Temblores y teatro

Right before I started writing this post, I felt a strong tremor here in San Pedro Nonualco, El Salvador. It always starts the same way, with the ground moving slowly, slightly, almost undetectably, like when you're lying in a hammock and you're not even sure whether it's still swinging.

Then it started to get stronger and everyone started looking up and around. With one final jerk, it ended.

As soon as it was over, we turned on the news and found out that the tremor registered 5.8 on the Richter scale in Guatemala near the border of El Salvador. As far as I know there's been no damage, but this literally just happened and any damage might not have been reported.

El Salvador has always been prone to earthquakes, including two huge ones in 2001 that devastated the entire region I live in. As if the memory of those quakes isn't terrifying enough, what happened in Haiti six days ago is all over the news here too. One tremor and people get really paranoid. And I have to say I feel the same way.

The other day some people in my village formed an emergency committee to coordinate rescue efforts whenever a disaster happens. I live next door to the community center where the meeting was happening, walked into it and thus was sworn in as a member of the committee. It was formed as a reaction not only to the earthquake in Haiti but to the disaster we suffered in November as a result of Hurricane Ida. Of course I think the emergency committee is a good idea, but we're mostly forming it because no one wants to form a permanent legal village council, which I have been pushing since I got here and which would be proactive rather than reactive. It's typical of my site to write off work and organization until it's necessary for some temporary goal.

In terms of post-Ida aid, what my village really needs is food donations, but those are actually being provided for the next three months by an NGO here. I'll be meeting with some people hopefully this week to see if there's anything more I can do, but I don't want to start my own private fund if the NGOs are giving us everything we need.

In other news, the theater group I run is kicking it into high gear with educational performances scheduled throughout the country in the next three months. Which makes me feel like I'm actually doing something worthwhile here, because projects in my site keep getting pushed back. I'm playing the waiting game with the three major projects I'm working on right now: a community clean-up with the school, the fuel-efficient stove project and another project where we paint a map of the world on one of the school's exterior walls.

Miss everyone at home. Paz y amor!