So as most of you know, I went home for Christmas. It was great to be home – to see all my family and friends and just hang out. I went up to San Francisco with my mom and brother Matt – that was super fun. We went to my mom’s Work Christmas Party and we went to an amazing suchi place and jazz concert and did some shopping.

After Christmas, my whole family – mom, dad, Aaron, Feather (Aaron’s girlfriend), Matt, Drew, Sam and my Uncle Bill – came down to El Salvador for a week. It was SO much fun. The first day was just Aaron, Feather, Bill and I. We went to the art museum, did some shopping at the Artisan Market and went to dinner. The next day the rest of my family came down and we headed to La Union where we rented a house on the beach – Playa Maculis. The house and the beach were beautiful. The house wasn’t a mansion or anything, but it was very typical and comfortable. We hung out on the beach, ate lots of yummy seafood. One day we went into La Union with my Peace Corps friend Devon and also to the small and very cute pueblo Conchagua. We bought a bunch of fireworks and Alfredo came out to the beach as well for New Year´s. We lit off all the fireworks, made a bonfire and watched all the crazy local kids light off firecrackers and almost burn themselves. It was so much fun and I’m really glad that my family was able to meet Alfredo, which went over pretty well. On the last day we went to my old community, Isla de Mendez, to free some baby turtles and hang out with my friends. I was so happy that my family was able to meet all of the people who are important to me here. We hung out with my host family, my grandma and with Alfredo´s family. It was great!

At the end of January, my Peace Corps group had our Close of Service conference where they explain all the stuff we have to do before finishing as a volunteer and about what to expect upon our return, how to get jobs, etc. It was the first time in a year that we had all gotten together, so that was super fun – just catching up with everyone and seeing what their plans were. We had the conference at the beach which was fun.

Other than that, on the 18th of January the mayoral and legislative elections were held and the FMLN, or leftist party – won the majority of mayoral office and legislative positions. Now we just await the results of the more important presidential elections in March.

I also had a co-worker and friend die in January which was really hard on me and on my other co-workers. She was a promoter of Red Solidaria, the program I am working with right now and she was such a very friendly and funny person always telling jokes. She helped celebrate my birthday in November along with the other promoters. It’s been hard without her there, but we can only remember the good times that we shared.

María Luz is the girl in the middle.

Other than that not much is new. I hope to visit more with some of my Peace Corps friends before we all finish and continue my job search. Hope all is well at home with our new president – YAY!

I know I haven’t updated in a million years so here is a summary of what’s been going on in the last three months:

September:

With the youth group from my old community – Isla de Mendez – we hosted a turtle vigil and invited other youth from the region and community leaders. In total there were a little over 100 people. We all went to the beach for the night and searched for turtles coming out of the water to lay their eggs. We split up about 15 km of the beach into five sections and each section had a group of people that were to keep watch for the turtles. I was the leader of one group and in the first hours we didn’t find any turtles, but I finally spotted one coming out of the water and we helped it up the beach and watched it lay its eggs. Once the turtle has laid all of its eggs we gather up the eggs to take them to the turtle incubation hatchery where they are incubated for up to 45 days until they hatch. The vigil was a HUGE success. In all we collected over 600 eggs. It’s one of the most successful turtle vigils that the community has ever seen. It was really exciting!

At the end of the month I went to the states for Chelsay and Kevin’s wedding. It was so much fun to hang out with them and go to their wedding….I caught the bouquet. HEHE. I also got to spend time in Cincinnati with friends…it was a great time.

October:

September and October were the rainiest months. In my new site it rained every single day. Not always during the day (thank god) but every night. It was pretty bad and there was a ton of flooding. But I didn’t get washed away…luckily.

October was full of work with Red Solidaria: observing the trainings that the promoters give to the families, going to meetings, the events where the families receive their monthly bonuses, and at the end of the month I helped give some of the trainings to the families because one of the promoters resigned.

One weekend in October I also went with a volunteer friend of mine to a small pueblo in the mountains called Ataco. We ate tacos in Ataco (haha…) Anyways, this region is known for its flower nurseries and a lot of the hotels have flower nurseries on the grounds. We stayed in a small cabin, which was so beautiful. Simple but really beautiful, with beautiful gardens and a small café that served breakfast and lunch. We checked out the pueblo that is known for its artisan crafts including handmade candles and lambs wool materials.

We did some shopping and checked out the central park, the Catholic church and a small art gallery that presented Salvadoran painters. The pueblo is calm and artsy and very friendly. One day we also did a hike to a lagoon…the lagoon is called laguna verde (or green lagoon)…but it totally was green. There is a picture of the lagoon in the Lonely Planet guide book and it looks beautiful so my friend and I were really excited to see it, but compared to the photo is was a huge disappointment; but it was still pretty and the hike was nice.

November:

The first week of November I participated in a youth camp in Lago Coatepeque – the crater lake of the largest and still active volcano in the country. The camp was organized by a group of 12 students from the American School in San Salvador. Five volunteers including myself and about 40 youth from all over the country participated.

It was super fun. I brought four youth from my old community and we had a blast. We tye-dyed shirts, had a talents show, the students from the American School gave charlas on trash management, planning your future, decision making, self-esteem and communication. It was a great experience for the youth and fun for me as well.

Lately, I have been going frequently to a community that is called San Pedro. It is at the bottom of a huge valley where there is no water (only a river), no electricity, no streets and no basic services. The kids have to walk between 30 minutes and 2 hours to get to school and many walk to school without shoes. It is definitely the poorest community that I visit. The teachers at the school are great and have to hike down this huge cliff every day to get to the school to teach. It takes about an hour to walk down. So I had an idea to do a Shoe Drive at Mary Star High School to collect shoes for the kids in the community. We’ll see how the collection goes and in January, when the new school year starts, we’ll go to distribute the shoes.

I had a super special birthday. I told the promoters from the municipality of Jicalapa (I get along with them the best) that we should have a small little party at the beach cuz I was going to be my birthday. One of the promoters, Gloria, found us a house on the beach to have the party at and all the others chipped in to make the lunch – carne asada y chorizo con arroz. I made a cake and bought a piñata. It was so much fun. Alfredo, my boyfriend, drove out from Usulutan to surprise me for my birthday and to meet all my friends here. The house where we had the party was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!! I felt like I was at an Italian villa on the Mediterranean. The house, which is painted all white with blue doors and window shutters, is perched on a small cliff over looking the ocean. The property has its own small private beach, which is like a little cove that has caves and rocks. It was such a beautiful birthday. We all had a great time!

For Thanksgiving I got together with a group of six other volunteers at a hotel on the beach and we made a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner! I made the turkey which turned out superb. We also made stuffing, carrots, beet salad, corn-on-the-cob, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, deviled eggs and chocolate pie. We ate our Thanksgiving dinner overlooking the ocean and a beautiful sunset. It was perfect.

The last weekend of November is the biggest party in all of El Salvador. Carnaval in San Miguel – the second biggest city in the country. The month of November they celebrate their patron saint and the last Saturday of the month they have Carnaval, which is the second biggest Carnival in all of Latin America outside of Brasil. The parade is the best in the country (in my opinion) and throughout the city they have live music playing of all different genres. I went with Alfredo, his cousin and a friend of ours. We hung out in the area of reggaeton, where the biggest international stars from Puerto Rico were. It was fun and a little crazy!

Other than that, work is the same as always. We are planning a trash campaign in one community and hoping to do more in other communities as well. The youth group from Mendez just started a Hammock Workshop so that is exciting, because we have been planning the workshop since April. I’m looking forward to going home for Christmas and to having my family down here for the New Year!

On December 7th, the youth group from Mendez started the Painting Workshop which we solicited from the Ministry of the Exterior and is being taught by a famous Salvadoran painter. The teacher is great and we had a fun time in the class. I think it will be really inspiring and enlightening for these kids that don’t really have any background in art.

One week my best friend Tania, from Mendez, came to Teotepeque with me to spend the week and to get to know some of my friends here. One day we went to San Pedro, the poor little community a the bottom of a valley. We walked so so much but had a great time.

And the last weekend before I went home for Christmas, Alfredo and I went to Ilobasco, an artisan town where they make all kinds of ceramic art. I bought some cool stuff and we also went to San Sebastian, where they make the cloth hammocks. It was a great trip.

And finally….pictures of the pueblo Teotepeque.

So I don't have any cool pictures lately because I haven't made a habit out of taking my camera places, but I'll work on that so I can post some cool pics.

One of these stories I wanted to post in the previous entry but I was so bored writing that I just kept this out. But it is crazy so I just have to tell it. It wasn't funny at the time...NOT FUNNY AT ALL...I actually started crying, but it's funny now.

Anyways, one weekend I went to the capital to see my best peace corps friend off. She was heading back for the states. Saturday morning we were walking down the street to go get something to eat. I was looking all nice with my hair straightened (out a once a year event here in this hot country) and with a brand new shirt I had bought the night before, when all of a sudden, something fell all over me. It felt like someone had thrown a water balloon at me only that it wasn't filled with water; something thicker than water. Well it wasn't a freaking water balloon. It was bird poo....or should i say bird DIARRHEA. You have no idea how much shit had fallen on me. It was ALL OVER my perfectly straightened hair, all over my brand new shirt, even on my freaking shoes. And there was more that landed on the sidewalk and even on my friend's purse, who as walking beside me. We both looked up and we like WHAT THE FUCK??!! was that? We saw no bird...no nothing. For a second I thought someone from whose house we were in front of may have thrown something out the window, but I don't think so. Anyways, I had to go take a shower...obviously. My friend was like: "What the hell was that? A teradactile?" I mean it may have been because there is no way that amount of shit could have come out of a normal bird. We will forever been in doubt...it wasn't funny at the time, but it sure the hell is now. I mean how many people can say they had a bird diarrhea on them.

Last weekend, one of the promoters I work with invited me to her community. It is corn season and so she invited me to eat corn and all the yummy snacks that you can make from corn. She lives in a community called Argentina, which is way up on top of a mountain. The road to get there is so so ugly and I thought we were going to die in the truck we went up in. It was a huge cattle truck and it was all rickety and swaying back and forth as we went through all the holes in the road. Since it's been raining it's all muddy, and we almost crashed into another car when the truck skidded in the mud. But we made it (the trip back down the next morning was a whole different adventure). We peeled corn, ate corn on the cob...it was so so sweet. Freshly cut corn. Then we made tortas de elote (fried corn patties). You take all the corn off the cob and run it through a mill then add butter, sugar, salt and cheese and then you fry it. So yummy. My friend's mom also made ruiguas, which have almost the same ingredients as the tortas but they are grilled in banana leaves.

In the late afternoon, I went with my friend to the field, where she gets together with other friends and they practice doing gymnastic moves like somersaults and hand-walk-overs. It was really hilarious. We made a six person pyramid and then we practiced English. They all wanted to practice their English.

It was a fun day and night. Sandra (my friend) has a really nice family and her older sister is super cool. And she has a niece that is so so hilarious. The next time I am SO taking my camera.

Other than that, not much else has been going on. Just been working and hanging out. Missing home a lot. It's about that time, when all I can think about is going home.

Hello all. I’m sure no one even checks my blog anymore but I thought I would give it an update and just let you guys know that I haven’t died yet. i just haven't felt like updating my blog.

As my last blog entry mentioned, I was up for a transfer from my old community, and that is what happened, hence the not wanting to update my blog. The change was hard and is still hard at times and even depressing. I spent three weeks in the capital waiting to see where I would get placed, which was super boring cuz i had nothing to do, but oh well.

So now i am living in the department La Libertad which is the department that has the most tourism due to it's beautiful beaches. I live up coast from the most touristy beaches but where I live is also very beautiful. It is so much different from where I was living before...and not as HOT thank god. I live in the municipality of Teotepeque. I live in the small pueblo which is up in the hills, 11 km from the beach, so it is nice and cool there in the evening. For the first week I stayed in a small dormroom-like room that the Catholic parish has while I was looking for a place to rent. The priest at the church is from Cleveland. The parish is part of this partnership program in the States that sends American priests down to El Salvador for periods of six years. Father Mark is a really nice guy and he, as well as the secretary at the parish, helped me look for housing. The secretary is super nice and we've become friends.

I finally found a room to rent. It is a small room that is located behind a family's house, but it's cozy and it miraculously fit all my stuff. I like it because I live with a family but I have my own space and everything. The family is really nice. The mom is a nurse at the health clinic and their older daughter, who attends university, is living with them. Their son lives in the States. They are very friendly and give me super delicious food sometimes, like huge river shrimp, a huge crab and other yummy snacks. I bought a mini-oven from a Peace Corps friend that left and I made some chocolate chip bread and shared it with the family.

So I am working with Red Solidaria (red means network in spanish, not red like the color and solidaria is just like it looks...solidarity.) in the municipalities of Teotepeque and Jicalapa. They are both relatively small municipalities. Red Solidaria is a government program that gives aid to all families living in rural areas, and gives aid to the poorest families living in urban areas. A few years ago, the government did a census a put in order all of the municipalities from poorest to least poor. They were put into four categories: Extreme Poverty Severe, High, Moderate and Low. All of the municipalities that classified in Extreme Poverty Severe entered the program first. Teotepeque and Jiclapa are classified as Extreme Poverty High, and Jicalapa is considered poorer than Teotepeque. But both municipilites are significantly poorer than where I was living before. The people really just live off the land cultivating corn, beans, and a variety of vegetables.

Anyways, Red Solidaria gives financial support to the families in the form of a monthly bonus. But it is such a small amount of money ($15-20) that it is really just an incentive. The government and the families enter into a contract where the government promises to give the family its bonus if the family fulfills its promise to take thier children under the age of five to the clinic for shots, to send their children between the ages of 5-18 to school, and to participate in a monthly training. It's a great program. Education in this country is kind of a joke and noone values education so it's great to see that people are sending their children to school, even if they are getting a small bonus for doing so. The program is focused on the children and the women as mothers. The majority of people who participate in the trainings are the mothers.

In each municipality an NGO is contracted to do the work of the Red. It hires promoters that do house visits, motivate the families to fulfill their promises, and give the trainings. The NGO also does productivity projects that include a series of trainings that teach the people a type of oficio (can't think of a work in english, but it's like a specific job or telent). For example they do trainings on how to make bread, how to make hammocks, how to make cakes, artisan work, etc. Something that the people can learn and then benefit from financially.

So I have mainly been working with the promoters from the two municipalities. I go with them to do house visits, to the meetings, I go to observe and help them with the trainings they give, etc. The promoters are all pretty young and all have at least a high school education. They are super fun to work with and probably the best part of my new work.

However, it has been difficult because there has been a lack of communication between Peace Corps, FISDL (the govt. office in charge of Red SOlidaria) and the NGO's that work in Jicalapa and Teotepeque. This means that the NGO's, which I am supposed to be helping, don't know who I am or what I am doing there. I've tried to remedy this, but not with much success, but something I need to keep working on. My big complaint is that I don't really DO anything. I kind of just tag along and observe but don't really feel like I have a specific role, which is really frustrating.

Anyways, that is my life for the last two month, in a nut shell. I really like going to all the different communities in the two municipalities. That way I get to know more people and see more things...that is really fun. I was also invited to a community meeting one weekend in one of the small communities. I was enxcited about that. The meeting was about the community water project, so hopefully they will continue including me in their activities.

As for my old site, I go when I can. My youth group there is still kicking ass. In the end of May we did a trash pick-up on the beach and collected about 20 sacks of trash. I even found a part of a computer....so random. Alfredo came to visit me once in my new community and he really liked it.

I'm looking forward to going to Ohio in September for Chelsay's wedding and then home for Christmas!!!!!

Ok, so I’m not going to go into very much detail on this, but the day after I wrote my last blog, my boss called me into her office to tell me that she had made the decision along with the director of Peace Corps El Salvador to take me out of my community. Like I mentioned in the last blog entry, there were lots of comments surrounded by the fact that I have a boyfriend, so much so that someone (an asshole obviously) from the community called my boss to tell her about the rumors going on. So based on that and the fact that my reputation and the reputation of Peace Corps has been altered, they want to take me out of my site. Yeah I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what you get working for a bureaucratic government volunteer agency. My community doesn’t want me to leave and they have ultimately opted for trying every possible way of keeping me here rather than just getting a new volunteer. My boss has come out to talk to the community and hopefully the country director will come out as well. It doesn’t look hopeful, but we have to try. Sorry this doesn’t have much detail but I’m sick of talking about this topic and shouldn’t really put that much detail on the web.

Anyways, in the meantime I’m still living and working in my community like normal. The circus came to town, so that was fun. I went a couple of nights. It was a pretty ghetto circus and the first time I entered the tent I was kind of scared…the bleachers were made of small planks of wood that looked like they were going to fall apart any minute. Yikes. They had some comedy acts, which were actually really funny. A supposed transvestite that danced. But I don’t believe she was a transvestite…she really looked like a woman, but who knows. The funny thing is this kid from the community started dating her, and his family has outraged….i mean outraged to the extent that they tied him up to drag him back to the house…well that’s what people said. I’m sure it’s a little exaggerated, but also not too far from the truth since this is a machista and homophobic country. But it was nice going to the circus…having something to do at night and having some good laughs.

THE CHURCH IN ALEGRIA

I’ve been working a lot with the youth group. The weekend of April 26-27th seven youth and I went to a youth camp with about 80 other youth from different municipalities close by. The camp was sponsored by SACDEL, the organization that works with our youth group and helps us fund activities and projects. The camp was held in Alegria, a very beautiful pueblo on the side of a volcano…it has such a nice climate. It was a nice change from the burning fires of hell in my community…haha. The camp was in celebratioin of International Youth Service Week. We watched the movie Crash and talked about racism. In the morning we did an activity about what qualities a youth volunteer should have. We watched a performance of young child and youth playing the violin and then we went out into the community to invite the members to a party in the park. Alegria is very beautiful…it has a lot of tourism so it’s clean, it has tons of private flower nurseries (since the climate is so nice) and it has a crater lagoon at the top of the volcano, but unfortunately we didn’t get up to see it. But since the community is built into the side of the volcano, it has some nasty uphill climbs…man my calves hurt after that weekend.

In the afternoon, the youth held a party in the park and a bunch of local children came to participate.

We had face painting, piñatas, music, folkloric dancing (tradition dancing), a drumming group came and there were also dancers on stilts. Also, we let off about 4 small hot air balloons. It was pretty cool.

ONE OF THE FLOWER NURSERIES

Last weekend was a four day weekend and once again we went on a youth event with SACDEL. This time I went with 15 youth from my community and we went to Jiquilisco, our municipality. In continuation of the International Week of Youth Volunteerism we painted the electrical posts and did a trash pick-up. I went to paint the posts, which I thought was super fun. In the afternoon we had a party like we did in Alegria but this time we started with a march down the main street in to town. We had face painting, hot air balloons, folkloric dancing, a farce beauty contest with guys dressed up as girls (hilarious). It was a lot of fun.

This past weekend we also celebrated two birthdays…the birthday of Roberto Carlos, Tania and Alfredo’s youngest brother. We bought him this sweet car that is launched off a platform by water pressure. You have to pump the water into the car, release a latch and then the car goes shooting forward while you get sprayed by water…it’s pretty cool. Alfredo, Tania and I tried it out before we wrapped it up and gave it to Roberto Carlos…haha.

We also celebrated the birthday of my grandma…Mama Nena. I bought her a birthday cake and we set it up as a surprise. She was really happy.

So that’s about all that has been going on. I’m working with the ADESCO right now trying to solicit a project, and it’s really frustrating because they don’t dedicate time to writing the proposal; like they expect me to do it all. I really want the project to pass, but not if no one is willing to work on it and put their time and effort into it. But hopefully it will work out.

Dude, a guy form my community drowned last night in the bay. His name was Arena (well his nickname. i never knew his real name). He was like the town crazy man. Apparently he used to be normal, but when his wife left him he took to drinking and i think he drank so much that he turned a little crazy. He wasn't violent or anything. He would do odd jobs around town...pick and sell fruit. He would sing to people in the streets, me included, and run laps around the futbol field in his underwear. He was cheery but really just a weird guy. Aorund 7pm last night they found him floating face down in the bay and kind of maneuvered his body toward the shore and waited for the police to come. Around 11pm the equivalent of the coroner's office arrived and took notes. He was wounded on his right eye. People think he either jumped into the water in a shallow part and hit his head or he fell from a tree cuz he liked to cimb trees. It was really sad. He was weird and all but everyone kind of had a special place in their heart for him. He kind of scared me but he gifted me fruit sometimes.

I don’t know if anyone reads my blog anymore, but for those of you that do, sorry I haven’t been keeping up very well. I’ll try to do a better job. So almost a month and a half has gone by and a lot of shit has gone down. I’ll kind of just start where I left off in my last entry.

So every spring a delegation of Masters Students in Public Health from Yale University come to stay in Isla de Mendez. They stay with families and work on a variety of things including health education, reproductive health, sanitation and water treatment. This year a group of 13 female students came and stayed for about 10 days. I was kind of worried it was going to be weird to have a bunch more gringas around but it was actually really nice, I think especially because of a special surprise that came with the group.

Kristi and I

I met with the group on their first day here, and was surprised to see a high school classmate of mine, Kristy Anwuri, from Bishop Montgomery in the group. I was shocked to say the least. It was totally a movie moment…we looked at each other, kind of did a double take and were like….KRISTY?.....NATALIE? It was so weird. But we got an opportunity to catch up on things and talk a lot. It was great to talk to someone that I actually knew and not just people that I was meeting for the first time.

Planting mangroves.

So I hung out a lot with the group while they were here. I helped explain a lot of the situations in the community as far as health care and health problems go. I helped with some charlas and just general information. It was great because with the youth, we had just started out artisan work, and all these girls came and bought a ton of stuff. It was awesome and a real incentive to the youth group to keep working. Also with the delegation, I went to plant mangroves as part of a reforestation project, we went to the beach and had a small party at the end of their stay. They were a great group of talented, intelligent and inspiring women, so that was great for me to be around.

planting mangroves.

Next came Semana Santa(Holy Week)…the big week of vacation in the country. It was nice to have a break from teaching in the school, but I decided not to go anywhere because too many people travel that week. Instead I decided to stay in my community doing activities with the youth group and helping out at the restaurant/tourist center. With the youth group we continued making jewelery and I also planned a cultural event with the youth group as a fun activity in reward for their hard work in the last few months. I hosted Easter egg dying and an Easter egg hunt (thanks to the bitch club for sending me the materials). We dyed over 60 eggs; I hide over 60 plastic eggs filled with candy. The youth loved it. They were kind of out of control, but only out of excitement I think. haha

Youth group making artisan jewelery.

So during Semana Santa I ended up helping out in the restaurant a lot. We had some tourist come and stay in the hostels, others to take boat tours and others just to eat. In the weeks before Semana Santa we worked hard to get the place fixed up. We still didn’t get the showers completely done, but it was better than nothing. We got some good compliments on the place and hope the word gets out about us. On the Saturday of Holy Week, we were super busy and that night we hosted a dance and it was a hit. We had a lot of money and sold everything in the restaurant. I didn’t get much of a break this week, but on Easter Sunday I went to a water park with my boyfriend….yes I said boyfriend. (see the details below).

Painting Easter Eggs.

The week after Semana Santa I had some visitors. The couple I had Thanksgiving dinner with in San Salvador, Luke (the British) and Cynthia (the ex-Peace Corps volunteer) and their two-year-old daughter came to visit me. They stayed with my grandma (mi mama Nena), hung out, went to the beach, swam in the bay and went to help with my English class one afternoon. Their daughter got sick so they were only able to stay one night and I felt really bad about it, but they are really friendly people and it was good company.

Ok, so the boyfriend details. I recently started dating a guy from my community. We have been friends for months, and I finally just gave in and said yes; that I’d be his girlfriend. His name is Alfredo, and he is Tania’s (my best friend in my community) brother. He is a really sweet guy; goofy; intelligent; he sees me as an equal and not like some superior American.

With this relationship however came a lot of gossip in the community, a lot of nasty comments, and a lot of anxiety and grief on my part. I knew what ramifications having a relationship could have on my, my work in the community and the relationships I have with people in the community (we were warned a lot about this during training). Well apparently someone in the community disagreed with it so much that they felt it necessary to call my boss about it. So I had to talk to her about it, she came to my site to visit and it was just blown way out of proportion. The person that called her didn’t identify himself, so I have no idea who it was. But I have openly talked with the community leaders I work with about the situation and the fact that I now have a boyfriend, just so that they hear the truth coming out of my mouth instead of whatever the people feel like inventing (and trust me, they invent a lot of crazy shit to talk about). The situation has calmed down and I don’t think it will have as many negative effects, as I was afraid of.

IN MEMORY OF MY FRIEND, DAVID ALEXANDER RAMIREZ CASTILLO

Lastly, I had a very close friend of mine die two weeks ago. He was my friend and my host brother, from the family I lived with for the first four months in my community. His death was very shocking and very unexpected, and thus, all the more painful. David was left paralyzed from the waist down after a car accident over four years ago. He had withstood many hardships and pain, but always pushed on. Now in the states, living that kind of life is not impossible and is even aided by many accommodations such as handicap ramps, handicap bathroom stalls, handicap lifts on buses, etc. Those luxuries obviously do not exist here.

Well, as a result of him being handicap, he spent a lot of time in bed. He had a wheel chair but only used it when he was going to school, going into town or going to church. As a result of spending so much time in bed, he frequently had bedsores and two in particular had a hard time healing. Sometimes they would get infected and he would be sick with a high fever for a couple of days, but nothing I thought that was ever major.

Well, in early March this sores got infected and he got sick. When I went to visit him one day he had a really high fever and was pretty sick, but that was common so I didn’t think too much of it, but a little over a week later he was in the hospital. He couldn’t keep food down, the infection was getting worse and he had lost tons of weight.

He spent about 8 days in the hospital and his mom told me that he was not getting good medical attention. He was in a room with 40 other patients; they weren’t hooked up to monitors; he was not given an IV even though he couldn’t keep food down; they only checked on him every two hours; visiting days were only three days a week; a patient in the bed next to him just died one day and the staff didn’t even notice until later, when they came to do check ups. David wasn’t getting any better and he didn’t want to be there anymore, so they brought him home on a Monday. At this point his body was immune to all antibiotics, so the infection just took over his entire body. He had fiercely high fevers and still couldn’t really eat anything.

I went to see him on Thursday morning, but it was already too late. He could no longer talking, he could barely move his arms and his eyes. He had gone from being a healthy 26-year-old to a skeleton in the skin of my friend just struggling for breath. I have never seen anything like this in my entire life. I whispered into his ear that I was there and that we were all there for him, but I honestly don’t know if he heard me or recognized my voice because he was almost in a comatose state by then.

I went back in the early evening and he was worse. He could no longer move any part of his body and was not responding in any way whatsoever. His breathing was very labored and only worsened as the night went on. His mom told me that in the afternoon his eyes had turned a bright, bright red like fire and that tears fell from his eyes that were almost boiling hot she said. A lot of community members were coming and going to see him before he died. The room was constantly packed with people looking at him, touching him, praying over him and talking with the family. I stood by his bed watching his chest heave; up and down with each labored breath for about two hours. I eventually sat on the bed and held his hand while his sisters took turns rubbing his arms and rubbing a wet rag over his forehead, which was burning hot.

I stepped out of the room to catch some fresh air and to get a drink for about 30 minutes. When I reentered the room, he stopped breathing and his mother let out a huge cry and starting slapping his hand. I made my way to the edge of the bed as people said that he still had a slight pulse; when I reached down to feel, I didn’t feel anything; not the slightest beat. He died at 9:10pm on Thursday, April

One by one the family members entered to cry over the body. I sat there with a friend just stroking his arms and his face, trying to keep his eyes shut. After a while they asked everyone to leave so they could change him while they waited for the coffin to arrive to put him in the coffin.

That night we had the vela, which is like the funeral. They have a religious service with prayers, singing and sermons; afterwards they hand out coffee and pan dulce and most people stick around talking.

The burial was held the next afternoon. We had a procession through town and out to the graveyard; there were tons of people there. At the cemetery, people were allowed to view the body while the religious service was going on. Then, between 8 men, the coffin was slowly lowered into the hand-dug hole. People, one by one, threw a handful of dirt onto the coffin and with the closing prayer, a team of friends and family finished burying the coffin and then we arranged all the flowers on top.

Salvadoran burials are very beautiful but not any easier. David was a very close friend of mine and I miss him dearly. I have never been this close to death before; as in literally watching a loved one die, and that has been the most difficult part. I would always go to hang out with him in his room to just chat, play on the computer, watch soccer games. He was a very loving and caring father to his two daughters, Alison and Monica, whom I love dearly. He was such an inspiration and spark of hope in a world that can be so dark sometimes. Despite his handicap, he never ceased to dream. In a wheel chair he graduated from 9th grade and went on to get his high school diploma just last November. He was learning how to play the piano, was very active in his church and would talk about how he wanted to continue studying and go to college. I learned a lot from David and he touched my heart; I just hope I was able to do the same in the short amount of time that I knew him.

Hello Hello. So I haven't written in a month. But it doesn't seem like it's been that long. This month just went by fast. I guess that's the benefit of staying busy.

Well, not too much new here. In the beginning of the month I went to visit my friend Colleen who is a fellow Peace Corps volunteer and is pretty much my best friend down here. She also lives in the state of Usulutan but more in the middle where are all the mountains and coffee plantations are....yeah it's beautiful there, not to mention at least 10 degrees cooler. She lives in a small community and has a super cute house, which dammit I forgot to take pictures of. We just hung out and went for a hike to a community that is higher up on the mountain which has this beautiful view of the San Miguel Volcano.

Okay, so as you all know February 14th is Valentine's Day. Well here they call it El Dia del Amor y Amistad (Day of Love and Friendship) so it's nice to give out things to friends. With the youth group we made cards with cute little messages on them and sold them in the schools making about $25 which was pretty good. With my women's group we did secret friends to do a gift exchange (like secret santa) and it was so much fun. The week previous to Valentine's Day we did a fundraiser and raised $20. So on Valentine's Day we had a little get-together just to have fun and hang out. It was so much fun. Me, Margot and Eugenia (two good friends of mine in the community and two really awesome women) made pupusas (the famous Salvadoran dish) for everyone. Pupusas cooking on the grill.

Margot and Eugenia

We decorated the restaurant and then did our gift exchange. It was a lot of fun.

Last weekend was pretty busy. This crazy cool septic engineer named Bob from the Seattle area came down becuase he is looking to do a project with water filters, filtering the water people use to wash clothes, etc. And he is also looking at the shellfish industry to see if there is a possible international market. I so want in on that project cuz it'll be some money and it's really interesting. A large number of the families here survive on collecting and selling shellfish. They have to go into the mangroves and dig in the mud to search for the shellfish. I knew all this before but had never gone. Well with Bob and two other community members we went to check it out. It's CRAZY to say the least! These people have to walk through knee deep puddle of mud and dig through that mud to find the shellfish.

This is all inside of a forest of mangroves, so they have to climb through the tress like monkeys...it's crazy. And it's way hotter and more humid in the forest. There are so many bugs and mosquitoes that people are constantly smoking cigarettes or pure tobacco cigarettes to keep the bugs away. So people work for about 6-8 hours a day and make on average $5-7 a day. It's bruttle. It was a real adventure though and I learned a lot of the trip we went on. Bob is such a funny guy. He might be able to help me with a latrine project and he bought me a bottle of Bacardi when i told him i was more of a rum and coke girl than a beer girl!

Last week my Peace Corps friend Samantha came to visit me which was aweomse. We had so much fun. Saturday the youth group hosted a movie night to raise funds. It was the first time we did it and it turned out pretty well. We wtached a scary movie, which was what all the kids wanted to see. On Sunday Sam and I went to the beach and just hung out which was so relaxing.

Other than that not much is going on. In the tourist center we are really trying to get it fixed up for the big vacation week (holy week) in march.

Hello. I don’t think I’ve written in a while so I thought I’d fill you in on what’s going on in my life. To be honest not much is new or exciting. I’ve just been trying to keep busy working. Right now I am working in the school giving computer classes, English, and my own class in which we are mainly going to focus on health related topics. The school director gave me one class a week with 7th-9th grades so that I could do whatever I want in the class. With two classes we are going to do a letter exchange with students in the States, which should be cool.

Me making the hammock.

I’ve also been working a lot in the restaurant, tourist center project that we have going. There is still a lot of work to be done but we are really short on workers so I like to hang out there and see what I can help with. Also, I have been learning how to make a hammock and I work on it in the shade by the restaurant; another reason I spend a lot of time there. Yesterday I finished making my first hammock. The only part that is missing are what’s called the mangillos – the part with hooks so that you can hang the hammock. It’s a fun, stress-relieving activity.

The hammock almost finished

The pier in La Pirraya with three observation booths.

The women’s group is going well. In the last meeting we called about leadership and voted on forming a board with a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, etc. The women seemed pretty excited about that and we going to start raising money for the group. I have also been working a lot with the youth. We are trying to get them involved in the restaurant/tourist center project by teaching them how to make artisan crafts and selling their products at the local. To motivate the youth, last Saturday we went on a trip to an island in the Bahia, more than an hour boat ride away. It is at the mouth of the bay, where the bay and the ocean meet.

Us on the exchange trip to La Pirraya.

It’s beautiful there. The island is called the Pirraya and we visited a restaurant/tourist center on the island, which is similar to the one we have in Mendez, but thay have been functioning for almost three years. So we walked along, the beautiful, white sand beaches and collected a bunch of shells to make crafts with. The women at the restaurant gave us a information about how they got started, the challenges they faced, etc. It was a really cool experience. We also visited two women on the island that make artisan crafts with shells; to give the youth an idea. Then we went swimming. It was a fun day.

But man that island is way worse off than where I live. They don’t even have water. Since it’s an island they don’t have a water table. And even when rain water collects in the earth, it’s still all salty. They have to go to the nearest port to buy all of their water. And I mean all of their water…to drink, cook, wash, etc. That’s a lot of frigging water. It made me really thankful for having an abundance of water here in Mendez. It may not be the cleanest but at least it’s not salty.

Man skinning an eel.

But the majority of the people on the island are fishermen, of course. But more go fishing in the seam, since it’s really close. Not many people go fishing in the sea from my community because it’s a lot harder and takes longer. But fishermen from the island go out to catch a ton of eel. We went to the production line where they were skinning, cleaning and salting the eel meat. It was really cool.

A few weeks ago we went to liberate one of the last batches of baby turtles that were born in the vivero. They were a rare type that isn’t always found in El Salvador and that the locals call Galapagos but technically they aren’t Galapagos.

I am in love with baby turtles. They are the cutest things ever. And when you take them to the shore, they stic their little necks out to determine where the shore is and then they head off for the waves. It’s so neat to watch them.

Well, that’s about it for me. Hope all is well with everyone.

Hey guys hope all is going well with you. It hasn’t been too long since I posted my last blog but just thought I would fill you in on what’s going on.

In the past week or so I have been trying to stay busy and am planning out my next couple months of work. The new school year starts today so I will start working in the school and hopefully also in the Instituto (or high school). I haven’t figured out exactly what I’ll be doing but hopefully along the lines of English classes, Youth Development charlas and physical education.

So as I’ve explained in other blogs, the ADESCO, as part of a project, built a type if tourist center with a restaurant and hostels. Well I have been helping out there a lot, having meetings with the committee of the project, trying to help things move along and also working to see if we can get the youth of the community to participate as well. The vision is to finish some minor construction such as the shower and the pavement of the patios in front of the hostels as soon as possible. Also, we are going to buy a boat to give boat tours in the bay and also buy horses to pull a carriage in which tours will be given as well. To get the youth involved we would like to train them in how to run the boat tours and the horse carriage tours but also in how to make artesian crafts such as hammocks, jewelry, purses and paintings. We had a meeting with the youth and they seem interested, so I am really excited about it.

I have personally been learning how to make hammocks by hand. It’s really fun and not too hard. Well at first it is hard and hurts your fingers and your hand until you get the correct rhythm and positioning of the hand down. I have just been practicing but I hope to start my own soon. These puppies sell for $80 and they are so beautiful and soft. So get your orders and color preferences in and don’t worry I won’t charge you that much.

Oh my gosh I almost forgot the most exciting news of all. I finally had a baño built, a covered area where I can bathe without any clothes on. It is so nice. Before I would have to bath in shorts and a tank top, or at night at least in a bra and underwear in the dark. Man I was so excited when it was finished. It’s nothing fancy, just some sheets of lamina put up around the pila so I can scoop out water. But trust me this is a big development.

Yesterday a delegation of 14 grad students from the Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California came to visit my community. They are here in El Salvador for three weeks doing a sort of practicum. Their affiliate in the country is Asociacion Mangle, which is an NGO that works in the region. A woman from my community works with this organization so she always brings delegations to visit Mendez. At the restaurant we prepared lunch for them and in the afternoon we went to the beach. They are all really nice people, and one of them was a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia so I was talking to him a bit. It was a lot of fun. They might come back on Saturday to liberate some turtles so hopefully I’ll be able to join them for that as well.

Ok so I want to tell you about a guy in my community who is a really great guy, intelligent and he helps out a ton with the ADESCO and in all the projects. He has a lot of experience and is a good resource point. Well, his only problem is that about once every six weeks he gets drunk for an entire week. He is what he call a bolo here. So it’s pretty much routine that when he’s not drunk he’s all over the place getting tons of great work done and then he falls off the face of the earth for about a week. Its’s pretty weird but we all appreciate his great work so we put up with it. Well, with this new project (the tourist center) he has been really dedicated and doing a lot of work. I especially like working with him because he motivates the rest who aren’t always that motivated. But the problem is that he fell in love with the manager of the projects here in the community. She has been here for three years and is a good friend of mine. Well apparently before I got here they used to date, but I think due to his drinking problem they kind of stopped. Well, she hasn’t been here in a month, so he has been drunk for an entire month. He was drunk when I left for the states and still drunk when I got back. He was okay for like three days, but then he started drinking again. It’s really sad. He sits in the restaurant crying telling me that his heart has been broken and he really loved her and she doesn’t even come back. He even put on her necklace, bracelet, watch and underwear. YES underwear. And all day long he listens to hilariously sappy romantic songs. I feel so bad for him and wish I could help but I just don’t know what to do other than tell him to stop drinking but he doesn’t listen to anyone. It’s frustrating for many reasons: not as much work gets done when he’s all drunk; he comes around the restaurant and scares away customers which is really bad; and he’s killing himself by drinking so much. Any advice?

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2008!!!!

Man I can’t believe it’s already a new year. It’s been an interesting one that’s for sure and I’m beginning a new one here in El Salvador – let’s see how it goes.

Anyways, as most or maybe all of you know I went home for Christmas for almost 2 weeks and it was wonderful. I was really nervous to go home cuz I thought it would be weird or that a lot of things might have changed since I had left but everything was perfect and not much had changed. Well nothing too horribly drastic at least. I had a wonderful time at home and was able to spend the majority of it with my family and my friends. My friend Karen, from Cincinnati came out to visit which was awesome, saw a lot of my cousins and the family. I would just like to say that I LOVE my family, even though they may be crazy and overwhelming at times, they are my family and I love them.

To say the least, it was very hard to return to El Salvador. All the small luxuries of home that I probably took for granted before but now it’s an awesome thing. Like a nice bathroom, a warm shower, movies, throwing your toilet paper in the toilet and not in a waste basket, good food, the internet at my hands at all times, a car, going to starbucks, going shopping. I mean I can do a lot of that here but it’s limited and even the bathrooms in the capital are nasty. Plus, it’s hard coming back to a place where you have no family and even you’re friends you’re not really sure if you can trust them 100%. But only god knows how I mustered the strength to get on the plane and come back here. I have to say that it wasn’t without tears.

The thing that helped was that I spend the 30th, my first day back, in the capital with my friend Alex. We went shopping and to the zoo and just hung out all day. That was awesome. And it helped a lot but I think made it harder going back to my site.

I arrived in the afternoon on the 31st and just dropped off my bags and went straight to my grandma’s house. I hung out there for a bit and visited with some other neighbors and friends and then went to attempt to start cleaning my extremely filthy house. It must have had about an inch of dust on every surface. Found some spiders and two bats had temporarily taken up residence in my house.

New Year’s Eve was pretty fun but I was really tired. It was nice because there were tons of people in the street all night, when normally the streets are deserted about 8pm. My friend Isamar put on some music outside and a bunch of people came to dance. I kind of wandered around house to house talking with friends and their families. It’s cool cuz everyone makes a lot of food and when you go to someone’s house they offer you a sandwich, food and or a drink. So that was nice.

All throughout the night fireworks are going off and at midnight everyone walks around giving each other New Years’ Hugs, which is cool, just NOT when weird people you hardly know come up to give you a hug, but I tried my best to keep that to a minimum.

On New Year’s Day everyone and their aunt goes to the beach so that’s what I did too. Went and just hung out a few hours and then came home to clean more of my house. I’ve been cleaning and rearranging for about four days now and I think I’m almost finished.

It has been crazy windy here and it’s really annoying because shit is always flying in my eyes. That and it is impossible to keep my house clean. If the doors and windows are open all this dust flies in and it covers everything. I even feel like I’m eating dust. And if you try to sweep the dust out of your house it all just blows right back in. The only good thing is is that you don’t feel the heat as much when it’s so windy. That I’m thankful for because without the wind it would still be 95 degrees.

Anyways, not much else going on so far other than hanging out with people. I need to figure out what I’m going to start working on. Next week I’ll have a meeting with my women’s group and maybe do something with the youth group.

Well, I hope you all had a wonderful new year’s. And all of your new years’ resolutions should be to come visit me. HAHAHA.

Adios

Monica and Alison

Ok, I know I have been so so so so lame at keeping this thing updated but everytime I went to the internet café it was unplanned and I didn’t have enough time to type up the entry so this post is gonna have stories for about a month’s worth of stuff. Hope you enjoy…that is if you finish reading it all.

The kids at the graduation!

Ok so in the beginning of November the school had it’s graduation for the kinder and ninth grade. Gosh the graduations here are really long and boring but I went because one of the kids from my host family and some other niños were graduating from kinder and a few friends, including Isamar, from ninth grade.

On November 15th, me and two friends from my community went to see MANA in San Salvador, and all I can say is that it was AMAZING! It was at one of the soccer stadiums and they put on a great show…they played for over 2 hours. We were all blown away.

Me and Moncho at the Mana concert!

On November 17th I went to a neighboring community at the end of the peninsula where another volunteer, Teresa, works. They were having a cultural festival so I went along with two other volunteers and the director of the Health Program. It was fun…they gave a small presentation and we sat at the table of honor. Later that night they had a dance and me and my friend Tania went. And the next day Tania and I went to a water park which was so much fun! There is this crazy waterslide there…like none I’ve ever seen before. First there is a huge free-fall….then you come back up, go around a bend, drop again, and again, and into the pool. It was pretty intense.

On November 19th, which was my birthday as some of you may or may not know, there was a huge party in the high school – Instituto Nacional Pablo Tesak. And no the party wasn’t for me. They are going to build a huge tourist center across the street from the high school so the event was to lay the first brick of the tourist center. The president of El Salvador, good ‘ol Tony Saca, came to lay the first brick and tell everyone that they are going to pave the main street that goes through the peninsula.Me and Teresa.

That’s a promise that’s been in the making for a few years so we’ll see if they really live up to it like he says. Hopefully because that street sure is ugly in the winter….remember how it got washed away? Yeah.

So the president came to give a speech and that was all wupdy-doo….then they had soccer tournaments all morning and into the afternoon and one of the teams from Mendez actually won first place.

Me and the lead singer of Formula NorteñaIn the afternoon they had a rodeo which was really cool and a norteña band played and they were great. My friend Tania and I love this kind of music so we were up in front taking pics and enjoying the music when the lead singer sees me and makes some comment about the gringa in the audience with the beautiful blue eyes and he invited me to dance. I really wanted to dance because dancing to banda music is really fun so even though I didn’t want to get up on the stage, I went anyways. First I danced with the DJ of the musica norteña radio station, Quique Nuñex, who is so hot and then I danced with the lead singer.It was so fun. According to all my friends, these guys invited me to dance first thinking that I wouldn’t have the guts and second thinking that I didn’t know how to dance to this kind of music, so everyone said they were really shocked. Cuz I tell people I can dance but few have seen me dance. When I left the stage the lead singer sat down all exhausted looking and said something like, “I don’t know if I’m shocked or in-love.” It was really funny and then the rest of the afternoon, everyone was making comments about me dancing. That night they had a dance to finish up the party so I went to that which was really fun.

Me and Quique Nuñez

For Thanksgiving, a bunch of my peace corps friends and I went into the capital. Peace Corps asks families of the Embassy to host volunteers for Thanksgiving dinner so that’s what we did although we didn’t get matched up with an Embassy family, but rather a family that teaches at the British School. The woman is American and actually was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa in the nineties and she is married to a Brit who teaches at the British School in San Salvador. So me, along with 9 other volunteers shared Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of Brits that work at the British school – it was really fun. And there was so many good desserts. I think there were more desserts than there was food. It was awesome…just the way it should be.

On November 24th, I went with some Peace Corps friends to San Miguel to go to the annual Carnaval that they celebrate there. Apparently it’s like the second biggest after the Carnaval they do in Brazil. They had a parade, which was cool, and music groups spread throughout the city so we walked around all night watching the bands. But man there were so many people there, it was insane.

That was pretty much the last exciting thing I did because on November 20th we started summer classes in the school and I was teaching there. I was giving two classes. Three days a week I gave charlas on different topics like self-esteem, values, sexuality, communication and sex-ed. And the other two days we did drama classes. It went pretty well although it was frustrating working with the younger kids. Other than that I’ve been having my women’s group meetings every two weeks. We’ve had four so far and we’re going pretty well I think. I’ve given charlas on stress, self-esteem, communication and nutrition so far. I try to make the meetings fun and interesting and I think for the most part the women enjoy the meetings. It lets them get out of the house and escape for an hour or so. For that alone I think they appreciate the meetings. I hope we can keep attendance up so we can start some kind of income generating project next year.

Other than that I’ve been hanging out a lot at the new restaurant that is part of the ADESCO. Slowly but surely it is lifting off the ground. Hopefully it doesn’t crash and burn. I would like to do a lot of advertising for it and am hoping to create a website for the local over break.

Last Tuesday I went to a youth event at a water park with some of the youth in my community. It was really fun. In the morning we had a training and after lunch we all went swimming and we were all dancing in the bus on the way home. I love the youth from my community – they are crazy but fun. Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling well that day and only got sicker as the night went by. I thought I was going to die in the night, all alone in my little house. I had a fever, really bad body pains especially in my back, a headache, and crazy diarrhea. I called the doc in the middle of the night but there isn’t much he could have done so Wednesday morning I headed to the doc. Luckily my friends’ uncle was going to the capital so I went with him and I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a bacteria infection and amoebas. WOOHOO!!!! My first intestinal problem since I’ve been in this country. I guess it had to happen sooner or later but having gone ten months without being sick like this I thought it might never happen. But I think I just ate something bad that gave me the bacterial infection and they discovered that I also had amoebas, which were probably already there just not bothering me. But I’m on meds now, and finally feeling a little better.

Me and Isa

Yesterday, as going-away party, my friend Alfredo took me and his nephew and niece, Marlon and Isamar, for a little trip to the end of the peninsula. We went to the beach and went swimming and it was really beautiful and so much fun. And we drove along the beach which was really cool, but on the way back we got stuck in the sand and then the four-wheel-drive busted and he were stranded. But Don Alejandro came to our rescue, but Alfredo has to get his car fixed. But it was a fun day. Alfredo is the son of Mama Nene, who is pretty much my grandma here in El Salvador. That family is like my family…they take good care of me and I love them so much.

Me and Alfredo by the car stuck in the sand!

I have been wanting to go home for so long, but it was really hard saying good-byes, even though I’ll only be gone two weeks. Who knows…it’s totally bittersweet. But I’m looking forward to spending time with friends and family in the states.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Me and my Christmas Tree (it's a fake).

FELIZ NAVIDAD

Hello....so this is going to be a short but sweet entry.

On Tuesday we had another Campana de Limpieza....a Trash Pick-up. It went pretty well although it wasn't as well planned as last time or the same amount of participation. But we cleaned up the public areas of the community pretty well.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so with me being such a halloween lover, there was no way i could pass up this wonderful holiday without celebrating, even if it meant risking looking like a freak.

so i held a party for my friends and at first i didn't think anyone was going to come cuz they were all complaining that they didn't have anything to wear but in the end it all worked out and my friends really got into it! It was a blast!

We were all dressed up, listening to music, eating and instead of carving pumpkins, because I couldn't find any, we drew jack-o-lantern faces on orange balloons. And then, we all piled into the bed of my friends truck and drove through town screaming "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" and throwing candy to everyone we passed. It was really fun! And driving around in my friend's truck reminded me of how my dad used to drive us around the neighborhood in uncle george's tractor. good times good times! I hope everyone had a delightfully fun halloween.

Hey guys,

So have you heard anything about El Salvador in the news? I’m gonna guess no. But man we have had two weeks of horrendous tropical rainstorms where it rains for days on out without stopping. It has been miserable and it has put my community in dire straits.

Ok, so the last time I posted I told you about how there was supposed to be a big huge party at the Instituto with rodeo and everything and the president of El Salvador was going to come, but that it got canceled due to rain. So it rained all that day, Oct. 12, and the next. It was a miracle that the bus actually made it out of the community and back on Saturday, Oct. 13th. The bus was driving through flooded streets where the water reached the second step of the bus, about three feet deep of water. I was worried we were going to get stuck and then we’d all have to walk in the nasty dirty water.

A house, flooded with water. Thank goodness that didn't happen to my house.

Upon returning to Mendez, we came to a point where there was a big crack in the road and a few cars were stuck in the mud there, so we pulled them out with the bus. Well by the end of the day, that crack turned into at least a twenty-foot wide hole. Basically the road split in half and there was a river running through the middle of it. From the street level to the water level it was about three feet and if you were in the water in the hole it was chest deep. It was insane, to say the least. There was so much water flowing through this river I couldn’t believe it.

The river of water flooding out of the fields that swept the street away

The water came from all the fields on the up side of the peninsula and drained into the bay, where it had found a small canyon; but since there was so much water, it took the whole street with it as well. So that became the event of the week. The whole week people were going to “the hole” to check it out, watch it get bigger, debate about how they were going to fix it, and watch as they tried to fill the whole and divert the flow of water. What they ended up doing was putting down big huge boulders and two big tubes so that the water could still filter through and into the bay. Then on top of that they laid smaller rocks and sand. Eventually it looked like a dam, except that the tubes allowed for the water to flow through the bottom.

The giant hole in the street.

So Saturday, Oct. 13th is when the street fell apart and by Monday, they had started bringing rocks to fill the hole, newspapers and television stations were there to report on what was going on, and you could see me in one of the news reports, and apparently in a photo in the newspaper, but I never was able to get a copy of the picture….DAMNIT! Anyways, so it kept raining but not as hard.

The street flooded with water.

However, in other parts of the peninsula the roads were even worse, which I can’t even imagine. But on Wednesday, Oct. 17th, in the evening, the big huge trucks that were bringing the rocks to fill the hole in the street, got stuck in a huge mud puddle farther up the road, which in turn created a huge traffic jam, because no one coming into or leaving the peninsula could leave. These poor people, friends of mine included, ended up sitting there until 2am, until the trucks were pulled free by tractors. With the hole in the street and the roads still really messed up the buses didn’t leave for more than a week, people couldn’t get to town to buy and few cars selling anywhere from produce, to soda to bread could enter.

The beginning of what it looked like when they started throwing in boulders and then dirt to lift the road back up again.

So on the Monday when they started filling the hole with rocks is when I went to check out the hole with a few friends. We went on our bikes but there came a point when we couldn’t pass anymore so we got down and started walking. But I didn’t want to walk in the dirty water, because it’s really common for people to get fungus or growths on their legs and feet, or on any body part that comes into contact with the water. I mean cows, horses, pigs and who knows what other types of animals walk through, swim through these waters and poop in it and everything. So I was trying to walk on the edge of the street where there was some grass but then all these ants starting biting me, and these ants bite really, really hard. I was screaming it hurt so bad and I had no other choice but to run into the water. And on the way back I was standing on one side of a huge puddle trying to figure out the best way to cross without getting too wet and three cars full of people passed by and all offered me a ride because I’m sure it looked like I was terrified to step into the water. But I returned on my bike and then washed my feet with bleach to kill all the bacteria that could have possibly touched my skin. YUCK.

The river continued to carve more out of the street as they started filling the hole with boulders.

So the rains lightened up and by the end of last week the street was finally fixed, temporarily. But on Saturday night, the 20th, it started raining again and didn’t stop until Monday morning. Once again the streets were flooded and the water was practically overflowing the makeshift “bridge” they had build to cover the hole in the street. On Monday I went to Instituto for a meeting and we drove through puddles that reached up to the seat of the car…a good three feet deep. And once, we got stuck, so we tied a horse to the car and it pulled us free. So crazy….I’d didn’t think it was going to work, but damn horses are really strong. And then when we crossed “bridge” where the whole was, it was all muddy, earlier that morning one of the buses got stuck there and made a huge whole trying to get out, so when we crossed I thought we were going to crash off the side and into the water.

The road now that the rain has stopped and they have widened it a bit. But at the beginning of the week the road bridging the water was only wide enough for a car to pass.

The students that go to the Instituto could only be driven until a certain point and then they had to walk the rest of the way, through knee deep puddles of dirty, black water. There are two streets in the community that completely flood, which means all the houses on those streets flood as well. Inside their homes, people were walking through a foot of water. And there are SO many mosquitoes here it’s not even funny. And my fan broke so I can’t use it to try and keep them away. What people do is smoke out their house with burning coals mixed with this stuff that smells and is supposed to kill the mosquitoes. But ouch it hurts when they bite you. I’m so ready for the rain to stop and the mosquitoes to go away. Anyone want to come visit me right now? hahah yeah right.

Where they re-built the street.

The tube under the rocks t hat funnels thew water out of the upper part so it can drain, eventually into the bay.

There’s also another problem. About 100-150 families in my community rely on curriles, which is a type of shellfish here, for their income. It’s very hard work because this shellfish burrows into the mud in the mangroves and the people go digging and tromping through the mud to collect these shellfish. But rain water kills these shellfish, so they either die, or they burrow about two feet down into the mud, making it practically impossible to collect them. It has been consistently raining for about 15 days now, which means that the majority of these people who usually go to collect shellfish now have no source, or a significantly smaller course of income. On average, a person can collect between $4-10 daily of shellfish, but right now no one is able to collect more than $2 worth and that almost isn’t worth going to work for 8 hours. So all these families are short on food and what’s worse is that the stores in town have been raising the prices since accessibility to the pueblo to buy or for cars to enter Mendez to sell has become so difficult. The situation is really messed up and I was talking with a group of people the other day, the majority of whom go to collect shellfish and it came to my attention how desperate these people are. So right now I am in the process of soliciting help from The World Food Program to have them come and give out food. But if that goes through, here is a warning: I will be asking everyone I know and churches in the States for money so I can go buy the food.

Anyways, I guess that’s all that’s really going on. We were supposed to have another trash campaign but with all the rain and the street inaccessible, it’s been pushed back until this Tuesday. Hopefully it doesn’t rain.

The inside of my house. But I'm thinking of moving to another place that's bigger, nicer, has a bathroom and a place to bathe, is closer to people and probably isn't over'populated with spiders.

My back yard.

Mexico:

Hola…so I just got back from Mexico, well actually a week ago I got back to El Salvador and man has it been hard coming back. I don’t even want to think how much harder it will be coming back here from the States when I go for Christmas.

So if you know anything about me, it’s that I love Mexico! After studying a summer there, I absolutely fell in love with Mexico and had forgotten just how much I loved it. I so should have taken this trip earlier, but better late than never, right? And yeah I still love Mexico. I kind of feel bad saying this, but it’s a million times better than El Salvador. The culture is so much richer, the people are much more friendly, the food is a million times mas rico, the beauty of the country, and the clouds in Mexico are so beautiful. I know clouds are clouds everywhere….but I had forgotten just how much more beautiful they are in Mexico.

So I went to visit my friend Jorge, who I met while I was studying in Queretaro. It was great to see him and his family again…he has such an awesome family. Pretty much I just hung out with Jorge and his family the whole time, which was fine by me. Four days Jorge and I went to the beach in Nuevo Vallarta. I also got to see my host mom and host brother with whom I stayed while I was studying here. It was great to see them as well. Also, my friend Jess from Cincinnati is living and working on co-op in Queretaro so we met up one night in El Centro and chatted. I had a great time and it was so nice to see the people that touched my life in Mexico. I wish I could be doing Peace Corps in Mexico, but the only Peace Corps programs they have in Mexico are business and IT programs.

Anyways, so there was supposed to be a fiesta at the Instituto yesterday with soccer tournaments, rodeo and the President of the Republica, Tony Saca, was gonna come. But it had been raining all night, and the in the morning when we were getting ready to leave it was still pouring. Kids from the school took shelter in front of my house for about 2 hours before we were told that everything had been canceled because of the rain. And water was about to enter my house so I built a little sand wall around the front of my house. But it has been raining for more than 24 hours straight, the power is out and it is so boring. Worse, I washed clothes three days ago but because it’s been raining so much they haven’t dried so I have almost all of my clothes and sheets wet. The streets are all flooded and the road into my town is one giant trench full of water, I didn’t think the bus would be able to pass through it this morning but it did. I am living in a swamp! Yay!

Ok, another tarantula story. So Sunday night I was sitting in my hammock talking on the phone with my sister and I got up to throw something away and there on the wall, above the stove was a huge tarantula! I gasped and my sister asked what was wrong. “There’s a tarantula in my house I’ll have to call you back.” So I take a good look at it, determine there is nothing I can do because it’s huge and if I try to knock it off the wall it’ll just fall on the table and be a disaster, so what do I do? I call my neighbor who lives down the street and had just left about 45 minutes earlier. He answers the phone and asks what’s up. “There’s a tarantula in my house. Can you come and kill it? PLEASE!!!!,” I say. And he says, ”No, I just got into bed and am about ready to go to sleep. Just kill it.”

“I can’t!,” I reply.

“Yes you can.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Use the broom and kill it.”

“I can’t cuz it’s on the wall and it’ll fall on the table.”

“Just leave it there then.”

“Yeah right cuz I’ll be able to sleep knowing there is a ginormous spider on my wall.”

So I really didn’t think he was going to come, but practically on the verge of tears, I ask him one last time to come, and he says, “Oh, alright.”

So he comes over and kills the spider and all these guts spill out everywhere and I’m still freaking out. And he says, “I was debating whether or not to come. I thought: do I not go, make her take care of the spider and thus help her get over her fear. Or will she think I’m a really bad person? Ok, I’ll go.”

And thank god because who knows what I would have done. I mean if it was on the floor I could just sweep it out the door but it was on the wall right above the stove in such an inopportune place.

Hey guys, not much new going on here except that huge, ginormous RATS have decided to take up residency in my house. First offense: they ate my cookies. And if you know me you know that is just a huge SIN! Yes sin! Then they ate my bread, yet another sin. I repeat Sin. Bread and cookies are two of my favorite foods. Freaking bastards. So I have safely containered all my food and the stupid rats decide to eat the paper of the side of a canioster of rice. UGH!!!!! Why is my house plaugued...it's like every week something different. And these rats are huge, I mean like small kitten or puppy style no joke.

I think that's about it other than the fact that my feet have been eaten alive by mosquitos. You can't see skin, it's just all mosquito bites. Yeah really attractive. It looks like I have some kind og disease.

Tomorrow I'm going to Mexico for vacation for a week. WOOHOO! So stay tuned for pics and stories of my adventures in Mexico.

The THIRD tarantula that has invaded my space. This one came crawling out from underneath the bed on a night when there was no electricity! Thank god my friend was there to kill the stupid thing. They are HUGE!!!!!!

A gigundo cockroach squished DEAD! MUAHAHAHAHAHA

And the scorpion squished DEAD! Yeah that's right.

One of the many scorpions I have come upon in my room.

My teenie-bopper moment with Axe Bahia

Me with the futbol team! Go team. Oh we won last week and we're playing again on Sunday!

Okay so I forgot to mention this in my other blog but a week ago Monday, in the evening I went to the ADESCO to judge some paintings for a contest and I forgot my keys in my house. I realized once we were leaving the ADESCO so the doctor, the two licenciadas, Grisleda, another woman from the ADESCO and one of the policemen that works in my community all came to my house to see how we could get in. Well we did that the option of just breaking the lock that was on the door, but instead we tried to get the keys out. I always hang my keys on a nail by the door and since there is a space in between the walls and the ceiling, we lifted up Rocio and here stick a piece of wire through the space to unhook the keys. Well they fell on the floor but then we didn’t have anything long enough to get them and drag them under the door. So we go to the other side of the house where the roof is a little lower and the policeman and the doctor lift a few tiles off the roof, stick in the metal bar and un hook the window. God I felt like an idiot but it was really funny trying to get the keys out.

Practice makes perfect!I don’t know if I mentioned this in my previous blog entry but last week, for four days, I was at an HIV/AIDS training sponsored by the Peace Corps with about 25 other volunteers and counterparts from their communities. I invited two young women to come along, one is my friend Tania and the super awesome and active youth from my community and the other, named Eugenia, works in maternal and children’s health here in the community as part of the Ministry of Health. The training took place in San Miguel, the second or third largest city in the country. We had a variety of speeches and interactive learning opportunities and then one day we split up in to groups and went to local schools to give a three hour workshop on HIV/AIDS. It was really fun. There was a male youth, another volunteer, a doctor and a science teacher in my group and we have a presentation to a group of 30 students in 6th-9th grades. It was really fun. I have a speech about how HIV is transmitted, and just as important, how it ISN’T transmitted. We also did all these interactive, game type of activities to get the kids up and moving and npt just sitting there bored and being lectured at. At the HIV charla...the Super Condom station.

Me and the guy in our group, Samuel, we did the condom station, called “Super Condom.” And yes we taught kids the proper use of a condom and we practiced on a cucumber. It was hilarious. But most of the kids were cool about it. It was a long and tiresome, but very fulfilling and rewarding week. And I can’t wait to get started on HIV/AIDS training here in my community.

Last Saturday, there was a beach event put on my an organization that does work with the youth in the region of the peninsula, so me and 11 other youth from my community and about 60 youth from other communities went to the beach, had lunch and just hung out all day. It was fun.

The restaurant and hostels!

Okay, so there is a huge project just finishing up in my community. An NGO, that actually gets funds from the states, sponsored a project to build a restaurant, hostels and a new ADESCO office here in the community, to be managed by the youth. Well the project has officially ended and we had to do the presentation of the end of the project, but of course the restaurant and the site wasn’t finished yet. So I helped for two three really long days to help get everything ready. We had to level the group outside the restaurant (with all manual tools), lay brick down on the floor of the restaurant, put up palm and a bunch of other things. So Tuesday night we were there working until 9:30pm and I thought I was gonna die. I haven’t done that much physical labor in a while. But it was goo for me even though my leg is still killing and my hands are peeling and have blisters from cementing the bricks. But all in all it was really fun working with everyone and even more so that everything paid off in the end. The place looked great, although it is still lacking a lot of work.

Carrying the turtles to the shoreline.

So yesterday a bunch of people from all these different organizations and the local schools, even the news station came out. There was a presentation of the project and then we went to the beach to liberate baby turtles that had just hatched. OMG it was the most beautiful thing ever. First of all the turtles are so adorable, tiny and black as black can be. They are so beautiful. With kids from the school we liberated 700 baby turtles and watched until they all got taken out to sea by the waves. It’s such a crazy thing how these tiny creatures are expected to fend for themselves from the second they come into the world.

The event.

So here’s how it works, the mama turtle comes to the beach at night (turtle season is june-october) to lay her eggs. She crawls up the sand, digs a hole and lays anywhere from 75-200 eggs. Since turtle eggs sell really well here, tons of people are at the beach at night to wait and find a turtle, wait till she lays her eggs and leaves and then dig up the eggs and sell them. The vivero

But what the ADESCO has done is built a vivero where the tortugueros can sell the eggs, the eggs are then reburied and monitored and then the turtles are liberated when they’re born. But these poor little babies they just get swept away by the waves and a great number don’t even make it that first day…they get crushed by the waves or eaten by predators. But those that do survive will eventually come back to this beach to lay their eggs. It’s so miraculous. And it really is like Crush says in Finding Nemo: “Coo-ku-ka-chu and they find their way back to the big bad blue.” That movie is so spot on with how turtles are. And I so wish I had the movie here to watch it.

This Saturday is El Salvador’s Independence Day so all this week at the school they have been doing presentations and let me tell you that the national anthem of El Salvador is so so beautiful. Saturday there are going to have a parade with a band and another presentation…I’m looking forward to it cuz I think it’ss be fun.

Other than that I am getting eaten alive by motherfucking mosquitoes. This is just out of control. Well, until next time. Hope you enjoy all the photos. Leave me a post.

Me holding a baby turtle. Oh how I wanted to take it home with me.

A tub full of beautiful baby turtles

Freed turtles!

Okay I forgot my camera cord so this entry is missing some awesome pics but I'll post them next time. So check back again.

Alright so it’s been a while since the last time I posted but when I used the internet last week I didn’t have enough time to write up a blog entry. So this one is pretty long cuz lots of stuff has heappened and I have some funny stories that I hope you’ll enjoy and yes you can laugh at all of them even if I wasn’t laughing at the time. But I can now…it’s always good to be able to laugh about the crap that goes on in one’s life.

So the week training with the other volunteers of the Rural Health and Sanitation Program went well although it was really cold but it was nice to be in the company of other gringos for a while and catch up with friends I hadn’t seen in four months. After the training I stayed in the capital for two nights to catch up on some computer work and just hang. I went to see this really awesome band at this place called La Luna that is so chill and totally my kind of place and has some of the best salsa in town. For those of you how are familiar with the artist Fernando Delgadillo (which I think Fatemeh is the only one) the band I went to see was very similar to his sound and still only fuller. They even covered one of his songs actually.

Anyways, after getting back to my site I made the big move out of my family’s house and into the little brick house (room really cuz it is just a room). It was a good feeling but also really weird leaving La Punta, the side of town I had been living on and was so familiar and happy with. I went to town with two friends, Henry and Griselda, and bought a fridge, a dresser, and a bunch of kitchen and house stuff. And the next day I moved all my other stuff in and fixed up the room. It looks good…I really like it. I mean it’s small but just for one person it’s suitable.

So there are a lot of scorpions in the house partly because no one was living in it before me and so it wasn’t cleaned very often but also because there are a lot of trees and plants around the house…breeding grounds and home to lots of stuff like scorpions, lizards, snakes, spiders, etc. Anyways, I’m becoming a pro at killing scorpions…I’ve probably killed about ten these first two weeks in the house. They like to hide behind things that lean against the wall, like the mirror or a bag you have propped up against the wall…where it’s dark. Anyways, one was behind my backpack the other night and so I took a pic of it and then whacked it with my shoe. Well it didn’t even do anything, the stupid thing ran away with it’s pinchers flared and it’s tail up ready for the attack. So it ran into the corner behind my dresser, and since I had found a scorpion in my bed just that morning I thought it better to search the thing out a kill it before it made it’s way into my bed to sting the hell out of me. So I was able to get it out and with three whacks of my shoe it was nice a dead, as this picture shows. But I’ll tell you these scorpions are vicious because it always takes more than just one whack of my shoe to kill the damn things.

Ok so I think it was my second night in my house, about 6pm in the evening, and I was sweeping the ceiling because it’s made of woo bars and tiles so it’s really dusty and full of leaves and cobwebs and shit. So I’m sweeping in the corner of the room and when I turn around there is a curled up tarantula on the floor, yes I said TARANTULA! So I gasp but since it was curled up I freaking thought it was dead and with one sweep of the broom I woosh it outside and it stays there all curled up and dead. Breathing hard, I ponder…what do I do now? Now what would you do in this case. Some of you maybe nothing cuz it’s dead, others step on it to double check that it’s dead, others maybe run screaming out of the house. Well what I did was text my friend Henry. And he was like well what the hell do you want me to do. Well, duh, come to my house I said. The thing is I wanted to hang up my mosquito net but now knowing that there were tarantulas falling from the freaking ceiling I was afraid. (Oh and for those of you who don’t know…I’m deathly afraid of spiders. Ask my dad. On many occasions I have broken down crying just at the sight of the things. But I would like to proudly say that my tolerance for spiders has tremendously increased since I’ve arrived in Mendez because the huge spiders that were in my room in my family’s house used to freak me out. But by month three or four I would just scare them away. No big deal. But we’re talking about tarantulas here…big, black, hairy tarantulas.) So while I’m waiting for Henry to arrive I check the dead spider outside and continue sweeping the ceiling and what do I find but ANOTHER tarantula! CREES? It’s was up on one of the wooden bars that goes across the ceiling, just sitting waiting there like it was ready to pounce. So I stand there starring at the spider to make sure it doesn’t run away. So Henry gets there and pokes the dead spider with the broom, but on no, it’s not dead, it had just been playing dead for the last ten minutes. So he grabs a brick and kills it and then knocks down the other one and kills it too while I stand way far away on the verge of crying and vomiting at the same time. But thank goodness I haven’t had any more furry visitors thus far.

Alright moving on to the next story. So the third night in my house my friends Wendy, Isa and Henry came over to hang out and we were beginning to play a game when Wendy and Isa saw something strange outside so we all go to the window to see and it’s this guy with a huge sheet over his head like a cape so the only body part exposed is the face (I know this sounds weird like Halloween or something but I’m serious.) So the guy is walking in the street in front of the house and slowly, like creepy slowly, he begins to turn his head to look at the house and all my friends scream and slam the windows and door shut. I need to mention that Salvadorans are really superstitious. They believe in all these ghost stories, witchcraft, bad spirits, etc. So my friends thought it could have been some phantom o no se que. So we’re all freaked out and peeking out at the street through the crack at the bottom of the window and the guy passes by again walking back the other way. And again he creepily and slowly turns his head to look at the house but instead of waiting so we could see his face my friends scream again and try to open the window so we didn’t see his face. My friends are all freaked out and saying that they don’t want to leave to go home nor do they want to leave me in the house alone so they call their grandmas to let them know the situation and we start to cook dinner and we hear things hitting the house. The asshole is throwing stuff at the house and then starts knocking and scratching at the door. So I called my neighbor who is one of my counterparts and the president of the ADESCO. He tells me he’ll check it out but he never comes to the house, but the guy stopped bothering us. In the morning I tell another neighbor about it and he says that his wife also saw the guy and that it’s just an idiot who gets drunk and high sometimes and does stupid shit. What a freaking idiot.

Okay so we are in the heart of turtle season, meaning that tons of turtles and laying their eggs right now so one night the ministry of the environment declared a VEDA, which is when all the eggs collected on the beach that night have to be donated to the vivero so that they can hatch. So I went and walked the beach for more than three hours looking for turtles with other tortugeros, Griselda and two kids. We had fun but we didn’t find any turtles. None came out to lay eggs. I was so disappointed because I really wanted to see a turtle. But I’ll just have to go again.

Now for my teen-bopper moment….There is this music group called Axé Bahia that has a dance/music television show on primetime every night of the week and on Saturday evenings they have live concerts in different locations all over the country and they televise it. Yeah it’s kinda weird…So Jiquilisco (the municipio that Mendez is a part of) had it’s patronal festivals last week and to kick off the festivities Axe Bahia came to perform so I went with some friends and it was fun. I wanted to go up on the stage and dance with them cuz I know some of their dance moves (not like they’re that hard). But I got there a little late and they had already invited people up on the stage. But yeah that was teenie-bopper moment. And one of the guys in the group is so cute, and has such a beautiful ass, mind you he’s probably gay, but I just choose to overlook that.

Now for the medical issues. After going to the beach that one night my left big toe started hurting and it only kept getting worse. Last Monday it was getting pretty red and swollen so I showed it to my friend Veronica and she was like well you have an ingrown toenail. SO she cut some of the toenail out and told me to wash it well and take some pain killers. Well Tuesday it was worse and I could hardly teach my exercise class. It hurt to walk. So Wednesday I went to the clinica to see what the doctor had to say about it and he was like well we should really cut some of the nail out but if you don’t do that just rest it, don’t walk, take antibiotics for the infection and painkillers for the pain and if it’s still hurting by Saturday come back. Well technically for all medical issues we have to go to the capital to consult the Peace Corps medical staff, so I sucked it up and called them because I was really worried about my toe and didn’t want it to get worse. Thursday I go to the medical staff and they’re like oh it’s not that bad there is hardly an nail in there. So they cut some more nail out, clean it out really well and jam cotton in between the nail and the skin because my cuticle and the skin around the nail was so red and inflamed it hurt to have it touching the nail. I go back in them morning and they do the same. Only the dumb nurse was like oh look, there is still another piece of nail. And I’m thinking well I fucking hope she gets it all out or else it’s never gonna heal and I’m just going to have to come back here. So she takes the nail out, it’s all bleeding, and I’m gripping my leg to restrain myself from punching her in the face because it hurts so badly. So I go back to my site with my toe all bandaged up thinking that it would get better. But no, it gets at least THREE TIMES WORSE!!!!!!!! Yes worse! And on top ot that my stomach starts hurting and leaves me doubled over in pain half the day. Saturday night I called my friend crying because it hurt to badly to clean it myself so I popped 800mg of Ibuprofen and cleaned it out. Sunday night it was even worse so I started taking antibiotics for the infection because it was so red, inflamed, bleeding and pussing. The dumb nurses at peace corps didn’t even give me antibiotics – they were like oh no it’s not infected. Hello! Yes it was. So just this past Monday it starts feeling better but I go back to the clinica and the doctor cleans it out again, some of the swelling has gone down and he gave me meds for both the toe and the stomach pains. And now, Thursday, my ingrown toenail is almost all better and my stomach no longer hurts. But seriously, I was feeling like such shit and so worried that my toe was gonna get really infected and that I was going to get gangrene or something crazy and have to get my toe cut off. But no, all is well.

In Mendez there are three men’s futbol teams, one of which is one a higher level and almost won first place in the entire state last year. Well the season is starting up again and it is tradition to have a madrina (like a godmother) or a reina (queen) of the team that gifts a soccer ball to the team and goes to their games and such. The team, Navigacion y Pesca, invited me to be their madrina. All the guys on the team are really nice and I’m friends with some of them so I figured, heck why not, it’ll be fun and I’ll be able to make better friends with these guys and go to their soccer games for free. Last Sunday was the inauguration of the teams in the area and a small tournament. It was really fun. We had a small parade, I presented the ball to the team and we hung and watched games. Unfortunately they lost the first game so they didn’t advance but this Sunday is the first real game in which they start gaining points.

Alright so I think that’s about it. Anyone make it this far down? I hope so cuz some of the stories, well in my opinion were really funny. Right now I’m at an HIV/AIDS training with two gals from my community. One of them is a nurse in Maternal and Children’s Health and the other is my friend and awesome joven, Tania.

The old Cooperative de Limon. It used to be this huge hacienda but all the associates of the cooperative sold everything and this is all that’s left – the offices and the ranch, but they’re going to sell this piece of land along with 52 manzanas that are outside of the community and bordering the beach, for only $100,000. Dad, you should totally buy it!!!

Another shot of the main street in Mendez.

The health clinic

My host family’s house

Looking down the street from in front of my house

The school.

The house I’m going to be moving into

One of the three soccer fields in Mendez.

Alright, let’s see what’s new. Not too much I don’t think. The last time I blogged it was during a holiday. The first week of August is the feast day of San Salvador (I think) so they have the week off. I used the free time to really crack down on my census and got a lot done but unfortunately I also got really sick so that kind of killed my census run. I got the flu, which is really common here, I’ve already had it like three times. It’s a head cold and usually comes with a nasty cough. I got the flu with the bad cough my first month here in Mendez, but this time it was more just sinus and minus the cough. But it was actually worse because it turned into a sinus infection and I thought I was going to die. It felt like someone was ripping out my sinus cavity, or maybe it would have been better if someone actually did. But the weather has just been awfully hot and dry and that made it worse, especially with all the smoke in the air all the time from burning trash. Lovely.

But anyways, sick and all I hauled ass to finish the census amongst all of my other activities. I’ve just been so stressed out with looking for new housing and getting the census down that it’s no surprise I got sick. But I think I’ve finally found a place to move to. The place is fine, it’s small house/room that’s perfect for one person but it’s completely on the other side of town away from all my friends and all the action of the community which really sucks, but we’ll see how I adapt. Supposedly it’s just for three months while I wait for another house to open up that is much nicer, bigger and more in the middle of town. Hopefully things work out. I went to clean out the new house and start to get things ready so we’ll see how it all turns out.

Something extra cool we started this week is the reforestation project. The project has been under way for a while, but they had to ready the plot of land by cleaning it up and clearing it out and then building a fence around it. But this week I got a group of kids from the school together to start planting the trees. It was extra fun, first of all because the kids are fun to work with but it also just feels really good to plant trees. I don’t know what it is but I felt like I was really helping the environment. The project is being funded by Ayuda en Accion, an organization that does extensive work here in the community.

What else, I feel like I have been really busy but I don’t have much to write about. Maybe just being sick has taken it out of me. So in a hurry...just got back from a week long training in Apaneca, Ahuachapan and it was great seeing all the peeps from my training group and getting some down time and motivation and ideas. the place was beautiful although it was raining the whole time. and apparently there is a hurricane coming and the staff told me i was evacuated form my site but they were over exaggerating...we're just gonna get heavy rains. woohoo!!!!

hope you like the pics and sorry this entry is really ugly but i just don't have time to format it nicely. peace out

My room.

Alright, so here’s the next update in the saga of The Adventures of Natalie Foxworthy, which has turned out to be a much different “adventure” than I could have ever imagined, but that’s how it goes I guess.

Well it worked…I’d say about 30 or more students showed up, a lot of them guys, which really shocked me. I guess they really needed those extra credit points. The health clinic, the ADESCO, Ayuda en Accion and CESTA (both organizations that work in the community), and the trash trucks from the mayor’s office in Jiquilisco all collaborated as well.

We split up into groups to go around cleaning up different public areas of the community while the trash trucks went around collecting trash from the houses. I helped clean up the shore of the bay with a group of about 15 kids. We had a great time. Although it’s kind of gross cleaning the bay because there is just so much trash and shit (literally, like pig and cow shit and some spots just flat out stank hasta ganas de vomitar – until it makes you want to throw up) it can be fun because you find the randomest stuff like hats, shirts, underwear, fans, etc. So it makes for good laughs and good photos – it’s kinda like a scavenger hunt.

We cleaned all morning and filled two huge trucks filled with trash. I thought two pick-up trucks were going to come but no, huge massive trucks came and we filled both. Goes to show how much trash the community generates and how badly a trash system is needed here.

After the campaign, when I was out taking census, several people mentioned how great it was to have the trash campaign but that we need to have the trucks regularly because burning trash just isn’t good. Overall I think everything went over really well, overlooking all the miscommunication and things that could have gone better. But of course, a week later the community is dirty again.

What else…so my host family asked when I was going to move out of their house. Not really sure what the real reason is but a mix of: they just don’t want me there anymore, my host sister wants her room back (she moved out of her room so I could have it), the mosquito season is coming and things are going to get uncomfortable, and a miscommunication in how long I thought I could stay here, which was longer than the family was thinking. So I’ve been pretty stressed about that because first, it’s awkward to continue living with a family that’s already asked me when I’m gonna move out and second because I have almost zero housing options because there just aren’t vacant houses and my counterparts kinda screwed up by not securing a place for me before I even got here, like my boss told me they were going to do. So I know it doesn’t sound like it’s a big problem, but for me it is and the way things are looking I have no freaking clue what’s going to happen.

Me and my volunteer friend Teresa.

But on the bright side, we took a little adventure last Saturday. Two of my volunteer friends from near by communities, one of which went to the camp with me, came in to visit with a few other people from their communities. With them and my friends from here we took a boat trip to an island where all these birds lived, we cooked dinner (fish, rice, salsa, cheese and tortillas), and then we went to the beach to spend the night and freeze to death. It was a great time.

Me and my friends from here planned it all out, we all shared the costs, we cooked and prepared the food Saturday afternoon and then had a great time. Everything went really well and it was good to just spend a whole day and night with my close friends from here, forgetting about my problems with the housing situation.

I was surprised how happy it made me to spend time cooking and preparing food with my friends; something I haven’t really done in 7 months and something that I did almost everyday in the states. This is in reference to you Miss Laura and all the cooking we’ve done together and the Bitches too.

Me and my friend Marlon.

But there is this island where all these birds lived so we went to check that out and went swimming. And then we went to this rancho on the beach, hung hammocks, made coffee and bunkered in for the night, but man was it cold and none of us brought thick enough sheets, but it was great fun.

Me and my darling friend Isamar

Right now is a national holiday in El Salvador until Monday so things have kind of slowed down here and I wanted to take a trip but I have to get this census finished, so looks like I’ll be hanging in Mendez, maybe spend an afternoon at the beach.

Sorry if I’ve been complaining a lot in these last few blogs, but in all honestly it’s been kind hard. But I’m sticking it out…I mean everyone has good days and bad days, just gotta work through it all. I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all.

Okay so the weeks go by so fast here but it feels like a really long time. Like it feels like forever since I last posted an entry but in reality it was only three weeks ago. Maybe it’s because my weeks are busy, I always have stuff going on and it feels like so much stuff happens and changes in a matter of a week or two.

For example with my friends one-week things are going great and the next week they’re not talking to me. So weird and not to mention SO annoying. To be honest I am just getting over a really hard two weeks, or really a month of just huge ups and downs. With all these immature people here who LOVE to gossip I’ve had problems with my friends and then when I think I’ve found another friend, they just shit all over me. I don’t get it. I think it’s a cultural difference in the way people here view and value friendships. But it’s really frustrating for me because I value friendships so much and put a lot of time into my friendships and besides that I hate gossip so it just really frustrates me that everyone has something to say about everybody else. And those who are the worst gossips only have bad things to say about everyone. I’m just like who freaking cares, get over it and just leave people alone and stop butting your nose into everyone else’s business. GAWD!!!

The other thing is is that it is not common here for a girl and a guy to be good friends, mucho menos (muchless) that a girl seeks out guys to be her friend and although I wouldn’t say that I have sought out guy friends specifically that is just what has come a little more natural here. But people say and think that it’s not right that a woman of my age hangs out with guys so much. And also, in these people’s eyes when they see a guy and a girl together they automatically think they are going out or they have something. So that’s been hard and I completely understand how they think but I like to think of it as a cultural exchange in some ways. I am showing them that a guy and a girl can be just friends. But after struggling with this for about two weeks, I have just come to a point where I am like people are gonna talk no matter what, I can’t change a culture or how people are, so better to just not let it bother me so much. People are gonna talk no matter what.

Anyways, so other than the hardships I’ve been having things are going on as normal, in terms of work I mean. Although with the personal hardships it made work hard as well and made me doubt a lot as to why the hell I am here. But you know what, I’m here just doing my thing and trying to enjoy it, learn a lot, meet a lot of people, and make friends in the process.

So I’m still doing this stupid census and kinda stressed out because I have to finish it by the end of the month and I still have like 50 to do, por lo menos. But I’m trying to push through it. Last week, I went on a trip with a group of women to visit and observe stoves that were built in another community. These women have new stoves so we went to observe how other women in another community maintain and use their stoves. Then we went to the beach to eat lunch and swim a bit. It was fun, and it’s always nice to take time out of my site.

Last weekend I took a group of five youth from my community to a youth camp with three other volunteers and youth from their communities. We went to La Palma, which is in the northern part of the country. It was so much fun and so beautiful there because it’s all forested with pine trees and the weather was so beautiful instead of the flames of hell like we have here in Mendez. La Palma is the artesian mecca of the country so the camp was focused on Salvadoran Art and Culture. One group of youth presented folkloric dance and taught us a little, it was really fun. Then we had a group of break dancers come to present and teach us some moves. The kids really loved that and the breakdancers were really awesome guys. We did dramas based on Salvadoran folk tales and then we painted small wooden jewelry boxes, which is the specialty of the artesian work in La Palma. The camp went over really well and it was nice to spend the weekend out of the community with youth from Mendez to get to know them even more and all the kids from the different communities got along really well, which was nice to see. It was funny, all the gurls at the camp, including me, put hair wraps in our hair and when we got back to Mendez everyone was like what is that you have in your hair. Funny.

Pollito, Wendy, Isamar and I

Other than that we are planning a Trash Campaign for next week. Two trash trucks from the mayor’s office are gonna come and take away all the inorganic trash which is so awesome to think because trash is just way too overabundant here. So hopefully that goes well. Other than that not much else is going on. Hoping to move out into a house on my own soon, so we’ll see how that goes.

COME VISIT ME!!!!!

and sorry no pics but the blog page to upload photos isn't working!

Okay, I haven’t written in here in a while so I apologize to those of you who may be avid readers and just can’t wait for the next edition of “The Adventures of Natalie Foxworthy.” Well wait no longer here it is: (although it’s not that interesting)

Same old stuff going on in the community more or less. With an organization called CESTA we’re doing a training with a group of youth about solid waste, how to treat trash, and the environment. That is going pretty well and last Sunday we did a small trash pick-up in the bay because it is so full of trash. We filled five or six huge black trash bags full of trash in only a small area of the bahia – shoes, clothes, plastic bags, a broken fan, glass, food, dead animals. You name it and you can probably find it on the shore of the bahia; and yes I swim in that water. I can’t believe it but I do. Miraculous I don’t have a twin growing out of my side by now – son bromas (joking). Also with this group we are trying to plan a community wide inorganic trash campaign in which everyone takes all their inorganic trash in their house and leave it out for the trash truck from the pueblo to come by. Also we’re hoping to form groups to clean up public areas like the soccer fields, the streets and the bay.

The trash here is such a problem and everyone knows it too but not many people do anything about it, nor do they have the resources to do anything about it, as in dispose of their trash in an environmentally friendly way. In the trash campaign planning meeting people who live right on the bay were complaining about how people come to dump trash in front of their house and how the problem isn’t with them but it’s with the neighbors who don’t have to look out their front door at the monton de basura (the heap of trash) that is amounting in the bahia. But there is this one woman who goes to my exercise group and she is so active, has no problem in speaking-up; a mover and shaker as my boss calls them. Not many women like her in the community so I’m hoping to get her involved and others like her. We even talked about getting the mayor to pass an ordinance making it illegal to throw trash in the bahia with consequences and forming a group of vigilance to possibly take pictures of people they see throwing trash in the bay. It’s crazy that such radical and advanced ideas can come out of a meeting when it seems like the rest of the community doesn’t care. But truthfully I’d say it’s about 50% (maybe a little more) of the people in the community who are aware of the trash problem and do their part to keep their property clean.

Que mas? So my boss came for a site visit on june 13th to see what I’ve been up to, how I’m adapting, and talk with some of the people in the community I work with. It went well. We had a meeting, and of course everyone had good things to say about me, cuz I’m just so awesome. HAHA yeah right. No but in all seriousness I have received some nice compliments here and not just about how pretty my eyes are or how all North Americans are beautiful. A few people have told me that I have good personae, that I am friendly and an easy person to approach. That I don’t just stick with one group of people but that I work well with all groups, youth, adult and elderly. Which is true. I mean I love hanging with the kids and the youth because the kids are just so adorable and the youth are fun and vibrant. Hinestly I don’t have too much in common with people my age who are already married and with kids, but we can still chat. And in these last few weeks I have taken up the habit to make tortillas with my neighbour, Niña Ester (the grandma of my friends Henry and Wendy). Also when my host mom makes tortillas I’ll help her out. It’s fun chatting with the older women and laughing about how retarded looking my tortillas are.

So after my boss’ site visit I took a two day mental health break as I’d like to call it because I was getting to the point where I needed some Natalie time so my friend Kevin and I went to the department of Santa Ana and stayed two nights on Lake Coateque, which is a Crater Lake and probably the most beautiful in the country. The water is so clear and clean – it was a miracle really to discover such clean water in this country. We stayed at a really cute hostal right on the shore, went swimming, explored and guess what we found – the Presidential Vacation House. It was really funny because there was this really forested area just down the beach from us so we tried to get there only to find out that we couldn’t get in because that’s where the President’s Vacation House is.

Other than that I’ve started to help out in the high school down the road in a training of solid waste and composting and also with physical ed classes and I’m teaching a small salsa dance to a group at the school to perform for the belated celebration of Father’s Day.

So I’ve been pretty busy but not been keeping up with my census work so I have to push that really hard this coming month. UGH! But this last week has been pretty hard on me emotionally. Sometimes I feel like I have no idea why I’m here. And there’s a bunch of drama with my friends here, but they’re teenagers so I can’t blame them but it’s just really annoying. Because of this the fab four (me, Moncho, Tania and Pollito) has kind of dispersed leaving me feeling sad. But Moncho is an amazing friend. Last week almost every night we would go to sit on the wall at the shore of the bay to talk, listen to music, he’d play guitar. Just really good quality time. And he has a good eye for when something is bothering me and he is always willing to listen. But I’m also making even better friends, especially a girl named Isamar. She’s really awesome and a genuinely nice and sincere person. Also, my friend Carlos taught me how to ride a horse last week and we rode on horse back to the beach and back. My first time on a horse. It was okay, although he did all the directing, but hopefully I can learn more.

So yeah I guess that’s about it. I miss my family, my friends, the normalcy of life in the states. Love you all. Adios

Hey y’all, if anyone still reads my blog….

Things are going well here in Isla de Mendez. The weeks go by so fast it hardly seems like anything has changed since the last time I posted. But I have been trying to keep busy….doing the census a vez en cuando (sometimes), helping with English in the school, working with the ADESCO and keeping at it with my women’s exercise group although participation is kinda low, so I need to figure out a way to keep the women interested. Other than work I’m always hanging out with my friends and having fun with the kids.

I had a sad streak last week for about two or three days – just missing home and my family. And on top of that I called home twice, no one answered or bothered to call me back…thanks guys. But I managed, thanks to the family I’ve created here and my awesome friends of course.

Last week, the ADESCO and a group of fishermen from the community worked on a project to install four fish preservation areas in the bay. The fishermen did the majority of the work, but basically what they installed was a large slab of cement with four poles stuck in a each corner and five tires on each pole. They submerged this, which is to act as a place where the fish can live, and then at the water surface we put buoys to warn off fishing in this area. It was great to see a group of community members working hard and enjoying themselves – something they can be proud of. The problem here is that a number of fishermen fish using bombs, which yes kills the fish, but instead of being able to throw back the small fish that you can’t sell/eat like you can when you use a net, the bomb kills all the fish, leaving no small fish to grow up and be caught later on. And besides that, it leaves men without hands, arms, eyes, etc. It’s really sad. I have no idea why they fish with bombs, oh wait never mind yes I do – they can catch more fish, which means they can sell more and thus make more money. Okay, anyways. I don’t have any pictures of the installation event, but I’ll try to get some and post them later. It was a fun day with a number of environmental organizations present. And the bouys light up at night which looks pretty on the bay at night. It’s funny, a number of people had no idea what the bouys were and one of my friends said, “Hey, it’s a duck!”. HAHA But it’s nice having something out in the middle of the bay to swim to now!

Me, Roberto and Andy

Hmmmm…other than that not much else exciting. Cuz a million people are in the family I live with, it’s always really busy and this month there are like four birthdays or something crazy like that, so we had a party the other day/night. The kids are so so cute, and when I ask Alison why she is so cute and pretty, she says, “Because I look like you.” It’s hilarious. And her mom is in the States so she jokes around calling me mom. I kinda feel bad for the kid cuz her mom isn’t here and so she just gets lost in the shuffle. But she is so adorable.

Okay, so the fucking dogs here are disgusting. It’s like mating season or something cuz all the dogs are going at it, and none of them are fixed. So one day these two dogs are going at it and they get stuck together and 3-year old Gabi says, “Mira los chuchos andan pegados.” (Look, those dogs are stuck together.) OMG it was so hilarious. No but it’s really annoying because every dog in town comes to fuck one of the dogs of the family I stay with so all day long the stupid beasts are fighting and I almost got attacked my a group of five brawling dogs.

Monica's B-day Lunch with all the kids!

Oh, total Natalie moment. There is this gate at the school where you have to step over this metal bar, but I decided to step ON the bar, forgetting that there’s another bar above it, and I smacked my head a good one, really hard, and in front of a group of people. Brilliant! It gave me a headache for 4 days.

The last two Sundays I’ve gone with one of my host brothers to take the milk to the cheese factory. Nothing to exciting and it kinda smells there, but interesting see where the milk goes and where the cheese comes from.

So yeah I guess that’s all. Saturday I’m going to a Fiesta Rosa, hopefully going to dance a little. And hopefully get to the beach this weekend since we didn’t go last weekend. Me, Monica, Alison, the Doctor (my counterpart), two nurses, and in the background if you can see them - Ramon and Tania

Ok so I haven’t really written anything since I’ve gotten to my site so this post might be a little bit long but there’s some pics and hopefully some funny tid-bits.

First I just want to start off my saying that I LOVE it here! I know it’s only been a little over a month and things are still a little bit new but I love it. Besides the fact that it’s beautiful and on the beach so I can go whenever I want, the people are amazing – so friendly. I feel so at home here and never want to leave. I thought on average I’d want to leave like once a week to check email and stuff but it’s just such a pain to leave and such a boring 2 hour bus ride, and I feel like I’m missing out on stuff to do with my friends, so I prefer being here. I feel really welcomed in the community, I have a great host family (even though they’re ripping me off for the price of room and board), and a group of awesome friends. I feel so lucky to have been here only like 2½ weeks before I found a solid group of friends. Other people say how boring their sites are and I feel like I’ve been here for a really long time. But I still have a lot of work to do in getting to know the community – house visits, census and community diagnostics. But that’ll come with time.

So my host family: Here’s the structure and the names of the family members

Niña Anna Luisa – mother, 51

Don Alejandro – father, 60-something

Their kids and grandkids:

Reina, 31: Leidy (15), Karla (11), Katerine Alejandra (7), Luis (4)

David, 26: Monica (7), Alison (5)

Verónica, 23: Gabriela (2)

Ramón, 18

Miguel, 7

Okay, hope that makes sense. My host mom is really nice, like the epitome of a doting, Hispanic mother which has its advantages and disadvantages but she always means well and works hard for her family. The dad is cool, I don’t really talk to him much but he’s a really nice guy. He’s the milk man, meaning that starting at 5am he drives around collecting milk from families that raise cows and then he takes the milk to a milk factory in Zacatecoluca, a big city near us. And my family makes cheese, called queso fresco. El Salvador pretty much has two types of cheese: queso fresco and queso duro and queso frsco is the better of the two. I don’t like queso duro, it’s like paremesan cheese but 20 times as strong. It’s so potent. Anyways, Reina sews clothes, makes the cheese and her and my host brother Ramon are about to set up a barber shop, so hopefully that works out for them.

All the kids in the family are awesome, so much fun, hilarious, at times annoying, but kids are kids right? But I love taking them swimming in the bay, dancing with them or just goofing off. The family is just really genuine and caring and has taken me in like another member of their family. Ramon spent three months in the states, but didn’t like it so he came home. But he relates to how I must be feeling here cuz he said tat even when he was in the states living with family he still missed home so he can’t imagine how hard it must be for me to come here and not know or have anyone. For that reason I think we’ve hit it off. So he’s pretty conscious to include me and let me in on the jokes and what’s going on. The whole family is like that. It’s great! Because there’s so many kids in the family of all different ages, it’s like I have my real family here because Ramon reminds me of Mattie: really athletic, really good-looking, plays guitar, kinda quiet at first. My friend Pollito (his real name is William Vladimir) reminds me of Drew cuz they’re both hilarious, awesome soccer players, and really caring, and joksters, although I don’t think he’s burnt his hands or gotten hit by a car. (love you drew, only kidding). And Karla and Bri (a friend) both remind me of Sami. Bri because her and Sami kinda look alike and Karla because they have a similar personality.

This pics is of Bri (left) and Karla. Sorry Aaron, there’s no one here smart enough to remind me of you…

Anyways, so my friends. In the beginning I would play cards with the kids from my family and eventually neighbour kids would come over, partially out of curiosity as to who I was and also to what we were playing. So in the end it ended up being me, Ramon, Tania, Henry and Pollito hanging out and playing and having fun. There are really great people. And if you’re wondering why Vladi is called Poliito it’s because they call his dad Pollo and Pollito is just the small version. Tania singing to Pollito.

One Saturday night the five of us walked to the beach to spend the night. It was so much fun. We brought hammocks and dug some branches into the sand to hang the hammocks, which didn’t really work that well, but then about 11pm it was about to rain so we went into “the Rancho” which is a palm-leaf hut built on the beach (don’t ask me why). So we hung the hammocks in there and stayed up almost all night talking. It was awesome. So that’s definitely on the list of things to do when people come visit, especially in turtle season, cuz then the beach will be full of turtles. But we play soccer, bajar mangoes and eat them with salt and lime (so delicious), listen to music and sing, eat charamuskas (milk and coffee frozen into delicious frozen treats)

In this photo: Pollito, Miguel, Gabi and Luis

What else, I’d say I go to the beach about once a week with a group of gals. We pack up backpacks with snacks and walk to the beach and hang for a few hours. And yesterday, I went to El Espino, with my host family because my host mom is from there so her mother and siblings live there still, and oh my god is it beautiful. It’s also in the Department of Usulutan, but more south. Me, Allison and Monica in El Espino

The beach is beautiful, flat, small waves and the softest sand ever. I so want to live there. I would seriously consider buying a house there before I leave. But we hung for the day and had a great time. Oh and I went to a cock fight which was pretty cool. I freaking hate roosters so it wasn’t so bad to watch them die. Muah-ha-ha

Tania and Henry

Okay, so other than hanging out and having fun all the time, I do actually work. I started my census, although I don’t like doing it, so that’s going pretty slow. But I’ve started helping with an English project in the school. We are going to have a Bilingual Market, where the student of 7-9th grades make things to sell to foreigners who are gonna come and only speak English, so the goal is to teach the kids how to sell stuff in English. I started last week and I’m working with the 7th grade. Also, a few weeks ago some women had the idea of creating a women’s exercise group, so we’ve been doing that for three weeks. We have class Tuesdays and Thursdays. The attendance is kinda so-so but hopefully it pulls through cuz it’d be a great way to work with women in the community. And other than that I go to community meetings when we have them, went to visit the local Instituto (high school) to see how I can help out and went to the boys and girls Instituto futbol games.

Okay, so this town has a bunch of bolos (drunkards). They are really annoying cuz they are always saying stupid shit and passing out in the street. One day I literally had to step over a drunk guy passed out on the street and I was afraid he was going to wake up and grab my leg or something. And this other bollo always walks around in Sponge Bob boxers and one day was chasing a pig across the soccer field, man I wish I had my camera at that moment.

Bugs: there are HUGE spiders here. Yucky! And something is eating my underwear so now like three pairs of my underwear have holes in them, so weird.

Also another strange thing: people don’t really understand that I learned English just like they learned Spanish, from when I was a baby. They always ask if my family speaks English or if other people in the States speak English. And also the whole illegal immigration thing in the states makes them wonder if I can walk around in the states without fear of being deported and I tell them, yes I can because I am a citizen. And then they ask, well can you get deported from here, and I say well no because I have a visa. Just funny little details.

Also, about 3-4 times a week I go to run and do kickboxing on one of the futbol fields, so everyone is always talking about how I love running, working out , that I never get tired…it’s funny. And also because the volunteer who was here before got sick a lot and had to move sites, I guess she had a lot of skin problems, which actually is a problem here in the community, a lot of people get skin irritations, boils and other things – I think it’s the water and I’m afraid. Anyways, since I haven’t been sick they always compare how I’m all healthy and strong compared to the other volunteer and that I do everything, go swimming in the bay, in the ocean, eat everything and don’t get sick.

Well, if anyone had even read this much I hope you enjoyed it. I could probably write more but will stop. Hope all is well. Salu pues….

so i wanted to put pics up but this interbet cafe sucks so it'll have to wait...sorry!

Okay so you haven’t heard from me in what almost two weeks…well no worries, things are going really well at my site so far. Actually I love it!

But before getting to my site we had Counter-Part Day, where we met with our counterparts and Peace Corps staff gave a presentation and we planned a little what I’ll be going in the first couple weeks. And then we had the Swearing-In Ceremony at the US Embassy, which was actually really nice – both the Embassy and the ceremony.

My friend Kevin gave a speech, as well as the leading Doctor and Director of the HIV/AIDS program at Hospital Rosales here in El Salvador, and the Ambassador, who doesn’t speak Spanish but pulled off a smooth and often comic translation.

So I was really nervous to come to my site, especially to live with a family of 14! But they are amazing….I already love them so much and feel I have a small place in the family. There’s a bunch of kids so there is always something to do with someone. We’ve been swimming in the bay, going to the beach, riding bikes, playing cards, coloring and just hanging out. And the kids are so adorable. The people here that I’ve met so far are all very nice and approachable and probably as interested to know who I am as I am them.

So in this first week and half I’ve been attending community meetings, meeting community leaders, hanging with my family, and visiting other families. The community has a lot going for it but participation is way lagging and often practically non-existent, which I know already is going to be a huge frustration as it already is for the two main organizations working here in the community. And to make it worse the super-star youth leader is moving to the states in August to study, which is a great advantage to him and later to his community but will be a huge blow here at first. But we’ll see if we can come up with a plan before he leaves.

The two organizations working here are doing a lot of ecological and environmental work - trash disposal training, reforestation, and turtle and fish preservation. Oh and supposedly August is prime turtle season for those interested – I know I sure can’t wait. The ADESCO and youth group are in the process of building a new office, hostels and a new turtle vivero (where they keep the eggs until they hatch).

Anyways, this pic is the view from the house I might live in one day if I can get it all fixed up and mi casa fea as of now. But I want to paint it and plant a garden, so we’ll see what I can do! Actually yesterday a few gals from the community and I went to try to clean a bit of the house, since it hasn’t been lived in in a year or so and wow was it dirty. But we had a fun time, especially them scaring me with this huge spider I came across. But it was hilarious because in the bedroom part there is a false ceiling, the kind you see usually in office spaces with the cardboard-like material, and some pieces were missing so we tried to fix it.

We had to cut the boards and all we had was this rusty old saw – you should have seen us all trying to saw apart the board, but we eventually got it done.

So for my first few months I’ll mainly be doing an extensive census of the community, five pages long. So I’ll be doing a lot of house visits, getting to know people and letting them know and understand why I-m here and what I’m here to do. But the school director wants me to start helping out right away, but we’ll see how that goes. It’s crazy the English teacher at the school lived in the states from when he was 9-16 years old. He was working as a security guard at the local high school when the owner’s daughter or wife, or someone (very rich) realized he could speak English and thus proposed he teach at the school and that she’d pay him. He’s not even a certified teacher, but probably speaks better English than any other English teacher in the public school system here in El Salvador.

So I guess that’s all for now, if you have any questions just post them.

hey...tomorrow is swearing-in and then I go to my site on Friday so I will be out of touch for probably a good two weeks, unless you call me. But internet access won't be as good as in training. Maybe once or twice every two weeks.

A couple things have gone on in the last week….last Thursday we held a full day camp. The trainees split into three different groups and planned three different camps. My group did a camp on Mental and Physical Health for girls 13-19 years old. We each brought a few girls from our communities and separated the day into different activities. It was so much fun. In the morning we did some ice breaker activities, introductions, etc and then we had our first charla on “How to Deal with Stress.”

Then I taught a kickboxing class – in Spanish!!!! It rocked…the girls did pretty well – I was surprised! Next we did a short nutrition session and then split into different groups and made lunch: fruit salad, chicken salad, potato salad, and a veggie salad. After lunch we did a self-esteem class and then Ginger taught a Afro-Brazilian Dance class which was fun. I think the girls had a good time overall – I mean better than washing clothes and doing chores all day no?

My Holy Week was pretty uneventful because my host family isn’t Catholic, but maybe that’s a good thing because the Catholics had services and processions day and night. Freaking crazies with their fireworks until 1am, keeping the whole town awake. But Saturday I showed the kids in my family how Easter is done American style, minus an Easter bunny unfortunately.

But we dyed eggs, which they we really confused about and tentative to do at first, I swear they thought I was crazy, but they loved it. I mean how can you NOT! Then I stuffed some plastic eggs with candy Christina sent me (Christina you rock by the way) and Kevin and I hid the eggs and the kids had so much fun finding them. So much fun in fact they had us hide them again, and they wanted us to hide them a third time but I sent them away eating their candy instead.

Then Monday, the big day, I went to Isla de Mendez to visit my site!!! dun-dun-dun. The visit went well though. It kinda felt weird to just be there for a few days, but the people I have met so far are really nice and welcoming. One of my counterparts is the Doctor at the local Health Clinic. He lives out of the area but comes in for the week to work and stay in the community. So I pretty much hung with him which was great because he’s young, super nice, has an amazing relationship with the community and is funny.

The first day we walked around the community, stopping in at different houses, and giving me a sense of the community, which is pretty big. I mean it’s not that big in expanse, maybe 20 minutes to walk thru the community but 383 families live there, about 1200 people. That’s a lot!!!! The houses are all really close together, totally not what I’m used to here in San Vicente. But the community has streets (not paved so don’t get excited) in a grid pattern so it’s easy to navigate. There are a bunch of small tiendas, a few restaurants, two work co-ops, and lots of dogs and pigs. ick. All the latrines are the composting type because the water level is so high that they can’t just dig holes for their business or it would contaminate the water even more than it is. Everyone gets their water from wells, but the water level is only 1-2m below ground and has been deemed undrinkable by a group that came in to test the water.

I met with a number of community leaders: the nurses, maternal health workers, two pastors (oh yeah 4 Evangelical churches), the school director, the doctor, and the ADESCO president. All were receptive to my coming and brought some great work opportunities to the table including: reproductive health and sex ed, physical ed classes in the school, water project/treatment, trash, youth groups, cultural work and English.

I didn’t take pics but the pic below of that boat in the bay is pretty much what it looks like from the shore looking out into the bay – it’s beautiful – and the ocean side is supposed gorgeous because no one lives out there so it’s deserted and clean!!!

My housing situation is a little messed up because the house Peace Corps picked for me has been abandoned for a while, has no electricity, water or a place to bathe so I’ll be working on that my first few days, and will be living with a family in the mean time. A family of 14 – kill me now. But hopefully it’ll work out.

Strange things on my trip: raccoon on a leash in someone’s yard, dead dog in front of someone’s house and nobody even noticed that’s how little they pay attention to dogs here, having a bolo (drunkard) serenade the town to sleep accompanied by the howling of dogs and lastly the first day I was there the doctor have this woman an IV in her front yard. She sat in a hammock and the IV was hanging from a tree.

On the map to the right, I am on the peninsula just right of Isla de Montecristo. And the photo above is a zoom-in on the peninsula itself.