Security incident!

Yep, I had my first (and hopefully only) one. Last Friday, I was working at the plastic table in the main room of my house, which I put under a window for the sunlight. Sitting next to me on the table was my wallet, which I had just used to buy something from the store across the street.

Suddenly, some of the youth group paid a visit, and I ran out to entertain and make posters with them on my porch, leaving the window open. I didn't think twice because I was still in sight range and I didn't realize my wallet was still on the table...

Meanwhile, it was getting dark, and the usual loafing and drunk teenagers and men began showing up to hang out outside my house (which is right in the center of town and therefore a popular hangout spot.) The youth group and I, distracted by our posters, didn't notice when one of them reached through my window and took the wallet...

A half hour later, I came back inside, closed up the house and started to make dinner. I went to bed that night not knowing my wallet was gone. At about 10:30 the next morning, some kids from my English class found it lying outside next to the window. All the money inside it -- $40, which is a good deal here -- was gone, but thank God the bank cards were still inside. You can't really use plastic anywhere in my rural site, so the thief probably didn't even care for them.

Although I got off lucky, and leaving things on that table by the open window is stupid and will never be repeated, the whole thing did make me upset and disappointed. Peace Corps volunteers give up a lot to move to places where life is hard and our only goal is to improve the communities we live in. And my robber would have had to be someone from the community. Talk about not feeling welcome, even after 6 months.

Granted, a lot of other community members have been very sympathetic, as have the Peace Corps people I had to report this to. The security officer came out to visit my house and make sure everything was OK, the nurse called to make sure I hadn't been hurt physically or too scarred emotionally, and the director of all Peace Corps El Salvador even called to chat about it. It felt a bit like overkill for a $40 robbery in which no one was harmed and which does not impede my safety in the long run, but it's nice to know these things are taken seriously.

The day I found out I was robbed was not a good day overall, I have to admit. We were supposed to have the first meeting of the community development organization that my counterpart and I have been devoting our energies to over the past month, and only 2 people showed up. People in the community have been shaking their heads sadly at me as I try to organize, informing me that the community just doesn't like to work or make commitments. It's one thing to try and fail because of all the hardships in your life, but it's another thing entirely to just say "No," flat-out. If the community isn't going to work with me, how can they expect me to help them?

English and environmental classes, thank God, are my bright spots. I have a captive audience of kids who are happy and tell me I'm awesome as long as we play lots of games in class. Our school nursery project, however, is failing because no parents have volunteered to donate land and materials...

The youth group is also good right now. We organized a beach trip for Sunday. Maybe I'll just say, "Screw you, old people" and spend two years working with kids and youth.

Here are some pictures of the school Earth Day celebration, where we decorated the community center with environmental drawings and played environmental games...
The principal started it off by rambling a lotDecorandoNiña Roxana's awesome craft thing and my less awesome poster

Paz y amor.

Hot Hot Heat

It is really hot in El Salvador. I don't have a thermometer and of course no one uses Fahrenheit here, so I never know the temperature, but weather.com is claiming 102 degrees where I am. And of course I am walking around in jeans, shorts being taboo here. Luckily, the rainy season is coming next month and then hopefully things will cool down. But for now, I am battling another bladder infection born of dehydration, derailing my plans to do any work today.

I actually got sick at my friend's site, which is way hotter than mine, and all the wine we drank probably didn't help matters. I started heading back to my house yesterday, couldn't stand it and got off the bus half an hour later in the big city of San Miguel, where I spent the day in the hospital and the night in a hotel. Thank God for antibiotics, because I feel much better now and am posting this from another city on my way home today.

I have had some disease every single month since I got to site. After each one, I learn a little more about how to take care of my health and decide I won't get sick again for the next year and a half. This time I hope it's true, as the hot season is almost over. Even though I chug water, it's hard to avoid getting dehydrated when we can't drink any of the running water here. So if I only get sick again next March and April, I will consider my service a success.

But now I have to hustle back to my site and do a ton of work. The week after next will be hectic, with Earth Day, a big meeting to plan our school's vivero, or orange and pineapple nursery, and the first meeting of our community development organization. My daily English classes have started again as well. It would have been easier if I could have gotten some work done during Semana Santa, but even the people who stayed in the village refused to do any work during "vacation week." So now I have to try to recover while running around in the 102-degree sun.

My birthday was fun anyway (see wine reference above.) Will came and we watched a ton of DVDs and picked a ton of oranges to take to my friend Megan's site the next day. At her place, we were treated to chocolate banana bread and lemon cookies (yum!) as well as real food like pasta and pierogies. Although it's conveniently close to a big city, which is something I always wanted, Megan's site is super hot and dusty and literally made me ill, which made me appreciate the site I have even more.

I have hit a milestone. I used to get sick and want to go home to the States. Now I get sick and want to go home to Canton San Jose Carrizal, Santa Maria Ostuma, La Paz, El Salvador.

Paz y amor.

Semana Santa

Well folks, it's my favorite time of year in every Hispanic Catholic country. Semana Santa, or Holy Week.

Easter in the States was always a fun time, especially because half the time it fell on my birthday. There was the candy, the easter egg hunts, the complete absence of any religious obligation...

Not so this year. I am about to attend a two hour Mass today and might be talked into more religious events all morning and night tomorrow. Saturday, not Sunday, is Easter here, and they celebrate with a 5 hour church vigil lasting until midnight. This I am trying my damnedest to get out of, as it is my birthday, my boyfriend is coming that day and we are getting up at roughly 5 am the next day to go on a trip.

From what I can tell, the next few days will offer an endless supply of Masses and processions. I hope they're not like the ones in Spain, where everyone dressed up just like the KKK and marched slowly to mournful music. Creepy as hell.

Some of this I don't actually mind going to, as I have nothing else to do. No one is working this week and my Saturday class has been cancelled, so I am getting no work done either.

Pictures to come of the holy madness. Paz y amor.

Adios, Steph, y gracias

Last weekend I went to La Palma, an artisan town in the north near my boyfriend's site, for a despedida, or a goodbye party for Steph Kraemer, who directs the youth development volunteers in El Salvador. Although I'm not a youthie, Steph helped a lot of us ag-for/environmental ed volunteers out during training, so a group of us showed up too.

The whole thing was fun -- Will and I hiked the highest mountain in the country beforehand (we started from a village near the top) although both of us had done it before. Then the party involved a big dinner at the school in La Palma where a married youthie couple from our group teach. Afterwards there was dancing, and then we all went back to our hotel, which was really a bunch of little cabins and a restaurant, to drink and hang out.

A lot of Salvadorans that Steph used to live and work with were at the party, and they read poems for her and sang songs and made speeches and cried. It was amazing to see how much love Steph got after being here for five years. Then again, she is always telling us to stay in our sites, to make our communities the center of our experience, to get out there in the community and "get loved." Some volunteers, myself included, find it hard to resist the temptation to escape every couple of weeks and hang out with other gringos, or to shut ourselves in our houses with books and DVDs when nothing else is going on. But Steph is a fantastic reminder of why it pays to give a little more of yourself.

Then I got back and met the new volunteer in my town, and saw myself through the eyes of a new volunteer -- my own eyes 5 months ago. She's having the same problems I had at the start, but now I'm settled into a house that I like, I have good relationships (if not deep and meaningful friendships) with a lot of people in my community, I know my way around my site and a lot of the country, I have meaningful work and more patience with inconvenience and discomfort. That last realization came at an opportune time -- although the weekend was fun, I was constantly frustrated by things like screwed-up bus schedules and the failure of any Salvadoran to provide change for a $10 (having a $5 bill or higher is like having no money at all here)

I wish I could tell the new volunteer that she'll be fine, but if someone had told me that during my overwhelming first week 5 months ago, I wouldn't have believed them because it's the kind of thing that anyone would say to you. She, like me, will have to get through the next couple of months and find out for herself that it's not such a challenge, that, like Steph says, if you put a little love into El Salvador, it will give you back even more.

From Steph's goodbye letter:

"I love Peace Corps because I believe that it does a great job of putting some fire under our gringo asses. It forces us to realize just how privileged we are. It moves us away from our slick, cool, convenient cars and shoves us into rickety, sweaty, cramped buses. It strips us of all the gringo efficiency and flings us into chaos. Plopped right down with la gente, we befriend the desperate wife whose husband won’t let her leave the house to participate in the women’s group; we go with our neighbor to the local health clinic and watch her baby die for lack of quality care and basic medicines; we watch young girls curl their shoulders over their stomachs when asked to give an opinion in class and we watch our local mayor steal and no one do a damn thing about it. And we get pissed. And we start asking-- how did things end up this way? And we get determined and start wondering--what can we do about it?

I fear that when Peace Corps is over and we leave El Salvador, the fire under our asses will dim. When suddenly shielded again by nice cars, air-conditioned office buildings, and gates around our communities, I worry that our sense of urgency to do something about it will fade. When stuck in a cubicle, in a routine, back in a bubble of privilege, I dread that our determination will wane."

I worry about that too, especially when I think about how much time I spend missing and longing for all those cushy comforts I used to have. So I'm going to try to remember this, and remember that letter, and stay determined.

Steph (right) dancing with Emily, a youthie from our group