Pepinos y rábanos

It looks like my school is finally pulling through and I might be a successful volunteer after all! My school principal and some people from CENTA, the government agency for agricultural technology, finally agreed to teach a bunch of my kids how to plant radishes and cucumbers. Thank God. This is something my principal has been expecting me to handle, but of course I know nothing about planting vegetables, although as an environmental education volunteer I supposedly should. The activity is on Wednesday and if all goes well we will have a successful project! And if not, at least I did everything I could do to start a school garden and cannot be accused of shirking my duties as an environmental educator.

Two hurricanes, Alex and some other one, just finished dumping a ton of rain on El Salvador and I am officially sick of the rainy season. Yes, two hurricanes AT THE SAME TIME. The storms ruined Pineapplefest, which I had been looking forward to all year. Water doesn't leak onto my bed, but even my sheets and blankets are damp from so much moisture in the air.
At least this is panning out to be a fun month. Tomorrow we have an Independence Day soccer tournament and several parties in San Salvador. Then at the end of the month I head to Nicaragua with a friend. Then my brother might come visit in August (maybe?) and a few days after he leaves we have our Close of Service conference and I will officially stop all major work and prepare to come home, probably in October.
I definitely have enough work to keep me busy until then, as we're still building stoves and trying to finish this project with the health dispensary.
In other news, the kid I wrote about, Luis, who was studying dentistry and lost his scholarship, went illegally to the United States last week. We had actually given him another chance with the scholarship, so he could have stayed here and studied, but the opportunity came to go mojado and he took it. It's sad to think he could have been a dentist here but instead will probably work construction or something there. I hope everything works out for him and that maybe I can meet him up in the States.

Here's a pic of the feria I went to with the interim ambassador...guess which one he is...


This is the biggest pineapple ever, at our Feria de la Piña one week later.
Paz y amor.