Don't you mean Mexico?

After more than a year in El Salvador, my laptop has died. It is refusing to turn on. Needless to say, I made several phone calls to tech support, and needless to say they were not helpful. But the worst part was not that they couldn't get my computer to work. The worst part was that none of the three agents I talked to knew what or where El Salvador is.

Seriously???

Every time I mentioned that I was in El Salvador, I was asked if I didn't mean a different country. "Oh, isn't that in Spain/Mexico/Texas?" I wasn't even polite to these people. I laughed in their faces (earpieces?) and said "No. It is a COUNTRY."

"Is that in South America?"

"CENTRAL AMERICA." "Jesus Christ," I even added, semi-under my breath, the third time I was asked to clarify. Which is funny because El Salvador means the Savior and therefore refers to Jesus Christ. But I wasn't trying to explain the origins of the name. I was trying to explain that this person was an idiot.

One woman (not the one I said "Jesus Christ" too) actually got offended and said bitingly, "Sorry. I'm not familiar with it." Wow, what a great comeback. "Sorry, I am embarassingly ignorant."

I understand that El Salvador is a small country that isn't in the news much. But am I too outraged here? I mean, it is close to the United States, there are a lot of Salvadoran immigrants in America, and shouldn't anyone with a high school education know at least which continent any given country is on?

Anyway. I brought the computer into the capital today and left it at a workshop. Keep your fingers crossed!

Paz y amor.

Becas becas becas

The school year is coming to an end, which means it's time to start prodding kids to apply for scholarships (becas) for next year...I just came back from San Salvador to turn in some applications for scholarships funded by a Peace Corps committee. But my leading candidate for a university scholarship just plain didn't do her application. I was a bit surprised, but I have witnessed an attitude towards education here that is cavalier at best. At home, it seems like so many people go to college without really caring about it because it's what's expected of them. So it shouldn't be so surprising that some kids here don't care to go to college -- except they're being offered a chance at a scholarship, and in my village the kids are so poor and a university education would do wonders for their future. They understand this, or at least they've been told it enough and can parrot it ("Quiero estudiar para salir adelante"/"I want to study to get ahead") but when it comes time to fill out the forms that would give them that shot? Nah.

At least two girls in the 9th grade filled out forms for high school scholarships. Keep your fingers crossed for them!

Paz y amor.

Off Probation

My readers (all both of them) might remember a couple of posts I wrote last month in which I stated that things were going badly here and I was thinking of coming home. Well, at that time, I had put myself on one-month probation. I told myself that if things didn't get better in a month, I would make a final decision. That month is over today, but I've realized for a while (a week maybe?) that I really don't want to leave yet.

To defend myself, it wasn't just run-of-the-mill problems that made me want to leave. Sure, I'm bothered sometimes by my living conditions, some of the people in my site, and an overall lack of productivity. But I was in a serious relationship, and that gave me kind of a support system to deal with all the things I don't like about Peace Corps. I started wanting to leave when that relationship ended. I was experiencing everything anyone experiences during a painful breakup, plus I was bored and lonely in a rural village with way too much time to think about everything that was bad in my life.

That's all I'll say about that. This isn't someone's angsty high school LiveJournal, after all.

Luckily, some really good things have happened this month. And they are:

• The field trip I wrote about
• I solicited for some equipment for our health dispensario, and the grant was approved, thanks to Kids to Kids, an organization that donates money to benefit kids around the world. As part of this project, I'll be giving interactive basic health lessons to kids, plus our dispensario gets a fence, a nebulizer for all the respiratory infections we have, and a stove to make healthy food for visitors and events. Plus, I have been working with my community counterpart to present information we received from a Peace Corps health training to the volunteer promoters in my village.
• We started Saturday computer classes, which I supervise and three of my university friends (who are scholarship students doing this for service hours) teach.
• It's scholarship application season, and I've been working on getting three girls from my community high school or university scholarships.
• It looks like we might be able to start building eco-friendly stoves soon (wait till I start hitting all you gringos up for money!)
• I have officially taken over the Peace Corps travelling theater group, which keeps me busy with one of my greatest loves.
• We are FINALLY doing a trash and recycling campaign at school, with long-term plans to keep collecting bottles and cans, which we can sell to raise funds that we never have enough of.
• I found Raid Casa y Jardin in the supermarket, which I have successfully used to destroy the ants and crickets (yes, crickets) that were infesting my house. The crickets in particular were holed up in a hollow part of the window shutter right over my bed, and I couldn't sleep for a week straight. Until I poisoned them to death, with no regrets.
  
• I'm coming home for Christmas and the New Year if it's the last thing I do on this earth.

Paz y amor.