Valentine's Day and food giveaway

Like every other country in the world with an economy, El Salvador celebrates Valentine's Day. When I first got here, I was happy to find out V-day was called "Dia del amor y la amistad" -- Love And Friendship Day. I always had a problem with Valentine's Day in the States, whether or not I was single, because it commercializes love and is just another excuse to make Hallmark some money. But Friendship Day sounds promising, and cheap too. You don't have to buy your friends things on Friendship Day, I reasoned, you just have to hang out with them.

But my host aunt soured me on Valentine's Day, even here. Some background: I am renting a house that she will inherit, but technically it's not even hers yet and I pay the money to her mother. She, however, has decided that this means she can use my porch whenever she feels like it. On Dia de los Muertos (November 1) she woke me up at 5:30 a.m. to hawk flowers from my porch, and I was super pissed but said nothing because I figured it was just one day out of the year. That day, she at least asked permission, although she knew very well I couldn't stand there and tell her no, even if I was actually bothered by her screeching "FLORES!" right outside before the sun even rose. Which of course I was.

So imagine my surprise when I came home on Saturday to find a Valentine's Day store operating from my porch. "I invaded your space!" my host aunt said brightly, with a big smile. This was even worse than November because a) I hate Valentine's Day commercialization and b) it is much hotter now than it was in November, and I had to stay in my hot house with the metal roof instead of lying in my cool hammock on the porch. In an attempt to cool down, I opened all the windows in my house, which meant that everyone who came to buy anything also stared at me reading, or listening to music, or whatever. And the stuff she was selling was pure crap, and all the writing was English too, which made me mad that Love and Friendship Day is losing its honorability to American commercialization. The Alia's Porch Valentine's Day store lasted for two days straight. And she didn't even ask this time.

Here in El Salvador, there is no concept of renters' rights. Other volunteers have similar stories -- their landlords enter their houses and steal things, or decide to hold church services there while the volunteer is away, or throw random parties in the house while the volunteer is home. We (rightfully, dammit!) have the idea that because we are paying a good deal of money to live in these houses, we have a right to the space even though the place isn't legally ours. For some reason, though, Salvadorans don't see it that way.

In happier news, my community is getting a big donation of corn and beans from another volunteer's community! For Peace Corps volunteers, giveaway projects are always tricky because one a volunteer does one, they are forever branded as a rich American who will give anything away for the asking, and the Peace Corps gets a reputation as a giveaway organization, even though we're really supposed to work with community leaders on projects and are basically prohibited from bringing in money or things without a certain amount of community investment. But this project is Salvadorans donating to other Salvadorans, which makes it special (and amazing!) My volunteer friend was approached by community members who said they wanted to donate to Hurricane Ida victims, and they wanted her help raising money and identifying a needy community. In the end, my community was picked, and I will spend a few happy days this week organizing a corn and beans giveaway!

Paz y amor.