Que suerte!

I complain a lot about rural village life, and there are things about it that I will not miss...dirtiness and poop in the streets, rabid dogs everywhere, religious fatalism and narrow mindedness, and just the smallness of it. I don't think it's charming that everyone knows everyone else and their exact whereabouts every single day. I think it's annoying. I love city life and I loved my gargantuan university because I like anonymity. I like being surrounded by diverse people and having my choice of who to grow close to and spend time with.

But the nice thing about village life is that every time I have some problem, the people who can help me with it are right there, sometimes even unexpectedly.

Take yesterday. I returned from San Salvador with heavy boxes containing an air mattress and an electric fan, as preparation for the Peace Corps trainee who arrives at my site today to get a taste of volunteer life (the heat never bothered me enough to get a fan for myself, but other people complain about it when they visit...wusses.) The boxes were not an issue, as I was going to take the 4 p.m. bus up the hill to my site. That bus decided not to run yesterday and I had to hike the hill (NOTE: this always happens when I am sick or carrying something heavy.) So I'm struggling along when along comes Roberto, one of the leaders of the youth group, who offers to carry a box.

Saved! I was doubly lucky because Roberto (or Chobert, as his Salvadoran nickname goes) was one of the people I wanted to talk to about keeping my trainee entertained this weekend now that schools are closed. So I got my stuff lugged home AND we made plans to have a youth group cooking activity tomorrow. Score!

In other news, the woman in my village who always pesters me for money just quit her job for the 2nd time, because her boss got mad at her for running a personal errand that took all day when she should have been working. For someone who really needs the money, she sure does quit jobs for the wrong reasons. I have met a lot of fantastic, hardworking Salvadorans, and this woman does work hard bringing up her children and at her fomer job, but I have also met way too many who expect money for nothing. I wonder how this woman thinks she's going to get by without her job, and then I realize she'll start asking me for loans again. Which, by now, I feel no guilt in refusing. Stay tuned...

For the first time in my life, I am missing my family's summer week on the lake in New England. I'm not completely heartbroken about it, I was bound to miss out sometime, but it's still strange to think about. I'll miss next year too, and probably go through New England lake withdrawal, which will involve diving into the coldest water in El Salvador and trying to find Sam Adams (ha!) and some way to barbecue something. Anything.

Paz y amor.

Swine Flu Vacation

The first 6 months in site for almost every Peace Corps volunteer are characterized by inactivity and occasional feelings of boredom or downright guilt for being so lazy and worthless, even though it's usually not the volunteer's fault they can't get much done (they're still not settled in, they haven't yet reached the point where they can solicit funds). That period for me had lasted until this month, when I got really busy and, consequentially, really happy. Projects I had been trying to get done for a while were finally coming through (a 7-9th grade excursion, a nursery for tangerine trees, computer classes, etc.) Then, when I was finally feeling accomplished, school was cancelled for 2 weeks and further extracurricular activities suspended for a month, rendering me pretty useless during that time period. Until the suspension is lifted, I am back to feeling like I just hang out in El Salvador and do nothing.

Why the suspension? Swine flu has reached epic proportions here. New cases are popping up everywhere, including one child who died in a town near my site. So I guess cancelling school is justified, but it's still annoying.

It's even worse that the new group of Environmental Education trainees are here and they're supposed to visit us this weekend to see "all the work we do."

I guess I shouldn't be complaining -- after all, I do get a 2 week vacation, and there are beach plans in the works...

Here are some of my Salvadoran students happily (OK, grudgingly) doing the work I assigned them...

These kids had to put the drawings in order to depict the oxygen/carbon dioxide cycle. They actually understood!

Paz y amor.

Corpus Christi

is not just a place in Texas, apparently.


It is also the word for a celebration which, at least in our village, involves creating huge altars to Jesus Christ, visiting the houses where the altars are, eating bread and coffee and tamales and listening to music, waking up the next morning and decorating the streets in white and yellow and multicolored flags, nearly passing out in the heat during Mass, and then a procession to the altars AGAIN, which I skipped because I was dehydrated and not Catholic, goddammit.


It is really hot where I live right now. As hot as it was during the hottest months of the year. I just looked us up on weather.com and it is somewhere in the range of 95 degrees with 70 percent humidity. But that is right now, at 4 pm -- I'm sure it was over 100 earlier.


Next week involves a lot of teaching environmental classes, a meeting about the citrus fruit nursery we are STILL trying to start, and a visit from the new Peace Corps environmental education trainees, who are visiting my site because it is the closest one to the training center. So now I have to pretend I've actually done some tangible work since I got here. We're all going to plant trees together, as if I plant trees on the street all the time.


Last week I went to a funeral for a retired professor who died suddenly of a heart attack. During a church trip to the beach last weekend, another girl my age almost drowned and is still in the hospital in critical condition. I didn't know the girl but the whole town and village are freaking out. It is really horrible to think about.


Here are some pictures from decorating the street this morning:

The youth group hanging the streamers

The balloons match my house! And most houses in the village, because all the earthquake houses the EU built are yellow.

Paz y amor.

The renovated school

Finally, some pics of the inauguration ceremony...

The 4 new classrooms, freshly painted

It's a school ceremony, so of course there will be kids dancing in these dresses...
The ambassador of Japan, which financed most of the construction

Planting a maquilishat (the national tree of El Salvador)

Paz y amor.

Happy Fourth!

Yesterday my youth group had a big convention with the youth group from a nearby town. And today they are going hiking.

I was not there for any of this. Why? Because it was Independence Day, and all the Peace Corps volunteers had a soccer tournament (the ag/environmental volunteers won 2nd place) and fun parties in the capital.

I should feel guilty for choosing my American friends over my site, but I don't, because I'm sure the Salvies understand...after all, everything shuts down and there are huge parties on their independence day (September 15, the day before we got here actually.)

In other news, everyone has been following the coup d'etat in Honduras, but it has not affected our safety in any way here. Swine flu cases have been increasing, closing down schools in and near the capital, but my school is not affected. One 9-year-old boy died of swine flu after being treated 4 times for pneumonia; the doctors and hospital involved are being investigated for negligence.

I might be going to the movie theater for the first time since September, in order to see...Transformers!

Have to run, pictures later...