Pueblos Vivos 2009

All this month, El Salvador is having a tourism campaign/competition involving 56 towns/districts. One of them, Santa Maria Ostuma, is mine. The way it works is, Salvadorans are supposed to visit these places and vote for their favorite one. But even though the country is so small, only the rich can really travel farther than their own department. So I don't think my tiny town has a shot in hell of winning. But the mayor thinks different. She's had banners saying "VOTE FOR SANTA MARIA OSTUMA" hung as far as half an hour away and is holding festivals every Sunday until the competition ends-- yesterday was the Corn Festival, next Sunday is Dance, another one is Culture and I don't know what else is coming up. But that's kind of cheating in my opinion, because it's not like we normally would have had these events...

Either way, it should make my life a little more interesting.

In other news, the volunteer who used to be in my site comes to visit for a week starting today. It should be fun to get her perspective on things that have happened since she left...

Also, our Saturday youth group meetings have been taken over this month by missionaries who are making the meetings 2 hours long and EVEN MORE about Jesus. I can barely even stand our normal 45-minute sermons. I wish there were Unitarians in El Salvador...

Paz y amor.