Passing the torch

My replacement volunteer arrived at my site two days ago. She is living with a family that I and the school director set her up with. Her name is Rebecca. She is a redhead so she will probably get more catcalls than me. Thank God.

Having the new volunteer in my site reminds me of when I came two years ago. The first day, she looked as overwhelmed as I felt then. And seeing the world through her eyes has made me realize how much my Spanish has improved and how much I've integrated into the community. Every time we passed someone on the street, I knew that person's name, who they were related to and some other bits of information. I remember going through the same thing two years ago, with Suzanne giving me everyone's life story, and thinking I would never learn as much about these people as she had.

Rebecca seems to love our site. As she should, because it is beautiful. Even compared to the rest of El Salvador. And her host mom is giving her fresh squeezed orange juice every day, which I don't even get.

Funny, I complain about my site a lot, but having Rebecca here makes me like it more. People who I stopped talking to very often have grown warm and interested again. I get invited to events and told to bring the new gringa.

This is my last full week in my site. I will be travelling nearly all of next week, then back and forth to San Salvador doing administrative stuff.

Sometimes I think about packing, or getting rid of my stuff, or my goodbye party...and every time, I decide to ignore these things until the last possible moment, because I just can't get my head around it.

Paz y amor.

Atrapada

...in San Vicente, once more due to heavy rains.

"What had happened was" (PG County so soon!) I went into San Vicente to talk to the trainees about "moving in and getting around," as they swear in tomorrow and come to their sites Friday. Including my replacement, so I will have a compañera in my site for a month! Sweet.

Anyway, during our discussion it started to pour rain and the river in Guadalupe, a town my bus would pass through, rose to dangerous levels and no one could get through there. So I am stuck in a hotel in San Vicente without even a toothbrush to my name.

At least our bridge hasn't collapsed (hopefully?)

I am still shocked by news I've received that yet another one of our university scholarship girls is preggers. We as Peace Corps volunteers talk about family planning to these girls, but in one ear and out the other, I guess?

The job search continues and is making me anxious. So is the mouse in my house. I went to buy mouse poison and this is what transpired:

ME: Do you have mouse poison?
STORE MAN: Here it is (handing me a small bag).
ME: How do you use it?
MAN: It's granulated. Put it where the mouse is hiding, mix it with some food, like a banana or something.
ME: But I don't know where the mouse is right now.
MAN: Right now? The poor little mouse is sleeping, dreaming of the delicious poisoned food you are about to give him.

Not a very good poison salesman. And yes, I did feel horrible after this exchange.

Paz y amor.

What a week

Rural village life here in El Salvador is generally isolated and peaceful, but this week's national emergency changed all that.

It started early in the week, when gang members, angered by a new anti-gang law, started posting flyers all over the country threatening to burn buses if they operated Wednesday through Friday. Few Salvadorans can afford cars and most depend on an extensive bus network that goes even into very rural areas. And gang crimes here are usually perpetrated on buses.

Anyway, this caused a 72-hour shutdown of the buses, making it impossible for much of the country to get to work or other necessary destinations. Of course my town's water pump broke during this strike, and the people from the water company were too scared to come fix it. Even though they come in company vehicles, people were scared that the gang threats would extend to any large vehicle, or even the passenger-laden pickup trucks that sometimes substitute for buses. Anyway, our water was out and I couldn't leave to go buy water or shower and do laundry in the capital. Thanks gangs.

Usually gang members board buses, rob all the people and bus's fare money from that day, and then evacuate the bus and burn it. The anti-gang law was proposed after a bus was burned in July with all the people still in it and the gang members posted to shoot escapers. 17 people were killed and more were wounded. That I did not blog about because I didn't want everyone worried about me. It happened at night in one of the most dangerous parts of the country, so there's no chance I or any other Peace Corps volunteer would have been in that situation. The only reason I'm writing about it now is that it's mentioned in that BBC link. Thanks BBC.

Still. I can't believe there wasn't already a law making it a crime to be a gang member. And when I think of this week I'm kind of glad my service is almost over!

In that vein, I finally wrapped up the stove project with a clausura meeting, complete with a huge cake. Glad that's out of my hair! I couldn't take pictures, though, because I was too busy actually running the meeting. Just one more project to finish, which will happen Thursday. And the new volunteer gets here the day after that!

Paz y amor.

Deme, deme

Readers of this blog are probably sick by now of me complaining about "handout mentality" -- villagers coming up to me and demanding money and things they feel I am obligated to give them because I am from the United States.

Well, yesterday I was kind of forced to go to church, and the priest, whom I normally don't like because he's so oppressive, actually gave a sermon against that!

He said he saw people arriving at the mayor's office and demanding (not asking for) money for bus fare, etc., and it made him sick. "Let's not get used to acting that way," he said.

THANK GOD! (No pun intended.) I now like the priest again.

In other news, the comedor, like a cafeteria-style restaurant, in my town was robbed at gunpoint at about 1 p.m. last week. Luckily no one was there eating at the time, only the owners. But don't be scared for me, as now there is a permanent police presence in the town (there wasn't before.) It's sad that it took something like this for the police to do their jobs, though.

Paz y amor.

This is the end...

I'm in San Salvador wrapping up three days of required medical appointments for Close of Service. I'm realizing I will be spending very little time in the village until I leave in October. We are constantly going to San Salvador for final interviews and administrative stuff, my job search brings me into town a lot to use the cyber cafes, and we are also planning some trips to the places we've always meant to go for the past two years, but have never got around to it.

In a way it's kind of nice -- I like leaving the village, meeting up with gringo friends, using the Internet. After two years I guess I haven't gone completely native! I have kind of been waiting for this part of my service, the part where I stop working and do whatever I want for a couple of months until I leave. There are still some projects to finish up in my site, but most of that will get done in the next two weeks.

I am medically fine and I guess it's time to go back to the village. Paz y amor.