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, 2001
The standing room only memorial service the family holds for her every year on the earthquake's anniversary
My 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.
3 comments:
Hey Alia,
Bruce and I just read your last post and had a good laugh bc it´s basically the exact same way we´ve been feeling lately. . .the part about working all day and not getting anything done and then having community members insinuate that you haven´t done much. Grrrr. Speaking of work. . . we´re not feeling too confident about the club de periodismo, we´ve had two interest mtgs, but with different groups of people. . .if it works out I´ll let you know what we do with the club. Take Care!
Hey--it's a good thing Esperanza thought you two should get married. I never mentioned marriage, but she advised me to think hard before marrying Hernan because us Americans tend not to stay married, and that's an even less Catholic option... take it as a vote of confianza in your relationship.
Don't judge anything work-wise in the first 6 months.. It takes forever to get anything started there and if anyone tells you otherwise, they're totally making it up.
I miss you.
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