Buses and worms and stoves, oh my

Yesterday at about 1:3o p.m. I took a bus from San Salvador to Santa Maria Ostuma, my pueblo, from where my village is a 20-30 minute hike.

At 6:30 p.m. another bus left from San Sal to Ostuma. Somewhere along the way, some gang members got on the bus and killed the cobrador, the guy who walks around collecting money, calling out stops, helping people get on and off, etc. They probably killed him in order to take all the money the bus had collected that day. Of course the bus was full of people who witnessed the cobrador being shot.

Of course none of the buses between Ostuma and San Sal are running today. The drivers and cobradors are afraid. Passengers are afraid.

This incident actually doesn't make me feel any less safe because I always travel in bright daylight and shootings like this always happen at night. Plus no passengers were harmed. Cobradors get killed all over the country; this didn't even make the news. But I wonder what it was like for the people on the bus yesterday. How many gang members were there? Could they tell what was about to happen or did it go really fast? What did the cobrador do after he was shot? I'm assuming the bus headed for the nearest hospital. But did the cobrador die first? Did the passengers see him die?

Thank God my village is really tranquilo. The big excitement there is all the stoves I'm building. We're finishing up this week. The project has taken over my life. Every afternoon we build 3-5 stoves. It's really fun actually, and the people are really grateful and give us food, and we talk about all the village news. Most of the families that signed up for stoves I didn't know very well, but now I see them on the street and remember who they are, where they live, etc. Which is nice although I only have 5 months left for this information to be useful.

4 stoves being made at once
The recipients, pleased despite their stern faces.

Some kittens. Just because.

The unfortunate thing is that building all these stoves has left me basically no time to work on the lombriculture project I was planning with the school. I was hoping to have given all my worms away by now because I'm getting sick of the big box of earthworms in my house. But I haven't had the chance, so I've been feeding these worms for weeks. Luckily one stove family gave me a bunch of bananas that rotted before I could eat them all. My worms are going to have a lot of potassium...

It's cool, breezy and rainy these days. I love it. Also the Peace Corps med office gave me vitamins with appetite enhancers and now I eat like a pig.

Paz y amor.