Limpieza

Earlier in the week, one of the youth group leaders told me they were organizing a street cleanup for the dance we had yesterday, which was on the street (in the pouring rain.) On such short notice and with a heavy teaching schedule, I didn't have time to contribute to the organization of this cleanup, so I decided to just show up and see how my community runs its cleaning campaigns.

The results were at once funny and horrifying. About a dozen women walked down the street with brooms, sweeping dust, leaves and trash into little piles on the sides of the street. Then a group of boys came behind with shovels and wheelbarrows to collect these piles and dump them in random people's yards.

There is no trash collection in my village; both I and the previous volunteer have spoken with the mayor of our municipio about it, and she has flat-out refused to collect trash anywhere outside the bigger town of Santa Maria Ostuma. So I bring a bag of trash to the town occasionally on the bus to dump it in a trash can there. I'm sure the villagers think I'm crazy for this.

Their preferred solution is to either leave trash on the street or burn it. But a great deal of this trash is plastic potato-chip bags and bottles. They don't realize that burning this stuff releases toxic fumes (as if the horrible smell alone didn't tell them) and think that throwing it on the ground is OK because it is "compost."

Friday, as people told me over and over that plastic soda bottles would fertilize their soil, I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Because really, it's not these people's fault. Up until 25 or 30 years ago, there were no plastics in El Salvador and all the trash was organic -- people drank out of coconut shells, food came wrapped in banana leaves, etc. People could throw anything on the ground and it would, in fact, decompose and provide nutrients to the soil. When plastics came, no one explained to these people that they just couldn't do the same thing.

Still, most of El Salvador has absolutely no trash management system whatsoever, making it almost impossible to do the most important part of my job as an environmental volunteer. Until the Salvadoran government does something to change this, we Peace Corps volunteers are powerless to keep the trash from building up in our streets, a problem which is so bad that it's one of the first things foreigners notice about this country.

I miss trash cans and littering fines.

Paz y amor.

Stand fast!

All the Peace Corps is on "stand fast" mode, meaning we can't leave our sites for security reasons, because the new president Mauricio Funes is being inaugurated Monday. He is the first president in 20 years that is not from the conservative ARENA party. Instead he is FMLN, the political party made up of the former guerillas in El Salvador's 12-year civil war. This sounds like a recipe for violence but really it's not, as the election was completely peaceful and there have not been any indications of backlash.

So I am breaking standfast mode by being at this cyber, but I didn't get the text message about it till I was already here. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure I won't be attacked.

Paz y amor.

Terremoto hondureno

I woke up at 2:48 am last night to pounding rain on my corrugated metal roof, which if you don't know sounds like lots of little explosions. At first I thought that was what had woken me, but then my bed shook and I felt the ground swaying back and forth...

Not the first tremor I've felt there, but then I found out it was actually this 7.1 earthquake, which toppled homes in Honduras and Belize and has killed at least 2 people so far.

I don't mean to be alarmist, but I do think about earthquakes a lot...the area I live in was completely destroyed by one in 2001, and I live in an "earthquake house" that was built by the European Union to replace one of the many that crumbled back then.

If I were Stephen Colbert I would put earthquakes on notice.

Paz y amor.

El crisis

I liked this article I read today on washingtonpost.com, but one thing seemed to be missing. I have been seeing the same thing here: people who went to the United States to make money and a better life for themselves and their families returned to El Salvador after the economy took a dive. I know a couple of people personally who did that. But their stories are even more compelling to me because many of them risked their lives to immigrate illegally, all for nothing, and they will have to go through the same thing again if they decide to go back to the States once the economy improves. So I wished the article had addressed Latin American immigrants. I had actually thought since months ago that the returning immigrants would be a good news story, so maybe I still have a future in journalism ;)

Here is a photo from our English class graduation!

Paz y amor.

Graduation day

Today my Saturday English class is graduating, and I couldn't be prouder of them. It's often frustrating to try to teach Salvadoran children, as half of them just don't care. Even for the ones that do, school is only ever half a day and is frequently cancelled, so even the older students have shockingly low literacy and comprehension levels.

These kids, though, have come voluntarily on Saturdays because they want to learn, and have done a great job studying and remembering everything they've been taught. I honestly think of them as my only real success in this site so far.

Yesterday was our belated Mothers' Day celebration. When I got there, rumors were flying around that I was going to do a choreographed dance in front of all the moms. "No! No! No!" I kept saying, and then I demanded to know who started this rumor. The principal readily admitted it was him, even though he knew no such thing would happen. One more failed attempt to throw the gringa into the spotlight.

Highlights of this week also include writing letters to my friend Meaghan's 5th grade class in Glen Burnie and getting left behind by a funeral procession (I was supposed to go, but they passed by my house so silently I didn't even notice! Only in El Salvador.)

Here is what the community center looked like on Mothers' Day.
I was in charge of this display.
Paz y amor.

Bank of Alia

Yesterday, I was working away in my house, planning a party for my Saturday English students who are "graduating" next week (woohoo free Saturdays!) when a woman from my community came by who is my semi-friend. I say "semi" because she is sweet enough but cannot stop asking me for money, directly or indirectly. I have lent her a dollar here, five dollars there, and she has always paid me back, but this time I was blown right out of the water.

"My (alcoholic) husband isn't working right now and we have to plant corn this week," she said. "Can I borrow $30 for fertilizer?"

30 dollars?! That's a lot of money in the States, never mind here, and my Peace Corps salary would make you all laugh. And it might be all right, since I know she would, slowly, pay me back, but this has already gone far enough. Next she'll be asking me for $50. She has already asked me for the shoes off my feet and the food in my house.

I don't mean to sound insensitive to poor people, really I don't. But although things are hard for this woman, she is not starving. She and her family have got by for years before there was a gringa in the community. And I can't turn my head and give them more money while the husband lies around and drinks away what the wife earns. At some point this woman has to fix the root of the problem.

She's not the only person who has come by asking me for things either. A lot of the time it's people I barely know and who, I have learned from experience, will not pay me back. I can't have word getting around that I just hand out money to anyone who wants it. As Peace Corps Volunteers, we're here to combat the handout mentality in favor of capacity-building, which is something I strongly believe in personally as well. It might not help the poor villagers in the extremely short-term, but they will have a strong economic foundation for the future if they focus on learning new skills and using them to get jobs or make money. And I'm here to teach some of those skills (English, computers) and help the community do projects for their collective economic benefit, but I myself am not a microfinance enterprise.

So I'm going to go back to the village today and tell this woman that I can't lend her any more than $10, and she will still have to pay me back. Insensitive bitch that I am.

Paz y amor.

Happy Mother's Day?

It is time for my school to celebrate Mother's Day!

12 days after the fact...

That's right, the principal didn't have the time or inclination to plan an event that would actually coincide with the holiday, so we are planning one now for almost two weeks later. I guess this doesn't seem weird to anyone else. But to me, it's like forgetting about, say, Halloween and then trick or treating on November 12, to the confusion of your neighbors who by now have no more candy. At some point you have to recognize that a holiday has passed you by.

Of course, I was dragged into the preparations at the last minute. It always happens that way. One minute I'm on the porch talking to my host family, the next minute my school director comes by and drags me into a "secret, important meeting" that is starting that very minute. So here I am at the cybercafe looking up poems and images to put on the invitations that we are giving to all the mothers, which I have been put in charge of as the only computer literate teacher. Apparently these mothers will come to school in the morning May 22 for snacks, raffles, dances and a poem.

The poem is to be recited by me following a confusing exchange with the principal.

PRINCIPAL: Maybe your mother can write a poem for us.
ME: My mom? Why?
PRINCIPAL: Is she going to come? Can she write a poem?
ME: No, she won't be coming...wait, are you saying you want ME to write a poem, or my mom?
PRINCIPAL: Oh, I just remembered. Your mom isn't a writer. The last volunteer had writer mom...
ME: Well, I'm a writer! I write the news! But maybe I could just look up a poem on the Internet...

So not only do I get compared to or mistaken for the previous volunteer pretty much daily, now her mother has become my mother.

Anyway, thank God for the Net. I found a lovely Spanish poem written by an actual poet, and that will be read to my school's mothers on May 22. Twelve days late.

Here are some of my host family at the beach a couple of weeks ago:
During training we hiked through a cloud forest to a view of Lago Coatepeque, a famous crater lake. There was fog EVERYWHERE and my camera died soon after this unremarkable shot...
Paz y amor.

English and preoccupations

The English language is taking over my life. I am still supposed to be teaching it every day, but I am begging off yet again four days this week because of other compromisos, or other things I had already agreed to do. I feel only slightly bad about this -- after all, I never did agree to help out with English class every day. That is what my principal initially wanted, but I only agreed to come "as often as I could." Which is turning out to be not very often at all...

Ironically enough, Thursday is one of the days I am skipping out, to go help others with the English language. I am translating for Habitat for Humanity that day and I'm super excited.

Today I got on the computer and found out that one of my favorite editors and mentors left The Baltimore Sun for public relations. This guy used to basically run the show at The Sun and is the last person I expected to leave. Which, coupled with some recent conversations with Peace Corps friends, has me thinking a lot about the future.

I knew when I left for the Peace Corps that I was doing the right thing, as there are no job opportunities in journalism, the field I studied for four years. But I hoped things would improve by the time I came back. Now that doesn't look likely and I am directionless once more.

My friend Sara wrote this article for the Wall Street Journal describing the screwed-over plight of recent grads like me. And my friend Erin wrote a blog post that eerily describes my exact sentiments. Except for one: while I certainly want to continue traveling, I'm too panicked about financial security to hare off again as soon as I get out of the Peace Corps. I'm much more likely to go back to the States and nail down a steady job first, if I can, or -- dun dun dunnn -- go back to school?

Last Sunday I went to the beach with my youth group and some members of the community, and then I spent a week in training with the other ag/environmental volunteers. Pictures to come the next time I score a cooperative computer.

Paz y amor.

I bless the rains

Rainy season has begun and God, I love it. The weather has suddenly become infinitely more pleasant, and I love the sound of driving rain on my corrugated tin roof (and sometimes I like the excuse not to go anywhere). It's true -- if it's raining, or the Salvies think it's going to rain, they'll stay home and refuse to show up to meetings or anything. I remember that from training but it has yet to affect my work here.

Yesterday was Labor Day here, as in the rest of the world except the United States, of course. It's funny, El Salvador has a ton of traditions that they constantly observe but can give no reasons for. For example, yesterday a bunch of kids dressed up in weird costumes, as old people, devils or sad clowns, and danced in front of the church. When I asked why they did that, people just shrugged and said, "It's tradition." Nor did they know the story behind May 1 and why it's international Labor Day -- Haymarket Square and all that. I had to explain the history to my host family, who were wondering why so many people demonstrate in San Sal every May 1.

Swine flu is dominating the news here too -- I don't have a TV but I listen to a lot of radio reports about "gripe porcina" (pork cold?) although there are no cases reported in El Salvador as yet. Peace Corps is inundating us with emails about it, though.

Here are some shots from yesterday:
The drummers tapping out the beatI never figured out which of the village boys were in these costumes...That one in the corn sack was the agressor and kept fighting people.

Paz y amor.