Today I began a new Environmental Education course for teachers. I had previously given a course where I developed participatory environmental education activities based on the Ministry of Education curriculum and realized them for teachers. A teacher at one of the most prestigious schools in the city had attending that course and was such a fan she solicited us to repeat the course it for ALL 35 teachers at her school. Pat on my back!

Today was "Soil Day" which is one of my favorites, since 75% of the soil in El Salvador is classified as severely degraded and I just enjoy playing in the dirt. We did an experiment where we analized soil samples and investigated the components. In another we played a game that demonstrated the connection between soil erosion and deforestation (over 90% of El Salvador has been deforested - - hence the eriosion). And then we started worm compost. In the middle worm composting, a huge storm hit and you couldn't hear a thing because the rain wa!s pounding so hard on the roof. So I spent about 20 minutes miming how to construct a worm box. It was fun!

At the end of the class, the teachers applauded. We're continuing next week with "Energy Day." I really enjoy teaching teachers!

im having a very much appreciated American Morning this 4th of July. . . im sitting in a coffee shop with an irish cream latte, my super cute new computer (birthday present from mom and dad - - thank you!) and free wireless! this morning i had leftover chinese food for breakfast while watching tennis in the hostel with my friends and we sang at the tops of our lungs all the patriotic songs we could think of from "america the beautiful" to the girl scout anthem. next im going to a gringo soccer tournament. all the programs (environment, rural health, municipal development and youth development) are playing each other. it's very muddy today so that will be fun! then a party in the afternoon and dancing at night! happy birthday America! i miss you so much!

P.S. there was a Forced Succesion/Political-Military Coup/Insurrection in Honduras this week. i live on the Honduran border. i've been looking information on it on the American news, but all I can find is coverage of Michael Jackson.

We went to the United States/El Salvador national soccer match. Chaos ensued.

First, we met the US team! Coincidently, we were staying at the same hotel. And of course I use the term “met” very loosely considering mostly all we did was ride the elevator up and down trying to catch a ride with players. But it worked and we did have some quick conversations with some of the players. Mostly they were harassing me about the El Salvador jersey I was wearing. But still. But our biggest moment of the night was seeing Landon Donovan walk through the lobby (didn’t mean anything to me, but my friend Meghan called all of her soccer-crazy brothers in the States when she saw him).

In an effort to blend and to avoid inciting a riot, we all came to the stadium decked out in blue for El Salvador. Regardless, we were welcomed into the stadium to a roar of shouting and a cameo on the big screen. Our tickets were in the section of the stadium that goes by charming nickname of “Vietnam.” Apparently the signature move of this particular section is to celebrate goals by throwing cups of beer in the air. And when your cup is empty, if you feel so inclined, you may pee into your cup and throw that in the air. Lovely.

However, despite the pee in my hair and constant heckling, the Salvadoran fans loved us and were buying us beer and gifting us random paraphernalia (I got an ES tshirt and a ridiculous blue wig). The game was almost literally a riot and I can’t wait for another!!!

The Salvadoran presidential elections were Sunday. Mauricio Funes of the leftist FMLN party won. FMLN was the Marxist guerilla group during the civil war that laid down arms in 1992 to become a political party and participate in the democratic process. It is a fascinating time to be in the country. This article is from the New York Times:

“Leftist Party Wins Salvadoran Vote” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/world/americas/17salvador.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=el%20salvador&st=cse

We had an away game last week, in a town I had never been to. We were hanging out before the game (eating, chatting) and I noticed a gang of about 20 guys gathering along the side of the field, well apart from the rest of the crowd, just off first base. I play first base. I just knew it was going to go down badly.

So the game started and sure enough, they started shouting and harassing me. Nothing serious, just annoying and distracting and disrespectful. Also, they were trying to show off so they were shouting some things in English, which mostly ended up being nonsensical or stupid. Someone would shout “Hello how are you?” and the whole group would dissolve in giggles. These were grown men.

By about halfway through the game I couldn’t stand it anymore. People from both teams were telling me to ignore them which just made me madder. I was being harassed and not one person from the other team (who were these guys sisters and mothers and girlfriends) nor my male coach (who at the very least speaks Spanish for goodness sakes!) would just go over and tell those guys off. But probably the thing that made me maddest was there were a bunch of teenagers in the group. Now, I may not be able to change an adult male that has been sexually harassing for decades, but I sure can scare the heck out of some kids and let them know it is NOT okay to be shouting these things at women.

So I marched up to them. In the sweetest, friendliest, perkiest fashion I knew, I said: “Hi guys! I want to introduce myself. My name is Marie. Im a volunteer here, teaching science. Ive been in El Salvador for about a year and it has been great. Now I would really appreciate it if you would respect me and not shout things at me while Im playing.” I turned around to take my position and realized EVERYBODY was staring at us. I heard a couple guys mumble “Okay. . .” and one guy shouted out to the whole field “Oh, she was just telling us how handsome we are!” But they stopped yelling. And after that inning over half of them left. And the ones that stayed were really cool. We actually had a normal conversation! I was shocked and amazed!!

The best part was when my team piled into the van after the game. Immediately, one of the girls turns around and says, “Marie! WHAT did you say to those guys?!” I told the truth and everyone was very disappointed. They said “Oh, we thought you yelled at them.” Evidently Im scary enough when Im smiling.

I am in my third week of volunteering for the Ministry of Education and I´m excited and exhausted. The first things that really blew my mind about this new job is that we have air conditioning, internet and bathrooms (trust me - all three are really big deals). I adore my coworkers, all of whom are incredibly smart, passionate and welcoming. Particularly, my counterpart Don Nelson is hilarious (I´m finally getting to the level of Spanish where I understand jokes!) and really talented. He´s the "Science Guy" and I am working with him on teacher trainings in environment (yay!) and biology, chemistry and physics (yikes!). Each training is about 20 classroom hours over a few weeks and we currently have 7 scheduled over the course of the year. Not only will I assist in the actual trainings, I will be significant in the development of the curriculum. How cool is that?! Also, we will be traveling to schools all over the East to give specialized technical training. For example, if a school or district wants to start a project in recycling, soil conservation, gardening, etc., we go and give trainings and help them get started. Evidently I´m an expert in soil conservation! Who knew?

Also I´m still working in my school when I find the time and energy. So far all my free time has been spent sick from the suffocating dust, doing laundry or playing softball. But this week we´re making recycled paper. I found a NGO in the city that will come out and collect our recycling and pay us for it, so I´m trying to stir up some recycling enthusiasm!

Some personal notes:

Last week I went to a dance with some gringo friends and a group of people from my community showed up and they spent the whole night taking videos and pictures of us. It´s the freaking paparazzi!!

A spider bit me on the eyelid last night and it´s all swollen and really painful. And not at all attractive. Lovely.

I saw the first ripe mangoes of the season!! I remember the first time I tried a mango here I actually said "It tastes just like mango candy!" They are beyond belief. Meghan and I have plans to go sleep out in a mango orchard and just eat mangoes but someone mentioned that that´s what all the bolos (drunks) do and also it´s technically stealing. Also after this spider bite I´m not excited to sleep outdoors. But I think the mangoes are worth it.

The lovely and talented girls of Peace Corps El Salvador 2007

Last month the 13 female volunteers in my Peace Corps group realized two girls leadership camps, called “Estrellas de El Salvador.” It was an enormously rewarding experience, but also one of the most ridiculously difficult things I have done here. We began planning and organizing this camp last May and we really had to scramble to get it all together in time. Aside from the obviously huge issues, like writing grants, budgeting, transportation, venue, food, and organizing activities, the smaller, seemingly simple things frequently exploded into HUGE dilemmas. Like when we were told two weeks before the camp that the money we raised would not be available. And when we arrived at the camp and the water was out. And attempting to herd 40 preteen Salvadoran girls... yikes!!

We had a lot we wanted to accomplish, so the girls and the volunteers were kept really busy all three days. We had sessions on leadership, career planning, gender roles, female health, and self defense. Meghan and I did the 2 hour session on gender roles 6 times over the two camps. It was really tough not to preach to the girls or tell them what to think. I mean, obviously our perspective on gender roles is the way everyone should think, right? We began with an activity where we posted the words “Masculine” and “Feminine” a few feet apart on the wall. Then we gave each girl a card with a word or phrase, like “work,” “decision making,” or “violence.” Then the girls stuck the cards where they believed they best corresponded with the words masculine and feminine. Without fail, the words “sports” and “drinking” where placed on the masculine side of the wall, meanwhile the words “cooking” and “raising children” were identified as distinctly feminine. Then we defined and discussed the differences between gender roles (how our society and culture expect us to behave depending on our sex) and sex characteristics (male and female biological capabilities). We talked about where each card had been placed and decided as a group if it could be moved to a more accurate place (nearly all the cards ended up in the middle, reflecting that both men and women have the abilities to do most things). We had some really interesting discussions and I hope the girls are now able to recognize gender roles and some of their affects.

Meghan and I discussing gender roles.

We also had dancing, swimming, yoga, skits, personal diaries, and we ended the last night with bonfires on the beach. Estrellas de El Salvador was very successful and we are considering taking the show on the road and hosting the camp in communities all over the country.

I have been to a lot of Salvadoran carnavales and dances, at which I have had a lot of interesting cultural experiences. But I never could have imagined the crazy night in store at the San Miguel Carnaval 2008. Apparently the carnaval in San Miguel, a city about an hour from me, is the second biggest in the world after Rio de Janeiro! Who knew?! All year long my local friends had been bragging about this celebration. But it is a familiar Salvadoran tactic to get really excited and talk up an event for months then when the date finally arrives, everyone spends the whole time acting bored and too cool to have any fun. So despite all the eager anticipation, I wasn’t expecting too much.

We rolled in about 8pm, on a pickup truck overflowing with 19 gringos. We immediately encountered the giant parade and, unable to find a space in the crowd to stand and watch the floats, climbed up on an empty float and danced and waved and pretended like we belonged on a float winding through a rowdy mob estimated to be 1.5 to 2 million people. As the parade entered the heart of the city, the crowd became less family-friendly and more drunk and aggressive, so we abandoned the parade and began dancing. The whole city was closed down and there were 60 stages with live bands set up on almost every block. So we broke into a smaller group of 8 and wandered from stage to stage, dancing and eating street food. Sometime after midnight we ended up in a futbol stadium at one of the biggest concerts in the city, by a reggaeton group (kind of like rap music) called Fido y Alexis. It started out really fun but we were about halfway up in the audience when we noticed people were peeing in beer bottles and hurling them onto the stage and into the crowd. We were already backing out when the crowd started pushing. Then very suddenly, everyone started running. It was a full stampede. I saw four of my friends get knocked down and trampled. All I could do was try not to fall. When I regained control, I found myself outside the stadium all alone. Thankfully I found all of my friends quickly and we were all okay, although those who fell where filthy and a few had footprints stamped on their backs. We saw on TV the next day that the stampede was caused by a fight between some gangs and the riot police. We decided that we’d had enough action for one night and headed back to the pickup. Of our group of 19 people, here was the damage total for the night: 1 robbery, 4 pickpocketings, 2 punchings and countless butt grabbings. But, despite it all, we had a whole lot of fun! I’ll never do it again, but I’m glad I had the experience. I am just going to stick to my simple campo dances where the most dangerous thing is the rickety ferris wheel.

I looked out my window one afternoon and I saw a big bull butt sticking out of my pila (the water basin where we cook, shower, wash things, and kill things). I screamed “HEY COW!” (it was the first thing I could think of) and he ambled away. I went down to investigate the damage and he had eaten my soap, my laundry detergent, and one of my host sister’s shirts. Evidently this bull is notorious for his affinity for eating scented things.

I adore having my own house, but one of the bummers of living alone is that whenever I finish something deliciously unhealthy, like a jar of peanut butter, I can’t delude myself into thinking that someone else ate some and I didn’t actually eat all 256 grams of fat by myself.

Celebrated six months with my Salvadoran boyfriend, Germain. How do you celebrate anniversaries in El Salvador? Just like birthdays, holidays and every day: pupusas!

I went to an Aguilas game!! The Aguilas are the professional futbol club of San Miguel. It was ridiculously scrappy and sketchy and FUN! The band was like 20 guys with drums, one guy with a horn, and another guy with one of those instruments that you scrape with a stick. People were peeing in their empty beer cans and hurling them onto the field when anyone from the other team got close. There were police everywhere in full riot gear. Someone threw a smoke bomb onto the field and a player got sent to the hospital. And I learned a whole lot of new swear words!

Got a new school director. He is an educated, respected, married, religious, professional man who also turns out to be a big sexual harasser. And I had to sit through a morality lecture from him to our students on how to be a good citizen. The gist of his lecture: “How do we become good citizens? By being good Christians.” I had to sit and be told how to be a good Christian by a man who tells me he dreams of me at night and tells 12 year old students they need to wear shorter skirts.

Weeding in my school garden one morning I found a battery, a scorpion and a tooth. I wonder if they are somehow related. . .

And yesterday I was trapped in my house for three hours because my host mom was out shopping and her secret boyfriend was hiding in our pila waiting for her to come home. And since pigs ate the shower curtain a few months ago and no one has replaced it, I couldn’t go bathe with him down there.

This is my life.

Whoops, I haven’t written for a looong time! My life has been pretty crazy. Nothing has stayed settled long enough for me to really think things through, let alone coherent words to express those thoughts. It’s been really emotionally exhausting. But the big upheaval is settling and I finally feel like I have a stable point of view to share.

My work collapsed in June. For months I’ve been working with the Mayor, a NGO, my community and my school on a recycling program. Instead of littering (the most popular garbage management option here) or burning everything (including plastics, batteries and aerosol cans), I started a program in which we separate plastics and cans to sell to a recycling company and use the money to do projects in the school. A small step, but it is simple to manage, easy to participate and there is a lot of room for growth. Good for the environment, good for our health, good for the community! It was to be my keystone project. Unfortunately, after months of me running around, explaining the program to groups and individuals, making announcements, digging through garbage, playing garbage games, lecturing, chastising, and begging, NO ONE was using the beautiful recycling bins I had decorated. One afternoon in late June, I happened to see one of my favorite and most supportive teachers walk right past the recycling bins and toss her Pepsi can behind the school store. Although thoroughly shocked and confused, I politely reminded her, “You know, you can put cans like that in the recycling bin for cans.” She looked me right in the eye and said, “But recycling just isn’t going to work here in the school.” JIGGA WHAT?! You don’t WANT recycling?? Everyone had seen me bust my butt for months on this program and not said a word! Couldn’t someone have mentioned this general sentiment in February?? I am still proud that I neither burst into rage nor tears. At least not at the school. . . I lasted until I got home and called Mom.

About a week later, I went on a much needed vacation home (the USA!). I pretty much spent the whole first day walking around barefoot on the carpet (floors here only come in cement, tile or dirt) and taking long, hot showers (I set the smoke alarm off when I opened the bathroom door from all the steam that had gathered). It was fantastic to see everyone and speak ENGLISH! I completely forgot what it’s like to casually understand people. In Spanish, I have to be completely focused to be involved in a conversation. No background noise, no interruptions, no multi-tasking. But in English I can do crazy complicated things like eavesdrop! And understand jokes! The 11 days flew past in a whirl of happy hours, good food, shopping trips, road trips, BBQs and relaxing times with family and friends. And by the end of my time I was really ready to come home (El Salvador!).

The happy-to-be-home glow lasted about a day. Then the sexual harassment started. El Salvador is an obnoxiously machismo culture and daily sexual harassment is a given. But I had never experienced anything as bad as this. I think it was a combination of me being in the states and forgetting what it´s like to be constantly harassed and the guys here missing me and forgetting what it’s like to have a gringa around. And I was getting harassed by men that I knew really well and had always been respectful. Before it had always made me angry but this was the first time it felt actually threatening. I basically had to stop walking alone and talking to men. And it’s calmed down a lot. I think they’re getting used to blue eyes again.

So my world was going haywire for a while. But in the last month I’ve had some big successes at work and my personal life is going well. I started a school garden and held two big environmental education teacher trainings. I’m playing lots of softball and my first base skills are the talk of the town. I’ve been visiting my Peace Corps friends, to get out of my site a little more often. And I’ve been going on day trips with my Salvadoran friends. I feel like I’m really integrating. So I’ve been very happy for the last few weeks. I think the crazy is finally settling back down. Thank GOODNESS!

If you´re still reading this. . . I promise to start writing with less length and more frequency! Besos!

Life at the Pila:

Early on in our adventure we were introduced to the Pila. It is a combination laundromat, shower, sink, butcher shop and spa.

Here is Marie doing her laundry. As you can tell it's different than we do at home. Each item is rinsed, soaped, scrubbed, soaped, scrubbed, brushed with a really strong brush and rubbed against the concrete washboard and then repeated! (And Marie wonders why her clothes are all stretched and have holes in them) When it is sufficiently soapy, then it's time to rinse. Bucket after bucket of clean water is dumped on each piece until it's thoroughly rinsed. With water being at a premium, Debbie and Trina thought they had a better idea. We did several pieces at once, rinsed them in the bucket of mostly clean water, wrung them out and called it good. We were told that's not the way we do things. Tila and Vanessa, Marie's host mom and sister, proceeded to take Debbie's underwear off the clothes line and re-wash them.One of the really cool things about the Pila is that you can shower at the same time someone is washing clothes. Not only can you share the water, but it's a wonderful time to Chambre (gossip). Our bucket shower was a highlight of each day. It was the only time that our body temperature was anywhere close to normal.

Here is Tila washing corn for tortillas. She washed and rinsed and washed and rinsed and washed and rinsed, then put everything in the bucket and balanced it on her head to take to the grinding station in the village.

Another highlight of the trip of these city girls was to see a chicken go from live state to plate (Debbie didn't watch). Tila was an expert executioner, feather plucker and all the rest of the things that go with getting a chicken ready to eat.

Bet you never thought that they did this at Tysons. She's searing the pin feathers. It was quite an education for the city girls. Kind of like a biology class on the National Geographic channel. This outdoor fireplace is also where corn and beans are boiled and tortillas are made.

And don't anyone start feeling sorry for us that we were totally roughing it . . . Vanessa is going to beauty school and was anxious to "practice" on Trina. She insisted on giving her an El Salvadoran pedicure complete with French tips and sparkly pink stars.

Last call at the Pila!

My ecological club and I have put together the scrappiest little vivero (tree nursery) that ever existed! It makes me want to laugh (or cry) whenever I see it because it´s such a tragic effort. But it also makes me want to cry (or laugh) because I am so proud of the enthusiasm of my kids and it was such an incredible experience.

I had really envisioned a well-organized, well-constructed vivero that would lead to a grand reforestation effort in the community. But, as funding and support fell through (as they do) and time was running out (we have to get the trees planted before the rainy season), I decided we could just do it all on our own. So we did.

The ecological club (between 12 and 30 kids in 7th, 8th and 9th grades, participation levels fluctuating depending on if they happen to have anything better to do that day) and I went on a hike around the community to collect seeds. We spent a happy morning scrambling up boulders, crawling through barbed wire fences, and meandering through dried up river beds searching for fruit seeds. We dug through mounds of leaves looking for almonds and tamarindos. We picked mangoes and ate them so we could plant the seeds. The kids taught me all about the different local fruits and trees and I got to explore some new parts of the community.

We enlisted the little kids to search through the worm boxes we had made a few months ago and separate the worms from the organic compost. It was delightful to be surrounded by a huge crowd of giggling third graders, their hands full of worms. Meanwhile we grabbed several wheelbarrows and ran across town to a cow pasture to load up on soil. We bagged the soil, planted the seeds, applied the organic compost, talked about care and management, then stepped back and admired our tiny, unorganized, but made-with-love vivero. We plan to plant the trees around the futbol field for shade. Next year I´m hoping to solicit some funding and put together a real vivero, but putting this all together by ourselves was a ridiculous amount of fun.

Marie probably said it better than we could. We're not nearly as clever as she, nor as young, but we shall try to give you El Salvador from Deb and Trina's point of view. First of all, for anyone who has never rented a car in El Salvador, be prepared, there is an unexpected and unexplained mandatory insurance charge which immediately doubles the quoted rental rate. Once you're on the road, Marie neglected to tell us that the national sport of El Salvador isn't soccer, but rather playing chicken in speeding vehicles. Some of the rules include ignoring all speed limits, turning two lane roads into four, passing on the right and on blind corners. Extra points for passing with double yellow lines on blind corners in a school zone. What we needed was extra life insurance!! We knew that the roads weren't paved, we knew we would have to tote our own bags, but we didn't expect the welcoming committee to be a heard of cows. What you see in the picture was actually the easy part. Leaving the main road, we carried our bags down a trail, dodging first the head-butting cow, the pig who was always right in the middle of our trail, all the while dodging piles of poo and chickens. And you can imagine how much more challenging it was in the dark! The pig didn't like to be stepped on!

She's living in a 1700 square foot home It's a nice place with ceramic tile floors, three bedroomsl, living room, dining room, two bathrooms (one indoor working toilet although you can't flush the toilet paper) - go figure!

This is Marie in her living room on her couch, uhhh, hammock. EVERY house has at least one in the living room. Every bedroom has them too:)

Meals were a major part of our day, every day! What else is new?

Papusas were new to us. It's a kind of filled tortilla that's fried with pickled slaw on the side. They're served at Papusaria's which are to El Salvador like McDonalds is to America. It's a place to hang out, meet your neighbors and get a cheap meal. Like we said at the beginning. We're not as clever as Marie and bear in mind that at our age we're blog-challenged. However, 1/2 bottle of wine later we're getting the hang of it. Stay tuned for more adventures from a "different kind of trip." To be continued . . .

10. Arriving in my community and watching Mom and Trina wheel their luggage down the dusty dirt road, through mounds of cow poo, and being passed by a herd of cattle.

9. Killing a chicken to make tamales in the pila where we also bathe, wash clothes and prepare food. And then discovering that the next day that all the chickens in town were mysteriously dying of something they described as ¨el grippe¨or the flu. Whoops!

8. Mom driving. She started out shocked and terrified when people were passing over double lines around unbanked, blind corners. But she really is Grandpa´s daughter because within a few days she was holding her own with the crazy Salvadoran drivers. Trina had to close her eyes most the time.

7. When Mom tried to delicately wash her underwear and not shred it over the stone pila, my host sister Vanessa ripped Mom´s clothes off the line and rewashed them herself.

6. Becoming gringo superstars!! We ended up in a national paper and local television. We were unaware of either, but everyone in my community was quick to tell me. Which wouldn´t have been so bad except in the newspaper photo there is a bucket of beer sitting on the table and I´m tipping my beer up to the camera. No one in my community knew that I drink (it´s not really acceptable for women here) but now they all do. Thank goodness they think it´s HILARIOUS! They even posted the picture up in the pupuseria for everyone to see! Whoops again!

5. Eating ¨cuahada.¨ We looooved cuahada. We finally figured out it´s curds. Ew. But I eat it almost every day.

4. On the way home from my community´s Catholic church excursion to the beach for Easter, getting caught in the middle of a drunken gang fight on the bus.

3. At the nicest hotel in the nicest city in the country, Suchitoto, getting a perfect breakfast delivered to us on our spatious balcony overlooking the lake. Sigh. . .

2. At a HUGE dance their first night here, two bands were playing at two stages on opposite ends of this long lot. So when one band took a break the crowd would shift to the other stage to listen and dance to the other band. On one stage there were some -ahem- dancers. Mind you, this is a family affair. There were children and babies and grandparents. But for these dancers all that was missing was a pole. One girl, sporting a leopard print bikini and thigh-high boots, was especially talented. As she was doing some particularly inspired booty shaking I hear a loud ¨HOLY COW!¨burst from Trina. No translation was needed for that evidently because Salvadorans started laughing too.

And my number one moment of Mom and Trina visiting. . .

1. Getting to share this exciting, exhausting, indescribable experience with people I love! Can´t wait to share it with more!

It is definitely not an exaggeration to classify the last few weeks as epic.

I had an adventure in translating for an Army medical unit. I stayed in the barracks, ate MREs, traveled in a military convoy, and absolutely fell in love with the army. There was such an amazing immediate connection between the Peace Corps translators and the med unit. I want to blog what we did, but words can't capture the fun. They let us play in their formations every day and at the end they treated us to a party at the Sheraton. I felt so hugged and loved! Army ROCKS!

Also I finally bought a fridge and celebrated by also buying beer and a 5 in 1 DVD of Jean Claude VanDamme movies. Awesome!

On the work front, I started an Ecological Club and a recycling campaign in my community. I swear I do work here, too!

The chambre is the massive information gathering and sharing operation at work in Salvadoran communities. The English translation is “gossip.” I am frustrated and terrified of the awesome power of the chambre. And lucky me! Now the force of the chamber has been focused on tracking, dissecting and distorting every move of the gringa (me!). People to whom I’ve never spoken know (or presume to know) everything I do. An example:

Last week my group had language training in San Vicente. It was the first time the entire crew has been back together since training and it felt great! It was full of dance parties and pupusa binges. I absolutely adore my Peace Corps family.

I couldn’t make it home after the conference ended on Friday, so I stayed the night with my friend Nick. Saturday morning we decided to hit up the beach since it was sort of on my way home. I have developed a talent for finding a beach “sort of on my way” to almost any destination. Playa El Cuco was beautiful. A thick stretch of sand lined by palm trees and packed with shacks grilling fish that guys were dragging out of the ocean. And I have never seen a beach so crowded with people! It was impossible to swim without banging into everyone. As Nick and I were leaving the beach, I spotted a guy from my community through the throng of people. I waved at him and he waved back, then I hopped on the bus to go home. Three hours later I stepped off the bus in front of my house and my neighbors swooped me into a hammock to discuss my secret boyfriend from the beach. The chambre beat me home! This was a thankfully harmless example of the chambre, but it happens to me all the time and sometimes I wonder if I’m only hearing the harmless stuff that’s being said. I mean if everyone already thinks I’m doing something chambre-worthy, I want to know so I can start doing it!

I had the pleasure of spending the week translating for the lovely people of EyeCare, in their annual vision campaign in El Salvador. It was a really special experience because it was a very immediate gratification, unlike most of my work here. Someone comes in, you put glasses on their nose, and their whole world opens up. I got hugged and kissed and blessed all week long. You don´t typically get great moments like that educating children on soil conservation.

The more grownup I become, the more I am aware that grownups have no clue what they are doing. As I assume more and more serious responsibilities in the world, for which I do not feel sufficiently prepared, my skepticism of the capacity of grownups increases. If I’m sitting here wondering who the heck decided I was equipped to handle this grownup stuff, could it possibly be that others, those even more grown up with even more important responsibilities, also feel this same sense of panic at the weight of their responsibility? Could teachers, doctors, even (gasp!) parents be totally winging it??

A few weeks ago I became an environmental education teacher. That was scary! I’m less terrified now, and I really enjoy sparking environmental awareness in these kids, but I still kind of feel like I have everyone tricked into believing I know what I’m doing.

And this week I’m volunteering at a vision campaign. A group of doctors from the States have come down to donate glasses, medications, and some surgeries. I will be translating. Yikes! How did I become capable of being a medical interpreter?? I’m still learning Spanish over here! When I think about it rationally, I’m totally capable. Sometimes it’s not very pretty, but I communicate well. But I still feel like someone with such a grownup responsibility should feel more confident.

Mom always said that just because someone is an adult that does not necessarily mean they know what’s best. But I really had to experience firsthand the panic of being suddenly trapped by grownup responsibility. Mom was totally right!

I was in my house working on my third coffee of the morning, trying to generate tons of coffee grinds for the worm compost project I´d started in the school. I teaching them to make a bunch of worm boxes so that we can use the compost to organically fertilize a tree nursery in the school. And into my early morning solitud barges my host sister. She just ran into some kid down the road that had been in one of my classes the day before. He had gone on & on to her about how cool my worm lesson was and how pretty the posters were and how he had won the game we´d played and isn´t it weird that worms have a mouth but no eyes?? I was stunned. Not only did the kids enjoy what I had taught, but at least one kid had found it so interesting that he was passing on his new knowledge to others!! It´s an incredible powerful, scary and humbling feeling to teach kids. And I´m just teaching things like, "No, worms aren´t snakes and no, they won´t bite you."

I also experienced my single most reaffirming moment in nearly five months of Peace Corps service. I was out with a class putting together their worm box and a random woman walks by and asks me, "What are you making?" So I turn to the kids and shout, "Class, what are we making??" hoping someone would reply "worm boxes," but fully prepared for a long, akward silence. Instead, one kid shouts, "We´re making organic fertilizer!" I almost cried.

Of course there was one class that even after two days of reminders had only managed to bring one banana peel for their box. But then the ninth graders blew me away, bringing so much organic material and getting so into the project that I told them we had to stop because I didn´t have enough boxes. In 5 minutes they had found more boxes (I had spent an entire week going all over begging people for my boxes) and we only stopped when we ran out of worms. Also, after I´d shown them how to make the first box, the kids put together the others completely on their own. AND NOW they have started discussing using the school´s broken cistern to begin a large-scale composting project! If anyone is interested, read "Two Ears of Corn" about international development. My vermiculture project is turning out so textbook!!!

Summer vacation ended two weeks ago so I’m spending a lot of time at the local school. It’s a big adjustment just to understand the schools structure. It seems really madcap at first. And although I still rarely know what’s going on, I can sense things are settling down. I started a big worm-composting project in the school. I made it into a competition so that each class has their own worm box, but between over-zealous kids, hungry chickens and demon ants, I’ll be surprised if any ones worms live. If we do manage to make compost, we’re going to start a small tree nursery in the school.

Dad, Mom and Trina are officially coming to visit in March. I’m incredibly excited, as is my community. We’re putting together a comprehensive Salvadorian culinary and beach experience for them. And now that they have their non-refundable plane tickets booked, I can confess I found my first proper tarantula in my house.

I got a cesta which is a colorful woven basket that the women here take to the market. It’s like the Mary Poppin’s bag. It holds an insane amount of stuff. I proudly strutted home with my new purchase and my family starts laughing so hard they’re crying. Apparently only old women carry cestas. Well, my feelings were kind of hurt and anyways I love my cesta. So I told them, “Okay. I am an old woman and no one will ever marry me and I will never have kids,” which is exactly what you say to someone here if you want to get them all riled up. In fact it is one of my favorite trouble-making guilty pleasures to walk around town and confess to random people that I don’t ever want to have kids. They practically start sputtering. I get a kick out of it. And no one has commented on the cesta since.

Also, I discovered an exciting new aspect of my community’s night life! We have these three-wheeled golf-cart like vehicles that serve as taxis. It’s all the rage for the kids in town to pay a quarter and pile into these things and speed around town screaming at the top of their lungs. It’s a lot like stuffing as many people as you can in a phone booth, except the phone booth is completely open and careening down an unpaved road. It always looks kind of dangerous and dumb to me. Then someone paid my quarter and I discovered it is dangerous and dumb, but also strangely fun. Not unlike the Peace Corp in general.

I have been so wrapped up with my Salvy Christmas Experience that I haven’t had a chance to get to the internet before now! So what is the Salvy Christmas Experience? The 24th is the big celebration day here. And by big celebration I mean we ate all day long then went to the pupuseria for a dance at night. So kind of the same as most other days, we just ate a little more and danced a little later. We danced and chatted and watched boys blow things up until midnight. That night I fell asleep in my hammock, totally blissed out, listening to Christmas music on my iPod and eating Grandma’s English toffee. Christmas day was just another day for everyone here. Meanwhile, I was running around delivering Christmas cards and shouting “Feliz Navidad!” to everyone in sight. In the morning my host sister and I opened the mountain of presents that my family had sent me. I’m all stocked up on journals now, which is great because I’m blowing through them here. I deeply miss family, friends, snow, eggnog lattes, Christmas lights, cuddling under blankets, thick socks, walking in the cold, stillness, and home. But I feel so much love and contentment here. I had a really incredible Christmas.

I spent an amazing weekend at the beach with my gringos, taking advantage of the sweltering Christmas season. Two long lazy days and hot hopping nights filled with impromptu bonfires, regueton dance parties, horseback riding, big hammocks piled with three friends, and great hugs!!

I played in my first softball tournament here. Seven teams and hundreds of people turned out to our little town. My favorite moment was when there was a disputed call. Both teams charged the field to join the argument, immediately followed by most of the spectators. The elderly and small children and even the vendors were gesturing and shouting. I don’t think most of them knew what they were yelling about, but everyone was in a huge uproar! I looked over and the ice cream guy was ringing his little bell with all his might and grinning wildly, just to join in the commotion. I just sat down and laughed out loud.

The futbol guys asked me to be madrina of their team. The best thing I can equate it to is the chick that prances around during wrestling matches in a bikini. Except here they wear a poofy dress. I wanted to explain how sexist I find the tradition and that the only reason they asked me is because they want to show off their gringa, which is also reverse racist and I want no part of any of that. But I didn’t think it was very culturally sensitive and anyway I don’t have the words in Spanish. So I just said I was shy.

So my host mom likes to stare intensely at me as I’m eating and nod gravely with every bite I take. Drives me bonkers. Well today I was feeling feisty and decided to stare unabashedly at her as she ate and nod in silent agreement with every bite she took. I wish I could recreate the look she gave me. It was as if I had totally lost my mind. The joke clearly did not hit home. I guess I will not be doing that again. Sigh.

We rang in the New Year dancing under the stars! And I spent New Years Day exactly as I would have in the States, curled up writing in my journal reflecting on 2007 and thinking forward to 2008. Just substitute the hammock for the couch, the tank top and shorts for a sweatshirt and my fluffy red blanket, and the Regueton for Christmas music. But I was drinking hot chocolate. Some things will not be sacrificed.

Oh and I now am the proud owner of my very own machete. I’ve only used it to open stubbornly taped Christmas gifts, but I feel very Salvy.

I had the Salviest day ever and I am so happy. A neighboring canton is having its festival patronales and so I went to partake in the celebration. The festivals are a huge deal here and people even fly down from the States to come. So I spent all yesterday morning sitting on the floor of the Catholic church, surrounded by 15 Salvy women, chatting and arranging flowers for their float in the parade. Fireworks and vendors and dancing was nonstop in the street all day. My absolute favorite part was when this huge mob of guys dressed in drag and ghoul masks swarmed into the streets and started dancing with each other and everyone around. It was absolutely bizarre and wonderful. In the afternoon was the parade and the crowning of the queen. It was an absolute mob scene. And then the power went out in the whole town and we continued to party in the dark with flashlights. Then the lights came back on and the dance started. There was some famous cumbia band rocking the joint. I didn't know I loved to dance that much! I didn't know I COULD dance to cumbia! A big group of my friends from my canton came and we all danced all night long.

I think I may have fallen in love with El Sal.

Hey look at me I´m a Peace Corps Volunteer! I have so many photos I want to share with everyone, but the computers here are painfully slow and I´m still working on the patience thing.

There´s a lot of exciting drama in town right now. There was a car crash involving four people so we went to the houses of everyone involved to hear each person´s account. That took a whole day. Then someone from the town who was living in the US died so we´re preparing for a funeral. Funerals are huge here. Evidently I am spending the next two days making tamales. Also, I may be the only person in town who thinks this is interesting, but our mayor is in Venezuela right now cohorting with Hugo Chavez. Just a little slice of Salvy life!

I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer, sworn in by the deputy ambassador of El Salvador. And I´m finally in my permanent site. It´s just me now. It all feels very surreal. I am almost continuously thinking, ¨Is this really my life?¨

The people here are so great, but they keep calling me ¨delicate¨ which really ticks me off. I´m out here living alone in the campo of El Salvador, aren´t I?!?! But then I stepped back and looked at the toll it has taken on me and, okay, I´m a mess. I am covered in bug bites, my toenail is falling off, I´m constantly sweating and filthy. Every little thing requires tremendous effort. And I´m just hanging out in hammocks and going house to house chatting and eating mountains of food that is shoved at me. The women here are barefoot and carrying 5 gallon pachingas of water on their heads with six kids in tow. So okay, compared to that I am delicate like an orchid.

Peace Corps recommends we spend these first few months just getting to know the community and what it needs before beginning any projects. In this culture you have to build relationships and trust (¨confianza¨) with the people before you can work with them. People here only want to work with you if they like you. It is a simple concept, but it´s hard when my American Producer mentality kicks in and I want to get out there and DO something. So I´ve decided to eat my way into the hearts of the Salvadorean people. I pretty much just walk into people´s homes and join them in the kitchen and they teach me how to make whatever they´re making and then we eat together. It´s a pretty sweet deal for me and they absolutely adore feeding me! My life right now is structured around setting up my house, studying Spanish, playing softball, and eating. I´m so excited to have people visit me so we can make tortillas and tamales galore!!!

Yesterday I climbed Chichontepeque, the San Vicente Volcano.

It seemed like such a great, fun idea. As we began the hike through coffee plantations in the brutally hot morning sun over loose rocks at an incredible incline, I almost immediately regretted my decision. It was so ridiculously difficult! The whole ordeal took about nine hours and I was royally ticked off for about seven of those hours (one fun hour was spent at the summit eating peanut butter and another fun hour was spent laughing at Chadd when he fell on the way down and broke a huge rock in half with his butt). But generally it was just miserable. I just kept thinking, “Why am I doing this to myself?? This is just stupid!!” Hours were spent hauling myself over boulders with my hands. Really the only reasons I made it to the summit were because, well, I’m stubborn and because my buddy Rhett spent about three hours verbally dragging me up the mountain. So after spending the whole climb up angry at life, I reached the summit and it was really incredible. It was almost unbelievable to look down 7100-something vertical feet at the town in which we had started and realize how high we had come. And it was so cool to get to be there with all my friends. When I took a moment to stop and look around it felt really great.

I decided it was a pretty apt metaphor for my Peace Corps service.

Happy Thanksgiving! We are doing it up RIGHT! I spent all yesterday cooking pumpkin and apple pies and banana and zucchini breads, all from scratch. We're all hanging out at the office, peeling potatoes and cooking and dancing to music. In the afternoon we're playing a futbol match against the Peace Corps staff and then we're all stuffing ourselves. We've also got entertainment!! We did a vote for "Most Likely" (examples, "Most likely to wear a machete on their belt, live in a hammock, star in a Reggaeton video) and we'll do presentations at dinner. And for the talent show, my buddies and I are doing a twist on the machismo culture and four of us girls are lip syncing to "It's Raining Men" and we're getting some of our fave boytoys to dance around shirtless. Great times!

As I stepped out of the latrine early this morning, still blurry-eyed with sleep, a chicken flew flapping and squaking into my face. Let's just say it was a good thing I had already gone to the bathroom. It was definitely one of the scariest moments of my life.

This weekend was so good. On Saturday morning we went to San Andres, the biggest Mayan ruin site in El Salvador. It was pretty impressive to frolick over and amongst only partially excavated overgrown ancient pyramids. In the afternoon was the huge football game of Michigan v Ohio State. Since almost everyone in my group is from the Midwest, we had 7 people from those schools and a huge rivalry. So we all went to San Salvador to hit up the only place we could find resembling a sports bar: Tony Roma's. We drank beer and watched football and had a blast. It was like being in America again except everyone walking by stopped to gawk through the window at the huge pack of gringos. And I had a latte. It was bliss.

The most amazing and applicable advice I’ve ever received in my life (right next to “Never do more than one illegal thing at once”) is “Love the low moments.” To truly love the lowest moments of life is the most incredible thing I’ve learned after two months in the Peace Corps in El Salvador. It pretty much sums up my life here. When you hit those low low moments and you don’t know how this became your life and you just want to lay down in the middle of the road and cry, but then you just start laughing. And you think, “This is exactly what I want.” And everything is so absurd and so wonderful.

That said, I just got back from visiting La Paz, my site for the next two years of my life, and it was nothing but HIGH moments! My community was super enthusiastic and immediately loving. I got hugged and kissed by almost every single person in my community. It was sticky, but believe me after two months of hug starvation, I LOVED it!

Upon my arrival, I was gifted a chicken. So I killed it and ate it. Really. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, but also a lot more disturbing.

My site is unbelievable hot. I didn’t know hot like this existed. I am in a painfully poor country, many people can’t afford education, and they have air conditioning in their houses. It’s that hot.

My counterpart, a teacher at the local school, decided my khakis weren’t cutting it and bought me some new super tight Salvadorean jeans with rhinestones on the butt. I had to talk her down from the ones with the huge rhinestone butterflies all over them.

I am really excited to live and work with these people for the next two years. During the highs and the lows.

After a painfully nerve-wracking day, we FINALLY got our site assignments. I will be spending the next two years of my life living and working in Canton La Paz, Municipio Bolivar, Departamento La Union. It’s in the Wild Wild East of El Salvador. It is an area known for guerrilla action during the war and receiving a huge amount of remittances now. My Salvadorean counterpart is the Directora of the local school. All I know about the community is that a lot of the men are in the states and so I’ll have the opportunity to work with women and youth. On Monday I’ll head out to the community and spend four days getting a feel for the site, finding a house, meeting everyone, shaking hands, and kissing babies. My head is so full! I am nervous and excited and absolutely terrified. I am coping by eating Nutella (thank you Trina!).

Friday was Day of the Dead. What an overrated holiday! We sat on the dusty, spidery ground of the cemetery and stared and the tombstones for six hours. I was sunburned and filthy and bored and cemeteries do not have bathrooms! I did discover the joys and wonders of quesadillas, so I had that going for me which is good.

After I escaped, I hopped a pickup to San V where I met up with the other volunteers and we piled in a microbus and headed to Costa Del Sol!!!! This is such an amazing group of people and we got to have some serious bonding time. It was a pretty legendary beach weekend including beach dance parties, candy necklaces, movie monologues, water slides, beach soccer, drinking rum out of coconuts, cribbage, eating pupusas and peanut butter for every meal, loads of hammock time, and endless music, chatting, and laughing. It was really rough to come home. It was just an amazing feeling weekend to be together. And now I'm alone in my freeeeezing house. It's kind of surreal to be wearing three layers and fleece and gloves and be surrounded by palm trees. What kind of place IS this???

But that night I did receive probably my favorite text message ever, which improved my mood. We have sort of a yearbook of our training class with a page about each of us and our photo. We call it the "gringo book." So I got this message from my friend Zach: "My host bro is showing the neighbors the gringo book and they voted hands down that you're the most beautiful gringa they've seen. . . Go Marie!" Aw! I think his host brother is 8 years old, but whatevs. I'll take it.

I have such great new people in my life.

Last week I went to Chinameca for Field Based Training. It was four, 15-hour days of completely exhausting and rewarding work. We gave two lessons (charlas) on garbage, let a school-wide trash pickup, and gave a skit on recycling at a school assembly. We spoke mostly Spanish the whole weekend, which kind of blew my mind.

Other highlights include: pupusas and two tubs of ice cream for Angelica´s birthday, visting the local NGO and tree nursery, eating endless maracuya (best fruit ever), a 6 hour hike through cafetal with 70 kids, a siesta on the patio of a mansion, playing softball with a stick and a ball of tape until Emily whacked the tapeball through the window of a classroom, singing the whole micro ride home, walking into a tree, and playing ping pong!

This weekend also consisted of my single favorite Peace Corps moment so far. After touring a local coffee cooperative that is about to receive organic certification and savoring some of the most amazing honey and coffee of my life, we all piled in the back of a pickup and drove home in the warm sunset binging on organic oranges and laughing and enjoying time with new friends.

In the morning we played in the dirt with a current PCV, learning about gardening and planting veggies. Home gardens are a project I´d really like to do in my site because malnutrition is a significant problem here adn gardens are a great way for women to save (and maybe even make) a little money. Plus it´s just a personal skill I´d like to develop. I´ve been thinking a lot about the kinds of projects I want to do in my site and so far I´m pretty stoked about vegetable gardens and raising bees.

Lunch was Ritz crackers and cheese. It just tasted like America and that was so nice. I´m still really enjoying the food here, but it´s pleasant to break from tortillas for one meal a day.

It is the Festival Patronales of a nearby community, which is a week-long celebration with dances, parades, fireworks, and general festivities. So we all celebrated by hitting up the water park. OH, YES! I said water park. It looked super sketchy from the outside, but it was really nice inside. Oh, and by nice I mean it had two rickety, leaking slides and water that looked like it might give you diseases. But most things here are rickety and might give you diseases, so we dove in head first!! Ah, lowered expectations! We played all afternoon in the rain.

I returned home to my family dancing to Reggeaton. I plopped into the hammock and wrote long aerogrammes, ate a frozen banana, and watched my favorite telenovela, "Destilando Amor." Then I talked on the phone to Mom for about 45 minutes.

It was a really good day.

I am really in the Peace Corps now. I just returned from Immersion Days, where we head out solo and visit a volunteer in their site. I went to a tiny, rural canton called El Balsamar, which is the biggest producer of balsam. I lived with a family of 15 kids, no electricity, no water, dirt floors, communally bathing in a waterfall, peeing in the jungle. It was very National Geographic with all the breasts flying around. The family took me to a Novena, which is a celebration they have nine days after someone dies. They light these super tall candles and party until the candles burn out, usually about 3am. We sang and prayed and talked and ate tamales and drank coffee from the garden. We left at about 10pm (which might as well have been 3am considering my old-lady sleep habits) and we walked home. No, actually we hiked home. We hiked for almost two hours through the pitch black jungle, in incredible rain, through rivers and some kind of crazy bubbling mud that sucked in my leg. And most of the kids were barefoot and most of the women were hauling around babies (or me). The whole time I was thinking, "What the HELL am I doing here??? Why would anyone actually CHOOSE to do this to themselves???" But then I´d kind of step back and realize what I was doing and think, "I am so freaking cool right now."