Phone calls. Broken desks. Price quotes. Patience. Computer experts. Questionable computer experts. Time. Money. Blood, sweat and tears. And finally, an inauguration. Dios mio, we did it. And I say ¨we¨ because that includes the entire community of my rural village, the school population, a community action group in my town, Peace Corps staff and most importantly, you guys reading this from home. Those who contributed will be receiving letters soon but nonetheless, I´d like to throw a big Thank You out there as well. It´s done! On Thursday February 21st the community of Papalones planned an inauguration to open both the renovated computer classroom and a new science lab at the school. It was a great event, with students singing songs and performing folk dances, the official cutting of the tape over both classrooms, moving words from community members and a presentation of plaques to the contributors of the projects. It was an honor to be there that day watching the kids run the computers like experts showing off their windows Paint pictures and demonstrating their increasing typing abilities. The kids of grades 6-9 are receiving biweekly computer classes from a certified teacher and are quickly acquiring the skills to run Microsoft Office programs. I´m pleased as punch. I haven´t always felt like I´ve accomplished much out here, of perhaps better pub, much that is sustainable and will continue after I´m gone. I may be out in a few months, but I´m positive the students of this small school will still be utilizing these computers, learning about them and gaining valuable skills for the future, long after I leave. It feels fantastic to have been a part of this project coordinated by so many parties – the computers donated from businesses in the US, the materials to renovate the classroom donated from those at home, the labor to get it all done from community members, and now the classes provided by school teachers. This is really what Peace Corps work is supposed to be about – collaborating to initiate and accomplish some things and then empowering the people to continue the work and carry on the success.

The other big focus work-wise is my continued efforts to save the environment… or at least convince some kids to stop tossing their soda cans and snack bags out the windows of buses. The litter bugs have moved in and mutated into giant trash-loving aliens around here. Resistance if futile, but I´m trying anyway. Salvadorans do some things so much better than North Americans – the overwhelming majority of people utilize public transportation rather than personal cars, they eat eggs and meat without any added hormones or chemicals so that they aren´t growing breasts by age 7, and they greet each other with ¨good morning¨ on the streets instead of staring at their shoes, ignoring strangers. But one things they don´t do is toss their trash in trash cans rather than wherever they feel like it – aka, the street, the river, the park. Part of this is not normal Jose-blow´s fault – trash cans are not available in public places around this country, so in theory one would need to keep their garbage on them until they return home and throw it in their own can or pile to burn. This would be like asking a Salvadoran man to cook his own dinner – its ludicrous, absurd, completely against the natural order of things. I want my beans and rice for supper, I tell my woman; I want to get rid of this churro bag, I chuck it out the bus window. I´m not fighting against individuals here so much as against ingrained habits, an age-old system that from a short-term point of view has always functioned just fine. What people don´t realize is the long-term damage they are inflicting upon themselves by not properly disposing of their garbage. But when you tell 7th graders that plastic bottles remain on the planet for 500 years after you toss them on the ground, they look at you like you have absolutely no concept of what is important to them. 500 years? Their brains are 100% occupied with what they´re going to wear tomorrow. 500 years might as well be the end of time. So, this is not easy. Nor will a project to recycle plastic bottles generate a significant amount of money to show for the efforts. Each 100 pound bag of crushed plastic brings in a whopping $6.00… that´s enough to purchase some saldo and a dinner of pupusas with a soda thrown in. Big bucks we´re talking here. But until recycling takes on in this country as it has done in the States and there is a greater demand among companies for recycled products, prices will stay at the gastronomical level of $.06 a pound.

However, there is hope. We have five jumbo (joombo) bags to fill in Chapeltique at 100 lbs of plastic per bag in 6 months and we´re at least 40% there so far, thanks to the kids of my environment groups collecting bottles each day at school, individuals helping out at their homes and the guy who works at the soccer field collecting soda and Gatorade bottles after each game or practice. And, my co-collaborator on the project, Clivia, is motivated and supportive, which makes working in tandem a pleasure and a huge help. We´ve been collecting now for a few months and I see interest in the idea, a slight change of habit, and that is encouraging beyond belief. As volunteers we expect ourselves to drastically improve upon the quality of life for the people in our communities, with large, tangible results and noticeable differences… until we get here. Then, we recognize that the little things count, and count big. We´re getting there, one second thought of chucking crap on the ground at a time.

Besides work, I´ve been having a lot of fun around here. The week before Easter, my sister Sarah and three good friends from home Lisa, Kadee and Nicole came to visit for ten days. It was an absolute pleasure having them here – they really took the good experiences whole-heartedly and the not so pleasant experiences with a grain of salt. We started out in the capital the first night, staying at the hotel of choice for Peace Corps volunteers (read: for the price, not the ambiance) La Estancia, which was the one and only time everyone had their own bed for the trip. The next day we made it out west to a town called Juayua for some souvenir shopping and to enjoy the international food festival that occurs there every weekend. I have to congratulate the girls, especially Nicole, for taking the initiative to bargain with local shop owners for the things they wanted to buy; language barrier or no language barrier, it didn´t deter them from demanding $3 for a pair of earrings instead of $4! Which is exactly the way it´s done down here, nicely done girls. I managed to not kill anyone (though Sarah might tell you otherwise) in the pickup ride from Juayua to our next stop, Suchitoto, which is a small town famous for its clean, safe streets, extensive war history and breathtaking views over a huge man-made lake with the mountains of distant Honduras in the background. We stayed in a beautiful place overlooking the lake for two days, spending our time strolling around town, eating good food and taking a boat ride out on the lake with a friend. The girls found some more cheap earrings, we encountered some foreigners willing to take us out and test their luck at getting drunk with us (we said no, though Lisa was really pushing for it ;)) and we ate the best cream cheese in the world (again, that was Lisa…). Also, the girls tried their first ever pupusas, tortilla dough mixed with beans and cheese then fried on a grill to create a flat, cheesy masterpiece, a food original to El Salvador and at $.25 a pop, the pride of the land. I´m thrilled to say the pupusas did not disappoint and in that instant my friends went from estas gringas to pura salvadoreñas.

It was tough to leave, as it always is, Suchi, but we pushed away from the central part of the country to the very northeast tip and the town of Perquin for the third leg of the trip. Perquin is located in one of the areas most affected by the civil war in the 80´s in El Salvador; it was popular as a known guerrilla stronghold and therefore a constant hotspot for fighting. It also sits at a higher elevation along the border of Honduras and is characterized by pristine rivers, rugged mountains and pine trees to the likes you would see in any part of Connecticut. As interesting and beautiful a place as this is, I knew I had to take my friends. We stayed in a log cabin at the Perquin Lenka, a hotel reminiscent of a ski lodge owned by an American ex-pat. One of my best Peace Corps friends, Angie, lives in Perquin and we spent the next two days running around with her, visiting the war museum in town and, well, eating. On the second day we took a trip to visit the caserio of El Mozote, where all but 1 of the 1000 inhabitants were killed by soldiers in one day, and then spent the afternoon swimming in a river and sunning ourselves on the rocks. I think maybe we could have stayed in Perquin forever, except for the fact that our cabin sported a good number of large bugs which made everyone uncomfortable. Although I do have to say, between Sarah´s ability to smash the begeesus out of a cockroach and Kadee´s all out search for an enigmatic spider; I think the humans would take home the W with this bunch.

From there we travelled south to my friend Matt´s site, again due to my superb driving skills (ha, ha). Yamabal is about 10 kilometers from Chapeltique, my site, making Matt one of my closest volunteers both geographically and emotionally (although half of that emotional stuff is probably because we can complain to each other about how damn hot it is all the time). After a quick visit in Yamabal, we made it to Chapeltique. Of course the first thing to happen was we showed up at 2pm and wanted lunch, a latino fau paux, but the girls were great about accepting what food was still available. I took them to my house and to the Alcaldia, where everyone was excited to meet them (afterwards, I heard about how white Nicole was and how small Lisa was and how blond Kadee was and how contenta Sarah was… Salvadorans just love to comment on physical qualities, its part of their charm). After another meal of pupusas (deemed better than the ones at Suchitoto, yeah that´s right!) we spent some quality time with my 3 year old host sister, Yaneli, and the family parrot, Manolo. Everyone bonded instantly… Yaneli getting her picture taken and running around with her new mates, Manolo breaking out of his cage and barricading whatever white girl he could find in rooms by standing guard outside the doors and nipping at feet when someone dared to escape. We visited the school where I completed the computer classroom project and watched the kids make their Microsoft Paint houses, walked around the soccer field at dusk and hung out at my counterpart family´s house shooting the shit with Alexi who speaks English fairly well. It was hot, extremely hot, and at many points the toilet in my host family´s house didn´t flush, but everyone was in good spirits and the time in site went by fast. Everyone in Chapeltique is grieving the girls´ return to the States, as they made quite an impression upon the town.

And then it was Friday, and with two more days to go we headed southwest to the beach Playa El Tunco (meaning pig) in the department of La Libertad. This beach and the hotel we volunteers usually stay at, El Miramar, is one of my favorite places in the country. The water is warm and wavy, the atmosphere is one of complete tranquillity and the sunsets just can´t be beat. Ok, so everyone got sick from lunch and yeah, the water was turned off most of the time we were at the hotel (not a good combination), but even so I think we were able to enjoy the time in the sun with some of my other volunteer friends. Saturday night dinner was the best: it was just the five of us, and we joked around and talked about life and just caught up in a way I haven´t been able to do with friends from home since I arrived down here almost two years ago. Yeah, things have changed, and none of us is the same person anymore, but that doesn´t stop us from caring for one another and sharing histories and relating to one another in a way you can only do with old, good friends. Saying goodbye to these guys on Sunday wasn´t easy, and I´m so glad they could come down to visit and see what life is like in El Salvador. It means the world to me, and I´m sure it meant something good to them.The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

Beware the Mormons

I arrived home at 5pm, sweaty and tired from the gym. All was quiet at the house as the family wasn’t home yet, and I took advantage of the odd tranquility by sitting on the house’s front stoop to watch the sunset. I had been sendentary for about five minutes when the silence was broken – a woman had approached the gate and was hollering to me, ‘Erin! Erin, I need your help, please!’ Feeling a bit unsettled, I got up and walked to the end of the driveway, realizing that this woman was the sister of one of the secretaries in the Alcaldia. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m a teacher and I’m on vacation right now – do you think you could give me some english classes so I can eventually get a better job?’ Harboring a slight feeling of relief that I wasn’t being asked to go pull a child from a burning building or something like that, I told her sure and invited her in. We worked for twenty solid minutes, conjugating verbs and laughing over mispronunciations when suddently, my host family arrived.

My host family does not just consist of the typical nuclear entity. They are in fact an entourage, an envoy of blood relatives and third parties who are employed to make everyone’s life easier. Returning home this day was my host mother, her three children, a young cousin, her parents, her godmother, her personal assitant, and the children’s nanny. Music blaring and various childrens’ heads poking out of half-opened windows, they rolled in like the circus and subsequently set hell loose. People streamed out of the Ford Explorer like a reverse Chinese fire drill, running in all directions, clutching bags, shouting to each other and slamming doors. My three year old host sister ran right up to my english pupil, pulled down her pants and popped a squat to pee in the dirveway, grinning at us the whole white. The kids had all just grabbed various bicycles, scooters and trikes to chase each other around the driveway in a complete frenzy and it was getting dark, so I told my friend I would see her tomorrow and sent her home.

As I walked her to the front gate, we saw two young men approaching. They were wearing white button-down shirts and ties with nametags – they could only be one of two things, refridgerator salesmen or Mormons. Delix my english student recognized them immediately and shot me a pitying look as she bolted – yes, they were Mormons. And they had me cornered, at 6pm in my own house. I had no choice but to let them into the slightly chaotic scene.

We sat on the same stoop Delix and I had just occupied, and they started in on me. They were two twenty year olds from Panama and Arizona respectively, here in El Salvador on a mandatory two year missions trip. The information wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as I expected it to be, but as you can imagine it was tough to concentrate. The kids kept running into us with their two-wheelers in the treacherous path they had made from the house to the driveway. My host brother called my cell phone twice from 15 ft away. At one point during a prayer my host mother’s hairdresser showed up and announced herself louder and louder as, with head bowed, I tried to focos on the words and mentally tell her to hold on a second. Just as Elder Recinos got to the most vital part, how Joseph Smith received a vision from God to create the Book of Mormons, an elderly couple pounded on the gate demanding the doctor (my host dad) because the husband was bleeding profusely from the head. ‘Do you think God is trying to tell us that now isn’t the right time for you to share your message?’ I tried to joke with the missionaries. They didn’t crack a smile. Instead, they asked me if I felt the sensation of conversion yet. This time, my one-liner ‘How about a little foreplay first?’ stayed in my head. I managed to keep a straight face as I exclaimed, while Arturo seized the Book from me and started running around shrieking and flapping it over his head, that perhaps I should read at a quieter time and get back to them should I feel any converting tendencies coming on. They were disappointed, but what could I do? It’s a miracle I even caught their names in the mayhem of screaming children and hairdressers and head trauma victims seeking out my host family. When they asked me for my cell phone number and I responded with ‘How about I call you if I want another appointment?’ I could tell it was on the tip of their tongues to chastize me for turning down a date with Jesus. Eventually however, even they had to admit it was getting late and made their farewells.

This happened December 4th – since then I have seen these two Mormons walking around Chapeltique seven times, and have successfully ducked into doorways and avoided them five of those times. Once they cornered me at work, and once they camped outside my house until I came home at 9pm. The first time I told them I hadn’t read yet, and the second time I was more to the point (it was 9pm for God sake, that’s bedtime for me) in saying I really meant what I had said that I’d call them if I was interested in learning more. ‘But we’re only trying to save you!’ one exclaimed with a look of utter anguish on his face. Hah! Little do these guys know I’ve already been through the whole experience of being told that as a Catholic heathen I’m doomed to an afterlife of fire and brimstone. I even used to live in front of a Jehovah Witness church, you can’t scare me that easily. For the third time I sent them on their way without the slam dunk of a successful conversion. This may be the beginning of a seven month battle for my soul in which case I’ll have to resort to drastic measures – I’ll ask my evangelical friends to drive them out of town. There’s only room for one fanatical religious group in these parts.

La Elección de la Reina de las Fiestas Patronales

Bueno. As in July, Chapeltique celebrates another round of patrone saint festivals just before Christmas. And again, every festival needs its polished representative queen to accompany it right? So once more I agreed (read; was coerced into) judging the contest to see which lucky girl would take home the crown this year. I received my formal invitation to be a ‘jurado calificador’ requesting my esteemed presence at 8pm on Friday the 14th in the Alcaldia, so I threw on a pair of jeans and kept my hair down to dress more ‘formally’ and showed up. The first thing that happened was all of the Alcaldia workers complimented me on how nice I looked, one man going so far as to say ‘Now THIS is how I like to see you,’ not finishing with ‘because every other day you look like a blind thrift store junkie’ like I knew he wanted to add. But I noticed that my attire had absolutely nothing on the reina contestants, also waiting in the Alcaldia for the competition to begin. Each of the eight 16 year olds was a vision of sparkles and shine, not one curl of the immaculately designed updo out of place or one chip in a polished nail. They reminded me of my junior prom and I had to resist the urge to point stupidly and gargle ‘Ohhh, pretty’ like a country bumpkin as they walked by. Each heavily-made up face was glamorous, and tormented. They could have been sitting a court appearance they looked so nervous. I coul see girls practicing their entrance stances, hands on hips and heads back like dowager duchesses, girls silently mouthing their planned speech to greet the crowd. The friend of one candidate found out I was one of the judges and approached me to ask what she could ‘do’ to help her situation... should she shmooze with me for a while? I told her to tell her friend to chill out and try to enjoy herself. Looking back, I probably should have seen if she could have done my laundry for a while.

Finally at 10pm we stepped outside to the street, where a stage and table of honor had been set up for the event. Before the candidates took the stage, a local cumbia band started things off. Of course, because we’re in El Salvador, there couldn’t just be one speaker to carry the music onto the street, there had to be ten. And naturally the table of honor was set up directly in front of the speakers. I coul literally feel my eardrums throbbing, and by the time the band finished, I’m sure in direct response to my desperate prayers to God, I was certifiably deaf. Just me though – I’m convinced Salvadorans are immune to all forms of noise. As the band exited the stage the MC took his place by the mic. Excitedly he announced that the competition would now begin and started by introducing each girl. Only the most vital information was passed onto the audience for the time being – the girls’ names, places of birth and their waist and bust measurements. After the cowd had oogled the cup size of the final girl the MC very seriously stated that ‘We do this competition to prove that women are important too.’ I could have fallen off of my chair in astonishment. And the most surprising part yet – no one else looked shocked at this insane proclamation. I’m deaf and even I caught it!

It would only get more incredible from there. Each judge was given a spreadsheet with six categories to qualify the candidates on. It wasn’t a shocker to see that the most important categories were considered to be greeting, poise, elegance, dress, physical beauty, and, oh wait, here’s one for the nerds, response to a question. It seemed that the MC neglected to finish his thought that women are indeed important... to look at. Well as you can probably guess, this is about the time I started tuning out. Judge or no judge, I refuse to objectify women by comparing their physical traits and raiting their worth based on how well they can imitate a Barbie doll. I could have saved myself the trouble of traveling to the Third World and just gone back to high school for that. This was, however, the moment everyone else was waiting for and the crowd grew still with anticipation.

As the heart-wrenching soundtrack of Titanic played in the background, the candidatas sashayed out to the stage. The crowd ate up every twist of the hips and coy smile, precisely rehearsed by each girl in her fervent desire to be the best. I gave each girl the maximum amount of points for each of the first five categories, then sat back to await the question section.

After much fawning and catcalling, the moment of truth arrived – each girl would have to actually say something. The first candidata stepped up to the mic and chose an envelope with a question. The MC asked, ‘How would you increase tourism in Chapeltique?’ With utter confidence, contestant number one answered ‘I would go around door to door telling each citizen of the town to tell visitors how pretty it is here, and to have big hearts to welcome newcomers in.’ End of story. I was flabbergasted. What about generating some micro business in the area so that there’s a reason beyond agriculture to come here? Creating clearly marked paths and road maps? Or hey, here’s a tough one, picking up the trash that gets tossed into the street each day so that the town doesn’t look like an oversized dump? Now granted, this girl was 16 years old, but still I was expecting a bit more than just create shiny happy people to tout Chapeltique’s cuteness. The third candidata fared far better in my book. She was asked, as queen what would be your first project in an effort to improve the town? She replied that she would create a campaign to visit the schools and teach the kids about self-esteem, respect and the importance of creating and aspiring to fulfill future goals. Yeah girl, the future starts with the kids, I couldn’t agree more. Candidata number four took an interesting approach – she began answering a question before choosing an envelope with a question in it. As inebriated as the crowd might have been, even they caught on to what was happening and laughed uproariously at the stage. The poor girl ‘chose’ her question and started her answer anew, but the damage was already done. Finally, the last candidate caught my interest as she was prompted to answer What are and were some of Chapeltique’s customs and traditions, and what do they teach us today? Her response was much longer than those of the other girls, she rattled off example after example and explained in detail the significance of each one. It was her shining moment, and I was proud of her for it.

Then, it was time to vote. As the judges tallied up their scores, the girls stood on the stage in a line, holding hands and appearing anxious and excited. The results were handed over and the MC, milking the moment for all it was worth, gabbed for a bit about the honor of being crowned queen. Just as he finally arrived at the cucial moment and proclaimed ‘and the winner is...’, there was a large creek, and the stage where the girls were standing groaned and dropped. All eight girls were comically and instantaneously lowered two feet as they shrieked in surprise. The timing couldn’t have been any better, it was as though someone had pulled a lever. The candidatas, flustered but laughing, recovered quickly and the winner was announced.

As the newly elected queen hugged her fellow candidates and cried joyously, the mayor stepped on stage to crown her. He was visibly swaying as he placed her sash on backwards and threw her crown over her eyes like a blindfold. Having finally managed to straighten out her accessories with the help of the others on stage, the bolo mayor turned to the audience, threw his arms up in triumph and bowed to the jubilous applause of the crowd. As Celine Dion belted out that her heart will go on, our queen thanked God, her family and waved happily to all her royal subjects.

As it turned out, the winner was the girl who answered her culture question so well. Yes she was pretty, but so were all the other candidates, and for that I have to believe the other judges took some value from the question category as well. I could have mimicked my wasted mayor and thrown up my arms in jubilation – triumph! Brains over boobs! Or at least, boobs AND brains! It’s a start.

Happy New Year!

I hope the holiday season was warm, heartfelt and fulfilling for all at home... I'm wishing you the very best start to the New Year from El Salvador! As my fellow volunteers, Salvadoran friends and I said goodbye to 2007 and welcomed in 2008 with fireworks, hugs and wellwishes I realized just how little time I have left here in this incredible place. 7 months is about the fly by and all I can think is, I want to make the very best of them that I can. It is a privilege to be here living through such unique and diverse experiences and meeting and getting to know the many individuals who have affected my life in myriad ways. At the same time, I am blessed to have such a wonderful support network of family and friends at home and it will be a pleasure to return to that come July of this year. That being said, my new year's resolution is to make the very best of both my life here and at home throughout 2008... to continue sharing my experiences in El Salvador with those at home via phone conversations and emails and to tell my Salvadoran friends all about what life is like in the "norte," to beat stressful feelings back home by recalling the peacefulness of an afternoon spent lounging on a hammock watching the leaves blow in the breeze in El Salvador, to practice Spanish as consistently in the second half of the year as I do now and to never lose touch, at any point throughout the year, with loved ones. My two "worlds" are both beautiful and enriching in and of themselves and have helped to shape the person I have become and am still becoming, and for that I cannot be more thankful. I wish you all the same... to appreciate the present, to focus on what life has given you rather than what is lacking and to be grateful for it, and to always maintain a sense of peace. This poem was sent to me from a fellow volunteer and so I share it with you... happy 2008.

New Year Wishes

May peace fill all the empty spaces around you

And in you, may contentment answer all your wishes.

May comfort be yours, warm and soft like a sigh.

And may the coming year show you that every day is really a first day,

a new year.

Let abundance be your constant companion,

so that you have much to share.

May mirth be near you always,

like a lamp shining brightly on the many paths you travel.

May you be true love. -- Author UnknownThe contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

Right before I left for my three week hiatus from El Pulgarcito, I had a conversation that went like so…

Barbara Ehlen, a fellow Muni 06 volunteer, text messaged me with ¨Hey, were you surprised that your Partnership Project was fully funded? Can you believe it?!¨ I read the text and, immediately assuming it as meant for someone else, responded ¨Oh Barbara, how funny! You must be mistaken, I have over $1,700 left to raise. You must have intended this message for (anyone else alive)¨ Five minutes later, she texted back saying ¨Oh man, I could have sworn it was you, I saw your name on the email I thought… I´m sorry if I was wrong!¨ I just sort of shook my head and wrote her back, ¨No problem, must be someone else who was almost finished raising their funds.¨

Ten minutes later Barbara calls me on the phone. ¨It IS you! I´m looking at the email right now. Someone donated to your project and it´s been fully funded.¨ I just about fell out of my hammock. I had been raising money slowly but surely for the past two months but still had almost 2 grand to go, which I assumed would take me until about Christmas to raise. Apparently, I was mistaken. Many of the donations we´ve received have been anonymous and this one was no exception. All I can say is, to everyone who suffered through my shameless pleas, who cares both for me and for the people I work with in El Salvador, and who took the time to hear us out, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support and generosity. This initiative truly would not have been made possible without you, and I can´t wait to share news and pictures of our progress in renovating the room and getting the computers up and running with all of you. Muchas gracias, todos y todas!

¨Walk slow, pack light¨

Morocco. The first thing I noticed was its size. In El Salvador you can certainly stare for miles but your view is inevitably interrupted by wayward homes, people meandering about, coconut stands and the color green. In Morocco there can be no such distractions: passing through the mountains or the desert alike, I noticed how much wide open, seemingly unfettered space there is. As one PCV there remarked, it appears to be a sea of endless caramel, waves of nothing but God´s own earth. It wasn´t until I saw the night sky that I truly felt tiny and insignificant in an infinite universe. You can see the stars from Salvadoran soil, and plenty of them. But something about the vast starkness of the land, the complete silence and the domelike expanse of stars so close they appeared more like vague clouds or apparitions, really got to me. The feeling of being just one tiny speck in such a huge world sort of stuck throughout my time there. It was not a negative sensation, merely daunting and quite grounding. In the United States and now in El Salvador I can work my way around fairly effortlessly, at least for the most part. I can successfully navigate public transportation, engage in trite and meaningful conversations alike, communicate gratitude and frustration, and act in culturally sensitive ways. I have a sense of what is going on around me, and feel somehow involved in those daily workings. In Morocco, I felt like a fish so far out of water I was practically a tuna salad sandwich. It goes beyond not merely being capable of speaking Berber or Arabic, or even French, although that of course is a formidable aspect of a debilitating sensation. I could not speak or read and was therefore completely dependent on others to do so for me, for the first time in my adult life. That alone is baffling enough. But I also did not know inherently the cultural norms, the obvious characteristics that make up Morocco and that are completely apparently to anyone who has taken the time to get to know the place. By growing up in America and fumbling my way through El Salvador over the past 17 months I have become a part of these two countries, learning without realizing it, calling these places home because I am comfortable there. Of course it would not be so in Morocco – a mere ten days there put me roughly back in my first week in El Salvador – wide eyed, mouth in an O shape, permanently confused and astonished at such a foreign place. And how foolish of me to assume that JUST because I am a Peace Corps volunteer, just because I understand (partially) what it is to live outside the US in one country I could successfully, instantly master the challenges and do so in another country, no matter the location. I am humbled, to say the least. Yet my infantile position was quite beneficial in myriad ways, just as it had been in the beginning of my own service in Central America. Being utterly incapacitated and unaware meant being utterly amenable, unable to express abhorrence to things I knew nothing about. I went from talker to listener, attempting to understand things out of sheer necessity and curiosity alike. And when I shut up and opened my eyes and ears, I learned.

Boy, did I learn. I learned a few essential words in Berber, like ¨salam u alaykum¨ (spelled incorrectly I´m sure, but that´s how it sounds in my head) and ¨shukran¨, but more importantly how the people of Aaron´s region speak Berber rather than Arabic, and how proud of Aaron they are that he communicates to them in that tongue. By travelling a bit I saw firsthand how rural and urban Moroccans live, and the stark differences that can exist between those two worlds. I saw the immense faith in Islam, heard the calls to prayer and watched the faithful solemnly sacrifice sustenance between sunrise and sunset to celebrate Ramadan. And I witnessed similarities between Moroccans and Salvadorans that I hadn´t expected – though worshipping different religions, both are a faith driven people, the mosques and churches both a central part of a community in both location and social life, a people of fatalistic beliefs and a deep recognition of God´s plans and the power of prayer. Just as in El Salvador, I experienced hospitality like no other. No matter the economic condition of the family in El Salvador, the doors are opened, coffee is served and inquiries about health and life in general are exchanged. It was the same in Morocco from what I experienced, except that the café was substituted for tea. As Aaron´s friend I was welcomed with open arms, just as my friends have been with my close Salvo families, despite the fact that I could not speak more than a few words. The same characteristics plague some aspects of development in both countries – poor wealth distribution, machismo attitudes, poor customer service. Children still smile curiously, yell out greetings and demand rewards from the foreigners. Basic survival takes precedence over luxuries such as owning and caring for pets, but owning satellite TV and a cell phone is still considered a symbol of high wealth status and therefore essential. In Morocco as in El Salvador, it can take a half hour to complete a five minute task and yet, no one is in a rush or panic over it. Not everything was different – some things shockingly familiar.

And as it turns out, PCVs are quite similar from country to country. The volunteers I met in Morocco are humorous, laid back, a close knit family offering sanity and support to one another. Just like us, they have completely independent site experiences from each other, complain about a lack of work, get together to keep from going mad and intermittedly throw Berber or Arabic words into their regular conversation (our version of Spanglish… Arabish? Or Berbish?) If I met any of them on the street someday back in the States I am confident we would feel a connection and familiarity as RPCVs, serving in different countries but sharing similar experiences in trying to discover what it means to live as an American for two years in such countries. And that´s what it really is all about – not becoming Salvadoran, or Moroccan, and completely integrating into our communities as members who simply appeared one day and became like everyone else. By the fact that we´re Americans, different, we are not allowed this unnatural luxury. What it´s all about is finding ways to successfully coexist as an American, maintain that identity, in a small community in the rural third world, the bled, the campo. To be unique and yet integrated. It´s a daunting task, but as I realized through my ten days in Moroco I am long past those early days of insecurity and discomfort in El Salvador. While my independence and confidence suffered a bit in Morocco, the trip taught me that I´m well past that point in my country of service and also, that I should not forget the process of what it took to get me to my fairly comfortable place. Looking about in bewilderment for ten straight days, I recalled how humbling it is to try and be a respectful foreigner in an entirely new place, to regard with reverence the power of diversity and the myriad experiences the world has to offer. El Salvador is great, but it’s just the first stepping stone to walking a path of real understanding of what it means to know different cultures, and not just blindly feeling ones way through them for a few days. And to remind me of how lucky I am to have the opportunity to even brush that surface of coming to experience different places. By travelling with another PCV, I was able to see rural and urban Morocco alike, to shake off the tarnish of ¨tourist¨ for a bit and see Morocco through the eyes of a dear friend who can call the country a second home. By sharing his world with me, I was invited into what it means to for Aaron to be an American integrated in a Moroccan community, and the experience was valuable beyond words. I am so honoured to have been his guest for a week. Due to my somewhat reticent attitude at being in such a different place, I´m not sure Morocco got to see the confident, independent person I am in El Salvador. But the important thing is that I got to experience a small part of what is the true Morocco.

…And Back in El Pulgarcito

Upon arriving back in El Salvador, one of the first thing that happened was that I was accosted by a bolo, or drunk, at the bus stop waiting to get to my site. Ah, El Salvador… welcome home to the lunacy. As I stood there looking more gringa than usual, with my two huge bags and clean clothes, I could make out few words, ¨gringa,¨ ¨su culpa,¨ and ¨los Estados Unidos¨ given his slurred speech and my efforts to turn away from the stench. Add this to my experience in the airport on the way to El Salvador: in Washington, I suddenly couldn´t use my ticket that my sister bought for me without having her credit card on me (despite having used that same ticket without problems three out of the four legs of the trip already), so I had to dish out an impromptu $572 one-way ticket from Dulles Airport to San Salvador, thirty minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave. Ouch. Despite sitting in first class, the complementary warm towel and egg and spinach omelette could not make up for the gaping hole in my already deficient bank account. As I stood at the rainy bus stop keeping my face inches away from the crazy drunk, I can recall wondering why I paid an additional $572 to be a gringa again and have a drunken idiot spit all over my face.

Alas, I came home, unpacked my bags, chased some bugs out and arrived at the Alcaldia for the afternoon. Here, I was accosted as wlel, but on a different level – everyone wanted to know EVERYTHING about the trip. How was the wedding? How that you´ve seen your sister get married, when´s your wedding going to me? Am I invited? What´s the weather like in Morocco? Is the food good? Is it better than the food here? Did you ride a camel? Did you eat a camel? One conversation with Mercedes, one of the secretaries, went like this…

Mercedes: How do the women dress there?

Me: They wear long skirts, shirts and pants, oftentimes with their hair or faces covered.

Mercedes: Wow.

Me: Yeah, it´s conservative there compared to here.

Mercedes: (Looking down at her outfit of a tight blouse, short skirt and high heels). Huh. I´d better not go to Africa then, they´ll think I´m a whore.

I gave my counterpart a little wooden camel wrapped in Moroccan newspaper for safety, and he put both the camel and the newspaper clipping on his desk. ¨To look at the words,¨ he said. Mirna, another secretary, asked me how to greet someone in Morocco and now she´s running around the Alcadia pronouncing ¨salam u alaykum¨ and bowing to everyone. This is one of the great parts about coming back and sharing the stories – there´s now a tiny bit of understanding, of knowing what Moroccan culture consists of, amongst some Salvadorans in Central America. They´reall aware of where Morocco is geographically now, Carlos is enthralled with the Arabic symbols on the newspaper and Mirna is greeting people in Berber. I can´t help but think, how absolutely cool is this? Their genuine interest and wonder amazes and excites me.The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

Check out the new pictures, a bit from home and all from Morocco... entry to come soon!The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

It's bee a busy past two months. I hosted four Municipal Development trainees in my site for four days in early July, as part of the PC training process. Trainees break up into groups of four or five and stay in volunteer communities for a few das to work with the volunteer and experience what life is like out on the field. I hosted a solid crew and with the help ofa lot of community members, planned a full four days for them. I'm still thanking my lucky stars for the success we had, in that the planned activities were realized, the people I planned with held through on their eds and nothing blew up in my face. I had the trainees help me teach my English class, which ended up being 2 hours of class and one hour of a round-table discussion comparing Salvadoran and American culture in everything from holidays to handshakes. They came out to a rural canton to see my HIV/AIDS charla, gave a charla of their own to 9th graders on gender equality and sterotypes, and helped the school kids decorate masks and make flowers in preparation of our environmental parade happening a week later. I think the trainees enjoyed themselves and I had a great time hosting them. I recall this experience last year as a pivotal moment, when I really saw for the first time how a volunteer lives in every sense in their community. Little did I know that a year later, on the other side of the trainee/volunteer spectrum, I'd realize it as a pivotal experience as well. To put it succinctly, the four days the new guys spent with me was my 'Holy crap, I have learned something this past year' realization. Through absolutely no fault of their own, the trainees were not as culturally or linguistically advanced as I am, just as last year my host was far more advanced than I. It makes complete logistical sense to recognize that one learns a damn lot in a year and subsequently improves n eveyr manner as an effective volunteer and culturally sensitive human being. Makes sense, but I didn't know that until about a month ago. When a community member spoke to the trainees and they looked at me for a translation, I realized with shock and awe that I could understand what Carlos or Clivia was saying. I could understand, even SPEAK Spanish. I know, this shouldn't be such a prodigious realization, but when you are constantly surrounded by native Spanish speakers who blend their vowels and speak half the time in regional lingo and throw out verb tenses that I've never even contemplated before you tend to come home each day thinking little more than 'linguistically, I am a retard.' It's ot so much that I'm down on myself than that in Chapeltique, it is 100% accurate to say that 100% of the time I am the worst Spanish speaker in town. But for these four days, I wasn't. I mentally noted when I heard a verb tense conjugated incorrectly, translated words without picking up a dictionary and finished sentences for the trainees. I spoke SPANISH. I'm a million conversations away from being fluent but I'm far better off now than I was a year ago. And I have to say, it feels good to recognize that. Through discussions and answering questions with the trainees, I realized that I actually know something about not just volunteer life but Salvadoran culture. I know meetin decorum, how to properly introduce someone, the words to the National Anthem, and the rules of the road. I've learned something. And I didn't even realize it. Instead of focusing on how far I still have to go, I was able to clearly see how far I've come. Those four days really bossted my optimism, self- confidence and hope that a year from now I'll be able to look back and think the same.

Since the visit from the trainees it's been nothing but fun and games around here. The parade we put on to honor the environment kicked off Chapeltique's first of two separate fiestas patronales, or week long celebrations to honor the town's patron saints. I had a great dal more fun this time around than I did at our fiestas last December, probably because I know more people now and I have less pena in general. I was asked to help judge the competition to determine the town's queen of the 'fiestas julias', which is rather ironic seeing as I, one of the judges, view the event as facetious at best, while the rest of the population here sees it roughly equivalent in importance to the general presidential election. The mayor actually pulled me aside beforehand to tell me which girl had to win. This I still have trouble believing. As it turned out, I voted for the most gregarious girl, the one who answered her 'what would you do for the youth of Chapeltique' question with the most thought. Sadly, everyoe else voted for the girl with the perkiest boobs, so my queen lost. My one small satisfaction from the night - at least the mayor's girl didn't win.

After our fiestas finished San Salvador's fiestas agostinas began a week later. School was let out for a week, public businesses closed down and the capital was filled with fair-esque events and heavy crowds. This coincided with my friend Biz's arrival to El Salvador. Biz can read this and perhaps testify otherwise, but I think after this trip he has quite a well-rounded view of the country. We started off by visiting a few of my good PC friends in Perquin, a touristy town i the north that also happened to be holding their fiesta del invierno, or annual winter festival. Fiestas in Perquin have a less manufactured feel to them - events held are politically inspired, and many of the main attractions are centered around historically significant events from the war. We mingled among countless Salvadoras and foreigners sporting Che Guevara tshirts and red star caps, watched traditional folk dances and experienced part of the mass march from Perquin to the small town of El Mozote, where the army massacred all but 2 of the 1,000 inhabitants in 1981. We also swam in one of Perquin's grand rivers, ate more tortas and tacos than I can count, and hiked up to a friend's site at the very tip of the country; going from Dave's cabin to his host family's house 200 m away is the difference from being in El Salvador and Honduras. We then spent four days in my site and finished his trip up at the beach and the capital.

I feel pretty safe saying that Biz got to see quite a bit of both the good and the not so good that characterizes this country in his ten days here. The typical food was great; the subsequent intestinal infection was not. His first dip in the Pacific Ocean could not be marred by our getting rained off the beach on our second day at the coast. Nothing could hide the unpleasantness of the feeling of unsafety in the capital, the relentless bugs or the tightly packed, lengthy and loud bus rides. At the same time, hopefully nothing could ruin the freeing sensation of traveling in the bed of a pick-up at full speed with the greatest possible view of the passing countryside, the peacefulness of hicking back and taking it easy in a hammock, or being tossed and turned in the waves in ocean water that is more tepid than bath water. I would be hardpressed to forget playing catch or eating pizza with some of my favorite community members, playing card games by candlelight in the cabin Dave built on the border of Honduras, or joking around at happy hour in the Intercontinental Hotel in San Salvador ($1.25 for two Pilseners and endless nachos Biz, don't forget it). It was a trip full of myriad emotions and experiences and I'm honored to have shared those ten days with my good friend. Thank you Biz - having you here was a pleasure and it meant the world to me.

One of the very last things I ever thought I'd encounter in El Salvador was downright war. Sure, I knew about the civil war of the 70's and 80's and the current gang warfare, but I didn't think those things would directly affect me, and they haven't thus far. Instead, I have inadvertantly foud myself a different type of armed conflict altogether. It involves me vs. My Host Family's Animals. They attack from all sides, furtively in the night and blatantly during the day. You've already read about the turkey - there's no strategy or stealth at play there, he just goes after anyone anywhere with any chance he gets. A few weeks ago he took a sneaker to the chest when I was on my way out for a run, and I suspect I may have pissed him off more than usual because he's rallied the other animals against me. The mosquitos are attacking in greater, stronger droves than usual. The geese have begun waiting for me to leave for the day, then sneaking up onto my patio and pooping huge, messy terds directly under my hammock. A scorpion bit me while I was sleeping either through or inside my mosquito net, and just a few nights ago a tarantula infiltrated my room and scurried under the fridge. I've sprayed Raid until I fear for my brain cell count but I still haven't found the thing. I'm losing sleep, subjecting myself to my own sort of Agent Orange through constant sprays of low dose posion in a small, confined space, walking to and from my house to my host family's house with a broom raised as a weapon to ward off the turkey, and I'm developing an eye twitch. I've also barricated the open entrance to my patio with lounge chairs and a marker board to stymie the efforts of the geese, so I literally look like a prisoner in my own home. Give me a helmet and some paper to write to my sweetheart and I coul be in a trench, fighting the good fight. Woman against beast, civilized vs. wild, clean patio vs. pooped on premisis. I'm not sure how much longer I can hold out, as I'm out of ideas and reinforcements and they seem to be actively recruiting. If that tarantula gets me I'm done for. My one and only wish is that if I'm going down, the turkey comes with me, he started this whole mess. Pray for me, pray for peace against perturbed foul and irascible insects. Perhaps more than anything, pray for my sanity.

Caught up in all the action here means I missed some critical things at home - Lisa turning 25 and Sarah's bridal shower. I wish I could have been there with you girls to proudly wear my fidora and pay hommage to the Godfather theme. I can't wait to be home for the wedding next month - mainly, of course, for the food and my right to make a speech of whatever content I deem appropriate as the maid of honor. Be seeing you all soon.... take care until then!The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

One of my daily rituals the year between graduating from college and leaving for El Salvador was to sit down with my family and share the nuances of my day over dinner, everything that made me laugh, roll my eyes or tear my hair out on the drive to work, standing by the copy machine or running on the treadmill at the gym. My parents and sister would oftentimes join in, and we made caricatures out of nearly everyone we´d crossed paths with throughout the day. It sounds terriby rude but we never meant any harm - it was just something to make us laugh at the end of the day at the privacy of our own dinner table where we could be as sarcastic and weird as we wanted, and frankly, were inclined, to be. Now I´m one year in country and, being a volunteer in the municipal development program, I work at least a few hours each day in my city hall. I´ve had the honor and in some cases, misfortune, to get to know more intimately the intricacies of our city hall and more notably, the people who work there. And, in the spirit of my upbringing and natural tendency to notice the absurd, I´ve gotten quite familiar with the aspects of my ¨coworkers¨that make me laugh, roll my eyes and tear my hair out. I apologize for any blog reader who´s not, namely, my father for this one. To my parents, here´s one for the dinner table.

I have to start with Daniel, or as he´s called at the office by all the women, Don Dani. Mostly I hear his name being called out by Alcaldia secretaries whenever they want something - a coffee, more toilet paper - in high pitched whining tones. Don Dani eats this right up- his job, as far as I can tell, is to open the doors promptly at 8am, close them promptly at 4pm, and spend the remainder of the day policing his politburo of a supply closet and witting in the lobby alternating between watching soccer games and tracing drawings of Disney characters for schoolkids. He´s the nazi of timecards - every day without fail he switches the air conditioning off at 3:45, walks from desk to desk telling everyone to pack it up at 3:50, then ushers the whole office out by 4pm on the dot. One time I had the audacity to stay until 4:10 finishing up some work and I paid for it the next day when I asked for a roll of toilet paper and waited 4 hours for Daniel to produce one. It´s impossible to ignore this man - if he´s not in your face slapping your desk to remind you to get a move on, he´s running around the office singing ranchero songs at the top of his lungs. If you´ve ever been on the phone with me while I´m at work you know Don Dani - he´s the voice belting out Spanish song lyrics that is inevitably in the background. He´s a stickler for rules and he yells at me for filling up my Nalgene instead of a small paper cup with Alcaldia filtered water, but I can appreciate his penny pinching tendencies and acute sense of humor.

Then there´s Don Chepe, the mayor. I have little to no relationship with this man, mainly because when he does grace us with his presence at the office, once or twice a week for hour long increments, everyone acts as thought the King of the Universe has entered the building and we quickly transform into the faceless working mass, eyes down, voices lowered. I´ve shaken his hand a few times - it´s like grasping a dead fish. He´s a man of few words, impersonable at best, and the red carpet has been rolled so few times to my desk that I´m not even sure he knows my name. He´s the direct opposite of his brother, Don Vicente, the receptionist at city hall, who some may know is famous for giving me the piece of paper with the word ¨spanky¨written on it my first day in site. Vicente speaks English and is commonly leaning into my cubicle declaring his love for me in my native tongue, to which I respond, loudly, in his ¨Great Vicente, how´s your newborne baby doing? How´s your wife?¨ To be really honest, the only time I could ever really stand either of these men was when I saw them once get drunk at an inaguration for a new bridge in town and sing a duet with the hired mariachi band, and that was only because I had my camera.

Before the reader gets the wrong idea I want to assure you that I dont´t dislike everyone I work with. I happen to adore the female secretaries, all of them. Mercedes is my favorite; she´s tall, curly haired with a smile that lights up the room and a laugh that could rival Don Dani at a karaoke bar. We took to each other my first week in site and she´s been amazing since, telling me stories about her three daughters, her boyfriend in the States and joining me in teasing Mori, a young accountant, about how we´re going to audition 17 year old high school girls at their graduation to find him a girlfriend. Myrna, from accounting, is friendly and sweet and she has an adorable baby daughter. Often times when I´m talking to Myrna she´s sitting in the lobby breast feeding her daughter in front of every Jose, Jesus and Maria that walks in. Cecilia is short and squat and alternates between giving me religious paraphanalia of the likes of Virgin Mary day calendars and slyly leaving pictures of her 18 year old son, working at a restaurant in Houston, on my desk. She gave me a really horrible shirt that I wrote about once, and more than once has made me talk to her son living abroad on her cell phone while she looks on like some kind of clever fox. Haydee types up birth and death certificates all day and she won me over back in December at our fiestas when, as I told her she should have campaigned to be the town´s queen wearing a prom dress up on a float, she responded by laughing and claiming she wasn´t prone to giving small children nightmares. I love these women- they are intelligent, humorous and generous beyond belief.

Carlos Mendez, the architect, is my counterpart, which means he looks after me and has the best idea of what Peace Corps is and what the frig I´m actually supposed to do on behalf of it. He´s amazing as well - we discuss religion, politics, and gender equality issues in informal settings - all the things I´m not supposed to do with a Salvadoran man, but I have comlete confidence in him. He´s loyal to his family and friends, passionate about making El Salvador right, and friendly to everyone he encounters. I told him that if he´ll run for mayor for the next election in 2009 I´d stay in Chapeltique to be his campaign manager. I concluded long ago that he´s the only employee in city hall, including myself, who actually works steadily for 8 hours every day, and I can spend long intervals of time watching him bounce from his office to other parts of the building and back again like he´s his own personal tennis match. Everyday without fail, in one of his runs throughout the building, he´ll detour to my desk and ask me, ¨Todo bien?¨ While there are days when I want to look up and yell at him ¨No, todo is not bien, last night I caught a chicken shitting in my frying pan, killed a scorpion that was hanging out inside my mosquito net and this morning I had to change my skirt because on myw ay out the demented turkey that makes my life a living hell attacked me again and left footprints of splattered mud all over me,¨all of the time I really appreciate his asking me, just because he wants to know.

There´s the little girl who comes into city hall selling mangos who will spend 15 minute haggling with me everyday to buy a bag - I don´t even like mangoes, but she gets my quarter every time. There´s the driver of the municiple vehicle, a chain-smoking caballero named Luis who once accidentally shot his friend in the chest while trying to juggle two apples and his handgun. There are times when the office shuts down at noon because it´s the day BEFORE mother´s day. Really, you can´t make this stuff up. Ultimately though, I come home each day with fresh stories of incidents that make me laugh, roll my eyes and tear my hair out and it feels like normal. I only with I had my family and a dinner table waiting in my house to come back to.

On a different note...

Lately I have been something that in all honestly I can´t say I´ve been since over a year ago; busy. Thank goodness I didn´t quite forget how to multitask, because fr the past few months multitasking has actually involved more than just scrolling through the ipod and using one leg to rock myself on the hammock at the same time. Unplanned by me, four large projects began all at the same time. After I got over some initial panic by reminding myself that I used to multitask quite frequently in the States, I realized that I am in fact capable of getting stuff done and even that maybe this is why I´m here.... not to perfect that butt imprint I´ve got going on in my hammock, but to do some real, substantial work in my assigned community. So here I am, ¨working¨sans a paycheck and a designated work space.

The good news is that I´m really excited about all of these projects. The first involved writing a small grant to solicit people from home for money to realize a given project - called a Peace Corps Parternship Proposal. Although it has yet to be approved, I spent weeks in May creating a narrative, looking up stats and number crunching to create a budget, asking for 4 grand worth of help so that one of my rural communities can adequately prepare an old classroom to properly sustain ten donated computers set to arrive at the school in the fall. I´m hoping the good people in Washington will give me the Ok soon, so I can begin asking for the help we need to see this through... no worries, when it´s approved you´ll know by my ove the top pathetic pleading for help. Secondly, after waiting 2 months I received a check for 500 dollars through the Small Projects Assistance fund so that my health clinic director can give a series of HIV/AIDS prevention charlas in our cantons. I´m very excited about this project, first and foremost because HIV/AIDS is a bigger problem in El Salvador than some may think, and second because aside from seeking out the funds I have little to nothing to do with the actual implementation of this project. It truly is as sustainable as it gets, seeing as the director, health promoters, and their communities are organizing each charla, giving them and making it all happen. They have the know-how and leadership skills to successfully see this through, and indeed our first three charlas went extremely well. I´m there to buy and bring the refrigerio (in essence, a snack that Salvadorans deem vital to all events exceeding one hour in time), introduce the charla and take pictures. I love this project because I get to watch the director and promoters share their knowledge and pass on vital information to rural community members who can relate to them as fellow Salvadorans and are coming to understand information they may never have heard before. Thirdly, on a bit of a whim I visited the mayor San Miguel, our department, to ask for a donation of trees from his extensive greenhouse for our environmental group at school. I was lucky to be given 75 trees, and of course the random day we chose to pickt hem up happened to be National Environment Day or something ridiculously ironic like that, so upon arriving at the greenhouse we walked into a huge celebration (think Earth Day festivities), stayed 4 hours longer tahn we intended and adquired 25 trees more than we originally thought we´d receive. I just finished planting the trees in the school and town park with the group of 7-9 graders, who know more about planing than I do (thank God) and thus did a solid job despite my obvious lack of a green thumb. While there is worry that the town drunks and upcoming fiestas will slowly ruin the trees we planted in the park, so far so good.

Finally, the weekend of June 9-11 9 fellow volunteers and myself carried out a 3 day camp for Salvadoran youth living in 6 different Eastern communities. The cam was entitled Equidad es Empoderamiento, or Equality is Empowering, and central topics included everything from the difference between sex and gender, traditional roles of men and women in society, discrimination and stereotypes to human anatomy, myths and facts about STDs and protection for safe sex. We each invited 3-5 kids ages 15-18, all the while aware that these topics are delicate at best and many parents may not have allowed their kid to participate (Imagine, the healthen gringos teaching my evangelical daughter how to use a condom). Thankfully, more thanenough parents recognized the value of their son or daughter´s exposure to these issues,a nd we had a total of 24 kids. The cmap was held in Northeast El Salvador, where the weather is cooler and the mountain views breathtaking. For some of these kids it was their first time visiting this part of the country (for us, like living in Worchester and neer having been to Boston), for others indeed it was their first time leaving their village, so watching the kids adjust to such a completely new experience was both nerve-wracking and rewarding. My kids are what you might call city kids, so their biggest concern was the super cold water they would have to bath in and the fact that there were no nearby soda machines. They all did wonderfully though, and impressed the pants off of me. We ran into the usual problems - the tents we´d brought to sleep in were near impossible to assemble, electricity could not be brought via extension cords to the site - all the standard procedure issues for event planning in El Salvador. However, the charlas and activities planned for the kids were a success. With the help of a doctor from Medicos del Mundo, we covered all the topics and fielded more questions and discussions that I might have initially expected. We set up a secret question box for anonymous questions, played Capture the Flag and made friendship bracelets, broke kids up into groups and had each group explain an anti-contraceptive measure to the others, and put on mini sociodramas to demonstrate the consequences of unprotected sex and typcal stereotypes of men and women. One of my favorite parts was when we asked the kids to put on their own plays highlighting any story but reversing the roles of the men and women. It couldn`t have been any funnier watching the boys sashay around with balloon boobs and towels wrapped around as skirts and the girl strut around with baseball hats and taped on mustaches. They really seemd to embrace what we were trying to convey - for many of these kids, who are incredibly intelligent and capable, it doesn´t necessarily go without saying that sisters cna attend high shcool just as equally as brother and that machismo is potentially harmful. El Salvador isn´t exactly in the dark ages but it´s true that the more rural you go, in most cases, the less exposure there is to knowledge about gender equality and protection from STDs and AIDS. For a people as religious as the Salvadorans, sex before marriage is not spoke of, therefore neither is it talked about that kids are in fact having sex at young ages, consistently unaware of the safest ways to do so nor the potential consequences of their actions. If we helped these kids in any way to remember to use a condom, or to try treating their mothers as equally as their fathers, or to know that their futures can involve university eduactions and jobs rather than just having as many babies as Dios les da, then our camp was a success. I´m proud of the youth that participated for how much they already knew coming into the camp and especially for the new knowledge they successfully adquired by the end of the tree days, and also how much they came out of their shells to intereact with each other and participate in all the activites.

Alright it´s getting ridiculously hot in this cyber cafe so I´ll end the entry here. I just uploaded some new pictures so please check them out on the link of the blog... captions are to come soon but at least there´s something to look at! I hope all are well at home, I miss you and think of you all often. Take care and write soon!

ErinThe contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

It's May, which means one very important thing... it's started raining again! This means leaky windows, crazy thunderstorms, no power and lots of scorpions seeking refuge in dry places, like my bed, but it also means a much appreciated break from the humidity that threatens to scorch my sanity day in and day out. Six months of rain also means this country goes from looking brown and brittle to lush and green again... for anyone who's thinking of visiting (hint, hint) between now and November is a GREAT time to head down here. Just, you know, if you were thinking about it.

Back in late March all the municipal development volunteers in country gathered for a 3-day in-service training. I found this to be incredibly interesting, as we were presented with some tough open-ended questions to ponder throughout our training time and spoken to by a myriad of foreign and local presenters. Our APCD (loosely, our "boss") Bryan started things off by asking us, "Does international development work? If the developed world should help the developing world, why? Defend that idea." I found myself really contemplating this stuff as we went through training. An economic officer of the US Embassy discussed macro-economic dynamics in El Salvador with us, sharing that while the poverty rate has fallen from 64% to 35% as of 2004, crime costs equate 11.5% of GDP and debt level is 40% of GDP. Salvadorans receive $3 billion in remesas, cash transfers from Salvadorans living outside the country to family members and friends in El Salvador, annually in a $17 billion economy, and yet each year $900 million in uncollected taxes is lost upon the country. Unlike in the US, people who refuse to pay taxes are not reprimanded in any way here. An American representing the US Millennium Challenge fund shared President Bush´s plan for El Salvador - a $461 million, five year endeavor to construct a northern transnational highway across the north of the country, which currently has no direct road. The MC´s mission - poverty reduction through economic growth. The rep shared with us that if the project can be completed with less than 5% of funds pilfered in corruption, they will consider it a great success at much less stolen than usual. That´s $23 million in the pockets of politicians, bureaucrats, and investors. The ambassador to El Salvador from the European Mission mentioned how Salvadoran ethanol (cultivated from sugarcane) entrees the US duty-free. Some are concerned that Salvadorans will plant sugarcane all over the country, thereby further deforesting an already overly exploited country, and send it all to the States for sale.

As I listened to these guys talk I thought about Bryan´s questions - does international development work? Should we help each other out? It can be said that in an increasingly-globalizing world all countries regardless of North/South status are more connected and drawing continually-closer relationships and dependencies. But what drives the willingness to make these necessary investments, and to whom are they most beneficial? Take the US and El Salvador for example. $3 billion in remesa money enters this country a year, and many of the sources are Salvadorans residing in the US. While improving the living conditions for those who receive them, remesas also discourage recipients from raising money through their own means, aka, pursuing jobs. They are often used for nonproductive investment and short-term consumption gains (approx. 80%). Only 1.9% are used for savings, 9.1% for education and 4.4% for healthcare. During initial training last summer, I once entered the house of a single woman with three kids that had a huge hole in the roof, covered only with tarp. The kitchen and garage were virtually the same room, with no wall between the dining room table and the parked truck. Nonetheless, in the family room the family had a brand new surround sound system and television, and the mother sported a Razor cell phone. Remesas had been good to them, she said. Now, the US is pumping millions of dollars into a two lane highway and accepting Salvadoran ethanol duty-free, but at what price? How many further areas will be deforested, homes lost, to create this road and plant thousands more kms of sugarcane? Who is benefiting - the guys who will pocket over $23 million in siphoned money? I´m not sure how much El Salvador as a whole is "benefiting" from any of this. I can think of a few reasons why the developed world does help the developing world - in our time, increased production, education and resources in one country is good for all. Economic dependencies run from north to south as much as from south to north, and natural and human resources know practically no geopolitical boundaries. The isolationalist approach is practically null and void, and in an uncertain future the best security defense is to make allies, rely on one another to improve our status. Now, we protect our own interests by protecting "theirs." But why should the haves contribute to the well being of the have nots? As a Peace Corps volunteer and recipient of a liberal arts education I guess I´m a little biased, but I would argue for the altruistic point of view. We should help one another because in this world basic fundamental human rights are unevenly distributed, denied to some, and everyone deserves such rights. If I have food, water, education, healthcare and security and you don´t, I have an obligation, a responsibility, to fight so that you have the same. I´m not talking about one´s right to a big screen TV, or even to a democratic government - I´m keeping it as basic as possible. I´m not sure if this is as much a socially-ingrained notion to "help the less fortunate" as much as it is an individually-based thought of the extreme value of equality - either way, I realize it´s a personal theory, subjective at best. But it is what I believe from experience, both pre and current Peace Corps.

On a different note, in early April I had the opportunity to travel to the western part of the country to Bosque Imposible, a natural forest of reserved land. Every month a few volunteers organize full moon hikes, where PCVs have the option to travel to another volunteer´s site or nearby to hike either during the day or at night during the full moon. The Bosque Imposible trip was a day-long guided tour, a hike in the forest following a river from start to finish. We were told it wasn´t for the feint of heart and also that everything we brought with us, including ourselves, would get soaking wet, so I was curious and opted to go. About 30 volunteers showed up and we started with an hour long pick up ride into the forest to the point where the hike officially starts. We walked downhill through coffee fincas for a while, then found ourselves at the start of what appeared to be not much more than a babbling brook. From that point on we followed the river as it grew wider and stronger. At times you could hop across from rock to rock, other times make your way across the bank or rock wall along the side. And then at other times, there was no choice but to jump into the water and wade or swim to the next point of land. At first the jumps were smaller - 2m, 3m - and the only real shock was jumping into icy water. The third jump was different - the guide broke ahead of us and perched waiting at what appeared to be a cliff ledge. To see it clearly, you had to scale down a slick rock wall until you were right at the point of jumping - no turning back. I was jumpy but decided to just go for it, so four or five volunteers in I followed suite and shimmied down to the ledge. I remember standing straight up and looking down at a 9m drop into a deep pool of dark water, rock walls shooting up on all sides save a bank where the river continued. The guide, who appeared to be cool as a cucumber, simply told me to make sure I jumped far enough out because too close there were rocks directly below. I must have looked at him in panic, because he put a hand on my shoulder and told me to just jump. So, I did. I remember in that split second I was airborne thinking, I didn´t jump out far enough, I´m about to die. But of course I didn´t - I landed in the water, swam to the bank and watched my fellow volunteers battle their inner voices of caution and eventually whoop as they dropped into the water. Some people were harnessed down, but everyone made it. When we reached the largest waterfall - some 85ft tall - we scaled down the side and eventually came to an optional 10m jump. Many of us did that one too - for some reason after that terrifying 9m drop, anything seemed do-able. We finished the hike with an hour inclined walk back to the trucks. We were wet, muddy from the hike, and eventually soaking through from a sudden downpour that wouldn´t let up, huffing and puffing and working already-sore muscles. The truck ride back in the bed was miserable - quite possibly one of the 3 times I´ve been really cold in this country, prickly goosebumps and all. But despite the physical discomfort it felt good - the bruises and sore muscles signifying a challenge I´d just overcome despite myself. We finished off that day heading to a location of naturally-heated thermal pools. Our hiking guide also happened to own a local bar, so he brought along coolers of beer and walked from pool to pool selling them to us. I´m trying to remember a time when I felt physically better in my life than that night – sore body submerged in hot water, an icy cold beer in my hand, toads croaking, music playing, good company all around.

Everything´s going well in site. I´m planting trees with my environmental group at school, translating awesome 80´s songs (which are incredibly popular here) such as Guns ´n Roses “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” with my English class, requesting money from USAID for our health promoters to give talks to our rural folk about how to prevent AIDS and working with my community to raise money for a new computer and science lab in a rural school. Many thanks to everyone for all the uplifting emails, phone calls and letters… as usual, they keep me going and mean more to me than I can express. Thanks to Mom for patiently reading off the lyrics of Bryan Adams´ ”Please Forgive Me” via the phone… my English class thanks you. Mother's Day is coming up... I'll call you someday from class and the kids can sing it to you. Congratulations to Carrie for finishing grad school/finding a job/getting an apartment with Andrew… I´m so proud of you and just so you know, use you as an example of how to get it together for one day when I´m done with the PC experience! Except for the moving in with Andrew part, I´ll leave that to you. Congrats to Nicole for getting into law school…you´re awesome chica! Here´s to Aaron coming home this month for the first time since March 2006… remember, toilet paper goes in the bowl, not the garbage, in the States. To everyone, be well, be safe and take good care…most of all, keep in touch!

Paz,

ErinThe contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

Monday, 19 March 2007

I wake up around 6:30am to the sounds of rapid footsteps and some serious squwaking. Opening my door, I see my host mom running around in her pajamas, chasing down a chicken that really didn´t want to be caught. I immediately join the chase, because she needs help and I´m still half asleep and damn, it kind of looks like fun. Together we back the chicken into a corner of the yard and I´m thinking, Ok, here´s tonight´s dinner, but no, Yanira has other plans. She ties the poor bird to a makshift nest chock full of eggs - just straps it in there with string like a glorified seat belt. Through bleary eyes I must have looked at her strangly because she tries to explain - "The mother hen ran out of the yard and got herself run over by a mototaxi, so this hen has to be the new mother." The chosen chicken doesn´t look too pleased with this arrangement but hey, maybe motherly instincts will kick in and she´ll care for the incubating eggs as though they are her own.

I shower and get on the bus heading to Santa Rosa de Lima in the next department, to attend a meeting with fellow volunteers to plan our upcoming youth gender camp. The meeting goes well, but there is a but of confusion as to what bus I need to take back. Not all buses pass through the San Miguel terminal, where I pick up a bus to my site. I ask a few drivers, who point me in the direction of other buses. I´m waiting on the side of the road when one of the drivers I had questioned pulls up and tells me he´ll take me close to where I need to go. I say thanks and jump on his bus. It´s then that I realize his bus is headed to San Salvador, which is perfect ecause I can stay with him past San Mig and just get off the bus at the desvio heading to my site (I live thirty minutes off the PanAmerican highway, and can pick up a bus going from San Mig to my ite at this stop). I attempt to explain this to the driver, but it´s loud and crowded on the bus and my Spanish is crap today and I´m not sure how much of it he gets. He smiles and nods though, so we´re on our way. We travel for a while until the driver pulls over at a point between the terminal of San Mig and the desvio where I intend to get off. A big, burly guy with a mouth full of gold teeth gets on the bus selling french fries and the driver calls him over. They´re both looking at me and I hear the driver explaining to the man, "She needs to go to Chapeltique and she has no idea what she´s doing. Can she stay with you here and you tell her what bus to get on?" Gold teeth guy looks at me and grins; I jump up and say to the driver, "No no! I know where I´m going - I´ve been living here almost 10 months." In my head: "Please don´t leave me with the french fry guy." So the driver says "Oh, I didn´t realize you knew where you were going!" and the other man is dismissed, thank God. We continue on and I get back to my site with no problems.

I´m back in time to teach my English class at 2pm, which always seems to go well. The ten university students I teach are studying English in college and are gung-ho about learning the language. The only problem is that they´re too smart for their own in good - I sometimes wonder if everything they´re learning from me they already know by listening to American music and watching US television and movies. That day class we were practicing questions - "Who did you go to dinner with? What are you doing tomorrow?" - and I ask them "Where are you going after class today?" One student - Ohlmer - said something and I thought I heard "Happy hour," so I stopped and said, "Happy hour, what?!" Turns out he hadn´t said that at all, but because I´d looked surprised they all wanted to know what "happy hour" meant. Crap. I sort of laughed and explained it to them - they are university students afterall, not ten year olds, but happy hour doesn´t really exist here. Those who are in the bar are never there for a casual drink after work. THey´re there to get drunk, period, and everyone knows it. They all thought it was funny and laughed at my discomfort more than anything else. Then Fabricio, who is a less-advanced speaker, pipes up out of nowhere and says, “happy tour great, you get two for one.” And everyone sort of nods their heads and says, “Ohh, two for one, two for one.” I was completely torn between shaking my head and laughing my butt off… my students still mix up their pronouns and we´re not using verbs beyond “go” and “come” yet, but they can tell you what happy hour is and they sure as hell know the value of two for one. Yes, I´m an excellent teacher.

Class ends at 4pm, and I head back to the Alcaldia. Earlier that week I´d agreed to go to Haydee´s house for enchiladas that night with Cecilia, two women who work for our town mayor. I hadn´t eaten all day because I remember the last time I ate enchiladas as Haydee´s – she gave me about ten of them and I had to eat them all, lest be an ungracious guest. So I was hungry and excited – I love Haydee, a twenty-something, single, rather robust lady with a self-deprecating attitude and a laid-back air, she and her mother cook the best enchiladas around town. Haydee heads to her house and I walk with Cecilia to hers so she can change clothes before dinner. Cecilia´s husband and I watch Daffy Duck in Spanish for a half hour until she calls me into the back room. When I open the door she´s standing there with a few items of clothing. “Quita su camiseta,” she says – and the next thing I know I´m standing there in my bra and she´s pulling a shirt over my head. It´s a rather large, brown and green flowered toga-type shirt, and I look as though I´m trying out for the circus. Cecilia is all excited, telling me how nice I look in it but my bra is clearly visible throught he fabric and I know I can´t walk down main street to Haydee´s like that. So I made up some excuse – “I´ll save it for the Alcaldia!” – and took it off to replace it with my own shirt. Thank God I didn´t seem to offend her.

We arrive at Haydee´s and immediately I feel great. The house smells wonderfully of chicken and fried dough and Haydee and her family are friendly and just so hysterical. We gather in the kitchen with her, her mother and her 11 year old sister, and I´m immediately instructed to sit down and let them work. Haydee´s mom notices that Cecilia has a cough, so she givers her a mug with a small spot of gasusa, or homemade liquor made of corn and fruits. She presents me with a glass of it too, but fills it half full and tells me proudly, “you can only get this stuff in the campo you know.” I sniff it and I believe it – the stuff could singe your eyebrows – and Haydee laughs and offers me some soda to go with it. I thank her, then watch as she pours about a shot of Coke into the glass to “water down” the liquor. Well, alright. I sit on my stool, moving Haydee´s dad´s loaded handgun to do so, and enjoy the booze as the women cook and chat and laugh. I´ve yet to do such a thing with women in this country – sit and drink and raise our glasses for more, proclaiming things like “estamos jodidos” without shame while discussing local politics and religion like, well, the men do. It was refreshing and relaxing and so familiar to home.

Afterwards we liberally ate enchiladas and pastels, enchiladas with chicken, vegetables and sauce in the middle, until we could barely move. We retired to the hammocks and chatted with eyes half-mast – I turned down another glass of gasusa three more times. Around 9pm I left with Cecilia and a bag full of chicken eggs, a half bottle of gasusa, more clothing they´d decided would look great on me and a promise to come live with their family, should I get sick of where I am now.

I walked back to my house and greeted Roberto, the “vigilante” or security guard who now guards my host family´s home from 8pm to 6am everyday. He was very busy watering the trees and plants outside when I walked in the gate. Thank goodness we have a middle-aged, overweight security guard with a sweet temperament and a flashlight for a weapon to protect us from robbers and thieves, is all I have to say. Roberto spends most of his time in his hammock on the house porch – I was he would escort me from my bedroom to my bathroom and protect me from Psycho-Turkey Flesh-Eater, but that doesn´t seem to be part of his job description. I went to bed hot, sweaty, stuffed…. And happy.

Starting Monday April 2 the whole country begins to celebrate Semana Santa, and stays off work and out of school until Tuesday the 10th. Every Friday the butcher shuts down and the whole town smells like tortas de pescado, or fish, and a procession with a statue of Jesus goes around to each neighbourhood, with the priest reading off the stations of the cross and a crowd of people following with candles and hymns. I´ve been observing and enjoying the Lenten process of Catholics in my town, and look forward to celebreating Easter in a few weeks with my host family (though I´ll very much miss being with my own family in the States). I hope everyone at home is doing well and taking care – thank you for all the recent updates and emails! EMQ, your Halloween package is just as appreciated now as it would have been had I gotten it four months ago, when you originally sent it. Nicole and Sister Dorothy, your packages filled with wonderful things for the kids in town are so generous and have been extremely well received and appreciated – thank you so much! Kev, your St. Patty´s Day card and CD of Irish drinking songs made my day. I hope you were part of the 60% of Boston´s population projected to survive the four day weekend. KK, thanks for the five pager… Im working on a return letter I promise!

And to my family… I miss you guys, and wish I could have been there to celebrate Dads 50th. Youre an old man now, better take it easy Dad. Happy 25th wedding anniversary today to my parents as well! Im thinking of you as always, and look forward to talking to you soon.

Paz y amor,

ErinThe contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

"If you are sure you understand everything that is going on, you are hopelessly confused." - Walter Mondale

Saturday February 17th marked 6 months at site for myself and my fellow MD/YD 06 volunteers. It's hard to believe we are already a quarter of the way through our service, as the time has passed relatively quickly. I don't think there's been another 6 month period in my life where I have grown so much as I have in my half a year in Chapeltique, and yet I still feel as new, and almost as confused, now as I did in my first few weeks at site. It's been noted among friends here that we now use the phrase "this is crazy" much less often than we did in the beginning. I think it's more that El Salvador continues to surprise and confound me just as it did at day one - it's not crazy anymore, but it still defies logic as we know it, or perhaps as it should be. The same family that raided my room and stole some belongings back in September now approaches me on the street and yells at me for not coming back to visit them since my move to a new house. The Alcaldia has no funds for either the road or the water project our rural communities are soliciting, yet not two weeks ago the mayor pulls into the parking lot with a brand new Range Rover and central air is installed in our office. The receptionist at work, famous for once giving me a card that said "spanky," sat down at my desk on his own accord last week and apologized for trating me with disrespect for the last 6 months. These are all illogical occurrences that should never have happened, but so they have. I can't wrap my mind around a lot of how life functions here, and not just because I'm yet to be fluent in spanish either. Sometimes I want to take someone by the shoulders and shake them for doing things in such roundabout, inefficient and counterproductive ways, and sometimes I want to kiss them for surprising the hell out of me and exceeding any and all expectations. I guess maybe that's it - in 6 months, I still have yet to fully learn that my expectations are shite. In order to do something like this, submerse yourself in a new culture and live for 2 years in a different world, you must relinquish all ideas of how life should be and simply accept the facts of how life is. That's not to say that I don't believe things can change and improve- certainly not. Life isn't stagnant by any means. It's just to say that instead of trying to figure out every person and all things, I need to sit back, accept my constant state of confusion and move onward despite of it. It is possible to do real, meaningful work here and develop strong relationships - I see that now much more clearly than I did half a year ago. I'm beginning to think that that knowledge alone is enough to go on - who needs to understand everything all the time anyway?

"Down to the wire/I wanted water but I'll walk through the fire/If this is what it takes to take me even higher/Then I'll come through, like I do, when the world keeps testing me testing me testing me" - John Mayer

Whether or not this is justified, I do feel as though I've been tested lately. I've recently come back from a trip to the States, where I was able to see my loved ones everyday for two weeks and realize anew just how fantastic they all are. In come back to El Salvador I give up the chance to spend time with them again - to hang with my grandmother as she progresses further in her Alzheimers, to help plan my sister's wedding rather than just come home in time to be in it. Coming back, I had to say goodbye to a good PC friend, who just made the choice to leave and is now back in the U.S. Here in site again, I find myself struggling to get back into work, re-igniting projects I had started before I left and attempting to motivate people anew. The common feelings of lonliness and isolation are back in full, after so much time constantly surrounded by friends and family. And of course, my spanish has suffered from almost a month of no use.

These things were all on my mind come Friday morning, when I agreed to take a bus out to some of our cantons with a work colleague, Pedro, to deliver notebooks and pencils to school children. Pedro was just as jubilant as ever as he announced with a grin on his face that we had in fact missed the 8am bus and would have to find another means of transportation for us and our four boxes of school supplies. No problem - we'll take a taxi in as far as the road is decent and then walk the rest of the way to the school. How long of a walk will it be? I ask him. He waves his hand nonchalontly - five minutes. Ok, so I'm still good to go in my flipflops, is what I think. We get in the taxi, so far so good, and do make it quite a ways into the rural area before the driver promptly proclaims that his tirest can't handle the rocks and potholes any longer. So we load the boxes onto our shoulders and set off. Pedro was right - the school was just five minutes from where the taxi left us. I'm starting to feel pretty good about all this, especially when we begin handing notebooks out to the kids and they are genuinely excited. Then, before leaving I went to use the bathroom and proceeded to slip down the stairs, landing hard on the ball of my hand and one ankle, in front of everyone. It's fine - I'm used to falling in public by now - but not so good when we go to leave, still with 3 boxes full of notebooks, and Pedro tells me we're just going to hit up a few more schools, seeing as we have so much leftover. And how will we be getting to said schools? I wonder. Again with the grin - he picks up a box, hands it to me, hauls the other two over his shoulder and sets off - on foot.

This is where I start to get weary, then annoyed, then midly hateful of Pedro - all in my head of course. Is he crazy? He tricked me. There probably never was a bus in the first place. My hand and foot are stinging and I'm wearing flipflops, and the road is all uphill, composed of rocks made slippery with a layer of dust and dry leaves. But onward we go, 45 minutes, until we approach the second school. Alas, there's no one there. Pedro, sweating, good-naturedly smacks himself in the head and says he forgot, the teacher had a meeting and because she's the only administrator there, the kids had the day off. No problem, he says, we'll just carry the stuff to the next school. No problem, no problem is the mantra running through my head as we climb, slip, clamor down the "road" to the third canton school, all the while lugging our Trapperkeepers and Number 2's and sweating in the sun. We walked for two hours before approaching a one-room school that, surpise! was empty. I look at Pedro, he looks at his watch. 12:00 noon. Of course the school is empty! Everyone went home for lunch. We'll just have to take our boxes back to Chapeltique and come another day, is the logical conclusion. And how are we getting back? Walking, of course. I started off a bit behind Pedro this time, so my frustration wouldn't manifest itself in the form of me reaching over and throttling him. It's not that I don't mind walking, and I'm certainly not opposed to giving to children. It's just, why couldn't Pedro have told me we'd be walking all this way? I could have brought water, and sneakers. Why hasn't he asked me if I'm feeling well enough to walk, given the impressive fall I sustained back at school numero uno? And why does he insist on whistling while he walks, like he could do this all day? I'm grumbling to myself and falling back, until at one point I turn a corner to see Pedro stopped with his boxes on the ground in front of a small house. "House" imight be too gracious a word - this was a shack with tarps for walls, and the women and children emerging from it were no less desolate-looking. Pedro is pulling notebooks and pens from hsi box and, upon seeing me, asks me to pull otu some of the clothing and bars of soap my box contained. I do as he asks and listen as he questions the family if the three children present attend school. They say no, they can't afford school supplies or uniforms and besides, school is too far of a haul to go everyday anyway. No matter- Pedrogives them the notebooks anyway and tells them to consider it - now they have some of what they need. I approached a young woman holding a baby and gave her three dresses I thought might fit her girl, and she took them with a smile and asked God to bless me three times over.

It only lasted a few minutes - we had packed up our boxes, said goodbye and were on our way again before I realized what it all meant. Sure, it's illogical to set off with heavy cargo without a plan and walk on rocky terrain in flipflops, but who cares? What does it matter if my hand hurts and my feet are dirty? They won't always be this way. But as I write this, that poor family is still living in their tarp house, still walking great distances to find running water or go to school. A little bit of discomfort from me is nothing compared to the essence of their lives - and all we did was give them some dresses and a few notebooks. I would like to return there and give them the shirt off my back, in an attempt to make up for my stupid complaints. This is really what it's all about - I'm a Peace Corps volunteer, I live in the third world, and I delivered notebooks to poor kids on foot one Friday morning. If only every morning could be like that one.The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

December passed by much like November did – in a whirlwind. Despite the fact that my body continues to rebel against my better senses (bronchitis and an intestinal infection this month) I´m doing alright mentally and was in a festive mood to match the general sentiment of the town in December. Chapeltique´s fiestas patronales began Dec. 16 and continued to the 22nd, when the Alcaldia and most other businesses shut down until January 2nd. You can imagine how much work got done that month. As Dad has continually reminded me, yes I do in fact lead a tough life. Don´t give up on my yet though, everything has reopened for the new year and school starts up again mid-month, so it´s back to work for everyone, myself included.

December really was nothing but a good time though. A few days before the 16th a number of makeshift stores began popping up in the park and along the main road, selling everything from homemade candy to plastic toys to $1 burned Guns N Roses cds. Then beginning on the 16th, the main road was shut down and the first of the town´s four neighbourhoods had their fiesta, which typically includes a BBQ, lots of games and a parade for the neighbourhood queen. Some barrios splurged for big name cumbia and salsa bands, which played well into the early morning, and every evening beginning at 6 the “toreada” was set up in a soccer field. The toreada is a makeshift bullfight where a circle of bleachers is set up and a lucky chosen one runs around with a red cape for a few hours, provoking a bull and entertaining a crowd. It´s a free event so the whole world shows up, and usually at the end they throw four drunk guys into the ring to play 2 on 2 soccer. With the bull. It was probably the most disfunctional and hilarious thing I´ve ever seen. Thursday evening was the general town party and the Alcaldia sponsored a cumbia band from Columbia that put on a great show. All the four barrio queens, plus the Alcaldia, school and police department sponsored queens paraded around town, as did the Virgin Mary in preparation for Christmas. Someone told me a girl fell off the ferris wheel last year so I avoided the rides this time, although I couldn´t get out of dancing. It´s amazing how many people want to see the white girl move. I don´t think I disappointed - they all expected me to suck and I did, but it was all in good fun. Many people´s friends and family from the States showed up for the fiesta week so I had many a conversation about US politics, Salvadoran culture and again, what exactly I´m doing here. What surprised me was how appreciated these Salvo residents of the US were of me volunteering my time here, and how happy they were that I´m learning something of their culture to bring back to the States. What didn´t surprise me was how much they all loathe Bush and particularly the war in Iraq. I must have hear at least three times - "Don´t worry, we don´t blame you personally." Good thing too, because if so I probably would have been run out of town. Maybe they would have used the bull.

A few days after the fiesta mayhem I traveled to Guatemala with my friend Angieto meet up with another friend Maria, who has family in a town there. Maria´s family lives close to Lake Atitlan, supposedly the second most beautiful lake in the world, and the site certainly lives up to that title. The town is nestled between two volcanos and the alke in the highlands, and it´s breathtaking. The longer we stayed there the more we loved it, and Angie and I joked that we may not come back. One of the greatest parts about spending Christmas in Guatemala was being there with Maria - she was able to explain to use cultural and historical information we never would have known, such as the ongoing conflicts between the 60% indigenous population and the wealthier ladinos, how the colors and patterns on the handmade clothing signify which town people are from, and how certain foods are made differently from Salvadoran cuisine. We had the pleasure of meeting Maria´s family and friends and eating each meal at a different house filled with warm, hospitable people. We traveled across the lake to check out beautiful handmade Guatemalan trinkets, tried homemade liquor at Maria´s aunt´s house overlooking the lake, and walked around town taking in the beauty of the market, the cemetary, the activity of the park and even the local bars and resturants. Angie made a new friend, 7 year old Pablo, who came back to Maria´s each night to drink hot chocolate with us, and I spent one evening teaching the neighborhood kids how to juggle. We ate Christmas dinner with one family and arrived at midnight to the house of another family to eat the traditional tamale at midnight and enjoy the fireworks that the whole town sets off in celebration. I can´t express how mcuh I valued the experience of not being merely a tourist, but of enjoying our time in Guatemala among Guatemalans, partaking in the holiday, conversiting and learning from them. Despite the fact that it was very difficult to be away from home on Christmas, I don´t think I´ve ever enjoyed a vacation more than those few days in Guatemala.

Traveling back to El Salvador was a blur. We stopped in Antigua on the way, which turned out to be well worth the extra day, and made it back in country in time for me to get back to Chapeltique for a friend´s wedding. The ceremony was held in the Catholic church and the reception out in the street, as is standard procedure for Salvadoran weddings. Tables and chairs were set up, a discomovil put down it´s gigantic speakers and peopple were ready to party. The DJ announced every little thing that happened, talking over the blaring music of such classics as "Lady in Red" and everything Bon Jovi circa. 1985. I didn´t stay for the dancing - the next day held a five bus, six hour trip to the other end of the country for new year´s at the beach. It was great to celebrate with my fellow PCVs, relaxing by the ocean and ringing in the new year with a party at our hotel including PC companeros, Guatemalans, travelers from Canada, LA and London and surfers from all over. It was nice to spend new year´s day swimming in warm water but I was thinking of that cold walk along the coast in Maine for most of the day. Looking forward to bringing in the new year ´08 - ´09 with the Grant´s again, bundled up against the cold.

I did do ONE productive thing in December - I went back to our training town to complete In-Service Training (IST) with my group for a few days. It was great to see everyone again, the 20 of the original 26 that are still here, and share our experiences thus far. During one session Steph, the Youth Development director, shared with us her self-described Stages of El Salvador. In a nutshell, the first state is "Honeymoon," where everything is new, you´re going to change the world, etc. That quickly turns into the "What did I get myself into" state, where the rose-colored glasses come off and you realize the reality of living in the third world, both for the people who have always been there and for you having to adjust to it. This stage hits you like a ton of bricks. Next comes the "Scared but Hopeful" stage, where you decide to wait ti out and know that SOMETHING has to change to make it better. This is eventually followed by the "Oh Shit" stage, where you come to realize that nothing is changing, you´re still in the same place, feeling isolated and alone and powerless to do anything productive. You keep waiting for the situations around you to change but they never do - the piropos keep coming, communication is indirect to a fault and no one understands why you´re here. Finally, this stage leads into the "I Heart El Salvador" stage. In this phase, the volunteer finally comes to understand that the situation is indeed not going to change. Instead, it is us, our attitudes, perceptions and reactions, that have to adapt so that we can peacefully, happily and productively live in this country. Once we´re able to do that, we settle into life here and find ways to make what we want to happen happen, among the Salvadoran culture and not our norms. I´m not at this point yet, although I´d like to be there someday. It´s interesting to see such phases mapped out by a past volunteer who´s been through it all. I feel my own emotional stages have differed somewhat, but that the realization that it is us, not them, who needs to change so that we can begin to make an impact is dead on. I can´t wait to be at a point where I heart El Salvador - right now I have moments, but "oh shit" is still very much a daily part of my vocabulary.

On that note, let me end this entry by reassuring you that I very much heart my family and friends back home. Though I could not be with you this holiday season I thought of you often and received all your emails, letters, phone calls and packages with love and extreme appreciation. Amanda, thanks so much for the trailmix, hope the holidays in AZ were a blast! Steph, your Halloween package made my day - I think I ate half the chocolate in one sitting. Sarah L., thanks for the Christmas presents! My little Christmas tree still looks great sitting on top of my microwave. Sarah, loved your Christmas presents and the new music! Glad you and Dad had a great first Christmas as a couple, even if he was lazy and made you do everything for him ;) To the Grants, thank you so much for the Tomie dePaola book! It´s a beautiful story and I´ll work on translating it into Spanish for the kids here. Kadee, it was great to talk to you Christmas Day - can´t wait to rehash our 5th year reunion again with you in a few weeks. Happy Holidays to Kathryn and the family! I miss you guys, hope everyone is healthy and well. Ann, happy birthday and congratulations on becoming an RN! I´m so proud of you. Beth, happy 24th birthday! Can´t wait to see you girls in Boston in a few. Joe, hope you had a safe trip back from Africa and are glad to return to Maine. To Aaron - happy holidays and best of luck getting readjusted to your site! It was great to hear your voice on new year´s. I´ll be home to visit January 16-30 and would love to see everyone, so please shoot me an email in the meantime. Can´t wait to see everyone, take care until then!

ErinThe contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

As much as October was a bit of a down month for me, November has more than made up for it. The time has absolutely flown by lately because of how busy it´s been and I honestly can´t believe it´s almost December, and approaching a six-month anniversary in country. If training was the longest two months of my life, PC service itself is shaping up to be the shortest two years.

November 1st began with the long-awaited inaguration ceremony of the classroom/bathrooms that a few different organizations came together to fund and build in one of our canton schools. A local bank and NGO as well as a few members of Comite en Washington (a group of Salvadorans living in Washington, D.C. who raise money to implement projects in El Salvador) and the local community group here in Chapeltique gathered in the canton to officially open the new buildings. It was quite wonderful to experience - the reps from each group cut the ribbons to open the classroom and bathrooms, and the community members including almost all the students who attend the school flooded into the see their new additions. A ceremony ensued where each contributing organization rep had the chance to speak to the crown and recieved thank-yous. The children performed a few traditional Salvadoran songs and dances and then of course we all ate a huge lunch. I had the chance to talk to a few members of Comite en Washington, who traveled all the way back to Central America for the occasion. Criss-crossing between Spanish and English, we talked about the importance of trying to help the communities you grew up in and returning to your hometown to give back. Hugo, the president, expressed that he believes his remesa money (the money Salvadorans in the States send back to their families here) is best put to use through clothing, school supplies and small infrastructure projects such as this, rather than a check that his family might use to buy a new cell phone or big screen TV. It was inspiriting to talk with him and witness his dedication to improving his hometown, as well as his determination to never forget where he hails from. He and his family live, legally, in the US now but he says he´ll always be grateful for the opportunities he´s been given and the efforts he can make to give back to El Salvador. If I needed one more push of motivation to pursue NGOs for further small infrastructure projects, this was definitely it.

I returned to San Salvador November 6th for the Shakira concert, which was a really good time. We waited in line for hours outside the soccer stadium where she performed, but it turned out to be worth it when they accidentally allowed us into the $90, standing room only section closer to the stage. I´m short, even in Salvadoran terms, so I didn´t see much of the woman, the myth, the legend herself, but I certainly heard the music. I´m not a big Shakira fan by nature but I must say it was money well spent.

November 12th is National Pupusa Day in El Salvador, to continue on with the celebrations. The pupusa is the typical Salvadoran food specific to this country. It´s simply two balls of dough flattened out with cheese, beans, pork and/or green veggies pressed in the middle, then fried on a grill (quite delicious, esp. when the cheese spills out and burns a bit around the edges, mmm). They´re comida tipica because they´re so quick and easy to make and generally only cost a quarter each. My town has about four pupuserias and I guarantee they´ll never go out of business. For National Pupusa Day Chapeltique celebrated with a pupusa eating contest - eight young men lined up on picnic tables prepared to stuff their faces with as many pupusas as possible in five minutes. I can usually eat about $.50 worth in one sitting and be full - this year´s winner ate 18. Apparently that´s pretty lame as far as national standards go - last year´s winner in San Salvador ate 40. Regardless it was fun to watch and even more fun to be given free pupusas afterwards at the table of judges (one advantage of being a gringa and having an in with all the town´s well-knowns). My counterpart Carlos wanted to pay me to enter the contest myself, but I told him I´d only do it if he went in as well. He turned me down.

Speaking of Carlos, a few days after Pupusa Day he and I had a conversation I´m not likely to forget anytime soon. Carlos is a 30-something Salvadoran with an extremely open mind, and it´s quite often that he´ll sit down with me and we´ll talk for a long while about politics, religion, and social justice issues not only in El Salvador and the US but all over the world. Once in a while he´ll also play the counterpart role, asking me how I´m doing and feeling here in town, if there are any problems, and generally checking up on me. He and I were waiting for others to arrive at my English class on a Tuesday night and he began this conversation once again. I try to answer him as honestly as possible and I told him that all is well, I´m happy as things stand. We talked for a while and got into the reasons to join an organization such as Peace Corps, and the philosophy behind it. Usually when people here ask me why I´ve committed to this I try to have a pre-prepared answer ready, because many don´t understand the reasoning or logic behind it (mainly why one would voluntarily LEAVE the US to come here) but with Carlos it´s different - I can be more blunt. So instead of thinking of some lofty answer I just told him the truth - simply that I want to help people out. Carlos sort of sat back and thought about this for a moment, then he started telling me the story of his mother. He said he grew up poor, with his parents, sisters and brothers living in a two room house and his father gone working all the time. He explained that his mother worked hard all day at the market and would return home to work again for her family, but that she always instilled in him and his siblings the extreme importance of helping others out, whether they be blood brothers or a stranger on the street. As hard as she worked, she saved a bit of herself always to help out another in need, and Carlos learned that lesson from her example. At this point he stopped, looked at me and said "Aside from my mother, I never thought I´d meet another woman who felt the same way I do." It may not seem like an earthshattering comment but I don´t think I´ve ever felt so complimented in my life. In my short time here I´ve come to respect Carlos and the efforts he makes to help out his community immensely - there is not one arrogant or self-congratulatory bone in his body and I notice myself looking up to him as an example of how I hope to be. To hear him say such a thing really struck me and I felt incredibly honored. I think we all have moments when things just come together and click, and for me that converstaion was one of those times. I truly am here without a specific goal to accomplish, without a specific event or reason that caused me to join, and to have someone understand the value behind such simple reasoning, not only that it´s enough of a reason but that perhaps it´s the MOST important reason meant a lot to me.

After that I was kind of floored and had a great rest of the week at my site until the weekend, when I traveled with some friends to the beach a few hours from here. It was of course beautiful and couldn´t have asked for a more relaxing weekend. We stayed in a place right on the water, chilled at the beach until sunset then ate a huge plate of food and hung out at a bar where each Pilsener comes with a small bowl of salted peanuts and lime. Maybe that´s just my own personal idea of Heaven but I´m guessing some might agree. One of the best parts about being there was just talking to some of the people we met - a group of Salvo kids about to graduate from 9th grade on the beach for an end of school trip, five Texans down for the week to surf, a Nicaraguan waitress named Luisa who played card games with us at the bar. I love the fact that everywhere you go here you´re meeting new people and experiencing the natural wonders of this beautiful country - I really do feel lucky to be here right now.

We had a few more dental charlas the next couple of days up in Perquin, three hours to the north of me in the mountains, which went very well. It´s very satisfying to be able to hand out toothbrushes and tubes of paste to campo kids - we can only hope they´ll use them! The kids were great though - very energetic and too smart. The weather in Perquin was amazing - dry and windy, almost like a mid-fall day back home. I was shocked to discover that it was the same back in Chapeltique - I came home to all the older community members wearing winter hats pulled snugly over their heads. Like Aaron I too had to wear clothing to bed - and use a SHEET. Waking up with a cold nose was sort of disturbing but mostly insanely satisfying. Now the weather is back to normal, although less hot and humid than before. For a few blissful days I had a taste of fall and I hear those days will continue on and off throughout December and January.

That brings me up to this past weekend, Thanksgiving Day onward. I have to say of course that nothing could compare to behing home with my family on our favorite holiday, but T-Day in San Salvador was a close second. Peace Corps sets volunteers up with Embassy families, who are nice enough to invite us into their homes and share dinner with us. Myself and four others thought that perhaps we´d been forgotten when our family was late picking us up from the Embassy, so we followed some of the Marines inside and some of us scarfed food, but soon after we were picked up and brought to a home just afew minutes drive away. I have to say, while the Marines were nice I´m thankful we didn´t stay with them because the family we were assigned to was amazing. Their house was beautiful, the nicest I´ve seen here in country, and the couple very friendly and welcoming. I´m sure all their friends and family knew who the five PCVs were right away, because I don´t think any of us could stop from drooling over and practically hording the appetizer table like starving children. I stooed there with a glass of chilled white wine in one hand and a plate of scallops wrapped in bacon in the other and thought to myself, I´ve died. The family had hired a chef from the Radisson to prepare the main meal and he didn´t disappoint. I´m not likely to forget the turkey, mashed potatos, pumpkin pie and after dinner G & T for a long while (though like I said, Mom, yours would have topped it). Amid trying to figure out how to politely ask this family how we could start working for them instead of Peace Corps we met some very interesting people - most employees of the Embassy and their families. It was great to swap stories of how it is to be a Yankee here in country, the differences between living in the capital and life in the campo, etc. and to make contact and friends with some great people. One younger couple recently arrived explained that they would have liked to have invited PCVs to their home too for T-day but don´t have any furniture or food yet. They made us laugh when they said that upon explaining that to Mike Wise, our country director, he promptly told them "Oh don´t worry about that. They don´t need much - they just want to come into your home and flush the toilet a few times." We all cracked up over that, but um yeah, it´s sort of true. I certainly felt the food and drink hangover the next day but it was all worth it.

A few days later, Saturday, was the infamous carnival in the city of San Miguel, a half hour from my site. This party happens once a year on the last Saturday of November and is considered to be the biggest fiesta in Central America - a smaller scale version of Brazil´s carnival. It started at sunset, where thousands of people from all over the world crowd the closed-off streets and enjoy the festivities. They have everything - a parade with forty-something floats, each carrying the elected queen from each neighborhood in San Miguel; a salsa, rock, cumbia, reggaetone, ranchero or merengue band on very street corner; more food and small shops selling anything and everything; and featured, more popular bands in the soccer stadiums. We walked, ate, danced for hours and turned in around 4am, long before any of the bands stopped playing. The bst part by far was the dancing - I´m not exactly a natural but I think I would have made my second counterpart, Lupe, proud. Before I left I taught him the "baile de hombre blanco" and he me the Salvadoran man´s dance and was convinced I couldn´t do better than that. Chapeltique´s fiestas patronales are coming up in December and I plan on proving him wrong then. We slept late Sunday and I returned to my site in time to cook dinner with my neighbor and her family. She´s teaching me how to make pupusas and if nothing else pans out for the future, she and I have big plans to open Connecticut´s first pupuseria - it´ll be huge.

That brings me just about up-to-date, back at my site and working for a few days before Thursday´s swearing-in party for the new group of volunteers, which most PCVs in country attend. A new Agroforestry volunteer is coming out my way to the municipality next to mine, so I´m looking forward to meeting him. December appears to be just as busy as November, so hopefully the next blog entry wil be enjoyable to read (and as long?). I want to say thanks to Kevin for the card in Spanish - it was great to hear from you! Try not to corrupt that godchild of yours too soon. Erin, thank you for the letter! I´ve sent you one back but in the meantime best of luck with school and SBA Honduras prep. I´m only a fe hours away from Teguc and would love to join you guys in March. Thanks to Grandma, Aunt Laura, Sarah L., Steph, Margaret, Lisa and Nicole for the letters/cards, and to all for the wonderful emails! Amanda, it was great to get a card from you - El Sal isn´t the same without you here and we talk about you all the time (mainly about how stingy you are that you can´t send Angie $2 worth of trailmix). Best of luck in AZ muchacha guapa! Joe and Aaron, continued well wishes on your adventures in Africa - I hope your ventures in work, play, travel and Ramadan are serving both you and your communities well. Thanks to Mom for the package and to my family for the unconditional love and support. Can´t wait to see you guys in January - I promise to bring gifts and the Salvadoran man´s dance back with me. Check out my pictures if you get a chance, I´ve finally added some new ones.

Abrazos,

ErinThe contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

Here´s one way to have a memorable birthday – contract the viral disease dengue and land yourself in quarantine for a week in the capital. Dengue is a disease that is becoming more and more commonplace in El Salvador (and the world at that) and is caused by the bite of a virus-carrying mosquito during the daytime hours. Nighttime mosquitos carry malaria, which we have pills to prevent, but with dengue you just have to wear the “espray” and hope you don´t get bit by the wrong bug. I noticed a few days before the 10th that I was feeling pretty crappy, much more tired than usual and achy from head to toe. Walking home at noon for lunch one day I found that I was shivering, which really was the biggest tip-off that something wasn´t right – you simply don´t get cold mid-day in San Miguel, El Salvador. After more sporadic fevers I broke down and called Irma, our PC nurse, and she sent me to the cap to get looked at. Blood tests revealed positive for dengue the next day, much to my disbelief (and Maria´s – I owe you a beer for not making it to the beach like I promised). So I was quarantined to the Happy House (read: Dengue House, where PCVs with a privilege stay in their air-conditioned, cable TV prison for a week and avoid spreading the dengue love). It wasn´t so horrible – watching CNN and Southpark in Spanish can be pretty entertaining and the AC was a birthday present in and of itself. I was able to leave on occasion to get out and Karina (fellow PCV dengue survivor) saved me from boredom by hanging out for the few days we overlapped in San Salvador. Seeing as her birthday was September 29th, we both decided that turning 23 with dengue was a birthday we would never forget and, one day, look back and laugh about.

I returned to my site a week later, feeling pretty guilty for being gone so long and missing out on commitments. Everyone was great about welcoming me back though – the ladies in the Alcaldia even gave me ice cream and new shoes as a bday present (although the shoes are a ploy – they don´t approve of the dusty blue Reefs I wear daily and would rather me in the 2 inch heels they sport everyday. I remind them of the unfortunate park incident and the fact that I can´t even walk in sneakers around here, let alone vixen heels). On top of this, when I walked into my English class Tuesday night, I was greeted by all the adult students with cake, pupusas (typical Salvo food) and presents. They had thrown a surprise party for me! These guys have all become my friends and they´re pretty awesome – they´d planned out games like musical chairs and a rifa where you had to act out whatever was on the paper you chose (I had to dance), we ate til we popped and sat around telling jokes and laughing for an hour. I didn´t catch most of the jokes but from what I could gather from their reactions, especially from the “pepinos” or dirty jokes, I need to learn them in English. I don´t know any jokes in Spanish, so I just told them a funny story about my first week in Chapeltique. To make a long story short, I´d been walking around, shaking everyone´s hand and introducing myself as “Erin, the PCV, who is ‘abierta’ to work with any and all persons/institutions.” Clivia, one of my good friends and attendee of the party, let me go on like this for a few days until she finally took me aside and explained that “available” is “estoy disponible” in Spanish, while “abierta” means, literally, open… as in physically open… Trust me to be walking around my first week at site with a smile on my face telling men, women and children alike that I´m easy. The people at the party loved that one – really, what stupid thing will the gringa be caught doing next. All in all I was blown away by my friends and their efforts – it´s amazing to me how kind and welcoming they are, and it makes me feel incredibly lucky to have a site such as this. It may be hotter than hell here but the people are very chill.

As far as other in-site news goes, we´ve almost completed the world map at the school. I was weary of it for a while, especially after we drew on the countries and Europe looked as though someone had projectile vomited on the wall. The kids were great though – they didn´t get discouraged, rather just enjoyed painting and now it´s looking pretty good. With the leftover paint I´m hoping to ask some of the same kids to paint a mural about the importance of caring for the environment on the wall of our Casa de la Cultura. I´ve also started getting the ball rolling on looking into infrastructure projects for our rural communities and schools. Emails and phone calls are out to a few NGOs here in country to see who could contribute what, and I´m starting the process of seeking out international NGOs. It´s an interesting process and I know it´s going to take a while, but the communities are ready for it and so I am as well.

I´m also settled into my new place, which is working out great so far. The family I live behind is almost American in how busy they are – the husband and wife doctors work around the clock and their kids attend a school in San Miguel that requires them to be out of the house 6am to 6pm, so I don´t see them for more than an hour a day. Having more privacy is excellent, although the time I spend with the family is great too. The kids are sweet – Arturo is 6, Frangie 5 and Janelly 2. They have an affinity for playing with water both in and outdoors, like to show me their parrot Manolo and enjoying not wearing any clothing. The turkey and I haven´t come to any sort of understanding yet, but I´m getting better at aiming sticks at its head. If things don´t shape up by next month I´m going to make it “disappear” and hopefully a few of my friends and I will be eating good for Thanksgiving. Now that I have a fridge and a gas stove I can cook for myself, although I still eat a lot of cereal and peanut butter sandwiches. Instead of the rats in the old house I have lightening bugs, and it´s quickly becoming one of my favorite things when, at twilight, I can lay outside in the hammock and enjoy the first cool air of the day.

I´ll have more to write in November – there´s a lot going on that month, between the Shakira concert, more trainings/charlas at site, and Thanksgiving dinner with an Embassy family. For now, I want to say thanks to everyone for all the emails, letters and phone calls as of late, especially for the birthday wishes! Thank you to my family and Lisa for the packages, they were a great surprise and I´ve been enjoying everything you sent! Aaron, the 3 minute phone call from Morocco was the best – the $1.00/min price it cost to call you back was worth it (just not everyday ;)) A huge thanks to Mom for sending the softballs and to Sister Dorothy for the box of donated items – the people of my community are ever so appreciative of it! Congratulations to Nicole on your wedding! I heard it went well and I wish you the best – Sarah, Sarah and Kadee, I only wish I had been around to get your calls on Saturday. Sarah, your pictures with Dana kind of make me ill. It´s great to hear you sound so happy – don´t get married before I get home! A big hug to all my loved ones, especially my family – I miss you all and can´t wait to see you soon.

Cuidense mucho!The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

Back in May I attended the St. A´s 2006 graduation, and I think I paid more attention to their ceremony than my own in ´05 because something the commencement speaker said really struck me and continues to do so now. Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, spoke of the three types of work that exist in the world; the first being where you are told both what to do and how to do it, the second where you are told what to do, but minimally how to do it, and the third being the "self-assigned task." This type of work requires thatyou alone decide what to do and how to go about accomplishing it, and according to Gioia is the toughest, most challenging, yet most rewarding type of work. He commented to the graduates thatthey would most likely spend the next five years in category one and two type jobs, but that they should eventually strive to solely fulfill self-assigned tasks. Sitting in Dana Center listening to that speech two weeks prior to PC departure, I remember feeling partly proud that I was already about to embark on two years of only self-assigned tasks, and partly overwhelmed that I´ve missed four of my five transition years working my way up to such a state. Now almost four months later, my entire working life depends on projects I seek out and then plan out, as is the very nature of grassroots development. Fellow volunteers in El Salvador and around the world experience the same thing, and I wnder if they find it as challenging as I do.

Gioia was right; it ain´t easy. It´s not so hard coming up with projects to do - that´s been relatively simple. I want to finish painting the world map that I started on the school wall with the seventh, eighth and ninth graders, and then when they return from school vacation in January, I want to start up an ecology club with them, clean up the river and start a recycling program in the school. I want to continue traveling to all the canton towns and schools and do a census on who´s walls are crumbling down, who needs access to water, and who wants more classrooms, computer labs, modernized bathrooms and recreation areas. Then, I want to solicit NGOs here and across the Americas for the funding to build. I also want to get to the bottom of things in the Alcaldia, get someone to be straight with me and figure out why, if our municipio receives a hefty amount of cash each month from the national government, we´re still supposedly broke and can´t currently work on any projects to benefit the town. I´m happy for the mayor´s latest project; I run around the state-of-the-art soccer field on the track every morning, often times use the public restrooms there. I just don´t get why we have that stellar field when it still takes two hours to travel 10 km to the canton because the roads are in crap condition and there are no bridges.

So now you have it, a wish list of all kinds of self-assigned tasks to last two years. I´m not entirely sure how to go about accomplishing any of these projects, aside from the world map project which simply requires paint and a whole lot of energetic kids. I have much to learn about how to safely, correctly, efficiently go about accomplishing anything from a census to an infrastructure project, but I imagine that that´s why I´m here and that I´ll figure it out as I go along, with the help of staff and other volunteers who have experience of course. For now I´m attending a lot of meetings, visiting as many places in the municipal area as I can and teaching two english classes. Speaking of, I´m scoffing much less at the english class thing at the moment, because for now it´s the one time a week I can feel completely confident, competent and as though I have something to offer people where I´m actually more of an expert than they are. If anything, six weeks into my site I´m learning much more from the Salvadorans than I´m sure they´re learing from me, which is entirely fine but hopefully will balance out a bit more as time goes on.

Besides seeking out work (and how to do it) I´ve been traveling a bit to play soccer and visit other volunteers in the capital and making plans to move into my own house. Sometime in October I´ll be moving into a small, three room home behind the house of a family I´ve grown close to here in the center of town. It´s not much, but it does have an updated bathroom (with a toilet AND a shower), newly brightly-painted walls, and a sweet patio area to hang my hammock. Oh, and the biggest, ugliest turkey-type monster thing protecting it from intruders (and me, until I can make friends with it and prove to it that I belong there). It will be bittersweet to leave my current host family but I know I´ll be back to visit them often - they live just up the street.

I did manage to have another interesting few days last week. I fell one morning while jogging on the track and skinned my knees pretty badly. About seven other people were out walking or jogging as well and of course everybody stopped and stared when I yelled "oh shit!" and hit the ground. The only person who didn´t seem to notice was my friend Melvin who was running half a lap ahead of me, but as I hobbled home I heard him come tearing up after me on his bike, shouting things like "the guy in the red shirt told me you fell!" and "we have to take you to the hospital right now!" Needless to say I´m fine, just a bit scraped up. If anything my dignity took a greater fall: two days after the incident I listened to a recap of the whole thing over the town intercom system from our local radio DJ. Just in case anyone missed it firsthand or didn´t catch it through the grapevine, the whole town had the opportunity to know what the Norteameriana did.

A couple days later I tried to travel to a fellow volunteer´s site to meet up with a few others and stay the night. Matt´s site and mine are 12 km apart, but due to unreliable bus schedules, broken down buses and a horribly unpaved road, I started out at 3:00pm waiting for a bus in Chapeltique and made it to the site BETWEEN Matt and I by 5:30, a grant total of 8km distance. I found out once I arrived there that I´d missed the last bus to Matt´s site, and had planned to walk the remaining 4 km until a fellow passenger told me it would be dangerous. Instead she took me to the mayor´s house in the hopes that he´d drive me the rest of the way. He wans´t there when we arrived, but his wife was and so was her grandchild´s birthday party (complete with Spanish-dubbed Barney tunes and a piñata). She assured me that he´d be back soon and would give me a ride, so I sat there in the house eating birthday cake as it got darker and darker. The mayor never showed up but Matt did - he´d gotten a ride in to come collect me. We started the walk back to his site and made it about 5 minutes before a pick-up came by and gave us a lift, gracias a Dios. 4 km is nothing in a car and we made it by 6:30pm all in one piece, but I´ll never forget how long it took to travel just 12 km. Next time I´m leaving at 7:00am.

I suppose that´s it for now, there´s not much exciting to report but hopefully that will change as time goes on, work continues and I travel a bit more. I hope everyone at home is doing well! Thank you so much to Mom and Sarah for the packages! Mom, the newspapers from home and the Halloween candy are carrying me through some long, lonely hours and Sarah, I don´t know what´s better - the talking Napoleon Dynamite card, the fire-breathing wind-up nun or the grow-a-mobster. Thank you to Carrie, Ann, Steph, Margaret and KK for the letters and for the countless emails! A shout out to my lovely messed up friends at home, who cut out a picture of my head, taped it to a pen and brought me to Lisa´s wedding. I feel like I was there with you guys, thanks! And the pictures are fantastic. A special thanks to Sr. Dorothy for collaborating with Mercy and collecting boxes of school supplies, personal hygiene items and clothing to send to El Salvador! The children of Chapeltique will benefit greatly from your generousity and hard work, and I appreciate it with all my heart. Best of luck to Joe, somewhere in southern Africa doing crazy things. Aaron, thanks so much for the postcard! (i.e. first piece of mail ever sent between Morocco and El Salvador). It´s great to hear that work is getting more stable and that you´re happy in your new place. Maybe my mom can send you some proscuitto rolls so that you have something to eat with your pasta. To you and all other PCVs, continue to take care and best of luck at your site.

I´m thinking of and missing everyone at home, hope to hear from you all soon!

Love,

Erin

P.S. Stolen from Matt´s blog:

This is a free way to send text messages to my phone from a computer -

Go to the following link: http://www.tigo.com.sv/Envio_de_Mensajes.php

Select the number 503 next to the word cel.

Then enter my number(7892 4191).

In the section labeled De: (enter your name).

Then click the button labled Invitar o Adicionar Numbero.

The last step is to start texting.The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a gringa like myself can be accepted into life in a small Salvadoran town. Amongst the bogus offers of marriage and trips to neighboring Central American countries, I´ve received countless invitations to accompany my work counterparts to trainings, charlas, to view ongoing projects in the cantones and to soccer games in nearby cities, as well as invitations from new friends to eat dinner at their homes, meet their family members (all 50 of them) after church or hike the nearby hills or San Miguel volcano. Only outside the US can you meet someone and in five minutes time go from being a perfect stranger to receiving a personal invite to a birthday party of an uncle´s cousin´s newphew where, ifyou attend (which you must) you will inevitably run into 10 more people you either already know or who are related to people you´ve previously met. I have no problem with these immediate friendships and impromptu gatherings, other than that often times they are so spontaneous that I´ll agree to go somewhere, right this second, and before I know it be gone for 12 hours. Last week I told a friend that I´d head to a canton in the municipal area with her to "ver un partido de futbol" - she texted me to go at 9, we left at 10, and by the time we were done trecking through the mud, eating various meals and accidentally missing the bus back to the pueblo 3 times it was 6pm. I may have returned "bien sucia" and covered in ant bites but I´m glad I went, as I´m generally grateful for these chances to get out, try new things and meet some cool people.

For those of you who know me well and enjoy laughing at my imperfections (i.e., anyone I´ve known for more than two days) here are a few things to keep you entertained. Last week I went with a friend to her house to learn how to tortillar, or make tortillas, a business which has sustained her and her family for years. In 2 hours time I not only dropped on the ground more rolls of dough than I managed to cook as tortillas, but I spilled dirty water all over my skirt and burned a finger on the stove. I successfully made 7 tortillas in 2 hours - Marina, my friend, made about 100. Then, on the way out of her kitchen I failed to notice a low-lying part of the ceiling and smacked my head directly into it, hitting myself so hard I was literally propelled backwards on my butt. Once Marina got done fearing for my life she not only laughed at me for the rest of the day but took pleasure in sharing the unfortunate incident with a number of my other friends in town. When I showed up for work the next day there was a motorcycle helmet on my desk. I was in the midst of telling my counterpart that I´m not allowed to ride on motercycles (PC rule) when he interrupted me and said, "no, es para cuando esta andando en el pueblo." He and my other "hilarious" friends want me wear it when I´m walking around town, for my own safety. Dad, I´d like to take a moment to thank you for teaching me early on how to laugh at myself - this way, the gringa going to the corner store with a bike helmet on is just funny, not horribly embarassing.

During the times when I´m not attempting to get people to actually take me seriously, I´ve been trying to talk to as many as I can about where I can start working in town. So far the director of the school in town has gathered together 2 groups of students for me to work on projects with - we´re going to start with the ever-so-popular PCV starter project; painting an enlarged map of the world on the wall outside the school. I´m excited to start this up becauase it´ll be a great resource for the students, who oftentimes do not receive geography courses, and a fantastic opportunity to get to know the kids and teachers on a more personal level. In addition to this, I have "great ambitions" to conduct a census of the resources of each school in each countryside canton in the municipal area. It seems as though Muni volunteers can easily spend 2 years just in their urban towns, but I have more interest in branching out and getting into the poorer rural areas, to help bring them up-to-date. Many of our canton schools consist of only one or two classrooms, with limited access to water, electricity, computers and materials for the students. While this idea is really pretty over my head at the moment, I´m hoping to carry out this project and then use it in the future to work on small infrastructure projects, perhaps in collaboration with the Ministry of Education or NGOs both nationally and internationally located.

When I´m not seeking out work opportunities or walking around like a "special" person with my protective gear on, I´m visiting friends and traveling to get to know this country better. This past weekend I went up to Perquin, a town in mountains three hours to the north, to hang with a number of my training compañeros. Perquin is in a region that was greatly affected by the civil war here in the 80´s and 90´s - it served as a crucial area of guerrilla headquarters for training camps and radio transmissions and also saw more battles between the army and guerrillas than most parts of El Salvador. It was more than a bit surreal to stand in the war museum there, viewing photographs of young guerrillas who gave their lives to the leftist cause not 15 or 20 years ago. We also learned a bit about a canton called El Mozote near Perquin, where in 1981 the army massacred all but 1 of the 1,000 inhabitants due to suspicions that the town contained guerrilla sympathizers. Stories such as these are very much alive in places like Perquin. I´m attempting to get my hands on books to learn more about the war - if you have an interest in doing the same, check out this website http://mbeaw.org/resources/countries/elsalvadorcivilwar.html for a good list of resources. As if the emotional turbulance wasn´t enough we decided to put our bodies to the test as well this weekend - we went on an all-day hike to a beautiful waterfall that involved taking off sneakers and crossing waist-deep rivers in multiple areas, and at the end, jumping off an 8 ft. drop into the water at the waterfall. I have pictures of all of us forming a human chain and passing our backpacks overhead person to person in the river - I´m working on getting my photos online soon so you can have some visuals.

That´s all I got for now - September 15th is Independence Day for the Salvadorans so I´m looking forward to parades and celebrations all week long (because no celebration can last just one day around here - that´s just ridiculous). I hope Labor Day festivities were fun in the States! Happy 25th bday to EMQ and 24th bday to Sarah! Sar, here´s hoping you don´t get stuck in Eastbumfuck, Pennsylvania with the broken down car forever... I swear, only you would go on a cross-country trip in a standard vehicle without knowing how to actually drive it. Lisa and Steve, congratulations on your wedding this upcoming Saturday! In my three months in El Salvador thus far I have never wanted to come home so badly as I do now, so that I could see your wedding. Best of luck, congratulations and have a wonderful time on the European cruise... I´ll be thinking of you all day on the 9th. Thanks so much to Carrie, Steph and Margaret for sending me mail in Chapeltique! I just sent out a bunch of letters, so hopefully mail will be coming your way soon. Continued best wishes to the Muni/Youth ´06 group, I miss seeing you guys often (though there´s no lamenting over training), and best of luck to Amanda in Arizona... I don´t eat a pupusa without thinking of you. Joe, once you´ve gotten to Tanzania let´s swap country logistics... if it´s hotter there than it is in Aaron´s site than I imagine you have me beat in terms of heat and humidity, but I may be able to one-up you on the local diseases. Pools of stagnant water = mosquito breeding grounds = dengue = standard procedure for El Salvador. Aaron, I hope by now the "evil spirits" have conspired against you and brought some rain to wash your painting of the Red Sox logo off the wall. In my town, Yankee hats are sold in every market shop and the Red Sox are just that... socks of the color red. On a serious note, congratulations on making six months in country and getting your own place at your site! I want to see these basil and mint leaves when I come visit you in the desert. Much love to family and friends back home, you´re always in my thoughts and prayers.

Until next time, ¡vaya pues!

ErinThe contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

For all those who have been asking for the new address, here it is:

Erin Dussault

Alcaldia Municipal de Chapeltique

Avenida Geraldo Barrios

Barrio Centro

Chapeltique, San Miguel, El Salvador

I really appreciate the requests for the address, as I can´t thank you enough for the copius amounts of mail I´ve already received! A special thanks to Sarah Lacy, Nicole, Kadee, EMQ, Carrie, KK and Brie for the wonderful letters, and to Sarah, Lisa, Steph, Ann, Kelly, Sister Dorothy and Aaron for the recent emails. Now that I´m in my first week in site and have passed into the realm of not knowing whatsoever what to do with myself, you can bet I´ll be writing back to you either through snail mail or email very quickly. Please have patience with the mail system, it´s almost as bad as the cell phone connections (I know some can attest to that) but I´m willing to put my faith in it if you are.

I arrived in Chapeltique yesterday and before I could process the fact that I´m really here/have the panic attack that goes along with that realization, I was immediately approached by my host mother, Niña Esmarelda and her six year old grandson Kevin. Kevin wasted no time in putting all my bags into a spare bedroom, leading me outside and naming all the fruit trees that are in Esmarelda´s expansive garden. After he tested me on the names he took me through the backyard to a few houses nearby where his other grandmother, his immediate family and his aunts and uncles live, and introduced me to about ten new Salvadorans who welcomed me into their homes with open arms. We then walked back to the house, where we ate our eggs and beans together for dinner and he informed me of just about everything he´s learned at church school in the past month. It´s been about a full day that I´ve been here and Kevin hasn´t yet left my side - indeed he´s sitting beside me at the moment as I´m writing this entry. My counterpart Carlos, who I saw this morning, has taken to calling Kevin my body guard and I daresay he´s correct. I prefer guia, or guide, but bodyguard seems to work as well - since I arrived here I haven´t received one piropo (catcall), perhaps thanks to my miniature security task force.

Besides meeting some of my neighbors the only thing I´ve done so far is observed an english class in the casa de la cultura, or culture house, here in downtown. My counterpart and about 15 other adults pay $22 a month to attend four Saturday classes run by a professor from the school in the nearby city of San Miguel. It was incredibly interesting to view the class and observe how one would teach English... I´ve been asked on and off (directly and indirectly) if I would be interested in teaching English while I´m here. I have mixed feelings about it at the moment - I´ve never taught a language class before and while I can speak English I´m not sure I can teach the correct grammatical rules, verb tenses and pronunciation that one would need to know to learn it at a basic level. There´s also something a bit frustrating about thinking of coming to a new country and partaking/adjusting to its culture, language and lifestyle just to spend two years teaching the people of that country how to speak your native language. However, I´m one of the lucky new volunteers in that I already have a list of potential and existing projects to learn more about and hopefully help with - in the short time I´ve been here the people of Chapeltique have impressed me beyond belief with their initiatives and existing development efforts. It was my hope from day one of training that I would be able to come into my site and collaborate on already existing projects and groups, efforts that Salvadorans made and are making in response to the needs they see in their community, as opposed to me creating projects that I feel are best for them. If they are such an integral part of the projects I end up working on, they will continue to sustain those projects long after I leave in two years, which is ultimately one of the most important goals of all Peace Corps programs. It´s an early first impression but an encouraging one that Chapeltique seems to know what it needs; my role here will hopefully be to assist them in obtaining those needs.

I suppose that´s about it for now. I´m not sure what I´m going to do come Monday, my first real working day on the job, but I imagine I´ll figure it out. I hope all is well at home and the summer is finishing off on a good note (and, I hope you´re all just as hot and sticky as I am). I miss everyone as always - I have to admit that thinking about the Dussaults on vacation in RI without me this year occupied much of my thoughts in this past week. Glad you guys had a great time and good weather, I wish more than anything I could have been there with you. Also, a huge congratulations to Sarah for graduating from nursing school - I´m so proud of you! Send pictures via email of the pinning ceremony if you can. My thoughts are with all of you at home, especially as I embark on attempting to get to know a whole new town. The past two and a half months have gone by quickly, as I imagine the next two years will. Best of luck to the E2 boys in Africa, to Monica in Honduras, to Biz fighting the battle against cancer in Boston, to Ann and Beth making it happen in grad school, to Ange saving wild and plant life throughout Western Mass and to Steph saving lives (or dealing with the crazies) in Boston - keep on making St. A´s sound like THE place to send your kids, guys. Can´t wait to talk to you all via email or snail mail!The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

After spending two months in El Salvador I´m beginning to rethink the way we party in the States. When we´re celebrating something in the US we throw a party that lasts all day, sometimes all night, usually with plenty of food, music and more than plenty to drink. Here, when they throw a party it literally lasts all night - and then all the next week thereafter. The party "kicks off" officially each day with fireworks and a music band blaring Ranchero music - at 3:30am. The sporadic fireworks and strange combination of reggetone, country and mariachi music lasts from 3:30 until about 6:00am, when people take a breather and the second round of festivities begins for the day. This seems to consist of what we might consider to be a fair back home - people come to St. Domingo and set up makeshift stores, where they sell everything from fried platanos to coconut candy to pirated copies of DVD´s and CD´s all day long. Often times there is a dance which takes place in the middle of a closed off street, and always kids can be seen riding the ferris wheel that has been erected in the park. On Saturday night the town kicked off their fiesta week with "el palo" - this one, I haven´t quite gotten over yet. They cut down a small tree and smooth out the trunk. The pole, which stands about three stories tall, is then lathered down with grease and fat and positions in the concrete in the street so that it stands straight upright. At the very top of the pole, someone has put a $100 bill. The whole town then gathers around and watches as 10 to 15 determined men strip down and attempt to climb the poll to reach the money at the top. I´ve never seen anything like it - after about seven failed attempts and many collapsed pyramids one lucky lightweight was able to top the pyramid and reach the prize. The 13 year old girl who was elected "St. Domingo fiesta queen" then presented the money to all the greased up guys to split. Events like this and the whole party scene will last for eight days in total here in town, starting each day with fireworks before sunrise and ending each night past midnight with regge dances where the base will shake a house from a half mile down the road. What I have trouble believing is how the Salvadorans manage to do all this without one drop of alcohol - public drinking is about the only thing that´s not included in the partying. I may not have slept for four days but I do have a newfound respect for Salvadoran celebrations - they´re hard core, even if they are crazy.

We´ve been lucky the past few weeks - aside from training activities we´ve gotten the chance to visit some of the most beautiful places El Salvador has to offer. Two weekends ago the trainees had the chance to visit Isla Teslajera, an island off the Pacific coastline. We had the beach completely to ourselves, just us gringos, aside from sharing the walk from our bungalos to the beach with a herd of cows. The water was absolutely beautiful - I couldn´t have asked for a better first trip to the Pacific ocean. This past weekend we took a trip to the San Vicente volcano - and climbed it. It took about four and a half hours to reach the top and it was probably one of the most physically strenuous experiences of my life, but the view from the top made it all worth it. I have pictures of everything but I´m in the midst of a battle of sorts with the internet cafe computer to download them, so hopefully soon I´ll have a link up and running on the blog for a photo album.

As for the most exciting news to date - I received a site assignment today. I´ll be spending the next two years in the eastern part of the country, in the town of Chapeltique, in the department of San Miguel. Check it out on a map if you´re so inclined - all I know about it so far is that it´s pretty hot there, I´ll fairly closeby to a few of my trainee friends and to other volunteers already situated in San Miguel, and there´s a huge potential to do a lot of productive work in the town, but none of it is really with the mayor (the person I´m supposed to work with as a municipal development volunteer). The Muni APCV told me that at his initial visit to the town, the mayor was fairly disinterested but on the other hand many community leaders such as church, school and health clinic employees showed up and requested the help of a volunteer. We´re going to visit our sites next Monday for four days to familiarize ourselves with the area and attempt to find housing, so I´ll have more concrete information after next week. As of right now, with the limited information I´m aware of, I have to say that I´m pleased with my assignment - my site is a medium sized town close by to other volunteers and major cities as well as directly on a major bus route, and it seems as though there is the potential to do quite a bit of community development work there.

That´s about it for now - I´m happy for all the trainees in my group for reaching the point of receiving site assignments - two more weeks and we´re finally beginning our service! I hope everyone at home is doing well and enjoying summer thus far - a special thanks to Lisa and Sarah for the amazing care package (I especially love the underwear you bought me) and to Erin Latina, Alli, Kathryn and Grandma for the letters, and to everyone who has emailed as of late. Lis, I´m glad to hear the girls did their jobs and got you plastered for your bachelorette party - wish I could have been there to sing karaoke with you guys! Joe, I hope you´re having a blast galavanting across Africa, and Aaron, I´m still praying for a cold front to pass by your way. I´m proud of you guys, keep up the good work. To everyone else at home, I miss you and continue to think of you. Take care for now!The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

This week we participated in field based training, where groups of trainees go off together to visit a current volunteer and help them with their daily activities. We all left on Wed., not on public transportation but in vehicles with a PC staff member and a spanish teacher. Incidentally, one group of trainees was pulled over to the side of the road en route to their volunteer's site by four men in masks - they, along with two other vehicles, were robbed of their money by gunpoint. I'm mentioning this not to freak anyone out (Dad) but just to show that anything really can happen at anytime, depending on situational circumstances, and also to say that my three PCT buds are now hands down the official badasses of the group.

It's been a bit of a tumultuous past few weeks. Last week my host community group wateched the movie "voces inocentes" - based on a true story of one family's experiences surviving the civil war here in the 1980's, featuring a single mom and her three kids. We watched it in the morning portion of class, and it really threw me for a loop. I've seen films about disasters and wars in the past, but those have always been in controlled situations - in school, when I can return home to my comfortable life thousands of miles away from where the chaos occurred, where the history is different and I'm worlds apart from what I viewed. This time things were different - the movie was profoundly sad and realistic, moreso because I'm living in the country it was filmed in and the war ended just 14 years ago. Walking down the street back to my house for lunch afterwards, I couldn't help but think as I looked at and greeted people that they either lived through this war or know someone who fought or died in it. That's huge for me - someone who has no concept of war, death and destruction, despite learning about it happening to other, less fortunate people living in different times than myself. The family in the movie were innocent bystanders, yet they watched their friends and families suffer in the crossfire between the guerrillas and the army, their house burn to the ground, their neighbor's children be recruited into the army at 10 years of age, and their country fall to pieces. And that story was based on truth, a truth that ended here only in 1992, and still there are those who align with the left and the right - the divisions in this country are as real now as ever. Just a few weeks ago there was a protest in the capital over the rising gas prices, where two police officers were shot and killed and the frente side took the blame for it. There is death and destruction every day in the USA, but it didn't factor into my life because I only read about it, then returned to my safe lifestyle. I'm not experiencing negative things here, but the dangers and the history of El Salvador hit me like a ton of bricks because I'm not in my comfort zone, surrounded by loved ones to process the difficult information. I apologize if this is a bit depressing, its just my thought process at the moment.

On the other hand, that same day we had to give our charlas, or talks, to our classes in the school. I was nervous as hell about talking to my class, the same bunch of out of controll 4th graders who jumped all over me the day I went to observe class. My spanish still isn't that great, the noise of recess outside the class was deafening and the kids didn't quite understand the directions of my games. Despite all that, they seemed to have a good time and asked me at the end when I'd be returning to the school again. It was a great high after the fact to have spoken to those kids for 45 minutes - I don't have a public speaking phobia, but I was out of my element and it felt great to push myself and accomplish something substancial as a trainee. The other charlas went smoothly as well, so by the end of the day we were all ridiculously happy. Talk about a roller coaster of emotions- all in one day I went from as low as it gets to feeling confident and proud. They teach us during training that these roller coaster, whirlwind emotions are normal, potentially on a daily basis, for PCV's worldwide. I'm not sure how I'll deal with it - the stress of it is already getting to me - but I'm confident that if others have done it before me and are currently going through it, there's hope yet for me.

Field-based training was a great experience this past weekend. I traveled to Jocoro, Morazon in the eastern part of the country to visit and work with a married couple, Kris and Haunnah. We gave more charlas - one to a class of 9th grade girls about to plan for their futures and the other to a group of community members regarding how to best research and plan out projects for their towns. Again, the thought of giving charlas was terrifying, but I'm glad to have given them, particularly to the class of girls. After the talk a few of them approached us- one girl wanted to know more about the future we had chosen, to volunteer for a few years in another country, because she is interested in doing something similar after high school. We were thrilled to talk to her about the opportunities available to her, even more thrilled to know that she sees a future for herself that involves more than just starting a family right away or traveling to the USA. Haunnah has started a great initiative at this school- she's taught 2nd year girls to give talks to their peers regarding self esteem, leadership, civic education, etc., in an attempt to empower the girls and teach them of their options for the future. I'm not a fan of charlas, but if I can implement something sustainable like that at my site, I figure its "vale la pena" or worth the pain.

We were able to help the PCVs organize a BINGO night, which seemed to go over really well. It was a bit embarassing sitting in a car driving around town and announcing over a loudspeaker that were were throwing a BINGO night beforehand, but fun none the less. I stayed with a baptist family for the training and there was a "culta" or service Thursday night in their house. Culta was a little bit like what I imagine an AA meeting to be like - because it was my first time there, I had to stand up, say my name and share three things about myself that I wanted to ask forgiveness for, and the leader of the group then absolved me of my sins. I appreciate all the blessings I can get, so I suppose there's no harm in it really. Anyway the people were friendly and I was glad to have experienced something different from the Catholic services I've been attending with my host mom, Antonia. Religion is such an important aspect of this country - Antonia's kitchen is wallpapered with pictures of Jesus and the pope, and when I first commented on it she immediately asked me if I'm Catholic and asked me to join her for 6am Sunday mass. I enjoy going to church here - the celebration really is beautiful in Spanish. My only concern is that now that I've started going to church, there's no getting out of it. The weekend I was sick I missed mass, only to find out from Antonia that she had spoken to God for me and explained to him why I wasn't there that day. It's really sweet that she's lookin out for me and praying for me. I'd like it to be my choice when I go to church and I figure I can communicate with God for myself, but she's just being culturally appropriate and I appreciate her thoughtfulness.

Sorry that this turned out to be such a long entry - if you're still reading at this point I appreciate it! Thanks to everyone who has kept in such good tough - for the pictures from my family and the card from Nicole especially. There's one more month of tranining before I'm on my own and I really start begging everyone for letters, so please plan accordingly.I'm missing friends and family very much and continue to think of you. Hasta luego!The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

I´m a little bit amazed and surprised at how quickly I´ve become comfortable living in my training community of St. Domingo. All the trainees spent 5 days away from our towns last week for immersion days, which was no doubt a good experience, but I was thrilled to get off the bus at St. Domingo upon returning today. I´ve only lived in this town for four weeks, but walking up the few streets there are here and arriving at my host family´s home is probably the closest thingI have to familiarity here. My host mom said that she missed me while I was away, and I couldn´t believe how good it felt to hear that. Ten weeks of training really is enough time to become emotionally invested in a host family and community - now I´m starting to realize how difficult it will be to leave here in six weeks. At the same time, the fact that this place is a home away from home after a month gives me hopethat I´ll experience something similar in August when I swear in and get a site for two years.

Immersion day visit was interesting in many ways. I lived in the canton, or countryside, with a family for two days before staying with the PCV stationed in Comalapa (the pueblo outside the canton) Friday to Saturday. The countryside was beautiful- I walked a half hour from the town to get to my house and there was a completely different world from one side to the other. Everything is greener, quieter, more spacious. My host senora lives with just her 7 year old grandson, who sort of stared at me all the first day and then used me as his junglegym the next. There wasn´t much going on in the canton - the one time I left the house was Thursday to walk a half block to the store for soda and squash. Roberto, the grandson, and his two cousins were a great source of entertainment -once they warmed up to me we practiced their reading for school, played hopscotch and I taught them how to juggle (not really - they´re working on throwing and catching one rock successfully right now and often times miss and hit each other, but I have high hopes). Overall it was a good experience to live in a canton for a few days - I saw firsthand how people live without basic amenities such as water and electricity, as many do in El Salvador. The people I was lucky enough to meet were warm and welcoming, as was my host family- the only snag of the two days was when the senora tried to feed me chicken nuggets encrusted with dead ants. I thought it was seasoning at first before I noticed the legs, and I´m praying that by some chance the senora was mistaken as well. I couldn´t tell her I wasn´t going to eat them for fear of offending her, so I sucked it up and chowed down. Just kidding - I fed them to the dog when she wasn´t looking.

Friday was a good day as well - the PCV Stephanie is also my mentor and she did a great job of showing me around and introducing me to her friends and coworkers. It was difficult to explain what I was doing there -try telling someone that you´re a PC trainee, not a volunteer yet, who is only in their site for two days to basically kick it in the countryside, but you´re not doing any work for them, you´re not staying, and you´re not there to be anyone´s girlfriend, in Spanish. I´m thinking I´m going to start carrying around a sheet of paper explaining who I am and what I´m about to read off to people, along with the correct pronunciation of my name "Er-in."

Saturday there was a 4th of July celebration at the Sheraton hotel in San Salvador, put on by the US Embassy, and so all PC folk bused into the capital for that. The hotel was like some kind of tropical resort - talk about a contrast from the countryside. It was extremely fun to spend a few days meeting many of the current PCV´s and to just chill out, eat a hamburger, swim and drink a beer. About half of the trainees ended up splurging on a $100 room at the hotel to stay the night so that we could continue the good time. It was incredibly relaxing and ridiculously weird to do something so "normal" for two days - if PC´s objective is to culture shock the hell out of us, or at least offer us opportunities to do it to ourselves, they´re doing a great job. I had a hard time digesting that on Sunday -just a few days before I was hiking on a dirt road to a place in the middle of nowhere, and on Saturday I was lying on a lounge chair, speaking English with Americans and staring at a beautiful pool. Now I´m back in St. Domingo, somewhere in between the two extremes. As nice as it was to hang with the other trainees in the lap of luxury this weekend, I couldn´t seem to just relax and enjoy it - its too bizarre going back and forth between such opposites. The real El Salvador is what we saw on immersion days - I don´t look down on the people we saw hanging in this hotel, but I wonder if they´re aware of what the living conditions are likejust beyond the front lobby. Again, I can´t help but think about home and how aware I was a month ago of what some people live like just beyond my own front door. I spoke to another trainee about how relatively our service of two years can be viewed- it may seem like a long time, but I know that in two years I´m going to return to a comfortable life in the States, with a healthy family and group of friends (God willing) and all the opportunities in the world at my feet. I´m hoping to live for a long time yet, so in the grand scheme of things two years is a blink of the eye. In two years here, Roberto from the canton will still be living in the countryside, getting through third grade and talking to his parents via phone because they live in the US and he doesn´t have dual citizenship so he can´t join them. I know this is a bunch of philosophical pondering, I guess I just realize how lucky I am to have the opportunity to see what life is like here, and how even luckier I am to be returning home in two years.

I´ve gone on enough for now with my babbling so I´ll leave it at this. Thanks to everyone who has sent me emails lately, I love reading about what´s up at home. Lisa and Steve, congratulations on getting your new house! Don´t let anyone put their fist through the foundation again. Aaron, keep on fighting the good PC fight in Morocco -I´m proud of you. I miss everyone at home and think of you often, as always, so please continue to keep in touch! God bless.The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

Well, whoever said they're aren't some key advantages to being sick never joined the Peace Corps... at the moment I'm sitting alone in the training center waiting for lab results to come in from my, er, sample, and wouldn't you know that the internet is free. I knew that I was throwing up all morning for something! Enough of that talk, onto better things... yesterday right in the middle of training classes a few friends told me that I had a letter waiting for me. When I went to check it out I realized that I had not one but four... so a huge thanks goes out to Sarah, Lisa, Kadee and Allison my Peace Corps guru - you guys absolutely made my day. This second week has been a bit more intense than the first, so needless to say these letters are well appreciated. Please, keep on writing and I promise to get back to you either through email or snail mail.

We've been on the same training schedule as I recounted in the last blog entry, but classes are becoming more specific to technical training and the language barrier continues to be a challenge. There are days when I think that my spanish is actually getting worse, not better, but I'm told that's a normal way to feel around here in early days. Other than feeling rather ill I don't have much to complain about in reality... right now its all about taking it one day at a time, poco a poco. During this past week we traveled to visit a current agro-forestry volunteer in the countryside and also to take a tour of the capital, San Salvador. Also this week my community group accompanied the staff of the mayor in our town to a countryside province, to observe an interview between the staff and a 17 year old girl who has asked for help caring for her family. Both parents have passed away and she is responsible for feeding and clothing her 7 younger siblings, a responsiblity she accepts without requesting to break up her family. It was more than a bit surreal to be sitting in a large, air-conditioned mall eating Pizza Hut the next day in San Salvador. Between these trips I believe that I've begun to gain a perspective on how varied the dynamics of this country are. I have to wonder if the well-dressed people I saw in the mall have any idea of what the conditions are like in the countryside here... I know that if it were me in the United States, I'd most likely be clueless. I'm realizing now that if I can spend the next two years accompanying the mayor to the less-developed towns to provide decent, hard-working people with basic necessities, I will be more than genuinely satisfied with my time spent here.

As far as life in the community goes, I think the gringos are getting in more facetime and things are starting to slow down in terms of the newness of our presence. We're starting to play soccer in the street with the kids in our barrios, which has turned out to be a positive experience in multiple ways - not only are the kids incredibly talented and we have a great time, but just one game of soccer has changed these kids from being the punks who yell out "hey baby" from their doorsteps to a bunch of lively, energetic middle schoolers we can now consider to our friends. They may not be able to pronounce my name ("Erin" doesn't sound too pretty in spanish, so I now answer to "Errn") but at least they know my face and feel comfortable striking up conversation with me. One of the more amusing things that's happened to me so far in community goes along with the realization that no matter what we do, where we go, who we talk to in town, someone is always watching from their door or window. Last week I got caught walking home from the bus stop in one of the instant downpours that are some infamous in this country during winter. My skirt, shirt and shoes were soaked within minutes, and I think my umbrella served for more comical than practical purposes because it just barely kept the crown of my head dry, nothing else. Of course I was the only person on the street, because Salvadorans have a great way of disappearing indoors within seconds when it starts to rain here. I ended up at home looking and feeling like a drowned rat, but I thought, innocently, that hey at least I had my dignity because no one was outdoors to see me trudge home in such a classy manner. Little did I know a few days later that as I was walking back down the street making pleasantries to people, practically every person I spoke to followed their "buenos dias" and "como estas" with "Ud. se mojo el otro dia." It's wonderful, my community neighbors can't say my name and don't know what I'm doing here, but they sure as anything know me as the girl who got wet a few days ago. Now I'm learning - there's always someone watching, especially when the gringa is flying solo in a rainstorm and the entertainment value is up.

Speaking of learning, there's always something new to learn and attempt to remember each day. Just when I think that it is not humanly feasible to squeeze one more person on a packed city bus heading to town, the driver pulls up at the next stop and 10 more Salvadorans cram themselves into the other passengers. Just when I think I can't utter one more word in Spanish, I find myself giving a ten minute talk about my last vacation using the preterite and imperfect tenses. There are lessons to be learned each day but as of right now, the most prevalent has been that whatever limits I think I knew for myself and for others need to be redefined during my time in Central America. I'm already amazed at how incredibly hard people work and the tiny, significant steps forward that can be gained through presistance - I can only hope that I can fall into place in this mindframe as time goes on.

This upcoming week we are traveling to a remote site in El Salvador to live with a current volunteer for a few immersion days. I'm pretty sure that I will get stupendously lost trying to find my own way on said sardine-packed, crazy music-playing buses to my host volunteer, but should that happen I will just do as the Salvadorans do... end up in Guatemala, buy a coconut water from a street vendor, find out who he knows and crash with his third cousin twice removed for the night before it is safe to retrace my steps by daylight. I'm up for the challenge, remarkably more-so than I would have been 3 weeks ago. Until next time, know that I'm thinking of everyone and wishing you well. Best of luck to Aaron and his abyssmal french in Morocco (just kidding) and to Joe in South Africa... happy 24th bday! Love to all my friends and family.The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

Its about 2 here as I sit in my host community to finally write a real blog entry. I apologize for the last entry, a few friends and I shared an hours timeon the computer and with my 15 minutes (for which I paid a quarter) I had just enough time to read a few wonderful emails and give a shout out that Im alive. Im able to go into more detail today, training sessions only go until noon on Saturdays.

Life in El Salvador thus far has been a whirlwind of myriad emotions. I should start by saying that my fellow trainees are truly fantastic people, which of course makes this experience that much more enjoyable (and bearable). Its amazing how quickly you can bond with those you have just met over topics such as what type of "churria" (diarrhea) you have and what sorts of animals climb in and out of the latrine you use. Weve lost one person so far, but I think that most of this group is in this experience for the long run. Its encouraging that the dropout rate in El Sal is low, compared to most PC countries. Were not exactly the "Posh" Corps here, but El Sal is a small, fairly modernized country and in that respect, volunteers here have the advantage of being in close proximity to one another and having a few sought after amenities on hand, such as close access to internet, cell phones and flush toilets. There are four of us living with individual families in my host community and were continuously supporting one another and making each other laugh with our daily stories of our experiences adjusting to life here.

For now life is structured to the T. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays we all stay in our respective communities for spanish classes and community contacts, and Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays we travel to the training center in San Vicente to work as an entire group. Our classes in San Vicente consist mostly of learning about the municipal development program in El Sal and what that means to us as volunteers. I finally have some sound answers as to what Ill be doing here for two years. This country is broken up into 14 departments, each with its own governor and a certain number of municipalities. Each municipality is governed by an elected mayor, and its our job to be assigned to one of those mayors (alcalde) and work in the alcaldia. As a volunteer I{ll be able to provide "asistencia tecnica" and help out the city council andcommunity groups to strengthen the projects run out of the alcaldia. Were able to pursue whatever projects we wish, as long as their are a priority in our town. Im not sure yet what types of projects Ill be doing, but that will come in time.

When were not together all of us in San Vicenter were broken up into our community groups in our host sites to practice spanish. Classes can consist of anything from learning grammar to going to the park in town and conversing with someone about the history of the pueblo. On Wed we went into the local primary school and I made friends with 25 4th graders. Our Salvadorena profesora is very patient with us - thank God. We are her "bichos", or young ones, in class, which is quite appropriate given that spanish does not come as easily as I would like. Its difficult to speak all day long in a language when you have to think through each word before you say it. My friends and I constantly comment on volunteers who have gone to countries where they didnt know a word of the language, and how difficult that must be. As stressful as it can be, Im learning and with much practice I hope I can learn enough in the next two months to get by on site in August.

As far as life in El Sal goes, there is much to love and much to get used to. Yes, the dogs bark all night, its always hot and there is always the threat of a bug, type of food or drop of unboiled water to make you ill, but Im surprised already by how trivial these things seem in comparison to the essence of our experience here. I{m even strarting to get used to constantly being stared at and called a gringa. By far what hasmade me the most excited about being here so far has been the Salvadoran people themselves. The only people here who seem to be in a rush are the bus drivers- everyone else has the time to stop, ask how you are and really care about your response. The people in my host community are laid back, friendly and generous, and always willing to engage in conversation about politics, religion, gangs and the economy. Im learning new things each day just by living- for example, if I say "coge el autobus" instead of "escoge el autobus", Ill get laughed at for wanting to "grope" the bus. In particular Im learning to laugh a myself and my mistakes, to roll with the punches and to take everything with a grain of salt.

We have a lot to look forward to in the upcoming weeks - a trip to a current volunteers site on Monday, a trip to the capital San Salvador on Thursday, and in a few weeks, trips to climb the volcano and learn how to surf at the beach. And of course, each night I have my family to get to know and my spanish book to practice with. Im content thus far, although I miss everyone at home and thank you for your continued support and love. There is an internet cafe in town that I can access about once a week, but if youd like to write to me my address is-

PCT Erin Dussault

Cuerpo de Paz - El Salvador

Correo Nacional

Centro de Gobierno

Apartado Postal 1947

San Salvador, El Salvador, Centro America

Please write, Id love to hear from all of you! For now, take care and know that I am wishing you you well.The contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

I am safely in El Salvador, sitting in an internet cafe in my training town right now with three of my fellow trainees. I don´t have much time, but I wanted to update this to say that I am alive and well! I´m living smack dab in the middle of the country for the next ten weeks for training, and my host family is fantastic. El Salvador is very rainy right now, the bugs are big and the stomach bugs bigger, but there is something incredibly welcoming about this country and the people I have had the pleasure of meeting so far. At the moment, we´re just trying to become accustomed to our families and practice our spanish, but in a few days we´ll begin with spanish classes and community contact projects, such as talks to the students of local schools and small projects that we pursue as trainees. There are 26 of us in total from all over the United States and a few from Australia, and everyone is easy to get along with. There´s much to say and not enough time to say it in, so for now I´ll just say that I miss everyone very much, as well as hot showers and food that doesn´t have beans and tortillas somehow incorporated in it, but the sacrifices seem worth it so far. Of course, I think of all of you often and I look forward to speaking to you via email or phone (ojala!) Much love and God bless, ErinThe contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go." T. S. Eliot

It's May 31st, four days from departure and I figure it's about time I get this thing up and running. So, welcome to my blog! and my world, of course. I'm a few short days away from embarking on a journey that I feel in some ways I've been anticipating for years, ever since I learned what Peace Corps was and that I could be qualified enough to become a volunteer. I'm anxious to head out, although not so excited about saying goodbye to loved ones for quite a while. However, in this continously globalizing world El Salvador doesn't seem that far away - not when you consider that most volunteers there have cell phones and some access to internet. Plus, back in February I met a man who drove from Maine to Costa Rica - took him 12 days. For some reason, knowing that my parents can theoretically jump into their car and show up at my doorstep in Central America a week and a half later makes this whole experience seem a lot less remote. Am I going "too far" by committing to be a Peace Corps volunteer? I hope not, and I don't think so. Growing accustomed to a new language, culture, environment and lifestyle will be challenging to say the least, but it is a challenge and exposure I welcome with open arms. I'm ready and willing to be out of my comfort zone and attempt to be a useful volunteer, and I'm incredibly grateful to have the support of my friends and family to back me up.

The first leg of the journey begins at 2:00pm Monday the 5th in D.C., with 12 hours of introductory orientation and a chance to meet some staff and my fellow trainees. We'll be on the way to El Salvador early on the 7th to begin the training portion. Until Monday, I am focused on spending as much time as possible with my family and friends, packing up less than 80 pounds of luggage, and buying travel size cans of Fabreeze. Thank you to everyone who is reading this! I hope it proves to be a great way to keep in touch over the next few (and short) years.

For the time being, I have a new pocket knife to figure out so I'll be on my way. Until next time, take care!

ErinThe contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. govoernment or the Peace Corps.