Feliz Día del Maestro

Today is teachers' day, which means that schools are closed. I really do applaud the thought -- give hard-working, undervalued teachers a day off -- but in all honesty, most teachers here cancel classes por gusto (whenever they feel like it) anyway, so this holiday is really just hurting the students even more. My particular school has turned the holiday into "teachers' three days," never mind the random holiday they took last week, so you get the picture...

Sunday was the Feria Agropecuaria Robert Blau, the agricultural festival named after the interim U.S. ambassador (Obama hasn't appointed a new one since his inauguration) in a town near mine. This town, San Pedro Nonualco, has had Peace Corps volunteers since 1962, the year after Kennedy founded the Peace Corps. Of course El Salvador didn't have volunteers from 1980-1992 during the civil war, but barring that, there has always been a volunteer in San Pedro. So the morning of the fair was taken up with speeches about how much Peace Corps and the United States government in general has benefitted San Pedro. Normally I get annoyed when people here idealize the United States, because they're often far off the mark, but this was nice because the Peace Corps has actually made visible improvements in San Pedro. But the speeches were also a reminder that tangible improvement takes decades of work, not just a couple of years.

Anyway. The downside of not having internet on my own computer is that sometimes I forget to bring my camera memory card to the cyber café. So I'll try to get some pictures of the festival for you guys Saturday?

Paz y amor.