It has been quite a busy week here in El Salvador. As I mentioned in my previous post, some security changes are going down but the majority of our questions are still unanswered. We had a frustrating all-volunteer conference last week with the jefes from headquarters in Washington in hopes of receiving some answers about the future of Peace Corps El Salvador. Although it was great to see all of my friends, I was pretty disappointed with the lack of information provided to us. The most common answer to all of our questions was, "We still do not know."

Well, this is what we do know/what was presented to us at the conference:

In 2011 the northern triangle region of Central America (El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala) saw a spike in crime incidents.The majority of crime toward volunteers happens while volunteers are traveling.Washington is decreasing the number of volunteers in El Salvador from 130 to only 30. This means that the group of volunteers scheduled to leave in mid-March has been forced to close their service on Feb 20th and the group scheduled to leave in September is now leaving on April 30th.The capital, San Salvador is off-limits aside from medical appointments and business meetings until further notice.The Peace Corps office will be moving outside of San Salvador. Instead, they will set up regional offices.A security assessment will be taking place starting on February 15th to determine which areas are safe for volunteers to live in and travel to. They will also determine to what extent we are able to use public transportation.Volunteers will be clustered in these so-called "safe" areas. This means that some volunteers may have to change sites.

What we still don't know:

Where we will be able to travel within the country & whether we will ever be able to travel to the two bordering countries, Honduras and Guatemala since they are also experience security issues.Whether the capital will be off-limits forever.Where these clusters will be and how many we will have.Who will have to change sites.If the training center in San Vicente will have to be moved due to increasing crime in the area.Our options as Peace Corps volunteers:

Obviously, the two groups being forced to leave early don't have much of a say in that decision. This is quite unfortunate because they were only recently given this information and are having to quickly finish up or abandon projects in their communities. Many of these communities will be left without volunteer replacements depending on the sites chosen after the security assessment.For the two most recent groups to arrive the country, we have been given the option of early COS. This means that we could close out our service now, basically stating that we have completed our time here. We would get all the benefits of COS, such as non-competitive eligibility for federal jobs, eligibility for Peace Corps Fellowships, and per-diem readjustment allowance. This is the first time in history that Peace Corps has provided this for all volunteers in a country, regardless of their time here.Another option given to us was re-enrollment. This means I could do my entire 27-month service in another country. I would have more of a say in which country I would be placed in but even if I COSed now, I likely wouldn't start again until September at the earliest.Remain in-country and face the possibility of a site change and much more rigid rules concerning travel and time out of site. Plus, the uncertainty of a possible shut-down of Peace Corps El Salvador the duration of my service.Needless to say, I have a lot to think about over the next month. I feel like it's virtually impossible to make a decision now because I just don't have enough information. Until I know exactly what these changes will be, I cannot make an informed decision.

Big changes have been instituted in the Northern Triangle of Central America: El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. One of Peace Corps major slogans is to “expect the unexpected.” Before and during the application process I remember reading this and thinking … Continue reading →

From Dylan, with some thoughts from Laura:

The past three days we have been attending a conference at the Hotel Entrepinos in San Ignacio with about 99% of the El Salvador volunteers and staff, and several representatives from Peace Corps Washington. This conference offered little opportunity for advocacy on behalf of the various interests of the volunteers. The conference consisted of two main components: (1) listening to Peace Corps Washington justify their decisions, and (2) here are some job hunting resources (including more opportunities to volunteer with PC, which seems unimaginable to me right now).

Rising trends in crime have caused PC to reevaluate their presence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. PCVs in these three countries are more than twice as likely to be victims of violent crime than the average PCV worldwide. The rate is about 8-12 incidents per year in El Salvador (out of 150 volunteers) since 2006. “Violent crime” includes any crime that has the threat of violence, such as armed bus robberies, even if no violence actually occurs.

We have been shown maps of violent crime rates in the general population in all three of these countries. The Peace Corps situation differs greatly in each. In El Salvador, these crimes occur in predictable patterns. First, fewer than two per year occur in the volunteers’ communities. They almost universally happen outside of our communities. Second, almost all of the incidents happen either on public transportation or in San Salvador. The public transportation component is entirely accounted for on inter-departmental (interstate) routes, or on urban San Salvador busses. None occur on local bus routes between our sites and local pueblos.

In Honduras, while there are some concentrations of violent crime around the major metropolitan areas, along known drug trafficking routes, and on the Atlantic Coast (where the best SCUBA is, lastimosamente), the rest of the country is peppered with concentrations of violent crime as well. No region of the country showed up as a light color on the map. The result was that PC/W felt they had to get the volunteers out of Honduras and rethink entirely how the program might be able to exist safely. A few off-hand comments we have heard at this conference suggest that there is some doubt that PC will be able to return to Honduras at all, at least for the foreseeable future.

Guatemala, in contrast, was highly concentrated. Moreover, volunteers were already concentrated in safer areas, and the headquarters of PC/G had been moved outside of the capital a half a decade ago. PC/W still decided to shrink the program, and a few PCVs are being uprooted, but the disruptions there have been lesser than they will be here.

Like Guatemala, El Salvador’s violent crime is highly concentrated in a few regions. Like Honduras, volunteers are distributed all over the country. So we fall somewhere in the middle. Because crime is somewhat concentrated, PC/W feels that the changes to the program can be put into place while volunteers are still here. The idea will be to reduce the number of volunteers from the current 110 down to about 50, and to concentrate those fifty into two or three of the safest regions of the country.

To reduce the population they are doing several things. First, the new group that had been scheduled for January was canceled (see footnote 1), and they will not be bringing any more this year.

Second, the two groups before that were smaller than the usual 30 (helping us to get down to the current 110. The group that arrived in February 2010 has been asked to leave a month early, and most will be gone in the next few weeks. Our group, who were originally scheduled to leave in September, 2010 is being shipped home in April 2010. There are lots of problems with this decision, and how it was reached, which I’ll leave for another time.

In addition to reducing the population of PCVs, they will be creating several “clusters” of volunteers in “designated areas” of the country, and creating regional offices in those areas so that volunteers do not need to go to San Sal, or take the bus routes that are dangerous. This is a good idea well targeted to resolve the problems.

In mid-February an assessment team from PC/W will be coming to El Salvador to evaluate what regions of the country will be authorized to receive volunteers. They are expected to provide the results of the assessment in mid-March. Though they must have a short list of areas that will be considered, that’s a closely held secret. Rumors are floating around that include the Ataco area in Santa Ana, and the Gotera area in Morazan. “Everyone knows” that our region, the La Palma-San Ignacio region, would be an excellent candidate, because the resources are here and it’s very safe. But there’s been no official confirmation that it’s even under consideration.

Which leaves us in limbo. After our group leaves in April 2010 PC/ES will be down to 34 or fewer volunteers (some of the volunteers in groups more recent than ours have already left). That leaves slots open for some of our group to apply to extend. Such an application will only be considered if our sites are already in one of the designated areas identified by the assessment team. Laura and I have received verbal and informal reassurance that our efforts to stay will be supported by the local staff, so the only question that remains will be whether this region will be designated to continue to receive volunteers.

So at this point we feel that staying in El Salvador until September has become “Plan B,” and going home in April has become “Plan A.” this means we’ll be looking for jobs over the next few months. When March-April roll around, if we still don’t have jobs, and PC offers us the chance to stay, we’ll consider it then. In the meantime, we have a lot of work to wrap up in El Centro.

* * *

1 PC Washington emphasized that the “restructuring” in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras was the result of years-long discussions and worry about the continual trend of violence, and NOT a knee-jerk response to the shooting of a volunteer in December 2011 in Honduras. However, the group of invitees scheduled for January 2012 had already been officially invited to El Salvador and were preparing to leave when their invitation was suddenly canceled at the end of December. I was in email contact with several of them who had questions about life in El Salvador. They wrote to me asking if everything was okay in El Salvador and what the hell had happened. Según mi entendimiento, they had not been given a reason why their invitation was canceled or what, if anything, had happened in El Salvador. (Nothing.) Was it a lack of communication between the invitation-sending employees and those officials in Washington who were already having serious doubts about the Central American programs? Was it terrible decision timing to just happen to cancel new training groups right before they were about to enter their new host country?

Famous three words of this past week. And I hate them. I just got back from the All Volunteer Safety and Security Conference in La Palma and if I were to sum it up in three words it would be the following: I Don't Know. No one knows anything about the future of this country and apparently the big guys had to come all the way from Washington, D.C. just to tell us that. Here is the general breakdown (or the highlights) of the conference:

1. Day One: a lovely charla entitled, "How Did We Get Here?" which basically consisted of two hours of history regarding the decision to conduct this evaluation of this country. This was them trying to ensure us that this was not some overnight decision and has actually been a long time coming. Just google El Salvador and you will be inundated with reasons for why we are in this position. And although this post sounds super angry, I am not arguing with the need for the security assessment in this country, but I am upset with how it has been handled thus far.

2. Day two: This was basically a day to present us with various options including Peace Corps Response, re-enrolling in another Peace Corps program, and what it is going to mean to stay here in El Salvador (including new transportation system and current rules), etc. There were also additional informal sessions in the afternoon regarding these options and also Career planning, Extending, etc for all of those people who are being forced to leave the country early (I am not sure if I have mentioned how many volunteers are being forced to leave. We are basically losing 60 with a forced early close of service (including my sister group which holds a number of my closest friends and volunteers). That leaves my group (newest) and the group with about 6 months more, which is a total of about 35 volunteers. And that 35 number is dropping everyday as people decide to leave.

3. Day three: We had a weird mental health session in the morning followed by meeting with our program managers to talk about what is going to happen here. Then in the afternoon there were sessions on various different projects, writing grants, etc.

That is a rough outline of the conference. If it had not been for the opportunity to see and hang out with my friends, it would have been a serious waste of my time. Why? Because....What did I learn from it? Absolutely nothing. And here is why: Apparently Washington is sending an assessment team here February 15. This is going to decide where volunteers can go, live, etc. They are going to have the decision by the middle of March. Following that the volunteers that are not in that area are going to have to switch sites. They gave to no clue as to who is going to have to move, where they will be moved, or when (but it will probably be late April). Yes....more....waiting....

In the meantime we are still on a serious travel restriction. We still cannot go to the capital. We cannot really travel out of our departments. When we leave we still have to clear it with our immediate bosses. We are restricted to basically only traveling when absolutely necessary. And we really have no idea as to when this is all going to get better.

I have been trying to write this post and I am sure I am doing a terrible job at explaining what happened at this conference, but that is because my mind right now is wiped. I am not sure if I can fully explain how draining this entire experience has been since we got that dreadful email back in December putting our service here in question. And the question now is what do I do personally? How do I handle all of this?

Unfortunately, I am still trying to figure this out. I am trying to decide if it would be worth it to re enroll in a new Peace Corps program. It would be a nice new adventure of the full 27 months, I would have more say in where I go and what program I do, and hopefully it would be a in a safer and more stable place. I should point out though that my decision to leave actually has nothing to do with security. I have never felt unsafe in my community and very rarely in this country. When I do leave site I am usually on a bus with a driver who I frequently play with his children and drink coffee with his wife. I feel fine under his watch. My reason for leaving would ultimately be the harsh ambiguity and not knowing the future of my service, the challenges of starting projects under these conditions, and the inability to travel at all. Plus knowing I could have another service elsewhere with the potential to be better is all too tempting...

I'll be honest all during the conference I was ready to jump ship. I was completely willing to start over and join a new country and hopefully avoid the next months of uncertainty here in El Salvador. Of course, I had things holding me back, which made the time during the conference very stressful. Just thinking about leaving my friends, community, this country, everything I have known for the past 6 months, and embark on another new, uncertain journey, made me sick to my stomach. Nevertheless, I had just about made my decision to leave because I was so done with feeling so crappy all the time. I was on the bus back to site and just starting to figure out how to handle having made said decision. And then something changed...

I arrived back in site and I realized that I am not ready to leave Upire. I am being given another 1 month and a half in this beautiful caserio for sure and I am going to take it. Yesterday, my host mom greeted me with a "Hola mi hija chicquita" (Hi my little daughter) and I knew I was not ready to leave her. I am not sure how to do my host mom justice in words. She is almost as amazing as my own mother (and if you know my mother, you know that is saying A LOT). I just sat looking at her and almost cried at the thought of leaving her prematurely. We then sat and chatted about the current situation but she moved right on saying "you know we are going to work hard for the next month like everything is fine" and we talked about potential projects. Next week she wants me to come in and help teach classes (one on art, one on school gardens, and another or hand washing, etc) and then help with this adult English class. We also talked about doing Valentine's Day, working on raising funds for computers, developing a newspaper (kind of) club and starting a "History of Upire" book. I know that I should not start projects with all of this uncertainty but you know what...I am going to pretend like I am staying because that is what I need to do.

If I have to leave here, I have to leave it, but at least I know I stayed as long as I could and did all that I could do. I am going to wait it out until Washington comes through with a decision. And then it will be time to think about it some more. But I think I have come to the conclusion that this is the time when this country needs us the most. I may have to suffer now through a changing Peace Corps program here in El Salvador, but if I can help keep it alive by staying, I am willing to do so. I signed up for an adventure. I signed up to be removed from my comfort zone. I signed up to be challenged beyond my wildest dreams. So with all that Peace Corps is giving me exactly what I wanted.

I hope this is coherent enough for everyone to understand. Please feel free to send comments, questions, or advice my way. I appreciate talking this out with other people. I want to thank everyone for their support in my decisions, the process, and just listening to my story.

For whatever challenges you are currently facing..."May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into the and above the clouds." ~Edward Abbey~

*I hope you all notice the change in tone in this post. The beginning (which highlights my angry feeling during and immediately after the conference) and the end (once I got back to site). Quite an amazing range of emotion, one has.

  Filed under: Honduras, solar energy Tagged: clean energy, ECPA, Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas, Honduras, latin america, solar energy

“In the life of a New Yorker, there are several unpleasant things one will inevitably have to face: having your bag stolen, public urination…”

…and I believe what follows is “having the door that swings behind a businessman carrying a Starbucks-to-go-cup slam on your face.”

I am known as the Carrie Bradshaw of La Montana, El Salvador… Besides for the fact that I am not a tiny, skinny, bouncy blonde, nor do I wear any designer clothes… or have a 100 pairs of $4,000 shoes… I don’t even have finished floors in my house for that sake. Imagine?

But as I sit with my legs up on my wooden bench, typing away and re-reading out loud, I cant help but feel like this is my own New York column. That I am an sweet, innocent young gal just trying to find her way in a world of bustling strangers. That this is my mode of communication with the world. And, yes, maybe I have been hauling water for a week street since it hasn’t been falling, and, yes, Im sorry, but I often drip-dry because the majority of my neighborhood doesn’t use toilet paper, and okay, fine, yes sometimes I wear the same shirt twice without washing it… But, I sometimes like to imagine I am Carrie Bradshaw. I sit outside with my neighborhood ladies, on some plastic chairs and benches and we chat over brunch. Leslita is 7, Catherine is 9, Marjo is 11, we gossip about last nights telenovelas and brunch is peeling mangos and dipping them in a handful of salt, but we do it in our most-fanciest vestidos and most-limpias flip-flops. Later on, I strut my stuff down a good old Salvadoran village street with the confidence of a real New York woman. The street is a dirt path and the confidence only comes because I know no matter what assortment of rags I pull on, the 15 road workers I pass will whistle.

Actually, I am the first person of La Montana who has come to know of Carrie and it was, in fact, El Salvador that took my full-episode- “Sex and the City” virginity. (Will they even let me back into Manhattan after that release of information?) So, I guess I should re-phrase. I am known as the New Yorker living in La Montana. And lets be honest, this is no Sex and the City...nor anything that has to do with the name of it.

As I watch Carrie pay for a $15 brownie with my 15 cent tortilla in hand, I wonder which one of us is the crazy one?

They say “every blessing is a curse” but I think down here sometimes we are forced to look at it the other way around. I mean, there IS something, so liberating in the feeling of ice-cold water slapping at your skin while you bathe outside beneath the beaming sun and with the fallen leaves of the neighboring mango tree collected at your feet. There IS joyous laughter in the breaking of a $3 pair of sandals, as you try hitching a ride along the roadside back to your no-named-street little village. There IS satisfaction in the freedom you get dangling in your hammock, while spitting orange seeds onto your unfinished floor. Imaginese?

Sometimes, the things we curse, may very just well serve a most beautiful purpose.

New York and La Montana are VERY different. But do NOT get me wrong, in El Salvador there are many stolen purses and much more public urination.

My heart is torn in two.

Today, standing in the back of a pickup truck, riding to town, was like a 20 minute vacation. The changing scenery, the sweeping landscape, the kids screaming “saluuu” on the road side, cows grinding the browning grass, all while I swing back and forth, face into the wind.

As my days dwindle down in La Montana, I start to wonder what I will miss most. While the answer flashes before my eyes like a Polaroid film strip of smiling faces, I count the second-runners-up.

The view from my house of the mountains in the morning.

My beloved mangy dog, scratching at the door in the morning and then bouncing after the neighbors roosters.

The toots and calls of the passing “camion”, chuck full of sweaty “jugadores”.

A cold swim in the country river, head-to-toe clothed.

Greasy pupusas, but more importantly the burnt fingertips from trying to tear those suckers apart.

But there is no doubt, what holds first place in my heart. Its those faces. Lili and Karime. Leslith, Caterine, Marjori. Jilmer, Gerson and David. Dora and Nena. Leo. Otinia. Franklin, Damian, Miguel and Cristian. Gerson, Efrian and Lucinda. And all the parents, uncles, grandmas and grandpas that come with them.

I am going to miss their curls. Their speckle-toothed smiles. The giggles. The running after Vaquito. The drawings. The soups shared and sodas spilled. The time I said this and the time she did that. Watching them march the dirt roads with “lena” on their backs or “guacales” of “masa” on their heads. The way they talk to each other across the fence like some regular old granny neighbors. Their kiddie hugs and their kiddie hands. The way they say “jeyymiiii” when they see me. Or sometimes “profe”, or “papito” when theyre feeling real funny.

The moments. The understandings. The misunderstandings. The occasions. The times just purely paseando.

That makes me think of Christmas.

There is no way I will ever be able to compare Christmas in New York with my first Christmas in El Salvador…and so I am glad that I will not have to. Because instead, I will talk about my most memorable Christmas-Eve-EVE, EVER.

It started with a 5am wake-up call and a 6am bus ride out. The next 5 hours were spent running back and forth to my dear friend’s car, Christmas-preparation shopping. For those of you unfamiliar with Christmas in the campo, this does not mean stuffed animals, board games, play-dough… nor Gucci bags, rolex watches or whatever it is Carrie wears these days, kind-of-shopping. This means, 5 pounds of potatoes, green peppers, tomatoes, and a whole lot of consome-de-pollo. This means canastas basicas and cellophane- wrapped balons de futbol. This means, my poor, abused friend and I were running around 1000s of Salvadorans sweating our asses off in the most horrendous market in the world (San Miguel), preparing for a Bridge Inauguration and Community Christmas Party.

But that morning of misery paid off. I beamed from ear to ear as I watched a group of girls create pinatas from a workshop we had given awhile back. These piñatas would be used for our Christmas Party 

Later that evening, we had a Christmas celebration with my Artesania Group. I talked about remembering the first time I orgaznied the group. How hard it was for me, and how nervous I was. And now, 2 years later, look how far we had come.

They surprised me with amazing speeches, a sweater, a necklace, earrings and bracelet, a dress designed by them and 2 pages of lovely letters. It took my breathe away. I was so surprised and happy that I don’t think I have stopped smiling until now. Wait, let me check the mirror…they gave me wrinkles.

As the time is drawing near to say goodbye, people ask me if I am sad to leave. Others ask me if I am happy to go see my family. Am I sad? Or am I happy? Well, what damn good questions.

New York or El Salvador? The city or the countryside? Paved floors or fresh air? Toilets or toilet paperless? Stolen purses or public urination?

Two years here have been very hard. In ways many of you will probably never understand. (oh how true they saying “to walk in another mans shoes”). And I could never put it into words. But these two years have also been very amazing. They have changed my life.

So, how do you say goodbye? And then, how do you say hello?

Its quite apparent that this blog entry has no overall theme. I wanted to talk about Christmas. I wanted to talk about the hard times here and how I have turned them into experiences. I wanted to talk about coming home. I wanted to show you how I may just be the next Carrie Bradshaw. I don’t think this entry passes the requisites for a proper paper for any of the aforementioned themes.

However, it is the perfect blog. Because, that is where I am right now. In f-ing Never Never Land. I am confused. Peace Corps has given us little over a month to finish our projects, our reports, our interviews, our paperwork, our health exams and logistics, all the meanwhile saying goodbye to our new friends and families. And I am supposed to make sense of it all.

I am going to be totally honest. I don’t know. I don’t know what I am feeling. I don’t know if I am sad. I don’t know if I am happy. I don’t know if my dog is better off getting hit by a car in NY or starving in ES. I don’t know if my community will remember me, I don’t know if anyone at home cares I can milk a cow. I don’t know if I want a real job. I don’t know if I can live poor the rest of my life. I don’t know if I will miss them forever, or forget them in a year. I don’t know if I can make it at home. I don’t know if I can last down here. I don’t know if you will remember me. I don’t know if I have changed. I don’t know if you are who I remember you to be. I don’t know if you have changed. I don’t know who I am, who I was, or who I am going to be. I just don’t know.

If it makes you feel better, I will tell you what I DO know. I do not want to stay. But I do not want to say goodbye. I want to see my family. I want to stay with Lili and Karyme, Gerson and Efrian, Nena and Marilyn, Dora and Otinia. I want to walk up and down NYC, eating great bagels and slices of thin-crusted pizza. I want pupusas 3 for a dollar. I want nice clothes. I want to forever not care about what I am wearing. I want nice restaurants and to be able to drink good drinks (with alcohol) publicly. I want to eat with my hands. I want a hot shower. I want to pour a bucket of cold water over my head under a sky full of stars, breasts for the whole community to see. Well, that’s just how it is here. Like it, or not, Carrie.

Do you feel better? Now you know how I feel.

Be it what it will; see you March 14.

Filed under: events Tagged: 3 Twins Broadband, annual fundraiser, clean cookstoves, Fort Collins, Fort Collins Events, fundraiser, Rhythms for the Planet

After a long time of procrastination, I finally went to El Pital, the highest point in El Salvador. Unfortunately, the northern region has been under pretty legit cloud cover, and while the hike was great, and worth it, the view from the top was pretty hilarious, and the temperature was insanely low.

El Parque Central, La Palma, Chalatenango

This might look like nothing, but if you look close, you can see a very brightly painted store.Closed up tight.

Dan, in front of the beautiful view of the the country.

My best "Never Ending Story" pose.

View through the patches

Mama Cabra

Baby Cabra

Step mama cabra. These were the only animals I saw during the while 11km hike.

We have finally placed the first bottled onto the school!! This is the moment I have been waiting for since May of 2011 when I first saw pictures of the Bottle Schools in Guatemala by Hug it Forward. It is such a cool, new, interesting idea to use bottles stuffed with trash instead of bricks. Yes, it takes a lot more time and energy to stuff bottles with trash (as my community members often remind me) than it is to put down bricks onto wet cement. But I think people in my community are finally starting to get the idea behind the bottle school that we are building in my school. Now that they are getting to see the progress of the construction and see the bottles finally being put up, they can see that it is a real, concrete thing and not just a couple of pictures and drawings on a piece of paper. They are also starting to get really excited about the classroom and have already started telling me what they think the classroom should be used for, which is awesome because they are starting to think of the bottle classroom as their own. I have been wading through tons of doubt and questions for almost two years now warming the community up to the idea and convincing them that a classroom build with bottles won´t simply be blown away by the wind. Now that they can see the whole process happening in front of their eyes, they are now proud that we are the first school in the entire country and the first community to embrace the idea of a bottle school and actually build a classroom. It´s super exciting to see their enthusiasm and hear them tell people who aren’t from the community about their bottle classroom, especially those who were the biggest critics of the project at the beginning.

Last friday I received and email from my good friend Leslie saying she finally landed a job and had one week before her start date, and guess who she wanted to visit in that week!? ME!

The adrenaline started to rush, I quickly responded with a one word email. YES!

Next, I opened up a new tab in my browser and started searching for the best flight deals from San Fran to San Sal.

48 hours later, I'm at the airport picking up my girl. All I could do was smile from ear to ear. It had been 2 1/2 years since we had seen each other last. But that's the thing about genuine friendship... thru time and space... ain't no thang but a chicken wing.

Short and sweet, but complete with sand, waves, mountains and hammock swingin under pines. . .

All self-revelation and intimacy in friendship must be spontaneous and natural. It must come like the opening of a flower in the sunshine and cannot be forced.Bertha Conde

“Hi kids. I’m your new basketball coach.” (I am 5’1).

“I gotta have that Playboy shirt.”

“35 cents! No way I’m paying that, that’s 7 bananas.”

“That man has an awesome ‘stache.”

“I can’t go outside right now, there’s a bolo sleeping against my door.”

“Yes, SuperSize that.” (uttered at the finest restaurant in town... McDonald’s.)

“God, I need fried chicken right now.”

“I’m going to a fiesta tonight. We’re getting a new Virgin.”

“I hope that dog dies real soon.”

Project 7 is a cause-related company that makes everyday goods like coffee, bottled water, gum, and mints take on a deeper meaning. Project 7′s Save the Earth products help Trees, Water & People plant fruit trees with rural families in … Continue reading →

Ok. Here is the very first of my 52 New Restaurants in 2012.

I had lunch at Sakura with a group of coworkers to celebrate a birthday lunch. Sakura bills itself as a Steak and Seafood House & Sushi Bar. I'd recommend going with a group and sitting at a hibachi table do you can watch the chef create your meal!

As always, I'm a few weeks behind on writing, so my first few restaurant posts won't be the best. I really should take a picture inside and outside of each restaurant. I'll make that a goal for February.

Happy 2012. As you can see I took a two month hiatus from the blogging world. It wasn't because I wasn't on the go. I was! I think I was mostly just lazy. I'm hitting the road again tomorrow to go back to Boston for a few days. Hopefully I'll be doing some cool things to write about.

Some things to look forward to this year:

More Travel: Looking forward to another year of work sponsored travel to Boston and Chicago. Keeping those frequent flier and hotel loyalty programs active so that I can get some good vacation travel in there too.

Amanda's 30 by 30: My good friend Amanda is turning 30 this year, and has decided to do 30 new things before she turns 30. I've had the good fortune to be included in a few of the adventures, and have done some awesomely cool new things in the last few months. Check out her adventure here: Amanda's Blog.

A Challenge of My Own: In December I took a quick trip up to Minneapolis to visit my college friends. One of them, Sarah, gave me an amazing idea: eat at 52 new restaurants in 2012. That's an average of 1 a week. I've already got 5+ new places under my belt! I'm trying to remember to take pictures at each of the places so that I can write a quick post about each of them.

So, standby for what promises to be a great 2012.

Over the last few months, I have been working with 12 farmers in San Luis to introduce the cultivation of fish. The first step of the project was to build the tanks. The majority of tanks were simple holes in the ground, no deeper than a meter, that were then covered with a sheet of black construction plastic. In some places, the ground was too rocky, so tanks were built with bricks or adobe blocks. A few very excited farmers made a larger investment and cemented the sides of their tank, making the structure a bit more permanent. With plastic, the project is extremely cheap and easily repeated, making it a solidly sustainable project in very rural, poor areas.

After all the tanks were constructed, we had to fill the tanks with water. Since only about half the homes in San Luis have water, and even where there is water, it only falls for 30 or 45 minutes every 4th or 5th day, filling the tanks posed a large problem. I solicited the help of the nearby sugar cane cooperative, which loaned us a tractor and a large mobile water tank which we filled up from a spring then brought house to house. The spring was far away and down a very large hill, so even in 5 or 6 hours of work every morning, we were only able to fill 2 tanks a day (on a good day). It ended up taking 8 straight days of making the long treks in the tractor to fill up the mobile water tank then bringing the water back to San Luis. The locations of the tanks proved incredibly hard to reach by tractor and required quite a bit of ingenuity.

In two cases, the fish tanks were just impossible to reach, so water had to be brought in buckets by foot to the tank. Each of these tanks took an entire day to fill. Although very tiring, it was inspiring to see entire families (and I mean entire families--from toddlers with tiny buckets to grandmothers basically transporting what seemed to me to be teacups of water) working to fill up their tanks.

Wednesday afternoon, a counterpart of mine who works for the Ministry of Agriculture's Freshwater Fish Division arrived with a truck full of over 1,000+ baby fish (2 to 3 weeks old), in individual bags packed for every farmer. The 1,000+ fish were donated free of charge by the Ministry of Agriculture and brought from their fish cultivation center near Sonsonate, a city about 3 hours away.

The bags had too be placed in the fish tanks for 5 to 10 minutes before releasing the baby fish into their new homes. Allowing the water temperature to equalize is critical, as releasing the small fish into water of a much different temperature can quickly shock and kill them.

The 12 farmers in San Luis are now raising grey tilapia. There are two types of tilapia--red and grey--but grey grow slightly quicker and birds are less likely to swoop down and make a snack out of them. If farmers take good care of the fish, they should be full-grown in 4 months, although in my experience with similar projects in other parts of El Salvador, Salvadorans don't have the patience to wait the last month, and usually eat their fish after just 3 or 3.5 months, when the fish are, as a Ministry of Agriculture friends joked, "the size of a tortilla."

Fish cultivation is a completely new concept in the area I live, so it was pretty interesting to watch the reactions of families to their new "pets" and future dinners. One small, 4-year-old girl had already begun crying before we had even moved on to the next house, after her father accidentally broke the news in front of her that, yes, in fact, they would be eating her new "pets" in a few months.

If all goes to plan, the fish should represent a large improvement to the levels of protein in people's diets, as fish (and all meat in general) is usually out of the price range of most San Luis residents. About 10 fish can be fit for every square meter of tank, so the farmer's are all raising between 60 and 100 fish, depending on the size of their tank. The farmers, especially those with the largest tanks, are also planning on supplementing their income at points during the year when there is not a corn or bean harvest to bring money in, by selling fish.

I chose to introduce fish cultivation to San Luis with tilapia because they are among the easiest types of fish to raise. The tanks do not need to be any deeper than one meter--or else the sun won't reach the bottom--and tilapia thrive in warm water and sunny environments. They are also very easy to feed, eating just about anything. In my community farmers are feeding them ground-up corn and/or sorghum, but they can also be fed tortillas, bread, 4 or 5 types of weeds that grow abundantly during the rainy season, and a few indigenous flowers.

Hi everyone,I wanted to give you an update on what I have been doing lately. Since my last blog my youth group and I have been working on various projects. In addition to teaching them English and business classes we made shampoo and sold it through the community. This was a small project that helped the youth group learn simple finance and budget concepts. We also did an awareness campaign with a focus on gender equality. I used activities that I learned during training which were fun and informative. We did three presentations and many community members who participated in it seemed to enjoy. We hope in the coming months to do a similar awareness campaign focusing on HIV/AIDS awareness. During training we received resources and hands on training on how to teach HIV/AIDS to Salvadorans. I hope to teach my youth group these activities and have them teach other community members. There is also a local El Salvador governmental organization working in my community and they gave my youth group seeds. We have begun planting a small garden.In addition to the work with my youth group, I have been working with the local community leaders. We hope to have a drinkable water system in the community with the help of the Salvadoran government. It is a long process, but we hope it is a success, because drinking water is a necessity and a priority to the people in my community. We also formed an eco-friendly stove committee to help lead a project with a group of engineers from Michigan. These are the same engineers who helped build a bridge in my community. They hope to come in May to provide technical assistance to build eco-friendly stoves for community members.I plan to continue working at the school this next year while teaching English. I plan on helping the teachers learn how to teach English so it is more sustainable the following year when I am done with my service. Thanks for reading.“The contents of this Web site are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps.”

by Sebastian Africano, International Director This is the seventh year that I have had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful country of Nicaragua, a country that continues to inspire and amaze me with every visit.  The capital Managua, compared to … Continue reading →

To stock up for "the work ahead" that our three day medical evaluations would occasion, I, along with two other COSing PCVs went out for a hearty lunch followed by a quick Super Selectos run. I put my items on the conveyor belt and felt a pang of shame. As further evidence of my suspicions that I may be an 80 year old woman, my purchases spoke volumes. Drinkable papaya yogurt, a liter of water, clorets gum and a 6 ounce packet of seedless prunes.

I'm perfectly healthy, but I have to admit, this long medical process makes me anxious.

As I sat in the PC Prado this afternoon on my way to the dentist, I looked down at the three small paper bags I had placed by my feet. Three bags that held three cups with three brands of poop in them. I was tocared to llevar las muestras to the lab. It somehow didn't seem weird. Like three sinister lunch bags, they had our names on them. One of them, out of caution, also had the word "poop" written on it, just in case anyone became confused.

In the last two years I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot about heces.

Did you know that there are some worms that lay eggs in your lungs? After that, you cough them up, and swallow them back down into your stomach, where they hatch and reek havoc on your digestive system de nuevo. Did you know that tapeworms can grow to 10 meters long? They can be made up of thousands of segments, and each can reproduce. Horrifying. I can't say I know about that first hand, but imagine. Tricky creatures.

I've only had a few bouts of amoebas and bacterial infections. Frankly, I've been lucky. But then I think about what that means. I had very gross things in my system. I was in contact with non-hand washers or drank water a little too far downhill... and then... BLAMMO, contaminated.

While my personal experience is limited, here are the nuggets of wisdom life has taught me: Unless the signs are flashing an absolute, bright red NO, it's worth it to go for the curtido with your pupusas, they aren't really worth it without. It's a better use of time to just pull a guacal into your bed than go running to throw up into the toilet. The hospital in Sonsonate is an awful place to spend your day on a re-hydration drip after four days in site with amoebas. I reject the re-purposing of baby food containers in clinics. You can not drink alcohol while on Cipro.

Now you know too.

Finally, I know that I spent a day with a group of COSing PCVS, and we talked an awful lot about poo, and in a few weeks time, we're all going to learn that such things have a blanket ban when it comes to normal, human conversation.

So I had to write this considerably tame poop blog now, to get it out of my system.

The International Program made a BIG impact last year though their clean cookstove and reforestation projects, empowering communities to sustainably manage their precious natural resources. These community-led projects improve human, environmental, and economic health! Thanks to all of our partners … Continue reading →

"Andrew, meet my good friend Irony. Irony, Andrew" "Nice to meet you!"

If you haven't read my pervious blog post about hope for the new year, you will may not understand the context for this post.

It's quite interesting how things unfold. Ironically, a day or so after posting an entry forecasting a successful and rewarding new year, especially in regards to my Peace Corps service, I received a phone call from my program director, Carlos. Carlos is one of my favorite people that I have met since coming to El Salvador, and he just happens to be my boss. There is a levity about him that seems to brighten even the most saturnine of days. I received the call in the morning as I was contemplating my schedule for the day and drinking coffee in my boxers. His news turn my comfortable situation into troubling one. He informed me that "due to security concerns in the country my group would be sent home in April, five months before our original COS (Closing of Service) date." Uhhhhhhhh? Perdon? After repeating himself two more times I finally came to the conclusion that he wasn't joking and I would be sent home in three months. Not even happy-go-luck Carlos could disguise the tone of disappointment in his voice.

To better understand why this was quite dramatic for me, I should probably explain the psyche of a typical Peace Corps volunteer with respect to how much time he/she has in-country. First 2 months: excited, naive, nervous, wondering how to save the world. Six months: still excited, slightly tested, a bit haughty, and still wondering how to save the world. One-year: relatively comfortable, jaded, a bit more successful, gave up on the world now wondering about grad school. One-year and six months: effective, integrated, accomplished, wondering about a service extension. (I should also mention that the 2nd year is where most volunteers get the most work done. You understand how to get things done and the community has more confidence in your work.) A roller-coaster would be a appropriate comparison to PC service. It's the most scary but wonderful, easy but trying, small but enormous part of your life; in the end an unforgettable, incomparable, priceless two years.

And lies problem, it's TWO YEARS, not a year and four months!!! I understand that the decision to remove us was base on our wellbeing, it's just a shame that is wasn't our decision. Honestly, I don't feel the least bit in-danger here in El Salvador. News coverage recently, especially state-side, has painted a picture of a war-zone here, where a person can't walk out into the street without being gunned down. While all the publicity has scared my family half-to-death, it just isn't the reality. I'm not implying that there isn't any danger to be in counter here. El Salvador can be very dangerous, in some places. I would suggest that one use the same common sense that you would use in America. Would you walk through a bad part of New Orleans at night? No you wouldn't. Same reasoning applies here.

**(I would like to say this is a decision made by PC Washington. The PC staff here are being affected just as heavily, if not more, then the volunteers. I admire their resolve and character as the "middle-man" in this tough period. They're handling the situation remarkably well.)**

However unsettling it is, I have come to realize that arguing about a situation you have no control over is like yelling at your car when it doesn't start - pointless. So, now I'm here with three months left and three big projects that where scheduled to done over the next 8 months (till September). Not to mention the GRE I have to take in February. It will certainly be a stressful few months, which is sad because the last months of service are meant to be relaxing and reflective.

But the project deadlines and the frustration with Peace Corps' actions isn't what really distresses me. What really bothers me is leaving my community. That I'm not going to get all of the days, experiences, and memories that I feel should belong to me. It also saddens me that I will be the first and only volunteer in Los Pinos. So, I have to say a premature goodbye to the people that unreservedly welcomed me into their lives, smiled even though they didn't understand what I was saying, and some how made me feel completely comfortable in a situation known for being uncomfortable. It's a community with such potential. A culture will such a warm heart.

I will do what it takes to fulfill my commitments I have made. It's the least I can do. For I am sure that in many years when I look back on all this I will understand that I got a lot more from Los Pinos, during my time, than Los Pinos got from me.

On Sunday we hauled our team and members of my community an hour and a half up and through the mountains to arrive at a small town named Candelaria. There we met a fabulous group of young girls who were excited to play. They reminded me of my team when I first arrived in site. They showed up in sandals, no gloves, no ball, no umpire. As I looked at my team, I began to see how far we have come in a year. With the help of a fabulous team in Chico, CA and my sister-in-law we were able to equip my team in El Salvador with uniforms, balls, gloves and bats. They have worked hard, and learned to play as a team. We have 12 members on our team, assuring that we have nine at any given time for a game.

This last game I was so proud of my ladies. They showed me that they learned how to play as a team and not fight amongst themselves, they left with smiles on their faces. Success.

...and we lived up to our name, Las Aves Chucas (The Dirty Birds), got dirty. Diving into second base, sliding into home. We have battle wounds to prove it.

Our star pitcher Kenia, serving it up to Carmelina our catcher

Me running after what I'm sure was a fly ball out of the park :)

My old host family and I, Cenia and daughter Kenia

Star Pitcher Kenia, rounding first

Both teams, all smiles. That is women's empowerment

Las Aves Chucas

The Dirty Birda

My homegirl Evelyn on the truck ride home

The rough truck ride home, full of players and fans

Me about to eat it in the bakc of the pick up. Typical

I only have a few of these left, aprovechando cada uno

El Salvador, from the back of a camion, on a beautiful afternoon

I wish I could express to you how incredible the arrival of these materials is. I wish that I could show you the happiness and express the gratitude that my community is feeling.

"Pues, si Chelsea. Ya, es la verdad. Lo vamos a hacer."

Well, Chelsea. It's real now. We are really going to build it.

Granite Bay High School, you made this happen. Mil gracias.

The camion arriving with sand and the first delivery of 30 bags of cement

cement+sand+rocks+sweat=road

Don Jehu watching the men unload the materials for the road that will lead to his house.

Supposedly, these will turn into benches for the soccer field...vamos a ver. These rocks will soon be road

This hill will soon be stairs, so that las viejitas can walk safely.

So Niña Mercedes has been asking me to come to her house for at least a year. I haven;t gone because it requires me to go to the other side of the lake early in the morning... I finally made it to her house.

We had a great time making sweet bread which I proudly gave out in my community, and was able to say that I made! The ladies were impressed.

Niña Mercedes & I

A bird's nest in a pair of pants hanging on the line

Mix the batter? Use your hands of course!

Pulling the pan out of the oven

The final product, pan de pan

Edgar and his lasso, my entertainment

..and the always beautiful Elba, carrying the corn back to her house

over the mountain and through the woods

Last Friday, I got a shocking text and then a phone call from my APCD Claudia, saying that my Close of Service date had been moved up from September 15 to April 30.  This means I will have 5 months less to complete the projects, camps, trainings, and community improvements I had planned.  While I [...]

I started packing this weekend. I’m surprised, but it wasn’t as painful as I imagined. I think I am just doing it mechanically…placing things into boxes, dividing things into piles, organizing papers…the fact that I am now leaving the pink cement block house I have called home for two years has not really sunk in. [...]

Just to mix it up…a video, also a little gift for those special PCVs who are leaving in a few weeks… (also watch my cat in the background, she falls asleep eating…also it is clear I never figured out/was too lazy to put these two videos together)      

I was on the bus yesterday when the call came:

Peace Corps is pulling me and the others in my group out of El Salvador in April, 6 months early. After so many rumours and chambre about this, here it is. Unless Dylan and I can appeal and get an extension from Peace Corps Washington’s decision to have an early COS (close of service) for those of us who entered the country in July 2010, we will be coming home to the big USA on April 30.

This decision is part of a massive scale-back of Peace Corps volunteers in Central America’s “Northern Triangle”: Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. These three countries have seen elevated levels of gang violence for the last 10 years, and it is getting worse. Honduras recently beat El Salvador for the prize of “most violent country in the world”, measured in homicides.

In El Salvador, the 2 volunteer groups that have come more recently than ours are being allowed to finish their service, albeit with some rather draconian security restrictions (for example, no bus travel) that are currently being implemented. (These may in fact be too restrictive and counterproductive to safety).

So Peace Corps El Salvador is officially not closing down. The number of volunteers will be cut in half (to I think about 50) when we leave.

A lot of Central American volunteers (I think) feel like we have done a good job of handling the risks of living in Central America and we want to finish the projects we have started.

Additionally, many feel that pulling Peace Corps out is counterproductive to addressing the root causes of the violence happening in Central America. Taylor Dippert, a former Central American PCV, writes in the Journal of Foreign Relations, “Pulling Peace Corps volunteers out of violent Central American countries is an inappropriate policy response to a much larger, more complex dilemma. It is disaster mitigation. Washington should address the root causes of the problems in Central America, instead of avoiding them.”

That is why Dylan and I are going to do our best to finish our service and stay until September if possible. Our site is very safe and we feel we can assume the risks (which luckily for us are minimal) and have an obligation to our community. If we can’t appeal… we’ll just have to get it all done by April!

We still haven’t told our community members yet… We will wait until after the All Volunteer Conference Jan. 30-Feb. 1 to see what Peace Corps Washington has to say.

I have been putting off writing this entry in hopes that with more time my thoughts would just express themselves easily and that I would be able to draw some insightful or even inspiring conclusions on the topic. But now I have decided that I don't have to write about it perfectly or comprehensively, that what is most important is that there be people writing about it. Because even after 30 years no one seems to have really made sense of it nor been able to rectify it, and that is what is most unsettling. It is still very confusing, messy, and politically loaded. I am referring to the El Mozote Massacre that took place here in a small town of the department of Morazán, El Salvador, in December, 1981, during the civil war. The details tend to vary depending on the source of information, and have changed over the years following different investigations and reports. It has been established though, that during the 10th-13th of December, 1981, special Salvadoran military forces trained by the School of the Americas in the United States, and financed by the U.S. government, killed 937 inhabitants of El Mozote and surrounding communities. In El Mozote, according to personal testimony, men, women, and children were separated and systematically executed, often after first being raped or tortured. Houses and buildings were sacked and the bodies were set on fire. The soldiers then moved on to the more rural surrounding communities to do the same. Around 500, or about half, of the victims were children. According to the sole survivor of the town of El Mozote, Rufina Amaya, the villagers had been warned to evacuate and seek shelter in the bigger towns, such as Gotera, because of military attacks on rural areas, which were then the stronghold of guerrilla forces. The community did not evacuate because they felt safe: they were not strongly aligned with guerillas, and had friendly relations with the military.


The bodies were left unburied as guerilla forces encouraged news media and human rights groups to visit and report on the events. The reports of a possible massacre were denied by the military as well as by president Reagan. It wasn't until 1992 that forensic archaeologists visited and finally "confirmed" that a massacre had taken place. Another investigation in 2003 found new evidence and established a more accurate count of the death toll.


I recently attended the 20th Anniversary of the Peace Accords event in El Mozote, hosted by the president of El Salvador, the first lady, cabinet members, and survivors of the massacre. The purpose of the event, titled "El Mozote Nunca Mas" (El Mozote never again) was to formally acknowledge that indeed a massacre had taken place, and to establish as truths some of the facts and figures. President Funes spoke to the crowd of thousands gathered in the plaza of El Mozote, giving a summary of events and apologizing on behalf of the government for the atrocity. Funes went on to say that those responsible, mentioning specifically Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, could no longer be considered war heroes (there are landmarks in San Salvador that bear their names). He continued with a series of promises to the inhabitants of the present-day El Mozote, to provide them with the attention, justice, and reparations they deserve. Among the promises were the installation of medical personnel in El Mozote to provide more regular physical and mental health care, the donation of twenty computers to the school, the paving of the road leading to El Mozote (currently only accessed by a dirt road) and the road all the way to the town of Joateca, and an economic stimulus program to boost agricultural production and small businesses. He also mentioned reparations to victims and families, although in what form these would be was unclear. He had mentioned in previous occasions that the perpetrators of the massacre can not be covered under the amnesty law which prevents trying crimes committed during the civil war because the law does not apply to egregious human rights abuses, and also, because the state should not be allowed to pardon itself. Attempts were made in the early 2000s to reopen the case in the Inter-American Court, but all failed because of the amnesty law


These new developments and proposals are all well and good, but what is so upsetting is that in 30 years these things haven't already been done. El Mozote is still a poor, rural, community, and probably the only help it has received is in the form of increased tourism to the massacre sight, evidenced by a couple of pupuserias and an artisan store that have popped up in the center of town. They still don't have doctors, computers, or a paved road. There is a monument with the names of victims, as well as a reflection garden at the sight of the old church, planted over the exact place where 140 children were found dead and later buried. Being there in the garden, and hearing a personal testimony from a survivor, I was overwhelmed by the injustice of it all, and I am not even a victim nor have I been personally affected. Vindication is better late than never, but the delay has been tragic. For example, Rufina Amaya, the sole survivor from the town of El Mozote who dedicated her life to espousing the truth, has since died of natural causes.


For more information:


Mark Danner's article in The New Yorker

Expect the Unexpected is one of Peace Corps slogans. I had thought of it as pretty true due to the pleasant or not so pleasant everyday surprises, but now it is definately true.

I will be COSing (close of service) on or before April 30th. Surprise! The past few weeks have been crazy and rumors have been flying around about what Peace Corps is going to do in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. In December, they first decided not to have any new volunteers come in 2012 in order to restructrize the program here in El Salvador. Just a few days ago, we got new news about how the group before me will be leaving before Feb. 20th and that we have new rules such as restrictions on going to San Salvador, etc.

All of these changes are being made due to safety and security issues that have been happening in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Mostly, these issues being violence related to gang activities. However, I do not want you to worry. I feel safe in Yayantique! I could say a lot about the whole thing, but the most important thing I feel is that you all know that I am safe. There has been a lot of talk and comments. But the best article I have see is this from a PCV in Guatemala, whose feeling I share.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-metzker-peace-corps-in-central-america-20120116,0,5317022.story

I am kinda studded about the whole thing and vary worried about my community, all the PCVs communities and El Salvador. I know that PC wants to avoid any incident but I know that leaving early will/ has affected my work and my community...

I can't help but think of the bright future and happiness the 3 kids in my community who have won scholarships at the chance to study. I just hope this doesn't effect their future. Or of the ADESCO group who has had so many ups and downs but keeps fight and learning more and more about community development, leadership, team building, project planning and management. I hope they continue to luchar! Or the English teacher who is so excited to work with me and put into place many of the dinamicas (dynamics) and interactive learning techniques he has learned from the workshops we have gone to or the classes I taught last year. Or the recycling program we hope to start in the school...so many places and people who I hope will continue on the path that they have started to improve their lives of their community. My goal is to do the best I can to make impower them and make the current projects and work I have more sustainable and hand it over to my community.

“I hadn't been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called 'bee yard etiquette'. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don't be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don't swat. Don't even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee's temper. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved."-Sue Monk Kidd The Secret Life of Bees

A year ago, I read The Secret Life of Bees, and it inspired me to try my hand in bee-keeping. My friend Paco told me that the bees get up at 5am, but I think the Queen sleeps in. So I got up at 5:30. They suited me up from head to toe, assuring that there would be no sneak attacks. They told me to make sure the net was always a few inches away from my face. They told me to get ready, because we were going to come back running. Good thing I wore my tennies (as my mom calls them). Luis told me that I could take all the photos I wanted, but once they put the gloves on me, I realized that the photo shoot might be difficult. Hugo asked me if I was allergic to bees. I said 'no,' not that I know of. (Recalling that my friend Tyler wasn't allergic to bees in the US either, and upon being stung by one here in ES his throat swelled up, and had to be rushed to the local clinic... I hoped that wouldn't be my fate.)

I was informed we would be taking 4 trips to the bee boxes and between each trip we would be processing the honey combs in a canopy surrounded by mesh netting. I did great on the first trip, but near the end I found myself saying out loud, "no tengo miedo, no tengo miedo." I'm not scared, I'm not scared. And to be fair, I wasn't scared. The buzzing made me anxious, and when my face net was being weighed down by the amount of bees on it, I needed some convincing that I wasn't scared. I was the first one running down the hill, the other three in tow with two boxes of honey combs.

Hugo told me that bees are the smartest insects. I believe it. They may also be the most loyal. Once a bee stings, it dies. They sting, and die, to protect the queen. She has awesome body guards. We sliced the cap off the honeycomb, placed them in the hand-powered centrifuge, and out came the sweet goodness. At some point I may have just opened the spout and drank from it. I was pretty close to a sugar coma, but honey straight off the comb is indescribable. It reminded me of the first time I had a ripe banana straight off the tree in Ecuador and I said, 'so this is what a banana tastes like?'

Near the end of the third trip, I may have had a panic attack, and I may have swatted. I forgot the wise words from my beloved novel. I loved them for their beautifully delicious miel but I don't think they loved me very much in my big white suit eating their miel. So I headed to the hammock to wait for my amigos to finish the job. Hammocks are the best place to wait, and the best place to calm down after a panic attack.

Swinging in the hammock on a beautifully warm breezy morning, I thought about how much I loved The Secret Life of Bees, and how I had finally gone out to meet these little creatures. Check. I thought about all the things I have done here in El Salvador; all of the firsts, all of the fears overcome, and all of the things that my Salvadoran friends have taught me directly and indirectly. I came to Peace Corps with no expectations, and I am leaving fulfilled, loved, devastated, and changed.

"Knowing can be a curse on a person's life. I'd traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn't know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can't ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.”-Sue Kidd The Secret Life of Bees

Heavier or not the truth is yours now... You can no longer go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. That is a powerful pair of sentences. I have a lot of opinions. I used to know a lot of things. I used to be able to tell you the foreign policy of South Korea frontwards and backwards, and then stand in front of people and argue about it. I used to be able to sit behind piles of books about the history of politics in Peru, and turn that into a paper about how the global recession would impact the Peruvian political economic landscape. Once, I stood in front of my peers and broke down a dense paper on Gunboat Diplomacy into terms we could all understand. I don't mean to say that all of the things I once knew about the world are lies, but I do mean to admit that I never knew the whole truth. El Salvador has taught me just how much I do not know.

This experience beyond all else has been painfully humbling. I thought I knew that sustainability was the right way, and then I learned the hard way that not everything can be sustainable, and then I realized that people who write that word in fancy books may not understand what it looks like on the ground. However, at the end of two years, I don't know how to fix most things that stand in the way of my community and a better quality of life. I think we, development practitioners, are doing better than the days we used to just throw rice and clothes on people from planes and call it a day. However, I think that the current model we are using for development is getting tired and worn out. Every organization I see does what I do, and my community knows the drill. They know how to talk the talk and walk the walk, and get anything they want for free. Then many of them use the free bricks meant for the latrine for a new wall in their house... reality, and only the tip of the iceberg. If the rest of the world of development looks like this, then we need to make some changes. We need to keep moving in a positive direction.

So my suitcase of lies was really just mis-truths. Things I thought I was sure about. Now I am unsure. And my new pack of heavy truths are too numerous to mention here and too devastating to mention light-heartedly in a blog. I have become a part of this community, and I know things about people that completely and utterly break my heart. No one prepared me for the distrust within my community, or the psychological effects of poverty and violence. That wasn't in the book Aguilera :).

All I know for sure is there are souls that need healing, and there is no Millennium Development Goal for that. How can I expect my community to act as one and work together, if they are individually hurting or oppressed?

There are so many people in the world that need food right now, today. There are children dying at devastating rates from curable illnesses like diarrhea. There are wars at every corner and rape is used a weapon. There are young girls being forced, bribed, and convinced to sell their bodies. There are men buying those bodies. There are so many needs. There are so many broken hearts. There are so many souls that need healing.

And I am unsure of how we as a world can go about healing these souls, that so desperately need individualized cures.

That is a heavy truth to carry. Just so you know how I feel. Just so you know why I might stutter when you ask "What I learned the most." or "What my favorite thing about Peace Corps was." or "How it feels to be home". The truth is, I am exhausted. But I am so inspired to embark on the journey to heal souls. However I can and wherever I can. I think smiles help. I think laughing with people is really great. And I think gaining someone's trust is a foundation for healing. I think I will start there.

“After you get stung, you can't get unstung no matter how much you whine about it.” -Sue Monk Kidd The Secret Life of BeesSo I got stung, repeatedly.... El Salvador was not always kind to me. But in the end I got the honey off the comb. In the end, it was worth it. I am sad to leave this life, to leave the family I have made here. But I am excited to put to use what they have taught me; kindness, generosity, and how to make a killer pupusa. I got stained, scarred, and stung and lived to tell about it because I was loved. So to the man who sent me to the darkest corner of the world, because he thought that I was tough enough to handle it -ahem, Aguilera, ahem- thank you. These unique challenges taught me very special lessons. And it isn't so dark after all. There is so much light, I just wish the Diario de Hoy and Univision would find some of it and broadcast it for the world to see.

Filed under: Photo of the Week Tagged: green job training, ground source heat, ground-source heating system, Native American, Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center

“Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else’s.” -Billy Wilder

The one scary as shit,

I don't wanna do it,

out of my comfort-zone

thing that I did this year The last thing the tour-guide said was "try now to land right on-top of a ray or shark"

Um... good advice

When I finally jumped out of the boat I landed on a sting ray

yeah, it would happen to me.

But they were everywhere, it was impossible to avoid it

the ray slithered on my back and shoulder and then swam off

I stayed far away from the sharks and sting rays after that

But then later... I got a little friendly

and I'm so glad I did.

I hope I never stop jumping out of my comfort zone

and so as I plan my next steps

I try to keep this in mind

current status: pondering my next move after peace corps

My hands have finally been destroyed. As I am a do it yourself type of gal and a very hands on learner, I decided to learn how to use a mallet today to break up concrete and brick in order to get the floor of our classroom ready to be leveled out. We had to build our classroom around where an old water tower was located and though we have moved the water tower, the supporting ¨feet¨ are still in the ground and need to be broken down. I have decided that the mallet is my favorite worst nightmare. On the one hand, it is great exercise for your entire body (more on that later) and it really lets you get all your anger out by constantly beating down concrete. These past two weeks have been really stressful and so beating and breaking down concrete today and yesterday has really helped me get my anger out in a more constructive, if somewhat destructive way. On the other hand, its hard, long, tedious work that makes you feel as if you are never making any progress (kind of the same feeling I get sometimes managing projects!). It is also dangerous and should never be attempted without safety goggles and a med kit on hand when the inevitable strikes and you end up smashing your hand instead of the mallet against the concrete. A little more on how working a mallet can be great exercise (feel free to skip this side note but it entertained me while I was ¨malleting¨ this morning). My Peace Corps girlfriends are always complaining about how skinny I have gotten over my service, and while I know for a fact that it has little to do with what exercise I have done and more to do with the numerous times I have gotten amoebas and giardia (a water borne illness, not an STD), I have to admit that construction work is really great for building and toning muscles. So I would like to introduce what I call the ¨Shawshank Redemption Workout¨: Shawshank Redemption Workout (You Know, Because That’s What Prision Inmates Do is Break up Large Pieces of Rock with Mallets in Their Free Time) All you need is a mallet and some concrete. Oh, and some safety goggles! No weights and weird gadgets that make your body do strange things required. Basically you need to square your body off to whatever piece of concrete you are aimed at destroying and turn your toes out so that when you knees bend they go over (but not past) your toes. This will keep your knees in line and safe from getting strained or injured. Once you are in this squat position you may start swinging your mallet using one hand or both repeatedly against the concrete. I find that aiming for angles on your block of concrete works better than simply beating directly down on it since you will break off more bits more quickly that way. Please note: this is a one man job. If anyone else moves in to start some concrete destroying, move out of the way because you will most likely be hit by a large piece of concrete (and yes, this has happened to me and is a big joke between the foremen and myself….more so for them). This workout will give you great toned arms, strong legs and a lot of blisters J But enough of that and more on the project: Today was a great day. We had three of the five representatives of the parents show up and we are now putting up the final, horizontal column all around the classroom. We have made so much progress in so little time that I think I can safely say, barring a natural disaster, etc. that we will finish the classroom by the end of February or early March! One of the teachers also showed up today (classes start this Monday) and informed me that the first week of classes isn’t really for the kids to learn anything but to get the school in working order and thus the teacher s will be making the kids stuff bottles for me. I have kind of refused to stuff any more bottles and have yet to fill one this entire week. I think part of my brain died a little in the past two weeks sitting for hours on end stuffing trash into plastic bottles so this news is like a message sent from heaven for me. It also makes me a lot less stressed about the project because it means that we will definitely be ready to put the bottles up for this coming week and the following week, so that makes life even better. I also cheated on my ¨diet¨ that my doctor gave me while I am taking my amoeba meds and had coffee this morning, which always makes me feel like the colors are brighter and the world is just a happier place to be in. But this wasn’t just any coffee; its my secret stash of Starbucks instant coffee from Columbia (medium strength) that my bestie Kara gave me from her package that her mom sent her from the states. A day that starts with Starbucks coffee is always a good day (Note to my parents reading this blog: you may send me this coffee whenever, if you like). Oh and one last note: make sure to always have a med kit on site. This may also seem like a no brainer but while my foremen and workers have gracias a Dios never been hurt, I have (not badly but I have nicked myself quite a bit and I am accident prone). But either way its just a good idea and a good investment. One more note (sorry): Make sure when you are writing up your work contract that you discuss whether the workers will be working all day every day including days when they normally go to church because that is important and something that should be added to your work contract. I know people here tend to think that even though the work contract says 7 am to 4 pm are the work hours of every day, they can still go to culto and leave work at 2:00 pm. I am not going to raise the issue now with my foremen simply because it would be offensive to them for me to suggest that they miss going to culto during the week for the entirety of the project. But if you are starting your project out, talk about religion from the get go if you think you will be upset if people miss a couple hours two to three times a week because they need to go to church or culto.

At the end of our dock in Utila During calmer seas on the Elisabeth Before the epic swells A Shit Show Salida (Exit) My dear dad, Frankie Hink, returned home to Montana a couple of weeks ago after an amazing, adventurous and hilarious 20 days in Salvador and Honduras.  Our trip went extremely smoothly, save for a few bumps in the road (a flat tire, the attack of the black blood sucking flies in Prudi’s coffee fields, a decapitated chicken shooting blood in his face, etc.) and my dad got to experience almost every aspect of my campo Peace Corps vida (life).  Because of our rented car, our mostly tranquilo (relaxed) schedule, and 8-9 pm campo bedtimes, we were able to avoid some of the more chaotic, mindboggling and frustrating aspects of living in a developing country in Latin American (i.e. ridiculous public transportation, the great change crisis, aggressive campo fauna (save for the black flies), etc.).  These aspects, while often very irritating, have also provided some of the most hilarious, adventurous and unforgettable memories I have been so lucky to experience as a PCV.  Though I was sending my dad home with plenty of amazing campo memories and wonderful isla (island) tales, I was a little disappointed that Frank didn’t have a complete “disaster of a day” experience  to take back to the Big Sky with him.  I shouldn’t have worried.  Central America didn’t disappoint and what follows is a complete recap of Frank Hinkle’s Shit Show Salida (exit) from beautiful and crazy Central America.  I feel like many of our other adventures and tales can best be shared via photos, captions and short descriptions (which I will continue to post in the coming days).  My dad requested that I give his final day in CA the full blog write up that is so genuinely deserves. We started the morning at 6:00 AM waiting for Captain Vern and his catamaran at the end our hotel’s dock.  There was a light drizzle, the skies were an ominous and glowing gray, but the sea looked mostly calm.  This morning catamaran trip to Roatan was our last chance to make an 11:30 AM flight and had been decided upon after much debate, consultation with locals, weather watching and assurances from Captain Vern.  The previous few days on Utila had been somewhat stormy and the bay and public ferry had even been completely shut down at points.  Locals had been telling us that we would most likely have to charter an expensive private plane to make it back to Roatan in time to make our flight.  As luck would have it, however, the skies cleared up somewhat and Captain Vern called and said we were good to go for that morning.  The catamaran ride was scheduled to take about four hours, getting us into the West End of Roatan about 10 AM, where we would then have a 20 minute taxi ride to the airport, giving us just over an hour to check in and board the plane.  No problem and easy beeeesy!, everyone on the island assured us. We passed on our luggage, tossed on our shoes and boarded the beautiful Nina Elisabeth II and set off for Roatan.  We had about 7 fellow travelers accompanying us that morning all bright eyed and ready to head to sea.  Papa Hinks and I made our way indoors, to avoid the drizzle, and took a seat at the big table where Captain Vern had set up his navigation helm and entertainment studios.  Sounds of the 60s and 70s started to blast from the catamaran’s speakers, and the voices of Elton, the Allman Brothers and CCR all played from Vern’s famous playlists.  Things started out pretty easy going, just as promised, and then about 20 minutes in… we started hitting some rough water.  While I fully admit and acknowledge that I have inherited the John Livingston/Mary Hinkle exaggeration gene, I think that Frank Hinkle will confirm that the normally steadfast Nina Elisabeth II, suddenly found herself engulfed in sea swells approaching 10 ft.  I suddenly began to feel like a bolo (drunk) on a roller coaster and instinctively curled into the fetal position on the padded bench below the captain’s table, closed my eyes and prayed that Elton’s Tiny Dancer would hold me even closer.  Frankie Hink was a bit braver, and wondered the deck of the catamaran sin miedo (without fear), even offering aid to a number of fellow passengers who were projectile vomiting (think Linda Blair in the Exorcist) from sides of our ship.  Frank also witnessed a large metal ladder, used for maintenance and repair when the catamaran was docked in Utila, shoot off the roof of the Queen Elizabeth II, knock off an antenna or two and sink slowly into one of the foam sea swells surrounding the boat.  The barrage of sailor/pirate-esque expletives that then flew from the lips of Captain Vern let us know that he or his first mate had forgotten to tie down the ladder before setting sail.  At this point, Captain Vern’s demeanor became a little sullen, he turned on some Pink Floyd, and said, “Well, Dan and Frank, I’m just not sure we’ll make it to the West End in time…”  Frank Hink shrugged and gave me the “It’s not going to be much of Christmas,” look only his eyes are capable of making.  Perhaps only the Hinkle clan will understand this one, hahahaha.  I groaned, rolled my eyes and was lulled back into a nausea filled Stair Way to Heaven stupor, hoping to high heaven that I wouldn’t be joining the Linda Blair fan club outside on deck. What seemed like only minutes later, I was shaken awake by Papa Hinks, who happily announced that we’d made it to the dock in the West End and that we better get a move on and jump in a taxi if we had any hope to make it to the airport in time.  I looked outside and saw blue skies and rays of light shining down upon us.  Things were looking up!  We handed Captain Vern a wad of the carefully divided Lempiras (Honduran currency) we had divided for each remaining leg of our trip the night before (the catamaran, the taxi, last minute souvenirs, snacks at the airport, etc.).  We jumped into a taxi and headed out for the airport with some Caribbean Christmas tunes playing on the stereo.  We both let out huge sighs of relief.  We made it to the airport with about 45 minutes to spare, which made us a little nervous, even thought the airport is about a quarter of the size of good old FCA.  We entered the airport and quickly made our way to the Taca Airlines desk only to find a large line of frustrated travelers leaning on their luggage and bored looking Taca staff staring blankly at their computer screens.  The Taca computer system had completely crashed and all travelers were being told to standby for further instruction.  We soon learned from other travelers that these computer crashes were rather common and that no flights had left the island for the last several days due to poor weather conditions.  We looked at each other and nodded happily… it could have been much worse.  The Taca gente (people) finally decided to manually check in each passenger and each piece of luggage, which equaled mountains of paperwork, copying of documents and dusty looking luggage tags cerca 1950.  While waiting in line during this tedious process, Frank Hinkle looked up at the departure/message board reading the important messages about prohibited carry-on items, new airline regulations, etc.  He nudged me and said he thought he just read that each person leaving the country on via air, had to pay a $35 tax before being allowed to board their flight.  I gave Frank Hinkle the infamous Mary Hinkle eye roll/you have no idea what you are talking about sigh and continued to focus on the slowly moving and monotonous line ahead.  Shortly thereafter a nearby fellow traveler mentioned something similar and my eyes shot towards the message board.  Frankie Hink was dead on.  I had assumed we’d be paying a 3-5 dollar exit fee, as Mary Hinkle and I had done when we exited Honduras via micro-bus during our journey to Copan last March.  This extra $70 dollars had, needless to say, not been calculated into the very precise budget we had created the night before.  I clenched my teeth apologetically at Frank Hink, grabbed his wallet, told him to stay put and ran for the bank window where the tax was to be levied. At the bank window, I was confronted by two smug looking banking gals who looked extremely unimpressed with sense of urgency and panic evident in my eye.  I inquired about the tax, they nodded, and I asked if they accepted credit or debit cards, to which they rolled their eyes and chuckled.   I asked where the nearest ATMs were and they pointed to the other end of the airport and told me good luck as those ATMs hardly ever worked or had enough cash.  I ran to the machines and tried about five different cards, Papa Hinks and my own, to no avail.  I began to panic.  A hungry heard of taxi drivers approached and said my only hope was to take a ten minute taxi ride into Roatan and try to find a functioning ATM there.  I informed my dad and headed off with the first taxi I could find, not even knowing if I had enough Lempira to cover the ride into town.  We arrived in town and the cabby pointed me in the direction of the two banks in town.  I ran to the first and, no joke, found a hand written note on a torn piece of notebook paper that said, “NO SIRVE” (out of order/broken more or less).  I ran to the next bank and found a long line and a sign that said its ATM only accepted VISA… I looked down at a pile of MasterCards in my hands and felt like weeping.  I start thinking about what I had on me… my I-pod, my cell phone, my shoes… perhaps I could sell these items to somebody or find a pawn shop.  A bank guard must have seen the desperation in my eyes and pointed me towards a fancy looking liquor/cigar shop across the way saying I could find a cajero en dentro (an ATM inside).  I raced over and found a dinky ATM, the kind you find in dive bars, in the corner of the shop.  I signed myself, clenched my teeth and swiped the card… SUCCESS!  The ATM spit out $100 in Lempira (enough for the taxis, tax and some snacks) and I ran out the store saying thank you to anyone who would listen.  I ran to where the taxi driver had dropped me off and found the taxi, but no driver.  I looked around frantically for a few minutes and was about to hail another cab, even though I had yet to pay him, when I saw the man wander out of a little store with a beer in hand.  VENGA! (Come on!) I screamed and he moderately increased his stride.  I arrived back at the airport ran into the terminal and found Frank Hinkle still at the desk filling out the ancient luggage tags.  Ughhhhhhhhh!  We boarded the plane, exhaled deeply and gave thanks we were finally Salvador bound.  The day from hell was over… or was it? We arrived in San Salvador, had another brief ATM scare, as Frank needed to pay another $10 entrance fee… Would we ever learn?  We got through customs rapidly and headed for the baggage claim to wait for our luggage.  And we waited and waited and waited.  Somehow, during a direct flight from Roatan to San Salvador, Taca had managed to lose both my father and I’s checked bags and now couldn’t even tell us where the bags might be, and it appeared as though there had been a problem with the computers in Roatan?  REALLY?!?  Dios Guarde (God save us).  I held back from screaming and tried to explain that my father was leaving for the U.S. the next day and that his checked baggage has some pretty important items therein (his special shoes, some of his medication, all of his warm clothing, and all of the souvenirs he had bought during our journey to the Islas Bahia (Bay Islands)).  The Taca agent informed me that it would be extremely unlikely to locate the baggage before Frank’s flight left the next day, gave us some money for a taxi, a little voucher for the pain and sent us on our way.  My dad was confused and wanted to put up a little bigger fight, but I assured him his Spanglish would get us nowhere.  We left the office, heads hanging low, arrived at ADUANA (Customs) pressed the button and thankfully got the green light for the dinky backpacks we were carrying on our backs. Gracias a Dios (Thank God) we arrived at Jeni Rae’s oasis in San Salvador just 40 short minutes later where we were greeted with a delicious serving of homemade turkey enchiladas and margaritas.  We washed the few beach clothes that Frankie Hink had had on his person and in his carryon and prepped the baggage he had left behind at Jeni Rae’s for his early AM flight.  Early the next morning I sent my pops off for a very frio Norte (cold North), in shorts, a long sleeve cotton dress shirt, and some Keen sandals with wool socks.  His checked baggage contained little more than machetes, coffee and booze.  Well done, don’t you say?  Frank’s trip home was made much more comfortable as the wonderful Jeni Rae regalaed (gave/gifted) him a President’s Lounge pass for his five hour layover in Denver.  Frank enjoyed his time in Denver eating cheese and snacks, drinking beer, watching the news, chatting with fellow travelers, all while sitting in comfy furniture with his feet up.  Thanks JR!  He was then greeted in chilly Kalispell by my dear mother with a parka jacket and snow boots.  Quite the end to his journey. My journey with Taca continued for several more days and two more trips to the airport to sort our luggage situation.  I came to find out that our luggage had never actually left Roatan, most likely due to the illegible and antique baggage tags.  I was finally able to claim our bags and had to separate some of our mixed items (we had packed some items together, as family members tend to do on family vacations) which confused the Taca folks to high hell.  I was then interrogated on just exactly where I was trying to send this unmanned luggage, why I had removed items from it and where in the hell was Kalispell, Montana.  Finally, Taca was able to talk Continental into sending the bag to Kalispell as a courtesy.  Relief!  I stepped out of the office and went to leave the airport with my luggage in hand and my father’s luggage headed for the Continental desk.  I pressed the ADUANA (Customs) button and RED!!!!  Thirty minutes of explanations of why I only had one of our checked bags on my person and I was set free. Frank Hinkle received his bag about 7 days later after substantial stateside stress and frustration all blown northward from some good old fashioned Central American confusion.  Haha.  The End. Al final (after everything being said), I am grateful to both Taca and Continental for finally remedying the situation and offering exceptional service, save for the airport from hell on Roatan. Hope you enjoyed the recap of your last day in CA, dad! I’ll be working to post more photos and write more entries in the days and weeks ahead as I also begin to deal with the stress and realization that my time in beautiful Salvador is coming quickly to an end. Love and miss you like crazy. Daniel John

by Pete Iengo, Office Manager and Energy Guru Our Office Energy Challenge goal at the TWP office is to reduce wasted energy and phantom loads by 10% each month. We did that, and more in December 2011, by reducing energy … Continue reading →

It has been so long since my post that I have actually become to fear my own blog. When friends and family ask about it, I shy away awkwardly, fake left and then jolt the other direction. When I scan my facebook and see other Peace Corps volunteers have published something, I frantically quadruple click my mouse encima the X on the top right corner of my internet page.

But as life has cold-heartedly taught me, the only way to overcome your fears is to face them.

And so you find me here, staring you, JaimeinPC.blogspot.com, in the face. Yes Im slightly chapuda in shame, and yes I am uncertain of how my readers will receive this, but there is no turning back now.

So, how, you ask, will I come to explain all that has happened since September 2011? In the following unorganized, confusing, spontaneous, incoherent paragraph. Please stop reading now if you have a headache, or foresee one.

My father visited for a beautiful week in September, but abruptly left me on my doorstep, alone yet again, with nothing but a few monkey-nail scars and a suitcase full of American-brand coffee. My Peace Corps Partnership Project was approved and my amazing friends and family helped me with $5,810 to build a bridge in my community. December 23, 2011 the bridge was finished and we had an AMAZING Inauguration followed by community Christmas party. I drank table wine and ate 17 bread with pulled chicken sandwiches. My Youth-Jewelry Group bought me a sweater and made me a dress, earrings, necklace and bracelet for Christmas… all with skills learned and money earned through this group. Brought me to tears. My dog abandoned me for another chucha in the community…he will soon be a proud father. I went to Costa Rica for my birthday where I was overwhelmed by how expensive things were (okay maybe El Salvador is cheap), but had an amazing time with my best friends Kim and Jackie (and Adrien). My community dirt road is becoming paved and I now live beside a large hole and a CAT giant machine. Barca beat Madrid over a hundred times. I went to Guatemala for New Years where I had another amazing time…besides for New Years Day where I was assaulted for the third time (gun point). Im fine and safe and actually got away (running- thank you pink sneakers) unharmed. I hiked the Parque Imposible (National Park Impossible). I did a Flea Market fundraiser that gained me lots of points with the community. I ate liver. El Salvador was listed First as most violent country in the word. And Peace Corps decided to take drastic measures to secure the situation in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador… evacuating volunteers from Honduras, and temporarily suspending the program in Guate and ES. Looks like I may be home early.

It is probable that I will write another blog soon, explaining selected parts of this disarray of words further. But for now, that is what I have been doing.

Hopefully, if you are a donor to my bridge project, you received an email with photos or have seen my facebook. The project was an enormous success and I owe every ounce of it to you guys.

Hopefully, if you were somebody who used to be a dedicated “JaimeinPC.blogspot.com” reader you will excuse my hiatus and accept me back into your blog-life.

Hopefully, I gain the courage to put these 3 months of blog-neglect behind me, and once again shower you with my words of wisdom from down here in chicken-ville for the short-sweet time that remains.

I love New Year's. This New Year's, lucky for me, three of my best friends in the world came down to Antigua, Guatemala to celebrate this special and sentimental time-of-year with me. We had an amazing time that produced awe-inspiring memories that will not be soon forgotten. (Thanks Mitch, Bri, and Scriven)

New Year's gives me a sense of dissipated motivation. The feeling is easily comparable to the one that occurs when you finally wash your favorite pair of jeans. You get them out of the dryer put them on and realize that while they may not be quite as comfortable as before, they feel and look brand new. (and make you feel sexy) Corny as it may be, I enjoy making resolutions for the new year. I picture the man I want be then I subtract the man I currently am and the difference is all the new skills, traits, attitudes, or tenets that I lack. While that may seem a crude way of self-improvement, it works from me. Needless to say, a lot of the same things always arise again and again every year: Be more caring, Don't care so much about what others think, Learn Photoshop. (Some are more important than others) Sometimes I feel as though life is a controlled fall. You tumble ungracefully and the most you can do is try your best to miss the hard spots on the way down. All that being said, this year's "difference" was transformed into resolutions which, now, are written on a napkin; proudly hanging on my wall. A testimony to the past years and a commitment to the future. I would like to share them all but I think it might jinx me.

With the passing of 2011 I can actually say that I do feel a little bit wiser (minute). The search for total happiness still alludes me, but that can be tacted-up to the jejune character of youth. It might be that the happier a person is the wiser he/her is. I reckon that he/she must be doing something right to get that result. So to be wiser, be happier. Simple, right? But, what makes me/you/anybody happier? The idea of improving myself and moving forward makes me happier. However, I would also say that the thought of accepting myself and settling down also brings a comforting sentiment. It's a perplexing predicament which I sure that everyone, at on time or another, finds themselves dealing with. So, for myself at least, the theme for 2012 is balance.

2012 looks to be a tremendous year in regards to my Peace Corps service. We are going to start the construction on the Kindergarten and Park in less than a month. Also starting momentarily, I will have a guitar class where I will teach about ten youth how to play. (They'll get to keep the guitars too) Finally, a project I actually know something about. It has been hard convincing people that they should trust my "experience in architecture and construction," with regards to the park and kindergarten; it was a necessary evil. Otherwise, they wouldn't have listen to any my ideas or plans for the project. Lastly, I'm doing a tilapia project with two of my favorite locals. (exciting stuff!) So, with all this I should be quite busy. Busy is good. Makes me feel like I'm actually helping. This is very important in Peace Corps service, because a volunteer's direction and purpose can become very ambiguous with the absence of work.

Many changes are sure to occur in 2012. They might be joyous, morose, grand, insignificant, etc. While all variations are welcome, there's no way of knowing what eventually will come to pass. With the appropriate mixture of daydreaming, hard-work, laughter, sweat, tears, beers, and hope. I believe this year will be a glorious one; I just can't loose that napkin.

"Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities."

Aldous Huxley

Best wishes, thanks for reading, and enjoy your new year.

Cheers

I´m sitting here after a pretty hard day with a green tea face mask listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and laughing to myself about how different Peace Corps must have been for the original PCVs in the 60´s. In today´s day and age of Peace Corps, some volunteers have internet access in their homes (I just got a kindle and get free if sketchy wireless internet access in my house!), running water, indoor sinks (like my friend Katherine in La Palma) and nice beds.

Today was hard simply because we are hitting a sort of wall as far as parents coming to work on the building the classroom. Only one person came and last Saturday only one person came as well. Peace Corps El Salvador is also going through a hard time and everyone is really stressed out. It´s also the time of the year when everyone is cutting maisillo which is what they use to feed chickens and pigs here. It looks like little, white pin heads if you have ever sewn before. If you grind it up you can make amazing flour for cookies that my host mom makes that are pretty good for breakfast. I think as soon as the kids start school the parents will also start showing up in droves. At least that is what I keep telling myself. Everything will get better because once you hit rock bottom there is only up to go. At least we are still on or ahead of schedule. We are putting up the wood for the molds for the upper half of all the columns and should have them done tomorrow. Then the only thing left is to make the upper horizontal columns and then put in the bottles and put the roof up!

Tomorrow I have a meeting at the Agriculture University called La ENA to talk about another Bottle School project – they want to build a classroom for a vocational training center. So I will let you all know what comes from that meeting with them.

At least once school starts I can get the kids to fill bottles with me during their recess time.

Some ideas that I have if parents don’t come to help fill bottles or come to work: make a ton of party invites and make a work slash party day for everyone to come to. This way people can see all the progress we have made and how much there still is left to do. During the party, which doesn’t cost too much to put on, you can make speeches about the importance of collaboration and remind everyone when their work days are.

I am also going to make a huge poster to put up at the school which shows everyone who should be coming which dates to work and who has actually come to have more transparency and accountability. People are a lot more likely to come to work if they know everyone is watching to see whether or not they show up.

A suggestion for anyone wanting to replicate this project in other communities or countries: Always make sure you have a good, reliable source for water. This may seem like a no brainer but in a community like mine where we get all our water for our work from a single faucet (or from the river) this is something that we always need to keep in mind. For the past one and half work days we were without water and had to haul water from the river which luckily is pretty close by. But now we know that we always need to make sure that we have a large trash can or some receptacle full of water in case the water gets shut off due to a broken pipe, etc. For those of you who are wondering why would we need water: you use a lot of water to make cement but even more importantly (maybe) you need to water down the cement that you already have hardened because if you don’t water it every day it will crack and you will have ruined all the work you have done up to that point.

I actually missed two whole days this week due to getting sick while I was in the capital for some med checkup stuff so sorry not to have updated in a little while. This week was a rough week for our construction process. We are definitely still on track but we are losing a little momentum as far as parents coming to help out. We had about 1 person per day as an average this week, a little worse than last week. But I am confident that once the children start school again (the 23rd of January), we will have a lot more help and at least we can get a ton of kids to fill up bottles, help which we desperately need. I have had a couple of kids come by and help me fill bottles this week but we only have about 62 bottles that are completely ready to go for the classroom. We have a ton of bottles that are halfway or partially full, so I am not worried about collecting more bottles, it´s just filling them that has me a little worried. But I am trying to keep thinking positively and having positive manifestationsJ.

We have finished half of all the walls for the whole classroom minus putting up the chicken wire and the bottles of course. We are finishing the very last horizontal column that goes as a supporting beam that goes in the middle of the walls today and next week we should be starting to put up the chicken wire and putting on the bottles! The chicken wire is the part that I am most interested in seeing since it is a totally new concept and the key point of this project that makes it so unique and special. For those of you who don’t already know: for this classroom we are substituting plastic bottle stuffed with plastic trash for bricks and in this way are helping out the environment and building a classroom at a more than 25% lower cost than a traditional classroom. We have to put chicken wire on both sides of the walls, which are secured with metal pins that are laid into the columns before the concrete is even poured and then we tie the bottles one by one to the chicken wire. Once one side is done and the bottles are secured, we place another piece of chicken wire on the inside part of the wall but we use metal pins and a metal rebar that is weaved (as far as I know) into the chicken wire to have it sit snug against the bottles. I will be including pictures next week so don’t worry J. I am super excited for next week because I have been waiting to see this step of the construction process in person since May of 2011 when I first started talking to the NGO Hug it Forward, which came up with this whole amazing idea. More to come soon!

November is my favorite time in El Salv. The days are significantly less hot and there is a constant brisa! It’s also my favorite time because it is when school lets out for the salvo “summer” and I get a break from 150 screaming bichos.

We wrapped up computer classes at the beginning of November so the kids could have time to “study” for their end of the year exams. And then the graduation planning began. I helped organize the graduation ceremony for our students graduating from kindergarten and sixth grade. For the sixth graders, it is the final activity that they will be present for at Centro Escolar San Jeronimo. For those who are able to continue studying, they will have to travel to the pueblo to attend classes. This year, 10 out of 18 graduating sixth graders have plans to continue studying. The eight students that will not attend seventh grade next year are not choosing to not study, but rather, they don’t have the means to travel to and from the pueblo five days a week. Obviously, economics plays a huge role in deciding whether or not you’re going to finish high school in El Salvador.

The graduation ceremony started with a mass at the Catholic church where all the Catholic students came with their friends and family to worship. The Evangelical students met us at the church afterwards and everyone, all dolled up in their fancy suits and dresses, walked through the community from the church to the school. It was bien bonita! Once at the school, awards for the top students were given and every student received their diploma. I awarded certificates of achievement to the students for participating in computer class throughout the school year. It was very exciting. All the parents were extremely proud that their kids “passed” computacion.

During the ceremony, I was given a chance to address the students and their parents and thank them for working with me at the school this year. I made sure to encourage the parents and kids alike to continue studying as much as possible. Education is the key to development, for sure. At the end of the ceremony, the directora presented me with a certificate of appreciation for my work at the school that year.

After all the graduation festivities were over, I headed out of site for Thanksgiving in the capital. Ever Thanksgiving in El Salvador, families at the American Embassy in San Salvador host PCVs for the night to have a turkey dinner and a hot shower. It was fabulous. My friend Paul and I were paired with a woman who works for USAID at the Embassy and was also a PCV in Paraguay ten years ago. It was so nice to talk to someone about my peace corps experience that had been through the experience. We had lots of wine, a fabulous turkey marinated in pisco sour, and WAY too much pie.

After Thanksgiving, we had a swearing in party for the newest group of volunteers in San Salvador, where we danced the night away at one of our favorite clubs in the city. It’s always a good time when all the volunteers in country have a chance to get together.

After swearing in, a group of us headed east to San Miguel to disfrutar Fiestas Patronales. It was a gran locura, a street party that took over the entire city. Liter Regia beers, papas fritas, masks and entertainers everywhere. We probably covered the entire city on foot that night, making our way through the fiesta, taking pictures with strangers along the way (they loved all the gingas in their mascaras!). Needless to say, the following day I had one of the worst gomas (hangovers) of my life, and I had never been so glad to get back to my bed in the campo. I think I stayed in bed for two days recovering, but the weekend had been well worth it!

Centro Escolar San Jeronimo Staff

Graduation Parade

Maria Julissa

I should have done this the other way around, but here is the list of things I won't miss here in El Salvador. I think it's a pretty reasonable list. Fair. I felt my skin flush with a couple of them. All in all, I love El Salvador, but there are just some things I can't wrap my open-mind or patience around. Little nags, and big issues. All part of the experience.

And just for the record, 23 days till the Central American Farewell Tour begins. Maybe we should get some shirts made up.

Getting el gripe. I have been pretty fortunate when it comes to the number of tummy problems I've had in ES, I have been strangely unfortunate when it comes to constant, lingering colds.Roosters. Only good for screaming at.Thick, smooshy tortillas.Boquitas Diana. They're NEVER as good as you want them to be.People spitting on the bus, or your floor, or anywhere.Foot soup. It's tasty till you get the foot... or the heart, or kidneys.LitterTamalesKolachampanCiproGoing to mass. As a non-believer, I have respectfully sat through so many masses and bible studies than I did through the first 22 years of my life. Por mi culpa, por mi culpa, por mi gran culpa.80's music and the tinny stereos it's blasted onRunning into english speaking deportees who trick you into responding and will not leave you alone. hair gelreading the daily Cifra in the newspaperWet ceramic tileInsane sidewalksPilsener beerbad judgementthe PCV bubbletourists that make all gringos look reaaalll badcatcallsLack of "indoor voices"Jaime's clipartboiling all my drinking waterEastern Terminalthose candy vendors on the bus who place the candy on you, even when you do your best to not let them. They always find a way. Pro.The "grab both handles by the door" move.mosquitoes"less than successful" bus ridesracismmachismorose-scented toilet paperbeing asked if I'm "Barca" or "Real" almost daily. Don't care. Don't watch soccer. No TV, less interest.constantly smelling like wood smokea persistent sweat mustache when I hit warmer regionspanzas. Mine, his, hers, theirs. All of them.burning plasticgetting creepy text messages from my lobo hostbrotherNot having a word in spanish that means creepy. The best option for pizza is Pizza Hut.Jalisco hot sauceperpetually dirty feetbuying phone time by the dollarSpending tons of money and energy on velas and cajas and monthly dinners on the death anniversary, yet letting kids grow up with no idea when their birthdays are because it's never celebrated. (Unless she's a girl and she turns 15, in which case you'll spend all of everyone's money on the quincenera and then have none to keep her in school...) Just saying.bolosspoiled sonsBus preachers. Always screaming about the lord.Nasal singing. The shameless interchangeability of the letters B and V. Botar and Votar are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!!! Side note to the bicho who spray painted "Rebolution!!" on the curb outside of the village. I roll my eyes every time I pass, may your uprising fail.Standing out like a 5 foot 7 inch, fair skinned, green eyed monster.the crunchy texture my hair has taken onPeople in the US asking me how things are "south of the equator." Because I have no idea.going inside and ending each day when the sun goes down.street dogscockroachesbeing proposed to by visa seeking strangers, or their wivesbeing asked to give all my things to cualquier fulano.Being on a micro when it breaks downthe non-existence of sarcasm soccerAnd a Bonus Video to boot. To be fair, its pretty boring, but I've been thinking a lot about my Kids back in El Cocalito, and missing them. Sometimes you have to take a walk down memory lane. Here's a quick clip of Dan Clarahan teaching the kiddos some karate at the school. We finished with a lesson on bow throwing into a punching bag. It was pretty great.

I made it back to The Savior after a glorious two weeks at home! I had the best time spending Christmas with family and New Years with friends. I did everything that I wanted to do before returning, except skiing. Sadly there was no snow, and it sounds like it was unseasonably warm across the country. My vacation was exactly what I needed! I now feel refreshed and more motivated to get work done here. I brought back Christmas cut-out cookies to share with my host family and other families that have been very good to me. They loved them and have asked that I teach them how to make them. Since the last time I posted my blog there has been some concern with security in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Some of you may have read in the news that Honduras is sending home their volunteers. Right now it isn’t certain whether PC Honduras will shut down, right now they are being reviewed and after they will determine whether it is safe for the volunteers to continue their services. As for us and Guatemala we will also be under review, however we volunteers will stay in country. Talking with the Peace Corps Security guy for this region, he says that the difference between El Salvador and Honduras is “night and day.” He said that in Honduras everyone carries guns, their police is corrupt and unreliable, and overall much more unsafe than El Salvador. Here we can rely on our police and I feel very safe here in my community. Americans are not being targeted,their worry is that we will be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The most risky areas are the capital, which we are no longer able to travel to, and buses. PC El Salvador is now requiring us to ask permission every time we leave our sites and are trying to come up with alternatives to public buses. After our review in February we will know more about what the “new” PC El Salvador will look like. On a happier note I got a puppy! She is a girl and I have named her Canela meaning cinnamon in Spanish. I got her yesterday and the first night went better than I thought it was going to, she only cried a little. She is very skinny so I am trying to fatten her up right now. She has a lot of fleas so Mom, I would love some flea collars. My host family thinks that I am crazy for treating a dog like a child and even for just touching one. I have to keep in mind that I have to get her used to the life here so that when I finish my service here that she will be able to survive without me.Water hasn’t run here for six days! It trickled a couple of days ago, enough time for me to get water to drink, but that’s about it. I have gotten water from my host family’swell to shower and clean some dishes but haven’t had any to was my clothes. Most people will go to the river to wash their clothes but that river is so dirty I would rather wear dirty clothes than have river water dirty clothes. Always be thankful that when you turn on your facet that you never have to wander if water will come out of it. That reminds me that while I was in the states for Christmas my family would leave on lights in rooms that nobody was in. I went around turning them all off. You always hear “save your electricity/water, it is a precious resource,” but you don’t really understand that until you live in a place where its not constant. So everyone, turn off your lights and conserve your water!Toasting the seeds for the drink that I brough to the states

This is the tree that the seeds come from. The fruit is called cutuco (green balls).

Over Christmas we went to the Sand Dunes and the lake was fozen over. It was great to be in some cold weather.

This is what horchata (the drink that I brought to the states) looks like before we grind it all up.

The day I left for the states my bus wouldn´t start so they had to push it into the road where there is a slight hill and let it go down the hill in nuetral and start it at a run for it to work.

Sand Dunes with the family!

My new puppy Canela! She loves her box!

Me preparing the drink.

Hello loyal friends and family…. It has been many days since I have written and so many things have happened I don’t even know where to begin. Well, just a quick update on where I have been and what I have been doing. I am afraid to say that very little of it has been [...]

collage on door at Tunco Beach, El Salvador

“Life is a process of becoming. A combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~Anais Nin Normally

Funes ordena al ejército no llamar héroes a violadores de derechos humanos - ElFaro.net

Yes, this article is in Spanish. Here is the Associated Press article from yesterday, in English, although it is less comprehensive:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/world/americas/el-salvador-president-apologizes-for-1981-massacre.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=El%20Salvador%20president%20apologizes&st=cse

La Tierra de Los Chapines The hike to Volcan Pacaya

Once again, we were packed like sardines in the bus. Shoulder to Shoulder from one window to the next. This is a feeling I have come to know very well during my two years in El Salvador. Well, it is no different in Guatemala. The bus from 4 Caminos to Chimal was packed with music blaring and the ayudante (the guy that charges and helps the passengers board the bus) yelling and running back and forth on the top of the bus. Typical bus ride.I wanted to sleep, but the road was too windy. So I did my best to close my eyes and not get sick.The radio was blaring "Have you Ever seen the Rain?" by Creedence, and I thought to myself how strangely, that song represents my Peace Corps experience.Rain falling down on a Sunny Day. There are very few days that go 100% well. Zero projects that have turned out the way they were planned. And no matter how sunny the day, it ends in rain.

A young woman got on the bus at some point, and sat next to me. She was really beautiful and I guessed about my age, or a little younger. At some point she fell asleep and her head rested gently on my shoulder. The first time this happened to me 2 years ago, I was weirded out. I tried to wiggle out from underneath the awkwardly intimate encounter with a stranger. But this time, was different. I was overcome by the urge to make her bus ride more comfortable. I wanted to comfort her and let her sleep on my shoulder as long as she pleased. I wanted her to feel safe. She awoke once around a particularly violent curve in the road and seemed embarrassed that she was sleeping on the white girl's shoulder, but I gave her an assuring smile, and she went right back to sleep, right where she had been.

As I left Guatemala, I felt that it was the beginning of me leaving Peace Corps, and Latin America.I cried, and I wondered what I will do without this world.

Antigua

We spent NYE in Antigua, by we I mean me and about 20 other PC-ES Volunteers + about 20 PC-G Volunteers... What a great way to bring in the new year

Calle del Arco... where we rang in the New YearGoing out for NYE PC-G and PC-ES united for the pre-partySome one gave us their baby to take a picture... it was pretty awesomeCerro de La Cruz, overlooking Antigua

Volcán PacayaThe hike was quick and painless, but once we made it to the top i got tough. The wind was blowing incredibly hard, I thought I would fall off the mountain. I sat down near a spot where some warm air currents were coming up out of the rock ot warm myself up, and tore the seat of my pants off... (Which were then repaired for the equivalent of $1 by a woman at my hostel). On top of Volcan Pacaya

On our way down, we were cursing the wind, we were ready to get down, when out of the clouds appeared the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. The guide said that the wind was not normal, but because of it we got to see the sunset that is usually obscured by the clouds around the Volcano.

It took my breathe away.

The Sunset from Volcan Pacaya

Lake Atitlán/ Panajachel/ Santiago Atitlán

As our micro took the long windy road from Sololá to Panajachel, I had no idea what was awaiting me. At some point we turned a corner and the lake and three volcanoes came into view. I wanted to cry. It was breathtaking. At those moments, I am in awe that our creator can create such beauty. I felt small, and humbled. I spent the next day admiring the scenery and haggling with Mayan Women over art and jewelry.Lake Atitlan, Panajachel

The boat ride to Santiago AtitlánThe cross outside the church in Santiago Atitlán

A store where they sell all of the beautiful fabric woven in the villages of the Western Highlands.

The Macadamia FarmJust outside of Antigua, a man from San Francisco settled down and married a Guatemalan woman. They started a Macadamia movement and now promote Macadamia production and consumption throughout Guatemalan villages. The crop provides a sustainable income as well as a healthy diet for Mayan communities with scarce resources.

They also have a restaurant with Macadamia Nut pancakes. Macadamia Nut Flour + Macadamia Nut Butter + Blueberry Puree + Local Honey + Fresh Fruit=Deliciosa

HueHue & Kati's Site

Visiting Kathy Lee was incredible. It is really quite amazing that 7 years after I graduated from Placer High School, and last saw Kathy (or Kati, as all refer to her in Guatemala), that we would meet on a mountain in Guatemala. When Kati as applying for Peace Corps, she reached out to me as I had been in El Salvador for a year already. I was able to giver some advice and tell her about my experience. A few short months later, she was assigned to the neighboring country of Guatemala. I finally made it out to visit, and she was a great host. It was so wonderful to get to know her world. And to have beans around the stove with her host family (the tummy ache was more than worth it).Kati, why are there noodles in my beans?

El Mirador where we could see all of Huehuetenango

Cali girls kickin it above Huehue

Chico, L.A., Auburn, NewcastleIf only I had a picture of what we did after El Mirador. We drove up the mountain a bit further until we came to a plateau. Along the side of the road we stop at an unassuming comedor, restaurant. We went for the tortillas con queso y chocolate, we didn't even look at the menu.As I sat there eating the best tortillas con queso in all of Guatemala, and sipping my hot chocolate from a clay mug, my heart felt full and my spirit warm. This is Latin America. These are the things I will miss. All the things I never took pictures of because the moment was more important.

Kati in her site... Santiago Chimaltenango

A pueblo of 5,000 in the middle of no where on the side of a mountain

My new friends, I even got them to smile!

While waiting for our ride, these kids asked me to play a game with them... it was called La Bayena or The Whale

I tried not to take offense to the fact that I was assigned the part of the whale.... :)How quickly kids can capture you heart. Pure happiness.

Just to remind us that we are never far from home, even in the middle of a mountain community in Guatemala, a woman is tejiar-ing (weaving) and above her is a sign for the tienda. Take Note.

Welcome to the Tienda California

No matter where you go, there you are.

The Peace Corps kids are all right

A commentary written by a current Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala.

As some of you have already heard from Mom, they're sending me home a little early. El Salvador and its neighboring countries have serious problems with gangs, and there was a big security incident recently in Honduras, so it affects us too. They're likely closing PC in Honduras, and they're reorganizing PC here and in Guatemala, so they're sending my group home a month early and possibly giving the other volunteers who have more time remaining in their service the option of going to another country. They don't know yet when a new group of volunteers will come here.

What all this means is that my last day is February 16, and I will probably fly home that day or the 17th. It also means that I have a month to finish a ton of paperwork and say my goodbyes. I'm in the capital currently for the Close of Service Medical exam. It was just really sudden. I was hoping to get one last visit to San Vicente in, to meet my host sister's baby. I was also hoping to see the first mangos ripen, but it's unlikely. And last time I was at home I donated all my old winter clothes, and it will still be cold when I get off the plane. Oh well, as they're so fond of saying home, that's the way it is.

At the same time I'm excited about being at home and moving on to the next thing. I just have a lot on my plate right now. Good thing I turned in my last grad school application right before the Close of Service Conference, just in time for them to spring this news.

I look forward to seeing you all in a month!

Education breaks the cycle of Poverty

Peace Corps Partnership Project Website:Here is the link to donate. https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=519-175

Veronica (Left) is in her 3rd year at the University, Monica and Gregoria are still in High School

WYD (Women and Youth in Development) is a scholarship program run by Peace Corps Volunteers in El Salvador and funded by our friends and family in the United States. When all of you back home ask what you can do to help, this is my answer. We support 25 high school and university students through their entire education. These are amazing students, who without our support, would not be able to attend high school or the university. Why?

The government of El Salvador stops funding education after the 9th grade, and because of the cost of school supplies, uniforms, and transportation (many kids travel hours by bus each day to attend high school), the average family can not afford the added cost.

So some of the brightest kids in El Salvador, for financial reasons, can not continue their education. At that point, a Peace Corps Volunteercomes alongside these kids and offers them a chance to apply for a scholarship.

$250 for a year of High School$450 for a year at the University

It is a competitive application process because of limited funding and a full education commitment on our part. WYD is different than other scholarship programs because it is based on a mentorship program as well. The volunteer who sponsors the student mentors and assists them in their transition from Middle School to High School, and helps them learn to manage their time and budget their funds. Every year, WYD also holds a skills camp where we reinforce study skills, time management, self-esteem, and other topics that further helps our scholars to excel in their school environment...

If you only knew how much we love these kids. And how amazing they are. THey are so incredibly grateful for the opportunity we are giving them, and they fully understand the gravity of the issue. They are truly special young people.

At the last WYD camp we filmed a video so that you could meet the scholars and see what we do. I hope this inspires you to donate to our program. Every little bit helps. http://youtu.be/lfnKstob0c

Here is the link to donate. https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=519-175Darwin is going into his second year of high schoolThe WYD Committee with our scholars last April