

A bunch of us crashed in the host volunteer's house, in hammocks or on yoga mats or thin mattresses. Then, true to volunteer form, most of us were out the door at 7 a.m.

So back to my site and to school. Paz y amor.

School

is in my yard.

No kidding. I got back to my site and they had built a big aluminum building right next to my house. It houses 5th grade in the morning and 8th in the afternoon. Kindergarten and 4th grade are on my host family's porch. I have to wait for them to go on break to take my bucket bath, and the air is constantly filled with the screams of kids who play and throw trash on my front porch. Photos of this coming soon.

I actually don't mind too much because it's fun to talk to them sometimes and they're being moved for a good cause -- with money from the mayor and a Spanish NGO, four big new classrooms are being built in the actual school, which is way overcrowded. These kids are displaced while the construction goes on. They're putting the first stone down Monday in a ceremony which will involve the Japanese ambassador.

In other news, I'm being thrown into school whether I like it or not. I was supposed to spend these next few weeks observing and planning classes, but the teachers and director won't hear of it. They want me to start teaching and start a tree nursery immediately. We'll see what happens.

I have been observing classes, though, and what I've seen makes me really sad. Classes start late and end early and are canceled for hours for small, unimportant meetings. Each grade only goes to school for half a day anyway, and there is no law requiring kids to go to school so people just don't show up a lot of the time. They'll spend an hour during class talking about announcements and not learning anything. They are given half-hour recesses and snack breaks about three times in the course of one afternoon. It's no wonder the actual classes are incredibly basic for their grade levels. I suspect the only real learning is done in high school and college here, but you have to be able to afford those. With an educational situation like this, how can a country develop at all? I never thought I would say this, but I actually feel lucky to have attended Prince George's County public schools (shudder.)

I am still heartened by the teachers' dedication and their ability to keep their large excitable classes under control. And the kids deserve some props, because a lot of them do come to school every day willing to learn and they're well-behaved compared to kids at other Salvadoran schools I've seen.

So even though it might be stressful, I'm excited to start working. Paz y amor.

Back to work

So I got to El Salvador late last night and the mixed feelings continue. First I got my suitcase and the airport hooligans had broken it -- the little pop-up handle that lets me tug it along doesn't work anymore. Then I got into a cab and realized I had no money to pay for it because I hadn't been to an ATM -- I was so used to swiping my card for everything in the States. And taking two buses to my site with a stuffed suitcase will not be fun. I already miss my car in the States.

I'm in the capital and still haven't been back to my site yet. I wonder how that will feel. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone but the rural life will seem even stranger after last week, I think. At least I won't be as bored as the week before training -- I get to start at the school and begin work on maybe reforming the community development organization that has apparently crashed and burned.

At least it is warm here! No more borrowing thick winter jackets, gloves etc. But on the flip side, I already miss snow.

I did get to see Emily at the airport, but just for 10 minutes because my flight was delayed. Thank God there was no one in line when I had to go back through security, and the gate was right there. Worked out perfectly!

Well, time to go to the village and start making myself useful again. Paz y amor.