Fiestas patronales, round 2 (or 4)

Well, the weeklong festival honoring the patron saint of my village, San Jose (Saint Joseph) ended last night at God knows what hour, and I am officially sleep deprived. Wait, you say, weren't you just celebrating fiestas patronales in late January/early February? Well, yes, but that was for the whole municipality, whose patroness is the Virgin Mary.

If you count the festivities last year, this is my fourth and last turn through fiestas patronales. And it was the most fun, because now I know more people and have closer relationships with people in the community. It used to be that I would force myself to spend long stretches of time with Salvadorans. Now I do it willingly and happily.

The other result of a long time in country is that I no longer feel guilty about skipping the events I'm not interested in, like the hours-long prayers and Masses in honor of San Jose, in favor of the ones I am interested in, like riding Ferris wheels and attending dances. Probably because by now I know that my friends in the community don't care that I never go to Mass, and I don't care for anyone who would judge me about it. And I'm OK with that and no longer fear being ostracized from the community for it.

Also, on Monday I was finally the victim of a robbery that actually screwed me over a little. While getting off a crowded bus, someone snuck my wallet out of my bookbag. Luckily this was done right in front of my bank, so I immediately went in and cancelled my card. I did lose $50 in cash, though, and my driver's license. About a year ago, when $40 was taken from my house, I was crying and furious. This time I just shrugged it off. Maybe I've become more acostumbrada, but it's also because I knew this time I was in a dangerous city (containing the only nearby bank and supermarket, so I have no choice but to frequent it.) My region is getting worse when it comes to crime -- when I called the Peace Corps safety officer to report the incident, she was like, "You again?" But I still always feel safe in my village and nearby area (the robbery last year was inevitable because I had stupidly left my wallet by an open window, and even then the robber kindly took the cash and left me the wallet with all the bank and ID cards.) As an added benefit, when I turn in the police report to Peace Corps, they will reimburse me 80 percent of the money stolen.

We continue buying materials for the stove project and wrapping up the recycling contest. Last week's environmental camp was a smashing success despite the fact that one of my kids vomited the whole way home due to eating a ton and then spending hours on the bus. I was terrified his mom would be enraged that I brought him back from camp sick as a dog, but she basically laughed it off. They're used to vomiting here.

Here's a picture of the kids I brought to the camp, plus my 22-year-old host sister Sonia, who I brought to help me supervise said kids (the one to the far right is the one who got sick). No, Salvadorans don't smile in pictures. I don't have many other good pictures of the camp, even though it was on a crater lake, because my camera ran out of batteries :( Rechargables are flaky!

Paz y amor.

The reckoning has, in fact, come

And I am busier than I have ever been in El Salvador, with the aforementioned projects. The environmental camp is coming up this weekend and I'm super excited, despite having pretty much no time to prepare for it. I still have to prepare my activities for the camp, finish arranging transportation and snacks, turn in paperwork, etc. etc. If this were still January, I would have had everything arranged weeks ago, but it is March and I am SWAMPED! Unexpected things keep popping up to take up even more of my time, like a visit to my site from some Peace Corps/Nicaragua officials and my Regional Leader (a 3rd-year volunteer who's like a coordinator for the rest of us in our region.)

Hopefully, after I get through this camp and the environmental drawing contest hosted by the U.S. Embassy (the deadline is a week after the camp) I will have time to breathe...but then, I am still working on the world map, which has to be finished before the rains come in April/May. With all this going on, I tried to push the stove project back -- after all, that has no time frame attached to it -- but my community members won't have it. I guess they feel they've waited too long for the stoves already. So some of them are buying materials without me this week.


Two days ago, I went to my friend Gabi's site to give their community a presentation about the stoves we build. Because bus schedules are crazy, we ended up in the area hours before the demonstration was scheduled to start. So I went to visit the family I lived with during training, as they're nearby. I was a bit nervous about this because I was with my stove counterpart, whom I don't particularly like. But as I found out, if you want to get a Salvadoran woman to talk with you freely and openly, bring another Salvadoran woman to the conversation. My training host mom and my stove counterpart got along famously, despite my counterpart taking potshots at me whenever she could (about what I eat, who in the community I talk to, etc. etc.) But she talked a lot about the political rivalries of our village, and who is on what side...I always noticed that certain people (my counterpart and my host family, my host family and our neighbors) didn't like each other, but I didn't really know why. And now I know it's because my host family supports the current mayor and priest (who basically work together) while a bunch of others hate the mayor and support the opposition.

We finally distributed the corn and beans that my friend Megan's community donated to us. More than 51 families benefited from the donations.

Paz y amor.