My time is officially up, and I have closed out my Peace Corps service in El Salvador. It was a really hectic and long process. Moreso for me because I had the Regional Lead stuff to wrap up as well as a few last projects that had crept up in the end. But finally, I completely it all and flew out of El Salvador on Dec 22. It was a sad time in my community, with many goodbyes and quite a few who shed tears. On the last day, we made a small trip to the beach in the morning and then they accompanied me to the airport for my 2pm flight.

So, how can I sum up 3 years in one entry?.... BULLET POINTS haha. Lets run through what, with the help of MANY people, I have been able to accomplish.

In-Site Projects

Live barrier and contour ditch formation with farmersGrafting, Marmalade, Home Garden training through a $250 SPA grant at the National School of Agriculture for 20 farmers. Through a Partnership grant of $2300, we replaced the roof of half of the community house and the storage area. The electrical system was revamped and bulbs bought for the new sockets. The inside and outside were painted, along with doors, and security bars. A door was installed in the outhouse, and a security screen put on the window of the pharmacy of the adjoining medical dispensary. In addition, 25 new metal chairs, 5 foldable metal tables, and large dry-erase board on pedestals were purchased.

Art classes for kids and a Mural/Community Map project. With the collaboration of local businesses, Kids to Kids grant, and private donations, the classes were given, murals painted in the community house and a community map build and painted at the entrance of the community. About an $1800 project

The natural spring in our community benefited form a project $1750 to renovate its sources after landslides in the last hurricane. A filter system was also installed, new pipes installed, the place painted, faucets installed, etc etc.

Numerous trainings with the Development Committee on project design and managementHealth projects with the newly reformed Health Committee (medical brigades, fumigations, recycling campaigns, donations of medicines, AIDS trainings and workshops, fundraising techniques)

Construction of iron protections of roof of medical dispensary through a VAST grant ($1500)

Construction of bathrooms in the local hermittage as well as megaphone system for community announcements ($1300)

Youth group work in trainings and events, soccer team equipment through Kids to Kids grant

Road retention walls and bench construction for bus stops

Municipal ProjectsFUDEM eye campaigns in three rural locations. Close to 500 people as beneficiaries with half of them receiving some type of glasses after the consultations. Later, 12 surgeries were obtained through collaboration with FUDEM and transport from the Mayor's office. Cataract and Pterigion surgeries were done at symbolic costs (one even at 15 dollars).Fuel-Efficient Stove project..... we built 93 stoves for families all across the municipality in collaboration with the NGO.... Water, Trees, People.

Potable Water system for my community and the neighboring one. This project is probably the biggest. We spent a year and half gathering information and soliciting different groups. Success wasn't had until we teamed up with an NGO called Madre Cria and the Mayor's office. Together soliciting the Japanese embassy, it seems that a project of more $100k could be less than months away.Project design and management courses with 3 different development committeesScholarship committee work for over 30 high school students and 5 university level students

Bathroom and potable water system construction in the parish medical clinic ($2500)

Translator for Army Medical Brigades and Habitat for Humanity buildsEnglish classes to Women's group in main town, and vacation english classes to all in puebloObtaining of library with Rotary Club of San Miguel for a local schoolElaboration of Electrical system and flooring in empty room in local school so as to install a computer classroom

MISC

Member of Volunteer Advisory Council (VAC)....Regional Leader Position in Year 3Creation of Regional Handbook for new volunteeresCreation of National/International group reference guide for current volunteersExecutor of Regional Conventions to bring the volunteers of a region together to collaborate more on common goals and projectsCarrying out of site visits and administrative responsibilities delegated by San Salvador Staff when necessary

WHEW.... so there ya go, thats the majority of it. My life's work for the past 3 years. Many thanks to all who supported me over the years, and a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

 At the airport.

"I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end."Abraham Lincoln

Well, I officially have a little over a month left in my Peace Corps service. My last day as a volunteer will be December 17, 2010 and it looks like I'll be flying back to the states on the 22nd. The month is beginning to fill up and I am having to decide which things I am going to attend and which ones I won't. The last few weeks, I'll be reserving for my community, hopefully. Any who.... lets recap lots of stuff thats happened the past while.

First off, my scholarship nursing student finally graduated!! I accompanied him and his mom to the graduation ceremony in San Salvador, and then I treated them to lunch at Chilis in celebration. He has persevered and I'm glad its all over. A thank you to all those who helped out here and there throughout the years with his education.

David's Mom, David, and me just before the graduation

A nurse!

Next, here are the final pictures from the mural project inside the Community House. All is finished and that project is wrapped up now, although I would like to patch up some spots outside that haved scratched and put some better letters on the entrance, but for all intensive purposes, this project is done. Thank you to Kids to Kids and the Caja de Credito and some private donors for helping these murals and the art classes for the kids come to fruition.

Next, are a few photos of an ongoing project that we've been pushing the past few years. We have been gathering information and applying for grants for almost two years now for our potable water system here in our community. You might remember that we barely lost a grant proposal to Spain back a year ago, but now we've partnered with an NGO called Madre Cria who is now working with the Municipality to get a grant from the embassy of Japan. It is a super difficult project because our water system is located in three different communities and 2 different municipalities. Each community wants certain things, but the money is not enough to go around. My hope is if we win this opportunity to better the system, that it will open the door with Japan to continue working in the future. Another huge problem that we have had is that when the communities first started the potable water system, certain landowners donated pieces of land to make the system a reality. They did not, however, make written legal documents marking the transfer of ownership. Fastfoward to 25 years later, land has been sold, or inherited, and even though there are numerous witnesses to the donations, everything is trying to get money in return for officially signing over their (already donated) terrain. Projects all over the municipality have fallen through due to this, and our almost caved as well, because FIRST, international organizations refuse to work on private land, and SECOND, nobody has money to go around buying (or rebuying) pieces of land for every circumstance. At the end of the day though, it looks like we will fulfill all of Japan's pre-requisites in time to win the project, and that our years of work will have paid off. They have come and looked at everything and have given it the OK to proceed to the next step. The project will be well over 100k.

Here are some pics from our lawyers visit to mark of the land and search for it in the National registry.

Inside of these "tanks" on the hillside, are where the water is gobbled up and sent to our communities.

The pipes coming in are from the captation tanks from the pic above and the water you see is the overflow that our system can't handle

The 21 years old US Motors vertical water pump

I also got a chance to burn some of my vacation days that Peace corps has given me over the years. I actually have had quite a few, but have been unable to really take advantage of them for moneysake! We can't travel in the last three months of service, so I ended up losing about 20 days of vacation!!!!! Craziness. Anyways, I got a chance to go to Honduras for a few days in bus and we checked out the Mayan Ruins at Copan, and then shot up to the coast at Tela where we saw the 2nd largest Botanical Garden in the world. It was left behind by the United Fruit Company (remember the Banana Republic like places where all the naners used to come from?). The last day we passed through San Pedro Sula, which was just another big city. The ruins were my favorite part.

Large bamboo....not native (this kind)

I didn't know cork was from a tree!

My first time seeing a coca plant

The place we stayed at Tela, Honduras at the beach

Irma is our registered nurse at Peace Corps that takes care of us vols

Underneath Copan Ruins

The 16 kings of Copan

Dunno who he is.

Looking down on the plaza...specifically the ball court

In other big news... I had my first visitors here to El Salvador!!! My parents came down for a few days to check out my situation, and they did VERY well for not speaking the language. We basically just hung out in my community, and by the last dinner, they were telling jokes (through me of course) to the rest of my neighbor's family.

Welcome!...my moms and me haha

Checking out my lemon tree

My archnemesis

On top of the church by the bells

The parish house ladies! They are so nice!

Dinner with the fam... Mother telling her super pickle joke.

I pretty much have to walk like that in most houses haha.

A random guy showing up on my porch selling armadillos and crabs.

Me and the "maestro" Alex

Finally, I've been in the capital the past few days in my final Med Checkups for Peace Corps to let me out of El Salvador. I finished today with a clean bill of health. Now all the paperwork will begin with my final reports and investigating more on grad schools. Also, I have my regional convention coming up to plan, so that will be a lot of work as well.

In the next post, I'll sum up two more projects that we are finishing up as we speak.... The system of metal bars for security in our Medical dispensary and the revamping of our natural spring that was affected by some landslides.

Ciao.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Matthew 6:34

No, it didn't get the best of me, I just have been a slacker. I was only in the hospital 2 days and then I was kept for shots 4 days in the capital, and then they let me go! But man, do I have a TON of pictures to get around, and they are almost all from other people! I really havent carried my camera around much lately. These rechargeable batteries have really lost their usefulness and I've yet to buy new ones.

Man, where to start... get ready for a random succession of picture stories. Starting with SOFTBALL. Enough said. We went out to a friends community on the West side of the country to play in a tourney with some of the National team players, not too shabby!

Looks whos catching.oops.

Yep, next is the trip to Nicaragua that I went on with two fellow volunteers. It was my first time in Nicaragua... we left here at 530am and got to Managua at 4pm. From there we grabbed a micro down to Granada and stayed the night. Granada was cool, lots of history and people bouncing around. It is one of the oldest cities in Central America and boasts one of the oldest Christian churches in America as well. I didn't know that America was so intertwined in Nica's history. Apparently some rogue military guys even took it over for a while (William Walker... google him sometime). From there we went to check out San Juan del Sur. Its a coastal surfer town thats got a nice little nightlife as well. We met some pretty cool Salvadorans there, go figure, and hung out with them. The worst part about it was that it was pretty bad rain the whole time we were there so we couldn't get out much after Granada. Overall, we were there 4 days, and it was a good time.

San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.... its a cool little town

smelling the tobacco in Granada, Nicaragua

This cracked me up because its a grinding stone that they have in the museum in Granada. Yet, we still use it in the countryside here!

My travel mates....in front of one of the oldest churches in America.

The third travel companion.

Welcome.

Our bus!

Next, we had our Fruit Festival here in our main town not too long ago. Each year they name it after somebody and invite that person to speak, and this year it was named after Mr. Robert Blau, the Deputy Chief of Mission and right now Charge d' affair of the US Embassy. So, he came out to San Pedro and we met with him, and he passed through the special fruit market that comes out that day, and then there was a ceremony in the main "square". It was actually kind of nice because it was basically him and our mayor talking about the accomplishments of Peace Corps in the municipality in the past 10 years. Good stuff.

There's actually lots of people in this photo. Me, 3 other volunteers, my boss, my mayor, my kind of ambassador, and the guy that is awesome with his little wooden flute.

The "Charge" rocking his awesome US National Soccer Team jersey for the Fruit Festival in San Pedro.The customary fight between the Christian and Moorish kings.... :)

The festival sign.

The table of honor.

Folkdance!

These guys were really great, honestly. It was a great surprise.

Next were our Patron Festivals in my community that we celebrated in August. Matt and Helen, the neighboring volunteers, came by and stayed for the few days to see what it was all about. It wasn't as big as the past few years, but it was good fun.

Bicycle contests!!! Thats my neighbor there reffin'

The youngins after catching the greased pig. If you can catch it, you can keep it!

The twins next door are getting so big!

A lovely dame I found on the street.

And then she found Matt.

And then we laughed about it.

Looks whos on bottom. I'm pretty sure my back has been thrown out of wack permanently from that day.

Thats not a booger.

We definitely never made it to the top, some kid had to climb to the top of the greased pole with a lasso to grab the prize. It was too tall this year!

Hug anyone?

At the end of the festivals, I put on a pupusa eating contest in the Community House, check out the youtube video below and more pictures at http://sanpedrononualco.blogspot.com/2010/08/concluyeron-fiestas-en-la-comunidad.html.

Next we have some pics from a birthday part that we had for a fellow volunteer. Her parents came in town and rented a really awesome beach house place and she declared the entry fee a costume that began with the letter "R." I was Raiden :)

I hadn't slept in 48 hours.

Me shooting electricity through the Riddler.

Flawless Victory.

Hiyah!

Needless to say, I didn't win ANY of the prizes that the volunteer's parents gave out, but I blame that on the fact that they had never heard of Raiden :)

What else What else.....hmmmm. Well we did finish the murals and I have them saved here. But I'll save that for another post so as not to make this one too long. But before I finish, here is an onslaught of random pictures.

I definitely don't fit on these covered trucks. The wee one there is Liliana, and she's on the equivalent of Dancing with the Stars here in El Salvador right now.

Me fat.

I invited Matt and Helen over to give a talk on how to take soil samples.

Playing soccer on the steepest ridge ever.

Thank you Wendy's.

AWESOMEST picture EVER.... this was the antwar on my window. These large leaf cutter ants chased the smaller ants all over the house until they caught them here on the window. It got ugly.

I take it back, this is the best picture. This is one of the cutest babies I've seen around. Don Raul's newest grandchild Mayra.

Me giving a report to the Development Committee on all my projects. This was during the final report of the outgoing Board and before the election of the incoming Board Members. Check out more pics at http://www.sanpedrononualco.org/vrgalrias.php?ig=eleccadesco_22_08_10

Random pic of us dancing it up somewhere. That was definitely a borrowed shirt.

My program at the July 4th soccer tournament.

I was hungry....but too cheap to buy something else at Wendy's.

 Be afraid. Be very afraid.

So thats the short story. This week we have the new group of volunteers swearing in so I will going out to support them. Also, this Saturday is my 3 year mark in this country!!! Wahoo. The next post I'll put up pics of the finished murals and fill yall in some on the current craziness in country right now with the gangs.

"Be not afraid"

First message as Pope......John Paul II

So, lets just start with the bad news. I caught a cold. I was almost over the cold, when I got stuck in the back of a truck one night coming back from a soccer game. One day later = Pneumonia.

Basically, Monday night I had one of the worst nights ever of extreme fever, body pains, especially chest pains, nausea, vomiting, a lot of coughing. It started at 8pm and I finally got a tylenol down after hours of wet towels on my forehead and later the second tylenol which broke my fever a bit by like 5am. When I felt the queasiness and fever start to set back in around 10am I started the 3 bus 3 hr at least trip to the capital. For a while on the trip I was kind of laughing and texting some friends that I might have to projectile vomit on the old man beside me. I didn't in the end :)

I got to San Sal, got a taxi to the doctor's office they told me to go to, then he examined me and sent me to get chest xrays and draw blood. Then I came back and waited in his office with a 103 fever (which didn't feel near as bad as the night before) until he got the xrays. The first words out of his mouth when he saw it were "Well, your F.......d, my friend, I'm admitting you to the hospital." And there I was til today when they let me out to my great disappointment. I had free wifi, cable, and food there. I feel much better now, I just have the cough to kick and 4 more days of medicines.

I have to say, once you get into San Sal, the PC medical is pretty stellar.

In other news, GO USA. What a barn-burner that last classifying game was! Now we have the first elimination round game tomorrow at 230pm ET against Ghana. Hope we play well, there will be no more tying from here on out. Also, after that games over, check out CLEMSON vs. CAROLINA in the semifinals of the College World Series of Baseball at 7pm ET on ESPN. SC baseball at its best.

Check out video of the reactions of the US game ending gol from around the world.

Mexico vs. South Africa start it off today at 10AM ET, with a 2 hour pregame hoorah with lots of dancers and singers and stuff. Then its Uruguay vs. France starting at 230PM ET.

AND THEN..... its USA vs England tomorrow hahahaha. Here's to hoping we don't get embarrassed.

The two below are pretty funny.

Well it is confirmed, that a large quantity of the volunteers in country will be in the capital together watching the US vs. England game this Saturday. We are getting together with an American Society that tries to promote and celebrate our culture in other countries. The bad news is that I was reading online and apparently 86% of people think that we are going to lose. Hope not, but even if... we still advance if we maintain the number two spot in the group.

Check out the Pepsi commercials that are out now.

We win against Australia, mwhahaha. Sorry, couldn't get this thing to fit all the way.

Check out one of the best ads.

For those of you who are familiar with the World Cup, I am pasting a quick overview of it from Wikipedia....The FIFA World Cup, occasionally called the Football World Cup or Soccer World Cup, but usually referred to simply as the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not contested because of World War II. The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month – this phase is often called the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s). During the 18 tournaments that have been held, seven nations have won the title. Brazil have won the World Cup a record five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. Italy, the current champions, have won four titles, and Germany are next with three titles. The other former champions are Uruguay, winners of the inaugural tournament, and Argentina, with two titles each, and England and France, with one title each. The World Cup is the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world, where an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.[1] The next World Cup will be held in South Africa, between 11 June and 11 July 2010, and the 2014 World Cup will be held in Brazil.So the World Cup kicks off June 11 with Mexico vs. South Africa, and then its USA vs. England in their opening round on June 12 at 2:30pm ET. England is one of the favorites so, hopefully we put up a good fight. We just beat Turkey (for the first time ever) 2-1 in a World Cup warm-up game in Philly and have one more game on June 5th 8AM ET in South Africa against Australia.

I´m going to start putting up a new World Cup commercial (Sony, Pepsi, Nike, etc) every once in a while til it starts in its honor haha. But first, the official song:

So the past few weeks have been sad because some of the last volunteers of my group have begun leaving. An embassy family threw them a going away party which was very nice, and in a safe, nice part of San Salvador. The next day we took them out and splurged on paintballing out West which was also pretty fun. I picked up a nifty little scar during paintball on my arm, ask me to show it to you sometime haha.

Part of the group.

Yes I'm wearing baseball socks and a white button down shirt at paintball.... and? I literally had no other clothes.

Ballin!!!!

Bobby at lunch afterwards in his moment of zen

Also, I had my regional convention with all the volunteers around, and it went more or less well. One of the NGOs didn't show up and didn't even call, which was sad because they could have been a great contact for the volunteers here. Oh well.

My peeps.

Also, right before Semana Santa, way back in the day, my community went to the beach, here's a nifty little pic from that. We didn't lose anyone, which was a good thing. You think I'm kidding!!! The rip tides are really strong here.... 5 Americans have supposedly drowned in the past year and a week before we went as a community, a neighboring community lost a 20 year old not too far away. Its unfortunately a common occurence here.

Hanging out.

Speaking of Semana Santa, the young peeps got together during Holy Week and did a reenactment of all the Stations of the Cross down our "main street." It was actually pretty cool. Bad news being that my camera died (batteries) shortly after it started. So there are only a few pictures. ......

Jesus and his posse.

Barrabas!! aka my neighbor mauricio

the women

the men

What else... ah yes,.... together with the other volunteers in the neighboring community of San Ramon, we put on a 4team basketball tourney in the main town. 2 neighboring municipalities came, San Pedro made a team, and we put together a Peace Corps team. One of the teams had to leave early, so we ended up replaying the team that had beat us by 3 in the first game for the championship and won by 1. I was such a cheat, I got the ball in the last few seconds as we were inbounding it and threw it as high as I could in the air so that the last few seconds would run out hahaha.

The gringos hanging out beforehand.

Onlooker.

What are you doing?!?

Bring it.

More fun than Bobby getting stuffed.... check out the name on my blue jersey.

no look pass....oops!

Look whos reffing!!!

The tipoff of San Pedro vs. PC

Matt and his wife Helen, who is taking the pictures, live in a neighboring community now

The teams afterwards

Also our art classes in the revamped community house have started and are actually now coming to a close. Here are some pictures from the beginning classes, it has grown since then and hopefully I'll be able to put pictures of the closing up later as well as the latest murales (still open to those interested in helping!!)

The first art classes

A recent High School graduate who is the art teacher. He is taking classes in the capital now. Good potential.

The public bathrooms in the local hermita and the paving around them are coming to a close this coming Friday, so that is AWESOME. Thanks to Bonnie and her family out West for donating part to have those done.

Doors!!! Although, they had to take them back down later to cement the floors.

After

before

no more mud!!

Benches are going to go in that space this friday.

As far as upcoming projects go, we are trying to build some sort of primitive grey water filtration system at the new renovated Guanabo spring (revamped by the previous volunteer), as well as install new piping from the spring source in order to increase the quality drinking water that those local families deal with. We have a few grant applications in and are working with an NGO called Madre Cria on the filtration system. It will be somewhere in the area of a large hole where the water will pass through a series of decreasing smaller rocks before it filters into the ground instead of straight into the creek. The other main thing that I really want to get done are the concrete benches at some 7 different spots in the community where people wait for the bus/pickups. That would be huge, especially in the rainy season. We are looking for places to solicit at the moment for concrete, sand, gravel etc right now.

Health Promoter giving his shpeel to the peoples at a CARITAS event

CARITAS donating some clean up supplies.

Local leaders looking at the water situation in el Guanabo Spring

An old broken pipe.

The water that now runs into the water basins.

My other responsibilities right now as Regional Leader (or as we like to put it when we introduce ourselves in Spanish....Regional Coordinators :) are also becoming a bit more taxing, but at the same time more routine. I am having to travel a lot between certain places in the East. I am up to three toiletry kits in different spots so that I dont have to be carrying around stuff so much. I've also split my clothing up so as to further decrease the size of the bookbag that I have to lug around. I finished my 45 page Regional Handbook for newly sweared-in and current volunteers, which is AWESOME I might humbly add. It has information on everything from bus schedules and prices in each department including San Sal, to dangerous areas, contact info for everything imagineable, and tips and tricks volunteers have picked up over the years for all kinds of stuff. My big challenge right now though is creating an NGO/GO guide to the region. By making contact with all current organizations working in the area and cataloging what they are working in, how to contact them, etc and leaving that in an updated and organized form for the volunteers, it should be a TREMENDOUS help and asset to our future success. Material success of course, projects, trainings, etc. It's a lot of work though, I'm about a 1/3 of the way through right now.

Life plans? Still stuck. I was going to take the Foreign Service Officer test in June here at the embassy, but after reading the process were I to get selected, I might never get a master's degree. So I think the best thing to do is to go ahead and bit the debt....I mean bullet, and get it. I've still yet to decide in history/international relations/studies. I've been looking into the Peace Corps Fellows programs at Denver, Marquette, Duke, and even Yale (although the last one would be a long shot). "Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it." Lao Tzu 550 BC

There have been quite a few things going on as of late here in my world here in El Salvador. First things first, we have been continously working on this new program in El Salvador called the Regional Leader system. Its a new way to bring more organized and ground level support to the Peace Corps volunteers, both technical as well as peer support from those who have more experience in the region. The other advantages are those in which we can take the load of the program bosses in many cases since we are already in the region and on the ground. There are six of us working around the country and we are trying to start regional meetings, meet with the local NGOs around, visit personally the local volunteer sites, and create the Regional Handbook for those who are soon to swear in. This is the program that we will be trying to get set up this year, so that when the new group of Regional Leaders starts this coming year, they can hit the ground running.

Closer to home, my community has been busy :) They had a fundraising event a few weeks ago here in the Community House that we renovated. The youth organized the event pro-Health Committee and did clown stuff and dramas and stuff like that. We actually had a packed house. We sold all types of food outside, and my stand outside was hotdogs, hahahaha.

People outside buying food

Me and my chef had while stuff is going on inside, haha.

The leader of the group doing his act. Clown 1

Clowns 2/3

The other projects here are the stoves that we are still ALMOST done with, because the people who are trained to build them say they are too busy to do so, so I have to keep bringing in the builder from across the country, and now he says he sick. So that has made it harder and harder. There are 2 left in my community and 6 in the community where the new volunteers are. Also check out the pictures of the new bathrooms that we are finishing here in the community, we just have a few things to finish with them.

Preparing the base

Playing cards on the new table before building the stove on it

No more cards, very sad, but there is the final product.

Another before

Another after.

Starting to dig the latrines... a 4.5 meter double hole

prepping the walls

halfway there!

both projects I've done at that spot in the same picture, the announcement system and the bathrooms

Almost done!

The murals in the Community House are coming along. The local artist has finished outside and one of the murals inside, and is starting the second one. We are STILL short a few sponsors for murals, so if anyone thinks they want to sponsor one, feel free to CONTACT me as usual (or donate on the sidebar). We also have a series of art classes going on at the moment with the local artist as well. He is giving classes in the morning and evening, twice a week, for 3 months in the Community House. This project is sponsored by a Kids to Kids grant. We shall see how that turns out as well.

Well since we have finished outside, we have started inside the community house.

A little closer.

Close up.... there are a few things left to paint. The rope line where the rings are hanging. Aaron's family on the right and the sales people on the left.

Lets see, also there was a birthday here last week and since we didn't have cake, I made a pound cake that actually didn't turn out too shabby. I was surprised, haha.

Improvised POUND CAKE, yummy. I didn't have sour cream, but oh well.

Also, these past few days, the new volunteers in the municipality, visited my community. We were going to go on the yearly trip to Esquipulas, Guatemala with my community, but we couldn't at the last minute, there was some trouble with new Peace Corps protocol, yadda yadda yadda. So we hung out and we cut some oranges and bananas and stuff with Don Raul. It was a good time.

We had to carry that about a mile and a half by the way.

This was me welcoming Matt to my orange community hahahaha.

Oh yeah, I also took the GRE last month. It wasn't that great of an experience here. It was paper based, and they setting was in San Salvador in an English school where the moderator cranked up the AC to 5 below and then kept leaving the room and leaving the door open so that a billion running screaming kids could come watch and chill etc etc. Not to mention the forgot some protocols that were normally obvious, like the short break between sections. ANYWAYS, still havent got the results back, but not expecting much.

Anyways, gotta run. Hope all are enjoying/not enjoying Lent.

A Lenten Reflection

Give up complaining——focus on gratitude.

Give up pessimism——become an optimist.

Give up harsh judgments——think kindly thoughts.

Give up worry——trust Divine Providence.

Give up discouragement——be full of hope.

Give up bitterness——turn to forgiveness.

Give up hatred——return good for evil.

Give up negativism——be positive.

Give up anger——be more patient.

Give up pettiness——become mature.

Give up gloom——enjoy the beauty that is all around you.

Give up jealousy——pray for trust.

Give up gossiping——control your tongue.

Give up sin——turn to virtue.

Give up giving up——hang in there!

Ok, so lets get started. Things have gotten back to normal pretty quick. Most important things first, I got back in time to have our second annual New Years Card Tournament.... a game they call "chucho" (dog), but its somewhat like what we know as spades, but without the trump suit. The points work in a way that every group of 3 face cards is a point, and the ace is worth a full point by itself. Anyways, there are some pics below of that awesomeness as well as a video, although my team got put out in the first round, I had fun. The prize for the winning team was a makeshift gift card to the other neighbors store.

Our Double Elimination bracket....I'm team 3, haha.

My partner focused on the game

The Final Table

A quick view of the competitorsAlso, we had the community development association (ADESCO) Christmas Dinner, and it went well and there are a few pics of that too. We had beef, rice, salad, coke, and music..... well, after they gave their yearly report. It was a good time.

Christmas Dinner

Look at all those tortillas!!

Oh yeah, and before I forget, when I got back a month later, they were still clearing the roads up the mountain from the last bit of rains that came in November. The main roads are now clear, but the rural roads are still being worked on. The problem now though is that trying to clear the roads creates so much dust now that we are in the dry season, that it becomes a health hazard. So they have decided to wait and finish just before the rains start up again in May.

Before I start in the project that I am currently working on, I just want to thank those benevolent souls that responded in donating at the end of the year. I was able to attend the New Year's tournament and present each soccer team that had petitioned me a Mikasa soccer ball and net. It wasn't much, but it was something. They took some pictures, but I haven't gotten my hands on them yet, oops.

Many of you remember me talking about the bathrooms that we were building in the medical clinic here in the main town ("Picture Time", October 19, 2009). Well, all of the building process has been done for 2 months, yet we still don't have use of them. We have been waiting on the government water agency to do their part, but they are really slow. Finally, now they want $540 to connect the sewage and we are somewhat at a loss of what to do. So, the next few weeks will be checking everything to see what our options are.

Right now, I am deep into the Mural and Community Map project. We got some grants to support a local artist who has just graduated from high school do a series of art classes for the kids, to build a wall near the entrance of the community with a huge map on it, and to paint murals on the face, and inside of the Community House that we just renovated (you might remember that project too, from the post previously mentioned above). We just finished the map, and now I am trying to find the company that sells those metal park benches to see if we can clean up around the map and put a bench on either side. Also, we are seeing if we can get some locals to put a small roof on the map with some leftover metal that we have. The biggest hole that we have right now is labor costs for each mural. There are 8 squares inside of the Community House that we have prepared (about 5ft x 5ft each square), and each one will cost us $75 to paint. The young artist is doing us a huge favor in these prices, because as you all know, even in developing countries, these kinds of things go at a much higher rate. We have the actual paint, but now we are looking for sponsors for each mural. Right now, we have 3 sponsors and NEED 5 MORE brave souls :) I hope that we can find support in this, one of my last big projects. The advantage of this project is two fold. In that, I used the Community House renovation project as a teaching ground for the ADESCO of how manage funds and projects, and now they are in charge of everything, in colaboration with me, and then after each step we revise all expenditures and procedures. So far, so good. The second part is that the municipality has our community in mind to start developing Eco-Tourism, and so these are ways to make everything more attractive and people proud of their community. So if anyone is interested, we are looking for 5 sponsors!!! Please contact me at one of my email addresses if you are interested, or just donate at the paypal icon on the right with a note as to its destination. Thanks to all involved!!!

The front of the Community House (which actually still isn't finished.. the letters over the door and the white space to the right can be noted)

He's got some talent :)

The first stages in drawing the map

Side view of the almost finished product

This is the frontal view, about half finished. The top corners are for the logos of the ADESCO and that of the institution that donated the paint. And the list of the numbers at the bottom right is missing 8 other sites. As of now it is finished, I just have to go take a picture of it. You can imagine it with a little rooflife tophat and a bench on either side, thats the goal.

Finally, phase two of that announcement system project that we had going on in the center of the community will begin (Picture Time, October 19, 2009). Some families from the Western US have donated specifically to build two latrines beside the local hermittage. This is the center point of the community where daily events go on, yet they still dont' have bathrooms. It is always necessary to look for the nearest neighbor's house down the street, and as well all know, that can be frustrating haha. We must keep in mind that the reconstruction after the earthquakes in 2001 have been slow here, and bit by bit the communities rebuild themselves, and now its time to help with public bathrooms. As far a manual labor goes, I am going to see if I can work out a deal with our scholarship students to work a few days for their service hours that we ask of them :)

Speaking of scholarship students, not to bore, people, but we had the honor of hosting some of our supporters of the San Pedro Nonualco Scholarship Committee from Louisiana this past weekend. They seemed to have a good time and even had a surprise waiting for them (and me) in the Mass on Saturday night. Apparently, someone had told Padre Tino that they were here visiting, so before ending the Mass, he was like, "William, William, where is William? Come up here" Of course I was sitting in the back, and so I had to go all the way up front, and then call them up front and say a few words about them and where they are from, and then the overfilled church gave them a huge round of applause for their work. They have helped the scholarship committee with 50 high school and now with what will be 8 university students this year. Good stuff. Sadly, I don't have pictures of that either, Dr. T if you are reading this, tell Mark that he will have to send me some pics, or if you have any send them to me and I'll post them.

The stove project is reaching its closing stages, and I am still in the searching stage for the big water project. And with that.... I close the project updates.

For those interested in helping out with part, or in some way, REMEMBER 5 SPONSORS, of course feel free to email me at rhettbwilliams@yahoo.com, which also appears in the profile above, or donate at the DONATE tab to the right with a description of where you would like to direct the donation, if you so desire. I'm usually pretty good about sending out pictures and info to the donors directly, or posting it here for everyone to see. Or, if you just have any great ideas, feel free to comment here or send it to me in email. The majority of comments people send straight to my email for some reason, but whatever floats your boat.

My new job as Regional Leader is also beginning to become more and more involved, I've been able to travel to one island here in La Paz, where they are asking Peace Corps for a volunteer, and I got to visit another island in Usulutan, with a spectacular bay view of three volcanos. I will probably have to move in February, which Im not too excited about, but I think it will all work out in the end. I know that its going to be a hassle with people to not try and overcharge me rent as a gringo, but oh well, we'll see how it goes. I am taking the GRE the beginning of February as well so that will be fun, I have started looking over some vocab words, hahaha. I am also contemplating the FSO Test in June because its free, but that is still to be seen. So, thats my life up until now, nothing too crazy :) Here comes G.K. "Being educated means reading the newspapers. Being properly educated means not believing the newspapers after you have read them." G.K. Chesterton

So, just to let those sending me hate mail about not posting, hahahahaha much love, not too worry too much, its just that I have just returned to El Salvador (affectionately known as "the savior" in PC), and am getting everything together for the next post.....as well as getting my life in order.

There are lots of exciting things to show pics and tell about :) It should be up in the next few days.

Cuidense,

Rhett

HOT WATER!!! haha. I have made it here to Charleston for my month long homeleave. Things have gone well and its nice to be around family and friends.

There are lots of errands to be done while Im here though, so bit by bit I am working on getting things in order there.

Oh yeah, by the way, some of the outlying communities brought me some petitions before I left for soccer balls and cleats for their teams. The teams are about to start the yearlong tournament. So if anyone is interested in helping out there for a Christmas gift for a bunch of youth and other team members, I am looking for about 6 soccer balls (2 for each team). They run about 25 dollars each in El Salvador, but I havent checked here yet.

Always remember to help out in the frequent needs that pop up here and there in my rural communities that you can help out with the PayPal DONATE button on the right side of the blog. I always keep people informed on where and how it is used, photos and all... Or you can email me if you are interested in helping out in some other way.

"100% of the shots you don't take don't go in"

Wayne Gretsky

November 22, 2009

So I put up some pictures last time of whats going on here in my municipality, but I had a chance to visit with my community in the past week some of the more affected areas in the rains during Hurricane Ida. Its a different kind of disaster zone from what I have seen before. I have vague memories of Hurricane Hugo and the craziness that caused, and random flash flood areas. But land and rock slides..... these are my firsts. What happened was that large chunks of the highest parts of the volcano gave way and carved out new ravines on their ways down to these two main towns... Verapaz and Guadalupe in the Department of San Vicente, El Salvador. It brought not only mud and trash to fill the towns, but thousands of large boulders in the currents of water. Needless to say, now there are dry river beds, where originally there were sugar cane fields and neighborhoods.

In some other pics, I am helping concrete a floor at the neighbors house, and got to play in the first game of San Pedros Basketball tourney (I wont be there for the next 5 games).

Back in SC on Friday. Very exciting. Check out the pics.

"If you are not living life on the edge, you are taking up too much space."

Some of the guys working to take the mud out of the different houses... I bought them some sodas and we hung out

About to start the tournament

we still need to work on our picks

the base being finished on the neighbors floor

still getting there

a blocked road in one of the outlying communities

more blockedness

the shelter for the town of Verapaz

My community has made over 5 trips that I know of to leave certain goods to the needier communities... this is them handing out tamales to the people of the shelter

the shelter in the school

my community handing out stuff in a different school

more handing out

and more

Yeah, so, this post is basically a short one about what is going on here right now. For those who don´t know, Hurricane Ida passed through here a week ago and dropped ALOT of water. People are wondering why it was so bad and it passed over in a matter of less than 2 days. Well, the Category 5 storm, Hurricane Mitch in 1998 hung around here for 5 days and dropped 400mL of water. Hurricane Ida in its best moment was a category 1 storm that dropped 355 mL on my volcano in 5 HOURS. What makes it worse, is that it had already rained here every day for 2 weeks on and off, so the ground was already pretty saturated. The mix of steep terrain and super steroided torrential rains, created the perfect conditions for disaster in my area.

So as far as results go....My community had quite a few landslides that blocked the road up to the main town. We got lucky though because the mayors office sent a machine deal in addition to a bunch of shovels to clear out the biggest one off the road. At that point they ran out of gas, and found out that the only exits down the volcano were blocked by a bunch of different landslides. So with no gas for anyone, the town hung out for a nother day of on and off rain with no power or water or exit. Eventually, in the next few days, they cleared out enough room to get a truck by and down the mountain, but the buses still couldnt run because there were huge boulders in the way. It took dynamite to blow them into small enough pieces to move off the road hahaha.

Today, on the 19th day without water in the main town and 9th in my community, both are now getting power and water back. The infrastructure damage though has been pretty bad. There are 24 bridges damages with 8 being wiped out. Just in my municipality we have 3 community that are still out of contact as afar as vehicles go. A few dont have water or power still (although some never did:) It will take a while to get things back in order, Id say a year for the whole region to get going. We should be back up in running in a few months though.

Our municipality had no deaths reported, although in a nearby river a 9 yr old girl was found. Most of the death were further down the mountain where basically two super large mudslides put a hurting on towns called Guadalupe and Verapaz at the base of the volcano as well as San Vicente. Also a nearby lake overflowed and wreaked havoc on the towns around it. There are even some neighborhoods that were completely erased. The death toll is up to 184 with 60 missing still.

In the good news, my home leave is now booked and I will be back Nov 27 to Dec 28.

Here are some of the few pics that Ive been able to get my hands on.

Washing out of roads was common.

This was the entrance to the community where the new volunteers had been placed.

Since there isnt water, the river is busy busy.

Some of the help that came in for the needy

Organizing the help.

Up the mountain towards San Pedro Nonualco

A small obstacle

Houses at risk in the outlying communities of San Pedro

A large boulder blocking the way down the mountain

More of the road to where the volunteers used to be... totally blocked off.

Trying to head down the mountain. Govt workers trying to clear the way.

One of the hundreds of landslides in the area covering roads.

Another.

in the way.

The road washed out at the only entrance to Santa Maria Ostuma

People climbing the valleys to find ways to accesible roads and work

What used to be the piping to our community, the reason we dont have water. They hadnt fixed it though because it is right below where they were going to dynamite the boulders, haha.

People walking down the volcano to work in San Sal.

Clearing the way down the mountain.

More love.

More wash outs.

October 19, 2009

Ok, so as I had said, with the death of the computer, things have become more difficult on the communication end, but no worries.... lots of photos to come. Also, I lost pretty much my whole documented lifes work the other day when my reserve external harddrive died. Now all I have, lucky for you guys, are my pictures that I had stored up on the camera. I feel like the harddrive dying was worse that the computer dying, because all my pictures since... well forever, all my college and other types of papers, all the information on my Peace Corps projects, everything I had accrued in life is gone unless I can recover info off it. Sigh, such is life....at least I dont have to worry about protecting anything now like I was doing with that external drive since the computer went downhill, haha. FREEDOM :(

Also before starting the projects, I got a chance to go camping up on the Santa Ana Volcano over looking the another crater lake Coatepeque with a group of volunteers. Our volcanologist volunteer had to spend 24 hours watching a portable GPS seismometer (which is in some of the pictures), so we accompanied :)......Super View.... here are some pics.

Group on the volcano

breakfast the next morning

early morning over looking the crater lake

hahahaha.the seismometer and a nice view in the clouds

Now the fun stuff. Since the last post there have been lots of photo opportunities-projects etc. We have been working with the development committee (ADESCO) to repair a few parts of the street that were washing away. Well, actually we just prevented them from washing away until the rains go away and they can actually be fixed.

fun in the sun

Also, all of the different active committees and group off my community got together with me and we put into action a plan to build a communication system for the canton. In the middle of the community is a hermitage deal and the best place to put a PA system type deal. I used some donated funds on my end to cover half, we borrowed the other half, and got a 10% discount from the company for the materials and put it all into action. Also, we are going to be putting up some Event boards as well to help everyone keep track of the events. Check out the pics.

the finished product

puttin her in place

too many people?

hoisting her up

hanging out

getting ready

Oh yeah, so remember the community house that we were trying to put a roof on and all? Well we got all of that hammered out and started that project. At the moment, we have put the new roof on, painted it, put in the new lights, and bought the new chairs and tables and a dry erase board. In the next few weeks we will be finishing that up by fixing up the latrines and reinforcing some windows that in the medical dispensary that weve had some problems with. SO, the corollary to this project is also the "cultural beautification" hahaha, my terms, of the community. We are one of the communitys in which the area is pushing to develop an ecological tourism presence. So when we painted the Community House, we painted the base coat for a young artist in from La Comunidad to paint different local scenery of cultural heritage ideas on several different walls inside and out. Including a Community Map at the entrance of our Canton. Right now Im negotiating with various groups to see if by some miracle we get the other $700 needed to finish this "dream project".

the new roof

the neighbor mauricio sweeping the beams

the new boards

tearing down the old

The president of the development committee by the new board and with the walls prepped in the background for the murals that we are trying to get funds for

Another project is the potable water and bathroom project that we have started by winning two grants, one from the East Coast and one from the West Coast. We are finishing up this week putting a mens and womens bathroom, a drain and two sinks, and a 1,100 liter water tank in the parish medical clinic in the main town. More pics:

the sand and gravel awaiting the work to commence

pre work

pre work

Jorge starting the bathrooms

laying the groundwork

getting there

putting in the lights

making a mess of everything

the main black waters junction

Me and the engineer checking over things

I just barely fit.

more revisions

Preparing to plan out the water tank

This past week, the Development Committee ADESCO and I had a small ceremony before the board meeting to two local soccer teams who are entering into their respective tournaments this month. We won a Kids to Kids grant for balls, nets, and cleats among other things. Also this past week we turned in the final materials for the stove project in the last two communities... FINALLY. Now we just have to build the last 15.

the fun part.... this are representatives of the school of football

my soccer team representatives

the school of soccer from the main town

The biggest project, and to date only, that has remained out of reach for me is the fixing of the Potable Water System in my home community. You might remember that this was the project that we were soliciting from certain groups in Spain, but was close, but didnt work out. So, the mayors office is supposedly offering support for part of the project, but not all of it. I sent out an email to part of you guys asking for Rotary contacts, that is my next group to contact.

That brings me to talking about my future, because for those who keep track of time, you know that my time here will be up the end of November of this year. Well the Development committee, as I mentioned in the last post, solicited six more months for me here and in September I went to my COS (close of service) Conference to see how it was all going to work out. There I realized that the earlier time I could take the GRE would be in February, meaning that if I were to want to continue studying January 2011 would be the earliest time to do so. LEAVING all of 2010 open (not just the six months requested by my counterpart agency). Also, Peace Corps El Salvador opened up six slots for Regional Leaders around the country, each one with a different section of the country. So I applied and ended up getting the South region (go figure haha) which is actually pretty big.... it includes La Paz, Usulutan, and San Miguel (http://www.mapsofworld.com/el-salvador/maps/el-salvador-map.jpg). At the end of the day, Peace Corps extended my time here until Dec of 2010 as Regional Leader. The job entails basically helping the volunteers in my zone to better contact different governmental and non governmental agencies, execute projects, and have better communication with Peace Corps. Also we will be helping develop new sites for future volunteers among other things.

The only down side to this, is that I might have to relocate to a town more central to my zone, which means I will be in my community much less than I am now. However, I will be in and out a lot and will hopefully make more contacts to try and get the water project on the move.

So there ya have it, thats a small portion of whats going on in my life right now, enjoy the pics.

The TEFL (teaching english as a foreign language).... different volunteers from all over the country brought their english teachers to a Peace Corps hosted TEFL workshop

TEFL in action

The oiled up pig that everyone was trying to grab during the festivals here. If you can grab it... its yours.... they were chasing it all over for half and hour.

The judges at the costume deal

me in a fuzzy pic

The front of the procession with a mini Saint Dominic

ahahahahahaha

"...a true development is that which is conservative of its original, and a corruption is that which tends to its destruction."

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

p. 419

September 9, 2009

I have found a nice slot of time to write down some stuff, so here goes.

Mid August I got to go on a little vacation with the parents to see parts of Panama and Costa Rica. It was a super fun experience and it was good seeing them. Although sad at the same time because they couldnt come to my community to check out my pad for various reasons. I still dont have a way to put pics on the computer because my camera doesnt have a cable, but Im working on that. The pictures on my camera are normally how I remind myself of what to write about on here, haha.

Also at the beginning of August we had the Patron Festivals of Santo Domingo of Guzman here in La Comunidad. Everything was lively with lots of events. I participated in the costume parade with a cowboy costume from college that worked out kind of nice. Our group even supposedly got invited to another towns patron festivals to participate because they thought it turned out pretty well. Oh yeah, and some kid stole my water gun at the very end and never gave it back.

Lets see, also we are slowly closing in on the end of the stove project in the rural areas of the municipality. I am about 3 months behind at the moment because the trash truck that I was using to take materials everywhere is almost consistently broke, but I think in the next two months that I will have it done, hopefully.

Oh yeah, also, remember that ambulance that I had been writing grants for back a while ago? Well, I was beaten by another institution, the European Union donated a new ambulance to each of the 100 poorest municipalities in the country, and we fell under that category. So, wahoo, strike it off the list.

We have won two water grants that almost cover putting water in the parish medical clinic here. Next week we should be ready to go buy enough materials to start and finish 75% of the project. Also, we have the support of the mayors office to start work on the Community House. The next few weeks should be exciting in that we will start to see concrete work on what has been a year of soliciting and organization.

Speaking of those, and the need of a continuing support in a few last projects here, I wanted to show yall the breakdown of funds of a donation that was given about a year ago through the PAYPAL here on the webiste. It was a donation of 200.00 and was spent in the following manner:

$64.00 went into the wood saving stove project....split between transport of materials and helping covering families that couldn´t cover costs. (right now weve built 67 stoves in my municipality)

$20.00 went into refurbishing two donated laptops, one which went to a school and another which went to the Parish Medical Clinic.

$54.00 went into two printers, one for the school just mentioned and the Parish Medical Clinic

$5.00 went to cover an Ultrasound of an elderly lady´s eye in my community during our eye campaign

$10.00 covered a pair of glasses for a mom of 10 children and leader in the Parish community

$40.00 went into the first phase of a project by my own community to put a speakerphone in the middle of the community to announce events, deaths, etc along the 3 mile ridge. We are still short on the second phase, but this $40.00 went together with the last of another donation to pay for the parts.

$7.00 was the amount that PayPal took out of the original $200.00 in fees.

The donation went a long way and Im sure had an affect on a much larger number of people than was expected by the donors when they donated. Well done by that fam.

I have been collaborating with another community on the other side of the municipality as well, and in the past year we have been petitioning for them their own volunteers and now they have arrived. They are a couple that will be working with the school and development committee for two years. The community is ooober excited about it all and happy that they are being remembered in the course of things in the world, haha. Speaking of this subject, my actual time here is winding down and technically ends Nov. 28, but my ADESCO is soliciting to have me stay another 6 months to finish up and get started some other projs. Im fine with that. There will be various volunteers doing that though, so I should know by the end of September if we are approved by Peace Corps or not.

For now this is life. And its good, I ate some tasty chicken wings and it passed through my mind that I could die now a happy person, but hopefully that will hold out until I finish my work here with the communities :). Ive begun to think about what my time here in Peace Corps has taught me and where I should begin pointing my life after its over. But more on that after I finish my closing conference COS here Sept. 16-18 and PC gives us more info on that stuff.

Keep fighting the good fight.

With all the doctrinal hooplah in the news in the Anglican-Episcopal-Lutheran realm lately, I found this quote from an at the time Anglican interesting:

"....In barbarous times the will is reached through the senses; but in an age in which reason, as it is called, is the standard of truth and right, it is abundantly evident to anyone, who mixes ever so little with the world, that, if things are left to themselves, every individual will have his own view of them, and take his own course; that two or three will agree to-day to part company to-morrow; that Scripture will be read in contrary ways, and history, according to the apologue, will have to different comers its silver shield and its golden; that philosophy, taste, prejudice, passion, party, caprice, will find no common measure, unless there be some supreme power to control the mind and to compel agreement.

There can be no combination on the basis of truth without an organ of truth. As cultivation brings out the colours of flowers, and domestication changes the character of animals, so does education of necessity develope differences of opinion; and while it is impossible to lay down first principles in which all will unite, it is utterly unreasonable to expect that this man should yield to that, or all to one. I do not say there are no eternal truths, such as the poet proclaims, 6 which all acknowledge in private, but that there are none sufficiently commanding to be the basis of public union and action. The only general persuasive in matters of conduct is authority; that is, (when truth is in question,) a judgement which we feel to be superior to our own. If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties, between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You may be tolerant or intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have. By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an infallible chair; and by the sects of England, an interminable division. Germany and Geneva began with persecution, and have ended in scepticism. The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the object, while it gives definiteness and force to the matter, of the Revelation."

pp. 89-91

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

John Henry Newman (later Cardinal Newman)

1878

The computer officially is resting in peace until a new video card can be found and installed. This will create some problems on posting pictures on the site until it gets fixed, but hopefully Ill get one up in the next few weeks with updates on all the projects. In the meantime, I leave you with this site to check out in honor of the USA vs. Mexico World Cup eliminatory soccer game tomorrow (its going to be good... hopefully).

http://www.nike.com/nikesoccer/dtom/

So, my laptop has taken a turn for the worse here in "The Savior", so its been hard to update the blog with the pics as normal. I have all the fotos saved on my external harddrive, but its hard to keep taking it to the main town to send everything off, or updates and all that jazz. I hope that its just a software problem (doubtful), because if its not my video card is slowly dying what seems to be a more and more painful death (for me). But in the end, Im sure it will make me a better person because working without a computer is hard!!! Living without a computer, not too shabby, but working without one, makes things interesting. The disks to try and reinstall everything should hopefully come in soon, so we´ll see how bad it is soon.

If I get a chance sometime in the near future I will try and upload some of the pics to the previous post with the external.

In other news, it is official, we finished the Peace Corps Partnership grant and supposedly the money is on the way. THANK YOU to all who participated, and I hope that you continue to help out with some of the last projects that I mentioned in the previous post.

If anyone ever has any questions... look me up on skype at rhett.williams.

This quote is from the Patron Festivals program that we just finished making for our community festivals of Santo Domingo de Guzman, coming up Aug 1-8.

"A man who governs his passions is master of his world. We must either command them or be enslaved by them. It is better to be a hammer than an anvil."

St. Dominic, 12-13 Centuries

July 11, 2009

I think today is my sister’s anniversary, Happy Anniversary!

Hmmm…. Well in the last month, we have completed our 10th eye surgery with in which between the 10 we have gotten the prices reduced by close to $3,000. Good stuff.

My stove project has come to a crawl right now because the only truck of the mayor’s office broke down, as well as the trash truck. So my transport for the materials is based on these two, so that has made things hard (impossible, without doubling prices). I only have three communities left to finish off, so I hope I get there in the next few months, I am ready to finish this project, it’s very time consuming.

Oh yeah, so we are trying to apply in our community to make our water system better so that everyone can have water. A fund came open in Spain, but we only had a week to get all our ducks in a row after it came open, but we made the deadline, although maybe with not as much quality as possible. We find out in the beginning of August, very exciting. Its over a 35k project and will affect over 2,750 people. We are also trying to collaborate con WaterCharity (watercharity.org) to put water in the parish medical clinic in the main town that provides two days a week and weekend service with free medicine for not only our municipality, but the surrounding one’s as well (Some 30,000 people). They average 35-40 consultations a day, charge 3 dollars a consult, and the prescribed medicine comes free (general medicine and dentistry…the doctors are really good guys).

Let’s see, we are trying to raise another $200 to reach the goal of $400 dollars to buy a megaphone to post at the top of a building in the middle of our canton(village). It is a really long (4-5km) town going down a ridge, so it’s hard to get announcements out for whatever reason, so we’ve decided that’s the best way to go. They are going to put in all the manual labor, and I have some leftover donation money, but that still leaves us 200 short (amplifier). This will be in coordination with the community event boards that are contemplated in the Community House fund on the website below.

Also, we are soliciting help supply paint and stuff for some local painters to do a map of the village at the entrance and to spiffy up the Community House with murals of cultural stuff, after we FINISH the Peace Corps Partnership grant and repaint the thing!!! Go donate RIGHT NOW, before you forget!! Remind friends as well, because the quicker we get it done the faster we can get to work. (https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=519-124)

In other news, our Patron Festivals of Santo Domingo (Saint Dominic of Guzman) for my community are coming up in the first week of August. Preparations are ongoing…very exciting.

On a darker note, we had some deaths in the community, back to back actually. One was my counterpart’s mom and one was my neighbor’s grandson. Very sad. The photo will be my last words on that.

On a closing note, I have been coordinating with the scholarship committee to give the high school students tests on deciphering their career path/vocations. The exams took FOREVER to grade and put in order, but then we gave the results and now we are going to invite a group of professionals for a type of career day to talk with them all so that they can make educated decisions and all that jazz for careers. I hope it all pays off.

July 4 went well and we had our Peace Corps soccer tournament where my program had a very strong showing. The little house where we stay when we are in the capital, not for Peace Corps, then threw us a very nice little hamburger hot dog party that was SUPER tasty.

So yeah, that’s what I got right now, kind of here and there, but a little bit of info on everything.

“I have said it already, I am convinced that the way to build a new and better world is not capitalism. Capitalism leads us straight to hell.”

Hugo Chavez

July 6, 2009

Lots of crazy things to talk about, so let’s just start one at a time. About a month ago, Mauricio Funes, the first “leftist” elected to the presidency of El Salvador, became President. Everyone is very interested to see how it all works out, and how different of a government he will run from all the previous governments.

Also, in other political news, the whole Honduras “coup” is and has been ALL over the news here since it happened. It has really hit home here, because in a military that is traditionally conservative and a leader elected who is liberal, there is a latent fear of something similar here. To me, this has all been VERY interesting to see how the media plays it, as well as the US. For those of you who haven’t stayed upon it, here is a quick recap. Now former President of Honduras, Miguel Zelaya, will end his term in office this January. The Honduran Constitution, as do many Latin American Constitutions, limits the terms that a President can be reelected due to the recent history these countries have with military dictatorships; one person who slowly acquires all/majority power in a country, as Chavez is doing at the moment. Former President Zelaya decided that he wanted to change the Constitution, so he asked the Honduran Congress support him in a ballot to call a Constitutional Assembly, to rewrite the Constitution so that a president could be reelected (ring any bells there, Chavez). He then wanted to hold the referendum himself with the military, but the Supreme Court ruled it illegal according to the Constitution. Both said it was illegal, even his own party who later called for an investigation into his mental fitness, so he turned to the military to get help in the referendum to put on himself. The head of the military said no as well, so….he fired him. In the end the Supreme Court ordered the General’s reinstatement and the Attorney General ordered the confiscation of the ballots sent from, you guessed it, Venezuela. The Attorney General also said that he would issue an arrest warrant for anyone who continued the illegal ballot. Zelaya then supposedly organized the break in of the air force base where the Venezuelan ballots were housed of the said referendum. End of the story, the Attorney General eventually issued the warrant for the arrest of Presidente Zelaya and it was signed by the Supreme Court. The Court sent the military to remove him from office, and then sent him to Costa Rica. None were hurt in the process. The arrest warrant was based on “acting against the government, treason, abuse of authority, and usurpation of power.”

http://www.libertaddigital.com/documentos/orden-de-captura-de-la-fiscalia-17057381.html

There are articles roaming around as well that the Honduran confiscated from him were modified to the point that it would have allowed him to stay in power with the making of the new Constitution all at once. They say that this was why the government acted so quickly to arrest him. But once again, nothing concrete as of yet on that account.

The Congress then appointed the next in line, President of Congress (the Vice had already resigned in 2008), member of the same liberal party as the ex-president, as President.

Here comes my personal opinion in a few words, what a TRAGEDY, for the Latin American people. Honduras had a primetime chance to legally remove a President from power who wanted to defy the Constitution and remain in power without the assent of the rest of the ELECTED/CONSTITUTIONAL government. And, Congress and the Court blew it. They were so concerned with keeping the peace after his arrest, that they sent him to Costa Rica, and that’s when the arrest basically turned into to a coup/kidnapping in the eyes of the international community. The government says they did it to keep down the bloodshed, but they didn’t think out the consequences fully of sending a citizen out of the country. For this reason this is a tragedy, the Congress should have removed him in due time and due process, however difficult because of his actions, and proved to the world that Democracy can work in the face of Presidents who don’t want to heed the law they are sworn to protect. The tragedy is that they had correct motive and faulty procedure. Reading en El Heraldo, one of Honduras’ newspapers, and listening to many commentaries in El Salvador, public sentiment seems to be pretty much in line with what I just described….ok maybe they didn’t use the word tragedy, but seeing it basically like I said.

That being said, was this a coup as many “leftist” Latin American Presidents are calling it? Here is the supremely erudite definition of coup d'état from Dictionary.com:

“The sudden overthrow of a government by a usually small group of persons in or previously in positions of authority.”

In reading the actual definitions, in the basic, generalized sense, I think it has to be admitted that it there was a forced change of EXECUTIVE, but not of STATE, and up until the final sending to Costa Rica, it complied with Honduran law. So, the branch of the government with the power to remove the president, stayed intact, as well as the Supreme Court. Was the change affected by a small group? Nope, everyone but the president and his guards participated. Was it performed by a group by a group that previously held power? Nope. Was it sudden? Well this whole controversy started months ago with the Congress and the Supreme Court ruling against it, so I’d say no. Was the political catalyst a force already in a position of less power? Here is a Yes, but they were ELECTED, so we are now talking IMPEACHMENT and not a COUP….Bill Clinton anyone?

I hope in the end that the Constitution is upheld in Honduras and that they hold out until the people elect their new president in November as was originally intended. This story is huge all over Latin America, because it is a litmus test for how future governments will put up with power hungry executives, and how a country can follow its Constitution and fight off the sanctions of the international community at the same time. If only he’d gone to jail instead of Costa Rica.

Check out a decent article here from the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623220955866301.html

This ended up being much longer than I expected….I’ll post on the rest of my stuff here with my life in the next few days.

Thanks to all who have donated to our Community House fund, WE ARE ALMOST THERE!!!! Let’s finish it off so that we can start repairing!!!

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=519-124

"Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed."

From the interesting Legislator of Arizona, Barry Goldwater

The Peace Corps Partnership Fund has accepted my community's proposal to renovate the community house. I have mentioned a few times that this was in process and that I would let everyone know when it was accepted, and now it has been! The community house has survived high magnitude earthquakes and torrential rains for more than 2o years but the roof no longer will hold out. The center is usuable in the dry season, but the other half of the year, it is not. So this project has contemplated in it everything from repairing the roof to painting it and buying chairs and tables for the community to use, as well as community announcement boards that I am very excited about.

The way the Partnership fund works is that Peace Corps publishes our project online, and lets everyone who wants to donate to it do so (tax deductibly). When the total has been reached, they send us a single check to execute the project.

You can find the Partnership page here:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=519-124

Or, you can go to www.peacecorps.gov, go to the donations tab, then "volunteer projects", and then search my project by Homestate:SC or country: El Salvador.

If you know any friends or families or collegues that might have interest in helping out, feel free to mention the link to them. With a bunch of families donating a lot or a little, I feel confident that we will reach the goal and finish the project.

"Many hands make light work"

May 28, 2009

Well, things are always nice to start with a positive story. The neighbors family have an unproportionally large amount of birthdays in May, so they try and make a trip to the beach (40 miles…maybe) in that month once every two years or so. So everyone piled into an orange truck and we headed out to Las Puntillas. It’s the point of a little harbor basically. We went crabbing again with hoes and machetes…..I found 5 this time, so I’m getting better at digging holes in the mud, haha.

The 6th of May we had three more eye surgeries, all cataracts done by FUDEM, the eye NGO here, and they are mostly a success. One old person says she has more headaches, and another that his eye waters up a lot, and third says life is good, so I’d say it was a success, haha. That same day I headed out to the National School of Agriculture for our last Peace Corps training for my group. It wasn’t near as good as the last one, but I made a nice find with an NGO there called CARE that might work in water projects so, we’ll see how it turns out.

Habitat for Humanity came out to my site and we did some house by house publicity. They brought out the megaphone mounted on a truck, and about 5 people so we started handed out all their info. They basically work on building new houses or repairing the ones people have by giving credit at a lower rate than the banks. Not as exciting as I thought they would be at first, but they do what they can. We then went through San Pedro doing the same thing. Wahoo, :)

Later in the week Water, Trees, and People, the NGO collaborating on the stove project, sent a US representative to El Sal, who decided to drop by and visit the project here in San Pedro Nonualco. That went well, and she got to meet a bunch of the families and all that jazz.

Oh yeah, we ended up making it into the final tournament in the last spot (8th) for soccer. Which means we had to take on the number 1 team in the first round. We tied 0-0 in regulation and then won in penalty kicks. I pretty much helped in no way that game. No worries though, we played a much bigger and more physical team the next Sunday and got beat 4-0. I got there late, so I couldn’t play….my alarm didn’t go OFFFF.

Also in a proud moment, I would like to announce the completion of my porch closing in deal (except for doors). Don Raul and I finished that up, and I feel like a real skilled mason now.

Check out the pics.

Almost forgot, the mayor has now officially changed here, so this month has been me getting used to the new personnel, manner of work, and all that jazz. Work continues. This Monday the Presidency will change hands for the first time a leftist party in the history of the democracy, so everyone is interested to see how it works out. I have hopes and fears. Only time will tell.

A random note, I think I have heard on the bus a remake of the George Micheal? Careless Whisper song by some rock group. I don’t know if it’s not bad or just me liking some with a little bit of an American rhythm.

Everyone is planting their corn farms and bean “gardens” here now that the rain is here and things won’t dry up. An exciting time for all.

In random news things I’ve seen. I saw that the California Supreme Court upheld the gay marriage ban recently approved by voters. The vote was 6-1 if I’m not mistaken. Anyone want to know which of the 7 California justices was being considered for the US Supreme Court? Let’s see, ah yes, Notre Dame, seems like that’s just a giant cluster. What were they thinking. I saw a video where they were arresting priests on Notre Dame’s campus? Sounds to me like Notre Dame (administration) acted without thinking it through and then felt too deep to pull out. I guarantee they will think twice before giving an honorary degree to someone who is the leading figure in the fight against the Church in the realm of the most pressing moral issue of the day. For some reason, when I see the arresting of old priests at a Catholic school, it reminded me of the scenes in the third new Star Wars movie where the emperor, gives the command for the clones to turncoat on all the Jedi and shoot them in the back. Oh well, who knows why it came to mind. On the Pro-Obama side though, I got a chance to glance at his “Terminations, Reductions, and Savings” document for the 2010 budget and it’s impressive. Reducing funding by $17 billion to govt programs isn’t an easy task without making quite a few people, I’d imagine influential people, somewhat angry. What he is eliminating and reducing is of less importance to me at this point, more the fact that they are making tough decisions to bring part of the budget to more order while admitting that they will be spending more money in the next few years than any administration in the history of our nation. Whether that parts a good or bad thing, I’m not sure yet. Hmmmm what else, ah yes, saw where a Catholic priest got caught with a chick at the beach, and decided to change over to Episcopal church to be with her and so as keep his job as a pastor. It was on the front page here in El Salvador a few days ago too. I couldn’t help but get a kick out of the comments to the articles online about this. There were praising the Episcopal church for having been the recipient of a few renounced Catholic clergy over the past decades, even some that are serving as their bishops now. Ummmm….roight.…. And you wonder why the Episcopal church has so many problems nowadays with defining moral teachings? I have no idea why that might be. They also might want to check the recent entrance rate into the Catholic Church from the Anglican Communion and Episcopal side. Canterbury is the biggest Catholic promoter nowadays :)

Finally, I was awoken last night by the tremors of a 7.1 earthquake off the coast of Honduras. It was kind of cool, but probably the strongest tremors I’ve felt here yet. Everything was swaying right to left, over and over. I walked outside in time to see some lights being cut on in neighboring houses. Crazy stuff.

Projects continue advancing here, more on that soon.

I finished Orthodoxy and there are a plethora of thoughts I’d like to put down, but here are just a few.

“The last chapter has been concerned with the contention that orthodoxy is not only (as is often urged) the only safe guardian of morality or order, but is also the only logical guardian of liberty, innovation and advance. If we wish to pull down the prosperous oppressor we cannot do it with the new doctrine of human perfectibility; we can do it with the old doctrine of Original Sin. If we want to uproot inherent cruelties or lift up lost populations we cannot do it with the scientific theory that matter precedes mind; we can do it with the supernatural theory that mind precedes matter. If we wish specially to awaken people to social vigilance and tireless pursuit of practice, we cannot help it much by insisting on the Immanent God and the Inner Light: for these are at best reasons for contentment; we can help it much by insisting on the transcendent God and the flying and escaping gleam; for these are at best reasons contentment; we can help it much by insisting on the transcendent God and the flying and escaping gleam; for that means divine discontent. If we wish particularly to assert the idea of a generous balance against that of a dreadful autocracy we shall instinctively be Trinitarian rather than Unitarian. If we desire European civilization to be a raid and a rescue, we shall insist rather that souls are in real peril than that their peril is ultimately unreal. And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified, we shall rather wish to think that a veritable God was crucified, rather than a mere sage or hero. Above all, if we wish to protect the poor we shall be in favour of fixed rules and clear dogmas. The rules of a club are occasionally in favour of the poor member. The drift of a club is always in favour of the rich one.”

Orthodoxy, p. 148

A group called PICO, based in California, a grass roots community organization NGO, has started working with the parish here, and talking about the fact the everyone has certain rights, the guy said something that caught my eye in an effort to get people to think how to make good on their rights as well becoming involved to help make their rights a reality:

“All people have rights, but they also all have obligations.”

Delivering stove materials in the trash truck to a neighboring community.

BRICKS!

The driver of City Hall giving all you guys a thumbs up while tying up some barrils of molasses for the stoves.

The second part of the visit of Trees, Water, and People was visiting with the families where I actually live that have had the stoves for almost two years to evaluate their experiences.

The first part of the visit of the US NGO was to train the new families on how to use the stove and for the US representative to see how the project was moving along.

The lesson.

These ladies and gentlemen are the new City Council members for San Pedro Nonualco.

This is the new Mayor of San Pedro Nonualco, Mr. Sergio Orellana, seen here giving his acceptance speech and work plan for this term.

The exchange of the baton/scepter of the city, the symbol of power in the municipality held by each mayor (alcalde)

The previous Mayor, Mr. Guillermo Garcia, giving his speech while addressing the new government seated in the background.

This is sad that the pictures will be backwards, but.... oh well. This blogger continues to not let me move the pictures. Here is my new wall deal on my back porch that Don Raul and I did. Eventually will doors, it will keep the skanky ducks out that keep pooing ALL over my porch, hah.

Getting there.

Almost halfway.

Starting.

The trip to the beach.... we crossed over to these islands to go crabbing. This everyone washing up after having gotten all muddy.

Thats the neighbor Mauricio and a hoe and a hole....and somewhere in the future, a crab... which will in the immediate future be in a soup.

Having a good laugh watching Francisco try and fit in the life jacket. Nina Delfina and Alex, basically my fam in the main town, working day by day on the computers.

SO, I don't know what has happened to blogger, but its not letting me move pictures anymore, so until I figure out why, we'll have to deal with pictures all at once. I will put up the captions tomorrow... NO TIME before the bus right now.

April 25, 2009

So Holy Week and Easter Week are over and things are starting to get back to normal. The twins turned two, so there was a little bit of festivity there. They are starting to sprout up and are trying to talk a lot. Check out a few pics.

These past few weeks the wood saving stove project has started to pick up steam. We started with the community furthest out, and knocked it out by turning over to all the families the materials. I brought Francisco along to help the crew of the trash truck and me to deliver the stuff. It was a lot of work, and a long bumpy ride, but with much success. The technician is coming this week to start building out there.

A few days ago, we knocked out two other communities, La Carbonera and San Juan Nahuistepeque, we are just waiting on the iron griddle like parts to get done at the NGO. I feel like that is going to be the holdup for this project. But that is the biggest problem, and at the same time best lesson for a Peace Corps Volunteer….we bring nothing to the table as far as resources go, so we have to organize really well, and keep on people, or things never get done. I’ve found that things get done better by just making friends with everyone, rather than relying on the fact that we are “Cuerpo de Paz” (Peace Corps), haha.

Oh man, normally, I omit all the things that go wrong in the projects, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the latest clownage. I borrowed a metal barrel from someone to bring molasses for the stoves, and didn’t know that the bottom wasn’t welded well to the top part. Well, that led to about 30 galones ($20) of molasses leaking out on the way back from the Sugar Factory. It was ALL over the Mayor’s Office’s truck and the front of the Mayors Office and everything. And there wasn’t any water to wash the stuff with. It was a terrible evening, haha. Now that I think about it, I think City Hall might be a better translation for Alcaldia….anyways, fun stuff.

In other news, one of the students of the rural school of San Juan Nahuistepeque in our municipality won second place in the country in a drawing contest put on by the Embassy and Peace Corps. So the country director and my boss and other people came to do a little ceremony in Celebration of Earth Day.

We also put on a big deal HIV/AIDS event here in La Comunidad in the Casa Comunal. I tried to stay more in the background and let the Health Committee and Isabel the community health promoter do the majority, and it actually turned out pretty well. We invited the head of the Infectology(?) dept. in the major hospital in the capital to do a talk on the history and current indices in the country, the parish priest to talk about prevention from a religious perspective, the head of Rural Health and Sanitation in Peace Corps to talk about its Biology, I put together a social drama with a youth group, and at the end CARITAS brought in a Testimony. I’d say we had close to 100 people there. Although at least half was a captive audience because we had a sign up sheet that we turned into the schools that had given permission for their students to attend.

Oh yeah, thanks to a donation from a group in Utah, we’ve been able to supply a school with a floor and electricity for what will now be its Computer Classroom. Through the same group we’ve also been able to supply the medical clinic and another school with their first computers. There is a third laptop, but I am looking for a hard drive to fix it with.

Finally, here in my home Canton, we have finished our internal study and pricings, land permissions, etc, to starting fix the potable water system. We will now start soliciting embassies, NGOs, and anything else that moves, hahaha.

Good times.

As much as I wanted to quote some of G.K. and his interesting take on tradition and democracy, I’m satisfied with this quote.

“Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.”

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 47

Check out some pics from Stations of the Cross here in San Pedro Nonualco. They have them on Main Street and its actually kind of cool because they are carrying a float with Jesus on it and at the Stations where Mary or John or whoever come into play they have another float with that person on it come in and then follow the Jesus Float. There is also a tradition here in Central America to make the stations with a colored sand and clay, its kind of cool. There are a few pictured here working from the end back to the beginning.

A brotherhood reenacting the crucifixion.

Coming up to the parish church in procession.

From a distance.

The float.

from a distance.

Video of the start.

The procession.

The painting "pure love" done by the high school students on the road.

Sand painting.

Another Sand Painting.

Started putting the white painting on the church.

So, this program is being dumb and wont let me move things down, so, we will have to deal with it like this til I can fix it later. The pictures at the top here are meants for the later parts of the post... haha... good luck.

Don Raul with his granddaughter at the beach. I put the orange peel on her head... its supposed to be a crown

They said I should do my hair like that everyday....whatever.

Our creation at the beach to protect the hole in the top middle that had fish in it.

The artists.

Always gotta get some cards going.

The bishops at the burial with the Franciscans in the background.

Padre Max.

The Facade with the first coat of paint on the day of the funeral.

Top of the volcano.

The crater of the volcano Santa Ana.

A pic I took above my head while walking.

Two other volcanos.

The burial chamber in front of the altar where they buried Padre Max.

A different view.

The New meets the Old.

The next wall that is to be started.

April 6, 2009

The moliendas... where they juice the sugar canes.taste tests!

The steam geyser.The pools they are building.

Let’s see, March. I went with some members of my community a few weeks ago to “el infernillo”… “the little hell”. It’s a small ravine on the side of the volcano where a stream passes over a heat vent, leading to a strong shoots of water vapor shooting out of the ground and lots of sulfur. When there is more water in the rainy season it forms pools of warm water, but right now its pretty dry above ground. They are building a little tourism dilly there to catch the water and make thermal pools, should turn out interesting.

After, we passed by the sugar cane grinder deals in the country and got to taste the sugary substance that bubbles to the top, very tasty.

About a week ago Mauricio, the neighbor, and I decided to go hunting for crabs and fishies in the streams close while going swimming in the different places where the water is deep enough to frollick in. I lost my machete as we were on our way back at night time and it fell out, couldn’t find it the days after either. I think we are going to go this evening to crab and fish in the night time.

Gin Rummy in the middle of nowhere.

Here are some pics of the progress on the church reconstruction. They were stalled a while without funds, but now got the paint donated so are back at work. I’ve also started taking pics of the wall that they have in mind to start next so that we can send out some grant proposals.

Next, ah yes, I had an awesome time going out to climb the Santa Ana Volcano. It’s the tallest volcano in country, and just erupted in 2005. They have had it closed off since then and have just now reopened it. We have a volcanologist as a volunteer out there working with the El Sal gov who was our guide and all that jazz. That’s the first time I’ve seen something like that….talking about the crater. I mean one wrong step and its weeeeeee 2000 feet down to the superheated acid lake in the middle. We took a pic as a group at the top, but they haven’t sent them out yet, so oh well.

Video from on top of the crater, and a snippet of the Crater Lake Coatepeque.

When I got back from that, I arrived in time for what would be the equivalent of a wake for us, but for the Italian Franciscan priest that evangelized 30 some years in San Pedro Nonualco. A group of Franciscans came in the early 20th century here to the region and evangelized this area. Padre Maximiliano spent some 32 years in San Pedro and then was moved to another place close at the end of his life. He had asked to be buried in the San Pedro parish church when he died, so the parish honored that request upon his death. Here are some pics from the wake and then funeral. He was a very honored and respected person in the region for his humility. 2 bishops came, and a large group of monks from the Franciscan order, and a large group of the diocesian pastors were there in support. There were tons and tons of people, and even the small groups of evangelicals were showing up at the Mass.

Seeing as yesterday was Palm Sunday, now Semana Santa (Holy Week) has started here and the majority of the people are on vacation, especially the govt. There are processions and confessions and Masses all week and seeing how I wasn’t here last year to check it all out, I am excited to see how it goes this year.

Oh yeah, this past weekend I went with all the host fam to the beach to go fishing with cast nets and all and hang out. It was a nice relaxing time. The kids and I built a large sand “thing” that was supposed to not let the water get in, but we had to leave before we saw how many waves it took to knock it down, haha.

Finally, the stove project continues to move along, with the recent vacations and deaths and stuff we still haven’t been able to send out the materials, but the week after holy week we are going to start again. We have the funding necessary and all that jazz soo… wahoo. Also, we have finished measuring everything we need to fix our potable water system now, and only need the land permissions and prices. I have priced the pvc in the US, so I have an idea, but we need to find out here. Once we have all that it will be time to go knocking on doors at different institutions.

The last project I am looking to do here is probably one of the most important (and within reach), it is to fix up the casa comunal (community house) so that it isn’t useless in the rainy season. The roof is going on 20 years old (and we aren’t talking shingles, haha) and they need to fix up the outhouse, need some chairs and tables, and a board to put community announcements would be key. I am finishing up the paperwork on all that too with the Development Committee, and hope to have it up on the Peace Corps Partnership site soon (http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors).

I finished the book On Being Catholic and have also finished El Alquimista (The Alchemist) in Spanish. Both were edifying, but the Alchemist was actually a really thought provoking book, if it exists in English you should check it out. It’s by Paulo Coelho and it’s about discovering the meaning of life haha.

“Los alquimistas hacen esto. Muestran que cuando buscamos ser mejores de lo que somos, todo a nuestro alrededor se vuelve mejor también.”

“The alchemists do this. They show that when we try to be better than what we are, all our surroundings end up better as well.”

El Alquimista p. 185

March 13, 2009

Got time for a few pics from the Mayan Ceremonial Caves we visited (Actun Tunichil Muknal), the ruins in the jungle at Tikal, and where we ate breakfast this morning on the island.

Outside the entrance to the cave. We were inside 2 and half hours, about 600 ft below ground.

Its ok Jerome.

The last hiker that didn't make it out.....hah, old sacrificial victim supposedly.

You can barely see me below.

Jerome on top of one of the temples looking out at the others that are poking out of the jungle.

25 for Guatemalans and 150 for foreigners.... hmmmmmm.

The motto of the island we are at.

The view from where we had bfast this morning.

Putting my best side forward.

March 3, 2009

So, yeah yeah I’ve been a slacker on this thing, but you guys should be glad…. That means that I am out working somewhere else instead of always at the computer, haha.

The past few weeks there have been a few things going on. First, I was translating for a week in San Juan Nonualco for Habitat for Humanity. There was a group of 11 Queen’s University students from Canada that came down to build a house. They were a good group of guys and girls. I am still trying to bring Habitat out to my site to build some houses, so keep your fingers crossed. Speaking of fingers crossed, have you have seen Hispanic baseball players cross themselves before or after doing something and then kiss their hand? Ever wondered why? I just learned that it’s because they are making the form of a cross with their thumb crossing over their pointer finger. Get right out of town, I never knew that.

The university group from Canada.Anyways, also we had the scholarship ceremony for our 5 University scholars with representatives from Peace Corps, the US Embassy, the municipality, and the Church all participating in honoring the students. The five are now on their way to their degree.

I also attended the High School graduation here a few days ago. It starts with a Mass and then moves in procession to the graduation ceremony in the High School. That was nice too, check out some pics.

The graduation ceremony almost starting.

Mauricio (brother of Fran), Dona Amalia (mom of Fran), Francisco, and Manuel (uncle of Fran)

The stove project continues, piece by piece it is falling into place. Some communities are ahead of others in the process, but they are well on their way. Finally, Don Raul and I have finished my new latrine/outhouse. It is stellar, much more stable than the previous….much less chance of people falling in. It is about 3.5 meters deep, which made it interesting for going in and out.

More or less beginning. Different Angle. Deeper.

Deeper.

Uh oh...Oh ok, whew.Higher.For some reason this pic just makes me smile.

"Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in

peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of

winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you

are certain in every battle to be in peril."

-Master Sun

February 3, 2009

I can’t think of too much to talk about as of late, just two things. First, is that I assisted our 3rd and 4th surgeries for the people who have eye problems. The first two I didn’t actually accompany through the whole thing, but since these two were for my neighbors I went with them for emotional support haha. I have been working with this group of people since the beginning of the year 2008, and now we are here a year later with the surgeries, wahoooo. I wasn’t sure it was going to happen, but it did. The mayor’s office has helped out with transport to the capital and FUDEM has been very generous in helping out the people with little money for the operations.

One of the two had already entered into surgery and the second one is here waiting with the family.

Lightening the mood a bit by putting on the guy's hat who had already went in.

The second thing is that my birthday went by and it was actually pretty fun. We had one party in the main town where I do my internet work, and another (which was supposed to be a surprise) a few days later with my ADESCO. Fun stuff.

Alex and Nina Delfina made me a banner when we celebrated my bday in their house (where I do internet work) with hamburgers and hot dogs

very scary.

yummy.Celebrating in the canton with the ADESCO.

We miraculously won another basketball game this past Saturday (I’m still trying to get a pic of our team up here) and we lost another close soccer game Sunday.

Ok, so I was late in posting this so, I now have a few things more to add before the end. The Scholarship committee that I am part of here in San Pedro Nonualco has chosen its 5 University Scholars for this year. We finished the selection process and held a meeting with the winners and their parents this week, the students are very excited. The San Pedro Nonualco Scholarship Committee started the year before I got here with the previous volunteer and a small group of teachers, directors, etc. They are all volunteers on the committee, which originally served to scholarship kids to high school. Now, the government is paying for high school, so the committee is focusing more and more on University scholarships. All the money that supports these very, very able students comes in from the US and Canada. Take a look at the San Pedro University Scholars 2009. There are three that will major in Math, one in Medicine, and one in English.

Our University Scholars.

Finally, the festivals of “The Sweet Name of Jesus” have finished once again, which means that the pilgrimage has come and gone. I did it again, this time knowing a few more people, so, that and the fact that I knew what to expect helped it to go by quicker. We left from San Pedro at 3am, got to the reunion point with the group from even further away, and from there left at 530am and did it in under 6 hours this time. Fun stuff.

Waiting in the streets at 5 in the morn for the arrivals of Kid Jesus.

Part of the group I was with.

The gringo. (we consider that word to have bad connotations, but the rest of the Latin world just uses it as meaning American haha.)

passing by a waterfall. Part of the basketball team that I did the pilgrimmage with. (that guy stole my hat!)

Getting close to the end.They also had different musical “artists” come through in those days in the main square, as well as a Cumbia group from Colombia. I forgot my camera those days though haha.

Check out the card table that my neighbor Mauricio and I made under a tree in between the two houses, hahaha. He found it about 15 minutes down the ridge and so we went and brought it back, along with other firewood. I tacked on the blanket that the planes give you from when I first got here, not too shabby.

The card table that my neighbor Mauricio and I made.Also, I finally finished the then Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity, deep stuff. It took way too long to read, but there are a few things that it puts into perspective. In comparison, I read the Song of Roland (one of the oldest chanson de geste, so it is said) today in its entirety while in the hammock, haha. Charlemagne is the man, next to Roland of course :)

Roland and his horn.

“168

Count Roland realizes death is near:

His brains begin to ooze out through his ears.

He prays to God to summon all his peers,

And to the angel Gabriel Himself.

Eschewing blame, he takes the horn in hand

And in the other Durendal, his sword,

And farther than a crossbow fires a bolt,

Heads out across a fallow field toward Spain

And climbs a rise. Beneath two lovely trees

Stand four enormous marble monoliths.

Upon the green grass he has fallen backward

And fainted, for his death is near at hand.”

Song of Roland

(8th century oral tradition about the last days of Count Roland, nephew of Charlemagne, 12th century written ed.)

January 20, 2009

No time to post pics, of which there are a lot, right now, but in the next week they will be up here.

So yeah, loootttssss of things to chat about since I haven’t updated this thing in a while. I guess the brief overview of everything will probably be the best approach :)

In the days before going home, I had a few events that were pretty interesting go on around here. First, while I was at the AIDS conference in San Miguel, a lady from Alaska that was there teaching the teachers here how to teach English asked to come visit my site. Apparently her group was going up to Perquin, Morazan, where the civil war museum is, and she had already been there a few times so she wanted to go check out a different place. Some of the other Alaskan friends that we have in common mentioned San Pedro Nonualco, and there ya go. She ended up making the trip one Saturday, and after I got back from a basketball game I met up with her at some of Rolando’s family’s house and took her to the canton for a day. I think she found it all interesting. She bought a pair of shoes the next day in the market to take back as a souvenir, haha.

After that Mauricio, the neighbor, and some other members of the community took off to La Herradura, close to the beach, for a day full of fishing and crabbing. We did this in a river, and at its deepest it was about knee deep (for me). …but this was at low tide, I think. Anyways, I ended up borrowing a casting net to catch little fishies and shrimp, and in the second part of the day it was off with a hoe to try dig up the hole where the crabs were hiding and stick your hand far enough down in the hole to grab them, pull them out, and stick them in a bag. It was definitely a new experience based on what I was used to doing in Charleston for these kinds of things.

From there I went out to La Hachadura, in the department of Auachapan, right on the border with Guatemala, to the site of a couple from my group. They had soccer games set up between Peace Corps and teams from his site, so I went out to play and support. We ended up losing 5-3, which isn’t bad for us, but we played FOREVER. The referee decided to let us play to dark for the heck of it without telling us, so we played for an extra 40 minutes or so. All the gringos paid for that the next day in the lack of function of their bodies, haha. After the games, all 20 of us staying there, showered, that’s right, showered (they have a really nice place there), and then went to this little place that made different kinds of pupusas and smoothies. It was probably some of the best pupusas that I have had in the country. Later on they put on a dance just for us, but it was hard to get it started because of lots of shy Salvadorans, but eventually it got up and going once we got there. We actually left early, and apparently at time because some gang members or something showed up and started fighting. I wasn’t really clear on it all, but we were already back at the house hanging out. The next day we passed through part of Parque El Imposible, that is one of the biggest natural reserves left in the country. We hiked up to a waterfall and jumped off that guy. It was a nice place.

When I got back to my site, I had a visit from a volunteer friend that was waiting to pick up his family from the airport the next day. The community was happy to see another “Cuerpo de Paz/Peace Corps”, which oddly enough tends to become a proper noun here, so he got to meets my fams and see San Pedro Nonualco, and climb the façade of the church reconstruction project. It was a good time.

With only a few days left before heading back to the US, I had a basketball and soccer game. Man, I played terrible in both, and we got bashed in both of them. So I was very ready to get away for a while, haha.

US VISIT

Before talking actually about the US, a funny story comes to mind of that morning before flying out. I was sitting on the side of a street corner at 5 in the morning in San Pedro Nonualco, and sitting there I realized that it wasn’t too quiet at all. The roosters were all screaming away and I hadn’t even noticed it. When I first got here, they were SOOOO annoying, and I sat there almost all morning and didn’t even notice them. ANYWAYS, I got a ride from a friend in SPN to the airport, and with my borrowed suitcase from the neighbor I got on one of the nicest planes I’ve been on. The ticket was bought through Delta, but I flew continental in my first connecting flight. It was a new plane, with new seats, and a tv screen in every seat, and outlets in every seat to plug in devices. I picked from a list of 18 movies, and then played Battleship the rest of the time, haha.

There were some delays but eventually I made it to Houston/Atlanta/Charleston, where the fam was there to meet me. It was really good to see everyone, and also this arrival started the many hot showers of which I took advantage. The food was also really good to diversify a little bit and eat lots of different foods. Although, we all got a kick out of the fact that getting back late to the house the first day, all there was luckily was leftover beans and rice. Classic.

I spent lots of time at the house with the nephews and fam and even had an hour or two to chat with Joe and Joey, and in Greenville with Jerome. I wanted to meet up with some others, but it didn't work out.

The Christmas Mass at the Cathedral was also very nice, it’s a very beautiful building. The next day we went up to Greenville for the birthday party for Elija and the baptism of Charlie. The party was fun and good seeing Joe and Susan and everyone else, and then the Baptism was the beginning of a fun road of godparenthood for me, mwhahahaha. Poor Charlie and the cold water, marble does that.

Eventually, I went back to Charleston to prepare for my return, and gather some gifts that I wanted to take back for some family and friends. The trip was fairly non-eventful until the end when they lost both of the suitcases (I came with one basically empty one, and returned with two full ones, haha). A week later they came in. New Years, came around a day or two later, and that was fun with lots of sub-like sandwiches and a Salvadoran Spades, double-elimination tournament, that I put on. Very fun.

After all that, everything settled down and work started up again. I finished up my English classes, while classes were going to start up again at school. I also began prepping for the coming week of wood-saving stoves building. A technician from Santa Ana came in this past week and we built 7 stoves in 5 days all over the municipality as models for what should prove to be my biggest project this year. We did a lot of walking, haha. But now things are in motion for getting the whole project started.

Oh yeah, I went to Esquipulas, Guatemala again with my parish a week ago. I went on the same trip last year in their efforts to raise money for the patron festivals in August. It was fun, and two gringo friends came along. They continued their travels from there in their vacation time, and I was very jealous, haha.

Finally, the elections for what would be Congressmen and Mayors was yesterday, so that was interesting to see the whole deal of how it works here in a young democracy. The mayor will change here in San Pedro in May, so I will begin working with a different group of people as far as the mayor’s office goes. Things never stay the same here for too long.

“I might not be smart, but I am educated.”

me

October 4, 2008

Ok, so it’s been about a week and change since I updated so, here goes for all you (5) people that just come rushing to this page every day to see if I have updated :). Also, I've kind of been slack about taking pictures at events these past few weeks, and I have forgotten the pics of the kids at the fiesta, but I will post those later... .words will have to suffice.

I went about a week ago to the cap to price our scholarship student trip out to the western part of the country where they have the Mayan ruins. There are two places that we have interest in taking the students. The first is called Joya de Cerén and is acclaimed to be the Pompeii of Latin America. They say that because they (archaeologists) were able to fill some of the holes left by the incinerated bodies and animals and dig down to even the rows of corn that were left covered in ash. Unfortunately though, I have been to Pompeii and there really isn’t much of a comparison. The scale to which we are talking is so much bigger in Pompeii as well as the fact that the site of Pompeii preserved an older and more sophisticated civilization that is more fun to check out. They are rebuilding the museum and I think that’s where they have all the nifty stuff from here at the Joya, so whenever they get that done it should improve the site a lot.

ANYWAYS, the next spot we are planning to visit is San Andrés, this place is a little more established and has a museum where they will take the kids on a tour, they have an indigo “device” from the Maya/Colonial era and they have a large main plaza with some of the bigger ruins intact. Apparently San Andrés (well not it’s named that at least, I doubt it was named St. Andrew at the time) was the center of the civilization in the valley and Joya de Cerén was one of the many outlying farming village.

The plan is then to eat lunch and then go by the Termos del Rio, a water park that seems pretty cool that they have out in Santa Ana. It’s more expensive, but we are getting some discounts and stuff since its school related, but that part still has to be finalized.

The morning of the last day I was in the capital my body started to hate me and I think I am just now pulling out of all that mess. So that factor plays in the background of all the rest to come. This same day I had to head out early because I had a meeting in the cantón of Roble. Roble is the Cantón farthest away from San Pedro Nonualco, but we had set the meeting for the fuel efficient stoves in the middle of it so I didn’t have to go as far though, and so that people would actually come, haha. They ended up bringing me a horse that I rode half the way up on, and then switched with my guide who went the rest of the way. The meeting actually went really well, even though I pretty much wanted to keel over for most of it….we had the shindig in the middle of the street, and I answered all the questions, etc etc, and then I got on the horse and headed back. This time I didn’t get off, haha. An hour and change later I got back to San Pedro where I had left my stuff at Alex and Niña Delfina’s house, where I do all my internet work. My stomach gave them a few surprises there, but eventually I made it back.

The majority of that has passed now and most of my work has been working in the different cantons organizing the powers to give presentations on everything in each community and then seeing how many families are going to be interested. We met in a school a few days ago in the last community and twenty five families signed up right afterwards. Yesterday, I brought representatives from all the ADESCOs to our Community building here in our canton to see and answer questions about the stoves, and thank God now that all that is over. We are looking right now at about 132 confirmed interested families and we haven’t even built the models in each community. That’s our next step, hopefully by the beginning of November we can start. From what we have priced, it’s looking like its going to be about $25 a family from start to finish and they all know that and still there is lots of interest, so we’ll see. I’m trying to find a way to lower that price still because there are some families that can’t afford it, but we’ll see what comes through.

In other non-stove news, I visited with the other medical dispensary that we have restarted up in one of the “kid days” and it seems to be moving along really well. Every Wednesday that invite mom’s (or dad’s, but they are usually working) and their kids to come and receive a talk on a certain health related topic, and in the process they weigh all the kids and give them a little nutritious meal. This time the health promoter from the main town had come in to give the talk and a Japanese nutrionist (from a program similar to Peace Corps…but Japanese…JICA) did consultations with the moms.

The health promoter talking with the momsThe JICA nutritionist giving consultations

Oh, almost forgot. Peace Corps brought out the new Agroforestry/Environmental Education group to my site a few days ago to get an idea of life here and I got to teach how to plant live barriers. Luckily I remembered how to build the A-level thingamabob or I would have felt like an ignant. My boss and one of the ag engineers came out too to check things out too, so it was a lovely time, until it rained on us. They have a good group and I think I heard of a few master’s degrees as well so, they will do fine.

Finally, today I went with the kids of the CBI, basically a daycare for kids who aren’t of age for kinder that the government has here and that is administered by my ADESCO, to a gathering for the whole department that the government put on. It was nifty, there are only two CBIs in San Pedro Nonualco, one in the main town, and one in my community. So it was about 50 kids under the age of 5, haha, craziness. It was held at another “complejo” school, one like that school that I went with Juan for the math competition, but this time government and not parish run. It was actually interesting because it was a Sports Complejo….they focus on development through sports…..anyways, there were a ton of kids there and now I have blisters on my hands from pulling the string on too many piñatas up and down all morning.

This week coming up proves to be a long one. I will be heading out to Santa Ana to prepare for our year anniversary party on the lake that we are throwing, haha (yes our group is crazy) and then when I get back there will be a volunteer in training that is going to come out to my site to stay from Thursday to Sunday. Should prove interesting.

My health promoter ladies in La Comunidad cleaning up the wound of a neighbor who chopped off part of his big toe with a machete.

I can’t help but put in this Newsweek comment that appeared in the July 21 week as my quote to close this entry. There was an edition that came out in April that had articles on Pope Benedict XVI and this reader from South Africa pretty much nailed it on the head with his taking it to modern “thought”…. If you can call it that.

“Evaluating Pope Benedict

The author of ‘Why this Pope Doesn’t Connect’ (April 21/April 28) states that Benedict pales in comparison with his predecessor in a number of respect including ‘looks, vitality, charisma, showmanship, tenure and popular appeal.’ Is she referring to the head of the Roman Catholic Church or the lead in a high-school rock band? Surely these specific characteristics are of scant importance in a person leading the largest Christian denomination on the planet. She goes on to state that certain other elements make him unsuitable or unpopular as an ideal pope, including his unfortunate visage, his predilection for traditional papal fashion and the fact that he served as John Paul’s theological ‘enforcer.’ Again, one can only wonder why anyone would deem these features important in determining Benedict’s acceptance among Roman Catholic Christians. Surely his religious devotion, intelligence and peculiar application of church dogma would be of far greater interest. The article further opines that the Roman Church operates in a “chaotic world” and then ends by saying that American Catholics understand that they will not be satisfied in their desire for the church to change. It does leave one wondering whether the world would not be less chaotic if it was less American and more in line with church teaching.

Johan Marnewick

Johannesburg, South Africa”

Published in Newsweek, July 21, 2008, page 10.

September 20, 2008

Well not too much to report as of late, but I think it only appropriate to start out with one of my worst fears coming true. I’ve gotten used to just going to bed as of late, whereas as for the first few months I always checked my bed because of the ants that kept invading it in the beginning. I fixed that problem, but now I will be sure to start checking it again :)…..check out the pic…..

I spy.....

oh.... hello there.

come to bed my sweet...... ahahahahaha

Yeah, that little guy was waiting for me the other night. After a 15 chase around the room, I finally got tired of trying to spear him with my machete and just chopped him in half with a knife…..haha.

In other news, I have enjoyed the latest rash of remakes of US songs here. I thought that most of the 80s and some 90s songs they were remaking in Spanish, but turns out now they are redoing the Elvis songs too. They basically just steal the beat and change the words to rhyme in Spanish, but it’s pretty funny. Is that legal? Haha.

Also, we have started to hold meetings for the scholarships that we are going to give for the University for 2009 as the San Pedro Nonualco Scholarship Committee. There will be 5 scholarships given to students and residents of San Pedro in the amount of $1,000 a year given in disbursements of $100 a month. All of the money comes from donors in the United States and Canada. The scholarship committee started working with just High School students helping pay the tuition and costs, but now that the government has started paying the majority of that this year, we have been able to turn more of the focus on a level of education that the majority of them never thought possible to be able to attain. Slowly I think the committee will work its way to just focusing on the University scholarships if the government continues to pay for high school tuition. As always, anyone wishing to donate to giving students who have no chance at going to college without help, feel free to do so through the donate tab or email me if you would like a tax-deductible way to do so. The first meeting we held for just our town we had about 40 people show up with another 10 who told me they couldn’t be there but wanted to apply. I think we are planning on starting the selection process on December 1, 2008 and finishing up in time for me to head out to visit home for Christmas.

Hmmm…. Ah yes, I also finished my worm box the other day, a miniature model of what I saw up in Chalatenango (the northern province of El Sal) that time. Knowing my luck though, about 5 minutes after me and some of the neighbor kids finished cementing the floor of it, a storm came up with the hardest rain here I’ve seen in country all day and filled the plastic that I had covering it to the point that it sucked all the plastic into the cement and brick boxes and then proceeded to fill the two boxes. Life is good.

prepping the ground for my wormboxes, haha, i love that word

I forgot to take a pic until now of the process

finishing up cementing the bottom part

after it all filled up with water and prepared it like this so as not to turn into a "turtle pool" as everyone said it looked like, haha

In political news, the whole Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) and Evo Morales (Bolivia), with a little bit of Honduras, deal here has become pretty huge. Everyone (those who have access to media) is always interested to know what I think and if I have heard the latest updates. Commercials now are all over the place here on TV bashing Hugo Chavez and linking him to other leftist political parties here in country in an effort to gain advantages for the coming elections. Apparently, last night they showed a clip where Chavez was caught talking about the El Sal elections coming up and how that he hoped the left won because they are guerrillas. Anyways, it’s all getting really interesting down here, but from what I’ve heard from the US (and from reading online), it doesn’t seem to come up a ton. Same ole crazy world.

Finally, El Salvador celebrated its Independence Day on September 15 of this month, and it was all pretty cool. There is a Mass to start it all off in the morning and then all the schools gather in front of the mayor’s office for a little presentation and then they all line up (each one has a band and dancers….kinder to high school….it’s pretty amazing) and start to parade throughout the streets of the main town. Then each one swings back around to the main plaza in front of the office to do a final band hoorah, and then pass on to let the next one come in and be announced by the mayor. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Don Raul’s kid Francisco was directing the band of the high school so I was there to take pics of them a lot as well.

During the anthem here.

The middle schoolers as dancers for their group

The High Schoolers.

The kinder boys.... awesome.

The kinder ladies.

More high schoolers.Almost forgot, I finished the Book of Mormon....whew. Now I kept Thomas More as a nice redirect afterwards, now I can get into that, but I haven't decided what next. More will be a challenge if I actually let it.I saw First Knight with Sean Connery and Richard Gere last night on tv at the neighbors house and a dialogue caught my eye. Enjoy."Arthur: We have had our share of war. Now, I look forward to quieter days. But first, admit our guest. - Malagant...- Malagant is here at my invitation. Malagant: May I congratulate the King on his forthcoming marriage. I see my place hasn't been taken yet. I was first among your knights. Arthur: You left of your own free will. Malagant: We each of us must follow our own road. Arthur: Where does your road take you? To Leonesse? Malagant: Leonesse is my neighbour. I offeredthe lady a treaty of friendship. Guinevere:- Is burning villages friendship?- Malagant: Yes, My Lady...Your land is becoming lawless.Were you not just attacked? Guinevere:- You know who attacked me.- Malagant: I made it my business to know. Justice has been done.- Guinevere: You know no law above yourself! Arthur (reading): "Armed forces to be given access to all Leonesse." "Troops to assist in the enforcement of law... in all Leonesse." Arthur to Guinevere:- Do you want to sign this?- Guinevere: I'll never sign it. Malagant: She's very brave...now she's to be married. Will Camelot protect Leonesse?- Arthur: Is Leonesse in need of protection? Malagant: Come. Arthur.I'm here to settle this business. Leonesse is too weak to stand alone. Let's say half each. The lesser gives way to the greater. What nation is greater than Camelot? The land of justice. Come... your hand on it. We'II all live together as friends. Arthur: You offer mewhat isn't yours to give. Malagant: You all know me.You know I'm a man of my word. Don't make an enemy of me. - I mean no harm to Camelot.- Arthur: You know the law we live by. Where is it written. Beyond Camelot live lesser people? People too weak to protect themselves, let them die? Malagant: Other people live by other laws.Or does your law rule the world? Arthur: There are laws that enslave men. And laws that set them free. Either what we hold to be right and good and true is right and good and true for all mankind under God. or we're just a robber tribe. Malagant: Your words are talking you out of peace and into war. Arthur: There's a peace you only findafter war. If that battle must come. I will fight it! - And I!- And I! Malagant: The great Arthur...and his great dream. No dream lasts forever.

September 5, 2008

Lots of programming for events and projects going on recently. We had a big to-do in the main town at the parish church this past week. It finally came to the point to hoist up the bells to the top of the façade. The story behind them is that a group of Franciscans came to the parish in the early 20th century and really solidified the place as a parish and in 1951 they had 4 bells made with the connections back in Italy and somehow got them over here and to the parish church in San Pedro Nonualco. It was said that you could hear the bells some days from quite a few municipalities over. In the earthquakes of 2001, the façade was critically damaged, so the parish brought them down in an emergency so as to save them if the façade came down in the aftershocks. The bells have been in storage since then….well, until this past Saturday. The parish sent out over 1200 envelopes to people all over the parish to get the funds to bring the hoist truck up to San Pedro Nonualco and everything came off as mostly a success. There were a few complications in the installation of the bells due to some size changes, but two were installed and rung and this week they are working on finishing up the other two.

Padre Tino told some funny stories of old people talking about how they had been sad the past years because they thought they were going to die before the bells ever got put back up. Now they said they can die happy because they know the bells will ring at the funeral mass. Tear.

For all you donors out there on the church reconstruction deal, you will be happy to know that your donations helped make that event happen. The facade should be done by the end of the year, wahoo!

Prep Work.More Prep Work.

Padre Tino doing his baby thing with the bells. (the tiny bell hasn't been brought out yet.)

The St. Peter bell

What are they all looking at?

In other news, I invited as much of the community as I could this past Sunday to a meeting the Casa Comunal for information concerning trainings in different areas of agriculture. All morning it rained, and then the soccer game that I thought was for the morning was actually at the same time as the meeting, so I actually took out two chairs in the Casa Comunal… literally expecting that many people. But in the end some 15 showed up with a few who told me ahead of time they wanted to come but weren’t going to make it. The goal is to use some grant money that we almost have, haha, now that the meeting is over I can finish my part of the proposal, to go to the National University for Agriculture to take some lessons in grafting and other minor things. I hope it all works out.

Some of the members of ADESCOSAPEN, the parish volunteer group that heads of the church reconstruction.

lots of people. a further back view

Finally, I held a meeting of all the ADESCOS (Community Development Associations) for the municipality to bring the stove project to more people, so that was fun. The guy in charge of the NGO gave his presentation on reforestation and these stoves that improve health, protect the environment, and cost the families less in firewood. Seeing how 80% of Central American families cook with wood burning stoves, I think this project could help a lot of families. Also, it should be good training exercises for the ADESCOs.

You can only see a few of the people, but there was actually representation from all cantones.

A foto of the stove we are promoting.

Work continues with the Medical Dispensary, Isabel is recouping from the death of her father and her and Consuelo are back in action. They have started a mosquito campaign starting with the water basins and are planning to fumigate now that they have supposedly killed the majority of the eggs for the next few months. That should be fun.

The group from all over the country that met in San Vicente the past week at our Project Design Seminar.

My group from San Pedro that attended the seminar.

Oh, almost forgot, I went with Juan Jose (Don Raul’s youngest) to Olocuilta, a city in my department of La Paz, where he participated in a Departmental Math Contest. He won his grade in the municipality and ended up getting third place in the Department…he’s really good at math, haha. We were reviewing the day before the stuff, and he was pretty quick with it all. I think he’ll get better as the years go by. The school that hosted it was a parochial school that is known as a “complejo” or complete school here. That just means that it has all grades…..1 through 12. Apparently it had some big donors from Spain from what I was reading….nice place. The more that I see get around this country, the more I see that Europe in the name of the EU and especially Spain, Germany, and Switzerland are super involved and invested here. Go them.

The school was really nice.The baller himself Juan Jose after having received his 3rd place in the Dept on stage.

agreed.... this tie is terrible!

As far as my eye deal goes, the first few people have completed their process with FUDEM and are getting their dates lined up for the surgeries, wahoo! Like I said before, if I get just one actually done and successful, I will be happy.

September 9, 2008

So I forgot that I had promised to go to a get together hoorah in El Tunco (the pig, haha), La Libertad at the beach, so that was fun, but I really didn’t want to go because it is going to make things financially this month. But, if I hadn’t have gone it would have raised the prices for the rest of the volunteers in my group, so….. oh well, it was all good. Apparently El Tunco and the beaches around it have like worldwide respect for its surfing. Few had enough money to rent a board but one of these days I am going to learn how J…..in a place that won’t kill me haha. Like I said though, it was good to get away for a day, we met some Brazilians, Israelis, Canadians, a large sea-turtle came up and we watched him lay his eggs (kind of), and we were told by some guards the next day that some thieves came up that night that we were there with machetes looking for some gringos that they heard were at the beach. Luckily the guards had guns, haha…. They said they shot at them and they ran off.

Always fun in El Salvador.

A pic of the place we were at.

Tomorrow I have to go to El Sal to meet with the Wood efficient stove guy, and then turn in this grant proposal at the office. In the evening I got to come back to San Pedro to dig my hole that I’m going to live in until the first of the month.

the new pups at Don Rauls

the mama tied up so she wont run off and leave the things

“Do not say, ‘It was the Lord’s doing that I fell away’; for he does not do what he hates. Do not say, ‘It was he who led me astray’; for he has no need of the sinful. The Lord hates all abominations; such things are not loved by those who fear him. It was he who created humankind in the beginning, and he left them in the power of their own free choice. If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose. Before each person are life and death, and whichever one he chooses will be given. For great is the wisdom of the Lord; he is mighty in power and sees everything; his eyes are on those who fear him, and he know every human action. He has not commanded anyone to be wicked, and he has not given anyone permission to sin.”

Sirach (or known in early Christian times as Ecclesiasticus, “belonging to the church”) 15:11-20

So before my next post, I wanted to update you guys on some new additions to the things on the right side of my blog.

First of all, there is a DONATE tab that I put up that PayPal has. Its pretty nifty and it lets people who want to donate quick and easy do so with credit card, banks, or whatever means you want. This money will be used to help out families in need, or bring down the costs of some of the projects that we have here that some families just plain cant afford. To give one example, I have continued to pursue the stove project that the previous volunteer started, but on the level of the entire municipality. There are many, many families, especially in my canton, that dont have them because of the amount of bricks and stuff it takes too build it (we are talking 20 dollars, basically). The stoves however are done by a NGO called Agua and Arboles Para El Pueblo and they provide the more expensive parts of the stove. It has a chimney that protects the ladies from all the smoke from the woodburning normal openfires, and also reduces the amount of firewood needed by 50%, helping their pockets, and helping the environment.

Its a really good example of a project that people can donate to in small amounts and in the big picture it will reduce the cost of each individual family. Anyways, thats why I put the doodad up there, or people can continue to donate to the scholarships, medical clinic, or church reconstruction, and do it through this and just put a note in there to tell me where to put the donation.

EARN THOSE SKYMILES!!! haha.

Also, I have added a few fun ones like, "Things I miss in the US"....and the opposite "Things I will miss from El Salvador"...."Places I want to visit".... and "Current Projects...for those who care"

Enjoy.

"Girls love the worms"

PC Volunteer

August 26, 2008

Well, for now all of the deaths and random crazy acts have slowed down a bit, which is good news for all here haha. The novena, nine days of prayer, that follows a Catholic’s death here started, but I had to leave that Tuesday to go to San Vicente. Outside of the city there I gave a talk and demonstration on vermiculture….WORMS!!!! One of my peace corps buddies has a school garden going there and they could use some cheap fertilizer deals. Anyways, after that on Wednesday, I took off with Bobby, the PCV, to get some work done, and him med stuff, in San Sal before our security conference the next day en Chalatenango, the department up north in towards the mountains. I put my usual food plan while in the capital in to action until we got to the conference….don’t eat unless you have to, haha.

A random pic of Kevin (grandson of Don Raul) in his bed early.

Don Daniel, Don Efrain, and Isabel after finishing putting up the first set of flowers that the neighbors had brought for the altar the last day of the novenaThe final night of prayers in the rain. It was a rosary mixed with a song sung in between each decade and at the end a Bible reflection by Don Raul and another. The mayor sang the songs, he actually has a really good voice, I had no idea.A group of us that were left at the end. They made be operate a video camera of one of Isabel's relatives.The altar midday.

The next day I had a meeting earlier in the office arranging some scholarship stuff, and then we headed up north to the conference. It was a nice place, it had a shower too, but no hot water. They are still in the process of building it, but anyways, the security conference was actually a nice break. We had good food, and they updated us a lot on the security deal here in country as well as any peace corps policy updating that was necessary. We also mapped out all the parts in our east-central zone that were possibly dangerous for us to travel, etc etc. It was a good time. There were some interesting statistics that came out of it…well at least I thought, ask if you are interested haha.

After all that came to a close, I headed back through the cap where that next morning I caught the US/SPAIN basketball preliminary, wow we dominated them. I think we won by like 37 points or something, crazy. Also around that time I caught Michael Phelps 8th gold medal, although it wasn’t the 7th which I heard was much more fun, it was still cool to watch….seeing as it was one of the few I got to see. We, we being some peace corps volunteers, had some good talks….go figure….about politics, with a philosophical twist, while waiting for some of the Olympic doodads to come on (commentary by the way of the Olympics is so much better in the states, and coverage). One of the main ideas that was discussed that crossed my radar was a discussion of the process of getting to the point to be candidate for the Presidency of the US, and how in the recent decades, the candidates that have been given as options have been, well, an interesting mix. From there the discussion branched everywhere from right-left interpretations of why, to the comparison of the development of our culture with that of the late Roman Republic (yes yes, I know, that part was awesome you are thinking, haha). The people involved in the discussion were seasoned travelers and well read and educated people, so I just got to sit back and soak up as much as I could, it was good stuff to make you think about it all in a big picture.

So let’s see, I got to come back to the community for a few days, during which I caught three things… snake, a scorpion, and a cold. I woke up one morning to the rucus of a bunch of birds messing around in the space between my roof and walls (which isn’t unusual), but this was something totally different. So I got out of bed to see what the deal was, when I see curled up in one of the metal rafters a nice pet snake, haha. He was about 5 feet long and an inch thick in some parts, and had just eaten something a few hours before. I got my machete out a stick I had handy to get rid of the birds, and then I saw to ladies walking down the street that I knew, so I figured it would be more fun to jump into the street and scare them with my machete in hand first…. So I did that, then we all came in to check out the snake. I called Don Raul and he came over and pushed it out with a stick and I accidentally came in with a little overkill and separated its head from its body for the most part. I kind of felt bad after I found out it wasn’t poisonous…..then I got over it :) From a distance.

The little guy up close.

on the ground by my porch.Don Raul laughing at my prey.... haha.

Then later I pulled back the little curtain that covers where I bath and a scorpion was chillin there. I got him with the barbecue grabber things that Aaron left….mwhahahaha. He wasn’t very big though.

Then I caught a cold.

A few days later, I took 4 community leaders from around the municipality to San Vicente for a Project Design and Management Workshop put on by the Peace Corps training staff. We were there for a half day, full day, half day. It was pretty neat, there were 5 volunteers and their people in total and everyone by the end was friends with the rest it was all peace and love haha. The guys seemed to get a lot out of it, and I hope that in the end they used what they learned.

Oh yeah, haha, this story cracked me up. So the people here like to eat armadillos, normally you have to hunt them. However, the other night Don Raul was coming back to the house by flashlight after leaving his cow for the night, when he said that he saw something running towards him in the path. The thing, he said, didn’t even notice him, and then he realized it was an armadillo. So with a smile on his face he pulled out his machete, and when it got close enough he chopped it in the face and shazaam, bfast. No wonder he came back with a big smile on his face. The next day, Mauricio came out with one. He said his dog had trapped it, haha.

Finally, I made lunch the other day for Don Mauricio, Mario, and Don Raul in order to get them together to start a grant proposal to USAID for a trip to the National school of Agriculture here. The only thing is that while watching US Basketball team in the gold game, I knocked over the entire bottle of marsala cooking wine that I had found, watching it shatter all over my floor. So I ended up making pasta with fried chicken and a tomato sauce on top instead of chicken marsala. It turned out ok, but what a waste. Very sad. The armadillo that was molesting Don Raul.

That’s all I got for now, adieu.

“Wow, so ants like green boogers.”

-Peace Corps El Salvador Volunteer

Also, check out the latest Anglican fun. Damian Thompson is a journalist that covers many a interesting stories in England and abroad.http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2008/07/08/c_of_e_bishop_will_lead_anglicans_to_rome

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2008/07/13/wales_tells_canterbury_to_get_lost

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2008/07/16/exanglican_communities_to_become_catholic_rome_confirms

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2008/08/13/american_anglican_diocese_in_conversion_talks_with_roman_catholic_church

August 7, 2008

Me acting goofy celebrating the end of the patron festivals with Mauricio and Rosa my neighbors

oh wait no... that was this pic, haha

No more complaining about the lack of updates on the blog, I’ve been busy haha. Naaa, really though, the patron festivals of the nation, the Divine Savior, as well as of my canton, Saint Dominic of Guzman are going on until the 8th so, I haven’t been able to leave much… well…. At all. This Saturday I am planning on being online a while to get some work done. There are lots of nifty little things to describe though, and TONS of pictures so, here goes.

This fell on top of Mauricio from the roof while he was cutting coconuts

Mauricio chillin in Don Rauls house

Starting before the festivals, I got to take some good pictures of our nurses in action. We have a guy who got partly run over by a bus, and can’t afford to get to any of the medical places, and the fact that we are much, much cheaper helps too :) He has one leg that was pretty messed up, but they’ve been keeping up with him and he’s about a month out from being healed up nicely.

Santo Domingo chillin in Don Raul and Amalias house during the festivals

Margarita posing for Santo Domingo

Isabel (left) neighbor and Milagro Don Raul's youngest on the right holding the twins for a while

Next, I have this funny little video of William, one of the little twins next door. Both of the twins love to dance whenever there is music of any kind of beat, now he’s started the leg swing (they are both camera shy though, whenever I bring out the camera they stop and stare). I'll post the video soon because I think I forgot it to put it on the memory. A drunk guy that I found passed out in my hammock one night

Finally, before getting to the fun stuff, I got my supplies to build my newly designed worm box (haha). It’s based on a model I saw up in the mountains, but downsized to make it manageable. My goal was to design a general worm box, with exact amounts of all ingredients, to present to the communities with a fixed price if the ADESCOS were interested. Hopefully there will be lots of interest in the municipality and we can all go in together to bring the supplies here. It would be a really good and cheap way to get fertilizer (both from the soil and the worm pee that the design should collect, thank you John Waggoner Chalatenango). With our diversification ideas here to vegetables, this would be ideal….we’ll see how it goes.

Ok, so patron festivals. So like I said, this week the nation is all on vacation celebrating the Divine Savior (well, that’s supposed to be the point at least :). At the same time, we are in festival here in La Comunidad celebrating the patron of the community, Saint Dominic of Guzman (founder of the Dominican Friars). Don Raul and Dona Amalia are running the thing this year from their house, so it’s pretty easy for me to record all the happenings. It started on the 29th with the beginning of the novena in our little church. Basically, it’s an hour long prayer session every evening for nine days.

One of the novenas

Mauricio/Steven Seagal attacking me

The ladies making tamales at Don Rauls house which was the base of operations of this festival and will be next year as well

Laura, Presidente of COSALCO, stirring the tamale batter over the open fire

Aug. 2, there was a soccer tournament in the morning, then a parade of young people in masks and stuff with a band from the high school, fireworks, etc to the communal where there was a dance put on by the young people. Decorating two pickups to carry the candidates for Ms. Comunidad

Aug. 3 was the horse races where there are like 10 or 12 competitors of all ages on horses racing down the road to snag a ring that’s hanging from a line strung across the street. For each one that a rider snags, there is a girl to present a gift to the rider. It actually had a really good turnout. Coca-Cola came out and did the speakerphone deal and kept things pretty lively so that was pretty cool. Apparently, Aaron, the previous volunteer, made a good impression so they were pretty chummy with me, thanks there guy.

He didnt get the ring

The riders waiting their turns to pass by in the street in from of DRs house

A guy on horseback helping hang more rings

After the “carreras de cinta”, we had dug a meter deep hole in front of my house to bury an 8 meter (27 ft?) pole that used to be a tree. What they do is lube up the pole with a lard kind of thing and then peg a bunch of money on top and then watch to see how the people figure out how to get it. I’ve heard of some pretty funny stories involving drunks trying to get the money, but nothing too crazy this time. I participated in a team that tried to get it, but we didn’t quite make it. Eventually a group of young guys made it to the top, pretty impressive after 6 or 7 falls…..from over 20 ft, haha.

The avocado tree after it was cut down and stripped, about 8 meters

A very dark picture of it buried in the hole we dug in front my house

The kids reaching the top, there were six people in the tower I think.

The winners afterwards.

Aug. 4 was the day that Don Raul and Dona Amalia had set aside for the kids. They had two guys from the community dress up and do the clown routine for a while and then they did the piñata thing for a while. There was even a SpongeBob one! It was pretty crazy, one time, they had an older kid swinging, and he grabbed the thing when it came close and ripped it down….and while thinking he was cool, he was tackled by no less than 20 little kids wanting candy before he got the handkerchief off his head. Here is the aftermath on video to prove it, haha:

Our clowns....nice pants

I think thats a Barney pinata.

Aug. 5 was the first day of entries into the “butlers’” house. The butlers are the people that are in charge of organizing the patron festivals any given year. Whereas they foot a rather large bill, the culture has built in the “entrada,” or entry, system, where families sign up for a period of three days to bring donations to the butlers to help out with resources. So, every half hour pretty much, someone is leaving with the band searching out the donor’s house, and then leading them to the main house playing away, accompanied by someone shooting off fireworks (guess who volunteered for that part) to let people know we are coming. Pretty nifty. They are also accompanied by a group called the “viejos” who are dressed up by what seemed to be the most evil spirited….spirits… that the Salvadoran culture has to offer. In masks, they dance, avoiding someone that wears a bull disguise, and then they interact with the audience joking around about who they are going to carry off with them when nighttime comes. It’s pretty funny. I want to ask more about where it all comes from though, and why it’s done during the patron festivals. I became the butt of some of those jokes they made, they have kindly nicknamed me ‘gringito’ during their acts….primarily because it rhymes with their other phrases that end it ‘-ito-‘. Anyways, after the families enter and donate whatever…everything from firewood, to coconuts, to ducks/chickens, to dollar bills….the butlers serve them juices and sweet breads while they watch the viejos. If they around for lunch or dinner, they also serve them that. My favorite guy out of them all is the flute player…he is a little old guy who I think lives in another beautiful world of fiddles and small people. The old flute guy in the middle was my favorite of the festival

One of the offerings that one of the entradas brought

Aug. 6 is another day of entradas, as well as the crowning of the Queen of the Patron Festivals in this case. It’s kind of like a Ms. Comunidad deal, with the exception that the queen is based on how much the girl raised to support the festivals (done by selling votes for 5 cents each). I think the winning girl sold like 2,540 or something. Impressive. That evening we shot off more fireworks than usual because it was the last of the novenas in the church. Thursday, Aug. 7 would be a prayer parade starting towards the beginning of the canton and ending in the church, and the next day would be the closing Mass.

Aug. 7…today there were some entradas, including those from some other cantons that I have worked with, so it was good to see those people. During the day they fixed up the truck that was going to carry Santo Domingo, in the evening there was the procession through the canton at night reflecting on the life of Santo Domingo and how it can inspire the betterment of the person. After the prayer time in the little church it was to the fireworks, which unfortunately, because of my participation in setting them off and organizing transport from my house, in which they were all stored, I only got to take a few pics. So, sorry about that, but apparently people enjoyed it. It involved 5 of us setting off about 200 super steroided bottle rockets tied to bamboo shoots as fast as we could as one of Raul’s sons set off 16 mortars as fast as he could. They ended with the firework laden bulls that chased people around as they shoot fireworks from its back. After I lit the last guy I ran to the church to take a quick video, interesting stuff. Mauricio with the burning wood to light fireworks

Talk about a light in the darkness

The people watching the unveiling of Santo Domingo on top of the truck.

The people in charge of fireworks

Aug. 8th, today we got up early to move chairs that Don Raul had rented for the week to the church and prepare it for the Mass ending the patron festivals. We did that for a while and then hurriedly got ready. They left me in charge of the fireworks during the important parts of the Mass, as is custom here, and then afterwards me and Mauricio (neighbor) and a few others did a nice, loud rocket launching. It was all good. We spent the rest of the day returning things and I picked up some stuff from the market to make Chicken Marsala Sunday for my counterpart, Don Mauricio, Isabel and Consuelo, my health promoter ladies, and Mario, the ADESCO treasurer (I also got extra for the neighbors too). I bought a little extra on some other things too to help celebrate the end of the festivals tomorrow for Don Raul and the fam because they are all (as I am now) strapped for cash due to them being in charge of this festival and some personal things earlier in the year. The weekend will be entertaining… then it’s back to work this week.

The people getting ready for the closing Mass

The end of the Mass.

The upcoming week the plan is to take the rest of the people who haven’t gone for their full eye exams on Monday to the capital, and then shoot by San Vicente to give a quick class on wormboxes, and then to head to the mountains in the north for a Peace Corps security conference. I don’t really want to go due to monetary reasons, but it seems the appropriate things to do, haha.

Apparently, the internet went down again in the main town Tuesday, and tomorrow, Saturday, I am supposed to be online for the first time in a week and half, working all day long on some mails I need to get done. I hope it comes up…if not, it will be til mid next week before I get on.

Has anyone seen the new Xfiles movie?

The early church fathers used to talk of the worthiness of reading the apocryphal gospels and with the finding of a piece of gold in the mud.

“Wherefore, do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter. For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.

And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life; yea, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the Father and the Son; and ye have received the Holy Ghost, which witnesses of the Father and the Son, unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive.

And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this straight and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is might to save.

Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.”

2 Nephi 31:17-20

Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith

August 11, 2008

OK, so there is still no internet. From what they have told me someone stole all the equipment off of the tower, or way station or something for our zone. They said it affected the cell phones for one of the companies here as well. Also, people have been stealing all the sewer drain lids apparently here in town for the metal, haha. They also used to have payphones here in town, but people cut the lines all up for the copper so none of those work anymore either.

In other wonderful news, I had a series of unexpected firsts here in my canton the past few days. The day after the Mass ending the patron festivals here in La Comunidad, Rudy (son-in-law of Don Raul), Francisco (son of DR), and Juan (youngest son of DR), and I went to La Bruja (the witch), a little lagoon like deal about an hour’s walk down the ridge. We hung out there for a while, and Rudy and I tried to give some lessons on swimming, and then we headed back up to the canton. They asked me on the way back if I wanted to go a different route to the main street instead of along the paths, and I said ok, so we switched ridges and starting climbing up the main street of the canton. We stopped by DR’s dad’s house and chatted with them, and then one of the ladies I work with here appeared in the street yelling for us to come help bring someone who was sick from the orange grove to the street. On walking down I ran into Isabel, my health promoter, scurrying around the grove in a hissy. I thought someone had called her to help, but apparently we arrived the same time as her to the place where her father had collapsed while planting oranges trees. We watched as she tried to give him CPR (very sad) and then she asked me to check his vitals (of which there were none), so me and another farmer who was there hauled him up the hill (where I almost collapsed from the weight of the guy), where a truck that I had called was arriving. We tried to get some doctor on the way to SPN but no one was there, so we booked it to the hospital where they confirmed the death.The corn at the end of the ridge of La Comunidad

Us walking on a ridge parallel to La Comunidad, toward the river below

Isabel is taking it really hard. In her house it was her mom and dad, her, and her 5 year old son. She feels really alone now that it’s just her mother of poor health and her and her son….and the farm. I am glad that the medical clinic has taken off a little bit, because it will help her with the costs of everything.

Rudy (left), a random guy, Don Raul, and a drunk guy who loves Cuba watching over the hole being dug

I think the phrase I heard was, "even though there's a hole, there's hope", they always leave a cross over the hole in some form or fashion even if its awaiting the person. I thought that was cool.

The procession down main street toward the cementery.

Arriving.

The people singing a psalm before the lowering.

The beginning.

The actual process of everything when we actually got to the hospital was interesting to see. The actual hospital (in zacate, about 50 mins from SPN) was destroyed in the earthquakes, so they are operating out of something less sufficient. Then since the guy was already dead, they wouldn’t admit him into the actual emergency room, but we had to wait until the “Legal Medicine” people got there to certify the death, which was three hours later. The entire time the poor dead guy was sitting in the passenger seat of the truck we came in….luckily I got a different ride back :). So after that, they had already arranged for the casket and we got all the things for the vela that night upon returning at 1:30 in the morning. It was actually pretty surprising. We got back to the town and Don Raul and Mauricio were waiting in the street, and there were about 40 people waiting in the house to pray and view the body etc. They had the actual prayer service at about 3am, we dug the hole at 7am, and after to the parish church from our canton (we filled three buses and 4 pickups) and at Mass at 330pm that day, we buried Isabel’s dad. Normally there is an extra day in the process, but her half-brother wasn’t going to be able to be there on Monday so we did it all Sunday. Now they will start the novena, praying for nine days for the soul of the deceased brother.

The final first, was a confrontation that happened outside of my house between the drunk 18 year old from across the street, and a 50 year old guy that lives below him on the ridge. Apparently there was argument between the kid and his mom, and they called the older guy to help out and the kid flipped on him with a scythe in the street. So the older guy grabbed rocks and was throwing it at him, and of course there was yelling involved, and after the kid took a hard swipe at the older guy (he had fallen trying to pick up more rocks) on the ground with the scythe (only missing him because he was drunk), after which the guy grabbed the scythe, and then Don Raul arrived with his machete and helped take the scythe away from the kid and calm everyone. Don Raul had heard the screams from the wives down the road, and that’s why he had come. I just happened to be passing by for this one too. Craziness in La Comunidad.

Today we took another 5 people to FUDEM, the eye NGO people in the capital. It was very frustrating for me because I finally got a van to come to take the people, and we invited 28 or so, the last of the group of 46, and only 5 showed up. The mayor’s office was going to pay the diesel for the trip, but once I saw how many showed up (compared to the percentage that showed up the other times it is very little), it didn’t seem right for the mayor’s office to spend that amount of money on 5 people. However, the van made an extra trip to come back here from the capital, so I will have to reimburse him 3 gallons of diesel. I took the risk by asking him to come banking on the fact that at least half the people invited would come, the risk being that if little showed up and I would have to reimburse his trip. Sometimes we win playing the percentages and sometimes we lose. I didn’t mention that part to the mayor’s office because it wasn’t their fault. But we are still on the good side of the van people now, so hopefully it will work out for us in the future.

I will be traveling a bit this week, so hopefully I will find somewhere with internet. They said it could be up to two months without internet, or cellular service, here for that company (the only one that serves internet here) due to the extreme extent to which the antenna and substation was robbed. Blast. Looks like I’ll be going in to San Sal a bit more this month.

Take it away old historical people:

“Weep for the unbelievers; weep for those who differ in nowise from them, those who depart hence without the illumination, without the seal! They indeed deserve our wailing, they deserve our groans; they are outside the Palace, with the culprits, with the condemned: for, ‘Verily I say unto you, Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven’ (Jn. 3:5). Mourn for those who have died in wealth and did not from their wealth think of any solace for their soul, who had power to wash away their sins and would not….Let us weep for these; let us assist them according to our power; let us think of some assistance for them, small though it be, yet still let us assist them. How and in what way? By praying and entreating others to make prayers for them, by continually giving to the poor on their behalf…Not in vain did the Apostles order that remembrance should be made of the dead in the dreadful Mysteries. They know that great gain results to them, great benefit; for when the whole people stands with uplifted hands, a priestly assembly, and that awful Sacrifice lies displayed, how shall we not prevail with God by our entreaties for them. And this we do for those who have departed in faith.”

St. John Chrysostom, 400 AD

Homilies on Philippians 3:4

“In the books of the Maccabees we read of sacrifice offered for the dead. Even if it were nowhere at all read in the Old Scriptures, not small is the authority, which in this usage is clear, of the whole Church, namely, that in the prayers of the priest which are offered to the Lord God at His altar, the commendation of the dead has also its place.”

St. Augustine, 410 AD

On Care to be Had For the Dead, Chap 1:3

July 26, 2008

Not too much to report as of late, well, just a few things :) I’ve spent the past week helping out here and there with the scythes cleaning up all the undergrowth in the lands around here. Yep, my hand is nice and blistered. But, it’s been fun.

view from my hammock

I also played in two back to back soccer games this past Sunday on our clay field after it had rained alllllll day long. It was so nasty, and we got murdered in the second game. It got to the point to where this guy was dancing in front with the ball trying to fake me out or whatever, so I got bored of standing there waiting. I stuck both hands down in the slush and popped it up at him and when he dodged I took the ball :), mwhahahahahaha. The people got a kick out of it, but I don’t think he did.

That night I couldn’t sleep due to some……unnatural….pains, apparently I didn’t drink enough before or after and I have some kind of “bacteria”….somewhere from the kidney down. They weren’t too specific, but I got meds and it doesn’t hurt anymore. However, I’ve been prohibited from exercising til I finish the medicine and we were going to the coast this Sunday to play….. crud.

Oh yeahhhhh, a group of us got together to see the new Batman movie in the capital the day it came out. Very very good movie, it is a very different interpretation of the whole joker/batman deal. The joker is a straight psycho instead of the stable, suave, Joker of the Michael Keaton days. I don’t think you can really compare the two. It was well done though I thought.

Hmmm what else….ohhhhhh, yeah almost forgot. I want to send out an official THANK YOU to all those people who have donated to the church reconstruction and medical clinic cause, we have completed the sign-up sheet for both on the right side of the blog, and another family has matched each medical dispensary donations. I am gathering the final funds to send in to Project Salvador.

yes, thats a cucumber thats been dried out for seeds... and its still much, much bigger than my foot, which isn't the smallest thing in the world

On that note, for those of you interested, recently a case of a young man who is trying to pay his way through nursing school has come to my attention here through the parish. He is a 23 year old (altar boy) who has paid his way through part of school working and with the help of his mom and the parish priest, however, at the moment, the job has ended and his mom is no longer able to help, leaving the parish. He has applied for 5 or 6 jobs and has had a few interviews this past week. A group in Boston is spear-heading this fundraiser, and their goal is to fund the majority of the school costs up to graduation ($1500), and leave his job to cover the transport, food, etc. He is the “man” of the house, as he lives with his grandmother, mom, little sister, and cousin, and often relates to me the importance of this for him so that he can provide for them…..yeah, he’s 23. He has 3 cycles (at 6 months each) left before his certification, at which point El Salvador will have another nurse. It’s a good cause, and we hope to conquer it piece by piece. For more info, contact me at rhettbwilliams@yahoo.com or andoverheberts@gmail.com (Cathy, the recent Habitat for Humanity group leader from Boston that was down here is spearheading the fundraising and gathering what is raised to send to Project Salvador).

Finally, congrats to my brother and his wifey on their first child, Charles Thomas Williams, born around 11:30pm July 24 (exactly six months from my bday)!!!!! I can’t wait to smack him around a little bit in December. Also, a very happy 1st birthday to Jonah (July 26), my now second youngest nephew!

This is a video from Don Mauricio's little surprise party we through before the Medical Dispensary inventory that I wrote about last time. I think its hilarious, and realize that I have some issues. But, if there is one person that I know will laugh at this, it will be my mom. Enjoy.

So, that’s the news. I just finished helping with making the program for our patron festivals in La Comunidad, and we came across this Santo Domingo de Guzman quote that I liked and put on the last page.

“A man who governs his passions is master of his world. We must either command them or be enslaved by them. It is better to be a hammer than an anvil.”

-St. Dominic

July 15, 2008

We had the monthly audit and inventory about a week ago in the medical dispensary and everything went well again. No medicine or money missing J It had an extra twist as well because we had a surprise for Don Mauricio for his bday. Well, cake and coke and 4 people haha.

Me, Margoth (COSALCO Treasurer) and Don Mauricio (my counterpart and Presidente of the ADESCO)The audit in action by key members of ADESCO and COSALCO (our Health Committe creation)My important people and some of my Salvo fam My promotoras!!! tear.The big news though is the 4th of July events. I continued in the tradition set up here by Aaron in the cooking of hamburgers and hot dogs. I had Jose and Kevin and Oscar helping make the lettuce and tomatoes and all that stuff so that was pretty funny. It actually turned out ok. The only problem was that apparently they wrap their hotdogs here individually as well in plastic. Oops…..hahahaha. Jose (Don Raul’s youngest son) gave me the first two already unwrapped so I didn’t think anything about it, but then when I threw a bunch on to cook hurriedly to finish up, it took him coming over and noticing and saying something for me to be clued in. So that was fun cleaning up a bunch of burned up plastic off the hot dogs and griddle thing. They all turned out well in any case. I had Mauricio (Don Raul’s eldest son) and Rosa (his wife) come through the buffet line first putting on all the condiments, then the kids and I took everything over to Don Raul’s house to feed everyone there. Very tasty. The kid's too cute. This is William, one of the neighbors twins.You are witnessing part of the race between the twins on the day of exercise at my house. Our goal is to have them walking before the end of the year.Jose helping me out with the cooking.Yummy. I bough too little meat. My neighbor Rosa, the mom of the twins, posing in my house with my yumminess. Dona Amalia, my host mom, prepping the table for hamburgers and hot dogs.

The next day, July 5, was the American party in the capital. A lot of my group came in to play in the Peace Corps and American Society soccer tournament in front of the Sheraton Presidente in San Sal. They had 4 teams from Peace Corps, split up by the programs, then an American Society team. Everyone played everyone in 20 minute games and at the end, due to time, it came down to the three teams with the most points in penalty kicks: Youth Development, Rural Health and Sanitation, and Agroforestry/Environmental Education (us). We lost that part, but it was fun none the less, if nothing else enjoying the fact that there was grass on the field was something. Watching the tourney.

GRASS!!!

Afterwards we grabbed showers in the Sheraton and snacked to avoid buying food until dinner time when we opted for appetizers instead of meals, hahahaha, oh volunteerism. That night was a peace corps bash at some discoteca/bar deal which was fun. Although, the place where we stay was booked up and I got one of the last beds in the hallway apparently, but when I got close to it I was told that the owner lady gave it to another girl from my group. So I slept on the couch, but wasn’t too happy about paying the full 6 dollars for a couch without a pillow or blanket haha. Then, apparently, I was told by other volunteers that she was mad that I left without paying, when I clearly paid the night before as usual so that I can leave early. Good times….I have to go by this week for some meetings in the capital so we’ll fight it out then :)

I was up early the next day to head back for my ADESCO meeting in my canton, missing apparently a group that went to the beach….jerks.

buggers.... they built a nest under my printer The meeting of the ADESCO board.

Anyways, the last deal was yesterday, the first round of taking the people who needed more in depth exams of their eyes from the FUDEM eye consults we had in town, to the capital to get them checked out too see about surgeries and all. I was really scared about the whole process and who would come and not come and if the transportation would work out, but it actually all went more or less well. The mayor showed up and drove us himself, we fit most of the people inside the pickup, so only three of them were in the bed and got wet, and they all passed through the complete eye consultations and have a better idea of what is necessary. The only ‘bad’ part is that I’m realizing the amount of work that is going to be implied for me in this whole deal now. We are going to be going for every Monday for two months to get all 46 people that were referred through the process, and then we have to get the hospital in the capital to somehow not charge my people for all the preliminary exams for the surgeries, and then barter our way through the FUDEM system for my people who can’t pay for the surgeries (which is all of them). So the next few months should be interesting in that regard.

I was surprised though, FUDEM was packed with people the whole time we were there. They do reduced cost eye consultations, eye wear, medicines, and surgeries. From what I have seen so far, they do a lot of good work.

Finally, two announcements. First, I am looking or advice on how to transport a number of donated computers/laptops from the US to El Salvador without paying a billion dollars in taxes and customs. If you have an idea please feel free to email me with it at rhettbwilliams@yahoo.com. Or as usual, feel free to post it in a comment.

Second, this is a timely post in that it falls between two important dates. First off, Happy future Bday to my mom on July 18, she will be turning 35! Also, congrats to the sis and hubby for completing their first decade of marriage on July 11.

Padre Tino took me up to the top of the facade of the church reconstruction and I took a few picsThe top of the facade, I'm standing where the bells will go. Padre Tino has been joking in Mass about the people asking when the bells are going to go in because they are afraid they are going to die before they get put up. They have been down eight years, and plan to get put up at the end of August. View of the city from the top

Chesterton the “Prohibition” Mentality: (after discussing Communism, the Prohibition, vegetarians, conscription and disarmament)

“And modern notions of the sort are not only negative but nihilist; they always demand the absolute annihilation or ‘total prohibition’ of something.

Now I am as adamant against Mr. Murry in this notion of mutilating our whole culture in a frenzy of moral renunciation. I admit that a saint may cut off his hand and enter heaven, and have a higher place there than the rest of us. But a plea for the amputation of the hands of all human beings, the vision of a Handless Humanity as the next evolutionary sage after that of the tailless ape, leaves me cold, however much it is commended as a splendid corporate self-sacrifice. These things are an allegory, in more ways than one. We may say indeed that the inhuman industrial era did really abolish the Hand, since it did abolish the Handicraft. I admit that monks have their own reasons for shaving their heads or nuns for cutting off their hair; but my advice to humanity outside such ecstasies would be to remain calm and keep its hair on. That a man should surrender his luxury is one thing; that mankind should surrender its liberty to deal with the problem of luxury is quite another. It is one thing to impoverish oneself; it is quite another responsibility to impoverish a whole cultural system of its culture. I might or might not be the better for giving up wine; I am absolutely certain that the world would not be better for giving up wine. Mr. Middleton may be moved by a noble impulse to give up private property, but I do not for one single moment believe that humanity would be happier for giving up private property….

Capitalism was actually founded by urging a new realism against an old romanticism. The answer is that it was not necessary for a whole society to give up beauty; and it is not necessary for a whole society to give up liberty. And if we look back at history, we shall see that these sweeping social renunciations have done nothing but harm. Over all America lies like an incubus the cold corpse of Puritanism, because on fervid generation thought that man must say farewell for ever to priests as well as play-actors, to sacraments as well as feasts. In short, men were asked to sacrifice everything for Calvinism as they are now asked to sacrifice everything for Communism. But though man may sacrifice everything, Everyman must not sacrifice everything. Individual men must sacrifice their own liberties, but only to restore liberty. And it is a grand irony that, while the cultured Communist (with all respect to him) is rending everybody else’s garments and scattering ashes on other people’s heads, away in many quiet places, on the hills of Lanark or deep in my own Buckingham beech-woods, priests and friars who have themselves renounced private property are rebuilding the farms and families of Distributism.”

G.K. Chesterton, The Ascetic at Large, from The Well and the Shallows, p. 94-95

June 13, 2008

This was a post that actually got lost about a month ago, but I figured I would throw it in anyways.

I’d just like to start off by thanking those who have signed up so far to support the church reconstruction and the medical dispensary. There are still about two spots open, so keep it up when you talk to friends and family. I actually had my first encouragement from the communities here in the past few days on this subject. There have been quite a few leaders of COSALCO that have approached me or said in public that without the support of Peace Corps (Cuerpo de Paz they say), they would not have had the hope or drive to continue on to establish this medical source, the nurses seemed adamant on the issue. So, just know that you guys are sustaining a cause until December, that probably would not have made it otherwise. It’s good stuff.

I’ve also started communicating with another health committee in a neighboring community that got a hold of me to help reform this dispensary to model ours. So, after meeting with them, they are going to augment their prices according to base costs, start doing at least one activity each month, visiting houses to let them know that the project is still moving along and that their prices more affordable for all the families.

On that note, I guess I’ll express some frustration right now with some of these development NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and especially some of the medical ones. This ASPS, the medical NGO that was here from 2006-2008, did a wonderful thing in my community and my municipality. Using funds from the government of Valencia, Spain, they trained 2 nurses in each community over a period of 2 years, and built medical dispensaries where they weren’t already built. They also stocked these dispensaries with some furniture and basics, as well as with basic medicines. It is an awesome process, UNTIL the ending of the 2 year program. They stock the dispensary with more medicines at the end of the 2 years, but beyond that, the pull out all support. After a years worth of time, I haven’t heard of any medical dispensary that has survived normally after ASPS pulling out. Our municipality, with the exception of my community (and hopefully now another one), has fallen victim of the same situation. It's just hard for a culture that is less "fiscally ingrained" like ours, to cope with the scope of this kind of charge all of a sudden. For example, we are brought up to keep track of money, or just to know what income/expenditures and the idea of tracking it are, and this is something not seen as important here, and very rarely done.

Back to the point though, this NGO seems to be completely unaware of the problems it has with its closing days, or just not in the state to do something about it, and it amazes me actually haha. I don’t really see the point of spending all the money to set something up if you know that when you pull out support, that it will collapse. The problem is that the nurses are left without pay because they had been paid before by the NGO, upon leaving that becomes a very, very, very big problem. As well as the fact that a lot of the medicines expire within the year of them leaving and people in all cultures are leary of using medicines that say they are expired (even though most studies nowadays are destroying that mentality thanks to the military initiative to push back expiration dates and save money).

The climb up.

The people praying. Jose and a cheeto thing.

In other news, we went to the Cerro de Las Pavas, I think that’s basically “hill of the birds,” but I’m not sure on the ‘pavas’ word, but I think it’s about right though, haha. It’s a type of pilgrimage site in the country that I had visited actually during training. We went with people from all over the municipality for the benefit of the patron festivals here in La Comunidad. I had the bus let me and Juan Jose (the youngest of Don Raul) off at the base of the hill/mountain. We climbed up it while they took the road, and got there while they had started the prayers. They continued them for another hour having hooked up with another group that had gotten there at the same time. It was pretty cool and it had some good vistas and a little zoo thing that was nifty. They had monkeys :)

The view of lake Ilopango from "Cerro de las Pavas" Don Raul enjoying the water park

Me after it all and before my haircut.

Afterwards, we left and went to Amalpulapa, a water park that is out near San Vicente. That was pretty interesting, they did have one small slide though, but it was closed for all but an hour that day. It was pretty cool though and only $0.80 cents to get in. Check out the pics.

“It had been my mother’s [Monica, the mother of Augustine] custom in Africa to take meal-cakes and bread and wine to the shrines of the saints on their memorial days….Instead of her basket full of the fruits of the earth she learned to bring to the shrines of the martyrs a heart full of prayers far purer than any of these gifts. In this way she was able to give what she could to the poor and the Communion of the Lord’s Body was celebrated at the shrines of the saints, who had given their lives and earned the crown of martyrdom by following the example of his passion.”

Confessions, Augustine p. 112-3

This is the referring to Christian activities in the 300s AD.

July 1, 2008

I am finally back in site after visiting Corinto, Morazán (northeast part of the country near Honduras) for a little while, but more on that later. The patron festivals have come to an end, although I wasn’t here for the final Mass and festivities due to the Corinto basketball tourney, but I was here for the rest of the stuff during the week. Thursday night they had Cocolito come by and do a comedy routine as part of the festivities. It was good, but when the rain came everyone in front opened their umbrellas and no one could see, so things got a little interesting.

Everything seemed to fall all on this week of festivals. During the day I was working near the coast with Habitat for Humanity translating and a few times I had to leave early for other meetings, and at night I passed through the town for the festivals. They have the ferris wheel and French fries and cookies and masses and people, and lots of other little things.

The luncheon we had for COSALCO, the health committee.

Anyways, in other news, Tony Gasbarro, one of the guys who helps us out a lot as far as scholarships go from Alaska, was in country this week and I got to meet up with him and chat about a few things. He has opened a few doors for us as far as the medical dispensary and scholarships and other things so I hope we can take advantage of them as a community.

Also on another day I came back for the three year anniversary of the Health Committee for La Comunidad (now COSALCO) to have a lunch and some fun activities with them. It went very well, it was good because they work hard. The first day on the job.

We are a little further.

A little further.

That's the level we finished up at. The masons will take it from there because the work week has expired for the building brigade. This was the group I worked with all week, they were great people.

The final lunch and thanks with all three groups.

As far as Habitat for Humanity goes, it was actually a really good learning experience. I was contacted by some of the people I had met in the embassy back a few months ago and had already visited with here in San Pedro a few times about getting some Peace Corps translators in La Paz for some groups coming down to build. Apparently, online Habitat has different dates for different places around the world where there are opportunities to go and build houses. The people pay their own way down, as well as pay for their portion of the house. So it is actually a pretty big commitment monetarily, and a week’s worth of time as well. However, they had close to 50 people come down to build three houses. They split up into three groups with a translator in each site as the go between for the masons and US groups. The US groups were from Oregon and Boston mainly with some other people from Utah, Illinois, California, and some other states. They were all really nice and all with interesting stories and conversations. I also made friends with some of the Habitat staff that I hadn’t known before, the driver guy Don Luis was pretty funny and always offering me rides….great hombre.

Gabriel checking Chesterton's The Well and the Shallows

You are seeing the main town of Corinto, Morazan

Friday, the last day on site with Habitat and the US groups, I hitched a ride with Habitat to the capital where I arrived in time to catch dinner with JB (a volunteer in my group that’s in Sonsonante) and a girl that was passing through with FINCA, an assessor of the levels of poverty in different countries. She was an ex-Honduras volunteer who is now getting her Master’s at Harvard and working with this company in the summer. Nice girl. She told an interesting story of one of the three girls that they were with who left El Salvador a few days ago because she “just didn’t feel safe.” I feel bad for the other two girls because they have a lot of work to do just between the two of them. I left them after dinner to go check out the new Incredible Hulk movie…. I SAW A MOVIE!!!! I was excited a few weeks ago to go see one when I had to pass through the capital, but it didn’t work out….it didn’t escape me this time though. I haven’t seen an English movie in a while though, my luck has been all the movie in Spanish.

A view of the new central park in Corinto with the church in the background

A game in progress in the tourney.

The next morning I headed out to Corinto, Morazán in the northeast corner of the country for a basketball tournament at another volunteer’s site. I left at 8 and got there at 1, everything worked out perfectly for that to happen, which was good because we started at 2. I met Gabriel (another volunteer from my group) and we got lunch and then we headed straight for the courts….I was missing me some basketball!!! There were only four of us because our 5th was playing with his own site’s team that had come, so we picked up a random Salvadoran. We had a bye the first round, won the our first game to get to the championship (with another bye) and then won in the final against the older Corinto team. It was really fun, and the mayor gave us a trophy and all, so that was cool. I think they are going to put it up in the Peace Corps office (its small no worries haha). I was glad for the volunteers of the site though, it was a good turnout.

I hung out with Chris and Samantha who were volunteers in the main town of Corinto and Gabriel who is in a cantón outside of the town for the rest of the evening and the next day Samantha made us all French toast which was awesome, and then Gabriel and I went out to his site in the country to check it out. We passed by some ancient petro glyphs that have been discovered as of late and are said to be some of the oldest in all of Latin America. His cantón was spiffy and he just moved into a new little house that is stellar and pretty centrally located. We took a shortcut on the way back, but got caught in a nice storm, so we ended up being wet for the next little bit. We visited their fiestas in the evening, where I proved to them that I could make pupusas, fun stuff haha.

Team Gringo, haha. We had to turn the shirts inside out because they had some political stuff on the other side.

Champs. Our other two guys had already left.

I headed back the next day at 8 and got back to San Pedro at 4 and eventually got to crash in bed instead of a hammock. But, I must say, I almost enjoyed my two days sleeping in a hammock in Corinto more than my bed (they were nice though). Oh well, definitely going to get me one when I get back to the US.

The sign coming up on the petro glyph siteThe little alien guy, haha A few red paintings.

Chris and Samantha. He has a master's in Geography and her in Cultural Anthropology.

Take it away Chesterton:

“Now the great danger of the moment is that young men will go on being content with these revolts against revolt, these reactions against reactions; so that we have nothing but an everlasting seesaw of the Old Young and the New Young; the last always content with its fleeting triumph over the last but one. And the only way to avoid that result is to teach men to stretch their minds and inhabit a larger period of time. It is to insist, not that we now feel inclined to stress this or stress that, in mere fashion or mere fatigue, but that there really does exist somewhere a reasonable plan of the proportions of things, which, at least in its general outline, is true all the time.”

p. 102, The Last Turn, in The Well and the Shallows, G.K. Chesterton

June 21, 2008

Well, good and bad things to report in this quick post. I’ll start with the good news :) I had an unexpected visitor(s) yesterday to my site, and actually my house. Ambassador to the United States Charles Glazer, 6 high school and college students from Massachusetts and their teacher, and the security team, came by yesterday to see how a Peace Corps volunteer lives. It was kind of cool to see the whole process. They wouldn’t confirm he was coming until about midway through the day before. All of us chatting in my house first.

Showing them my back yard (One of my visitors is standing in an antpile right now :)

Then we hustled to get our little plan together, confirm it with his security team, and then the next morning we met with them before everything got started.

The lady students that visited... all very nice girls.Me and Ambassador GlazerMario, the Ambassador, and me

We hung out on my patio with my talking about my experiences here while they, and he, asked questions. After that we toured around my house, my ants welcomed the ambassador to my house as he stood on their home for a little while, that was kind of funny. We left and visited the farm of Don Mario, then climbed up to the main town where we had all our scholarship students waiting in the convent that the Padre had lent to us. I gave a short presentation to everyone and then we had a welcome by a member of the scholarship committee, and then by a student. It actually went ok, we served a medley of fruits to each person and then ended with the US and ES students exchanged a few questions between themselves and sometimes with the ambassador (although there was a lot of translation involved there). At the end of it all, the scholarship student we have that is a painter (we have funded his vocation to allow him to work with the right tools) donated two of his paintings. One he presented to the ambassador, and the other to the teacher. Then we had a basket of ES fruits that we gave and then some pics and that was it.

Me introducing our guests to the our scholarship students. The US students, the SPN students, and the US ambassador

Finally we left through the back door to visit the parish elderly home (asilo). They all got a kick out of particularly the old guys. I would say that old ladies are much less fun J The best part was when an old guy ran down a parrot to hold for the girls to take pictures.

I would have to say the favorite part of the 7 students (all girls) was the twins next door to my house. They fell in love immediately and with the whole photo shoot that followed.

So it was a good experience, I think the US students saw a glimpse of a little bit of a different kind of life, and our scholarship students will remember that for a little while.

Me chillin' in the elderly paradise haha. The other guy is Amir who works with visas in the embassy.Padre Tino showing us the elderly home!!

Now, the only bad news I had for the day, was that I woke up that morning with my first day of sickness I would say since I got to my site. I woke up with a cough, headache, and body ache, with led into a fever shortly after waking up. Of all days right? I took an acetaminophen in the morning to ward off the symptoms until the whole deal was over. The sweating that I did during the talk and the walkthrough the farm helped me feel more up to speed for translating, gracias a Dios, but when everything was said and done, it hit me like a ton of bricks. The symptoms kicked up and as well as the fever. I couldn’t quite go home yet though, first because their wasn’t going to be a bus or pickup because the transit police are intown molesting all the people that don’t have legal or up to date tags. So I went to Nina Delfina’s house to do my internet work because they had called me earlier that morning to let me know it had finally come back. My inbox was somewhat ridiculous. I finished my work, talked with the new guy that’s a pontifical seminarian in Monterrey, Mexico, who used to live beside Nina Delfina for a while (he wanted to practice English). He is part of the Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas apparently, go figure.

After that I crashed in the bed with a large fever and sent a message to the guys in the mayor’s office asking for a ride, eventually they came by and I came home and crashed.

So is the story of the past few days, craziness. Today I feel better, the fever broke after much sweating :)

This is the guy from the elderly home that finally chased down the parakeet for the girls.

Also, the patron festivals for San Pedro Nonualco have started with the beginning of the novena yesterday. There will be a mass every evening for nine days until the closing mass on Sunday the 29th. The town is already decked out with the food and all kinds of other jazz. They are also going to crown the Miss San Pedro of the Patron Festivals tonight. Milagro (Don Raul’s youngest) is in the running so it should be interesting. Thanks to all those who continued to sign up on the side bar for the two projects!! Only a few more spots left! From US paper in November:

Bad rap? Hire a publicist!

“If history’s most infamous characters lived today, no doubt they’d employ people to spin their story. Perhaps like this:

Press Release May 1536:

From the Publicist of King Henry VIII

After three wonderful years of marriage, the King regrets to announce that he and his wife, Anne Boleyn, will be divorcing due to irreconcilable differences, witchcraft and treason. The King and Ms. Boleyn each leave on their own accord, and both look forward to individual pursuits. His Majesty will continue his noble reign of England, while Ms. Boleyn has chosen to have herself beheaded, as it will be best for everyone. The King asks that all subjects respect his privacy in this time of great sorrow and not mention the separation of Ms. Boleyn’s name to him ever again, for the matter is over with, and there’s no need to speak of it anymore. Also, the King announces his royal engagement party to Miss Jane Seymour, to take place tomorrow.”

June 18, 2008

Well, I haven’t been able to post that last entry because the internet has been knocked out here for the past week and some. Bummer, because I was waiting on some important emails and now I’m kind of lost as to what my next week will look like. There was a chance of me translating (all expenses paid, haha) in Zacatecoluca this coming week for Habitat for Humanity, but now I don’t know how that all has worked out. Also, for those who might have emailed inquiring about information on the sign-up sheets, sorry, but I’ll get back to you asap, not much I can do on my end J I laugh at the internet company here, TurboNet. They charge like $35 a month for the 1mb service and I’d say at least 5 days a month its out. This month they have already reached a week and a half. I told Nina Delfina that she needs to call and open a can on those guys…not that it will do any good, but sometimes if you act angry enough they give rebates J The bad thing right now is that there are too many options for internet here so, I feel like they don’t have to give the people much of anything.

In other news, we went out to the middle of NOWHERE this past Sunday (Father’s Day for you guys, Happy FD Papa Williams J) to play our soccer games. I mean, straight up adobe and bamboo houses, it was awesome. The first and second team won both games… 2-1 and 4-3, but I’m amazed that no one broke their ankles. That field had holes and washouts all over it…the sides of my calfs and ankles are really sore from the 3 or 4 times I thought I broke my ankle to pieces, haha. This pic cracked me up because Mercedes, daughter of Raul, is trying to get the twin to pose for a picture and her hubby is stuck with both cakes annoyed for a while dodging the kid

Finally, Father’s Day here was yesterday (Tuesday, 17th). They have it every June 17th and not every second Sunday of June….Mother’s Day works the same way here. The Lopez family though came in Saturday to celebrate Saturday night with Don Raul. The kids went in together on a cake and also a shirt and pants for him. It was pretty funny, check out some of the pics.

As far as work goes… this week FUDEM, the eye people, are coming back to different places in the municipality to turn in the prescription glasses to everyone. The last date is this Thursday, and then when the mayor gets back in town, I have to bother him until he donates the transportation to the people who needs surgeries (46) to go get the complete exam in FUDEM San Salvador.

Don Raul cutting his cake that the kids brought.They have an interesting, but apparently really good way of measuring the waist without trying it on.

Actually trying it on.

Such is my life at the moment. I finished Augustine’s Confessions a few days ago. It was definitely worthwhile as a reflection on life and its obstacles. The last few chapters though he turns super deep philosophical on the origins of the world and time and stuff though. That slowed things down, but as always, he brings up good questions to ponder. He focused a lot on the allegorical interpretation of Genesis and other books of the Bible…..werd.

Jose.

Yesterday and today I also read a book called Constantine’s Bible by a David Dungan, professor at the University of Tennessee. It was a really good and quick read compared to other “scholarly” books that’s I’ve read while here. He presented this thoughts and research on the thought processes of the Hellenistic (Greek) culture and its effects on the development of the Christian canon. I enjoyed it in the manner that it presented an idea, presented primary sources and other established citations to explain why he believed the way he did, and then followed those ideas to their logical end. Now, that being said, towards the end I wasn’t really in total agreement with his conclusion, but I respect the guy and his work.

For those of you who haven’t ever questioned where the Bible came from, or who it was that decided these books and not others would be Christian scripture (there were many, many others in contention), I encourage you to check it out. It’s a real thought provoking situation, you can’t lose out. Just go to Barnesandnoble.com or amazon.com and search “where the bible came from” or “canon of the bible” and see what pops up (usually the books with 'canon' in the title touch more on the specific topic). I have a few book ideas, but you know me, always Mr. Neutral, haha!

You can’t truly know what something is until you know where it came from.

Ok people, its time for me to post on an opportunity for the few people that read the blog to take an active part in a Christian community outside of the US. I laugh many times that I talk to people on this subject, I say, "I have an opportunity for you" and not "I have an opportunity to ask something of you." On joining Peace Corps, I thought that I would be going to an underdeveloped country to bring knowledge and "experience" of better systems and techniques to people. The first few weeks here, however, I realized that it wasn't going to be me giving these people an opportunity to learn new things most of the time, but them giving me the opportunity to learn about how most of the world lives, what it means to be "happy", and how to make the most out of a little.

So, when I portray the person in need as the person giving the resources, sometimes I hit blank stares, or pauses on the phone, haha. But it really is true. We sometimes receive more in the process of giving what we have to those without, than those poor people do in receiving. I feel like sometimes people lose that aspect of giving alms. As a prosperous nation, with more disposable income than we will ever realize, see the commandment to provide for the poor as giving because we need to better the lives of those who don't have much. Clearly, that is one aspect, but at the same time, if not more important is the lesson we (those who give in a material way) learn in the process. Detaching ourselves from that (disposable income) which these people in many other countries are blessed not to have to deal with to a great extent. So, at the end of the day, we are gaining more by this process than those who are receiving the materials.

ANYWAYS, here is me getting off my soapbox for the day. Now, I am going to offer YOU the "opportunity" to detach yourselves from the world in a way that also helps others :)

On the right side of the blog, you will now notice two Sign-Up sheets from June until December of this year. The first sign up sheet is for a person or family to chose a month to support the medical dispensary that we have here in my town/village. For those of you that I haven't explained this to, 2 years ago an non-profit came to my town and trained two ladies of our town as nurses to visit all the houses of the community giving free medical consults as well as to man a medical dispensary in the evenings with very reduced cost medicines. They pulled out this March and now we are spending the money we make to buy the medicines we sell. This doesn't leave much room to pay these poor ladies something. So what I am asking is for a family or person to sign up each month to support them with $30. In addition, a family in Arizona has agreed to match every month that we donate with another $30. How awesome is that!!! There are two ways to donate.... first, through a non-profit that will make it tax-deductible, and second, straight with me (which is faster). Either way, I will provide updates on when the money was spent, and what it was spent on. This is a GREAT OPPORTUNITY to support those in need and who are providing crucial medical services here, don't lose out! Email me for more info and with which month you would like.

Our Medical Dispensary

Our nurse conducting a meeting of COSALCO (Health Committee)

The second project that we have the sign-up sheet for is for the church reconstruction that is going on here. In 2001, there were two high magnitude earthquakes that went off within a month of each other, and pretty much destroyed everything. The parish church is the last big project to be rebuilt, but the parish has just now started reconstruction after years of studies, etc etc. The total for the project is way beyond their reach at the moment, because the parish runs schools, medical clinics, elderly homes, etc here as well, but they are rebuilding piece by piece the parish church. Right now they are working on the front side, and later the walls on the inside that are only held up by X braces that criss cross all over the inside. Anyways, the need right now are the bags of cement that are rising in price. So this sign up sheet is for a family or person to sign up for 5 bags of cement a month ($35). The church serves a parish of 11,000 people, so the need is profound, haha. (of course not all come every Sunday, go figure).

MassRandom time during the day.I am going to keep the blog updated on the right side with the names of the families that have which months, so that people can see which months are left (taking for granted the people offer to sign up!).

Those who have interest in a month, please contact me at rhettbwilliams@yahoo.com for all the info that you'll need. Also, if you have any friends or family that would also be interested in the opportunity to give, please relay the message.

I leave you with a quote from Friar Tuck from the movie Robin Hood.

"This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption. Let us give praise to our maker and glory to his bounty by learning about... BEER."

haha, that guy cracks me up.

June 1, 2008

Wow, it’s already June, that’s craziness. I have officially been in my site 6 months and in country almost 9 months. Anyways, here I am, and I’m still alive, mwhahaha….for the most part.

This is the "vampiro" that Mauricio killed with a sling shot outside his house (there were 2)

This blog marks the end of the first part of my eye campaign as well. We have finished the first three eye consultations in three different places in the municipality. I worked with an NGO here in El Salvador called FUDEM. I divided the whole place into three groups to get more people serviced because apparently there was some kind of eye deal done a few years ago and there were so many people that all of them didn’t go through and yadda yadda yadda. Anyways, it worked out pretty good. We helped about 215 more people than normal due to the breaking up into groups. Although the mayor helped as well by providing lunch for the FUDEM eye people and us, and he also helped out with speaker phoning in the cantons and in the pueblo.

FUDEM had their part down to an art. They got to the site I had chosen about 30 minutes ahead of time, and then I would show them where to set up. They had 5 different stations that would then begin processing the group of people ready to be examined. They would pass through my local volunteers from the ADESCO who were registering their name and age, and then to the eye and letters part, the machine measuring part, then the glasses measuring part, then the glasses fitting part, and finally the payment (if they could part). They already had reading glasses for a really good price ($2.26) and then the actual prescription glasses were going for $19 for those under 40 years and $32 for those over 40 years. During my drive though, they had a discount due to international donations… so all prescription glasses were $10. Sweet. Those who weren’t able to pay the whole amount of things were exonerated the part that they couldn’t afford. On that note, we got over 500 people during the 3 consults and 50% of them were able to get glasses.

The oranges we spent a morning cutting that we stored in my patio.I was kind of proud of my towns here though. The FUDEM people told me even after the first consultation in the canton of Hacienda Vieja that they had never met people who were so generous as these people. That kind of caught me off guard because I don’t think they realize the irony of that statement. The people coming to give resources that are out of reach to one group people, saying that that group of people is the most generous group that they have ever met. Our people would go through the eye consult and then bring donations here and there of different kinds of fruits for them to take with them. They practically filled the back of the FUDEM truck with donations. It was pretty nifty.

A break time in the second eye consult in the canton of San Ramon

Chilling at the same consult.

Also before I forget, Aaron came by for a few days while traveling through Central America. La Comunidad was really excited to see him and talk about good memories, they really have a strong attachment to him. It was good stuff.

I took a pic of the phone I gave Francisco. The one that would shut off for a month at a time. Well not it has a new wonderful characteristic that cracks me up, can you tell what it is? hahaha

Anyways, after the last eye consult, FUDEM gave me a ride to San Salvador to help me on my way to my In-Service-Training for Peace Corps. We had it in the National School for Agriculture just outside of the capital. It’s a pretty cool place and the training was actually well done. They had sessions on vegetables and then on making marmalades from fruits. Then we had some business sessions, some pruning sessions, some GPS sessions, and some chemical treatment sessions (pesticides, fungicides, etc). It was all really helpful. Me with a knife that I was playing with after cutting up Aaron's awesome cake that he bought from a new ice cream store in the main pueblo for the Lopez family.

I stayed the night in San Sal Friday night, and me and some of my group went out and actually caught the Indiana Jones movie (I personally wanted to see Iron Man, but apparently some of my group has been frequenting the capital a little more than me and had already seen the others). We also ran into a big group from the Embassy outside an “irish” bar. They were having a singles night, so we stopped and chatted there for a while. We ended the night with a hamburger and fries…it was a very un peace corps like night, but a satisfying one at that.

I was up at 5 the next morning to make it back to my site by 8 for the scholarship meeting we had at the high school. I’m in charge of planning the trip for the scholarship students that Aaron’s parents are donating (the previous volunteer), so that is coming along. We are thinking the morning will be spent at the Mayan ruins in the country, so that will be cool.

Now things will slow down just a bit as far as large events to plan for the next month, but things are still here to keep me somewhat busy. FUDEM is coming back to give out the prescription glasses three times, and I have to convince the mayor to give us transport to the capital for the group of 50 people that need more eye exams. And well… other things to do as well.

I’m getting the itch to go visit another country for a few days soon, so that planning might start this month as well.

Check out this excerpt from President Bush on May 31 at the Furman graduation ceremony:

"I'm glad to be joined with my friend and outstanding leader of South Carolina: Governor Mark Sanford, Class of 1983. (Applause.) Governor, I'm not going to ask if you ever got caught "swimming in the fountains." (Laughter.) As the President said, 25 years ago, the Governor sat where you now sit -- as a member of the graduating class. As it happens, as he mentioned, the commencement speaker that day was my dad. Now, that means some at Furman will have heard graduation speeches from two generations of Bushes. It's a great step forward for the Bush family -- and a great step backward for your English Department. (Laughter and applause.)

And as the President mentioned, I have other family ties with Furman. In the early 1930s, a student named Willa Martin graduated from the women's college that was soon to become part of Furman. She went on to marry my mother's father. She also spent time as a columnist for the Associated Press -- thus beginning the long history of warm relations between the Bush family and the media. (Laughter.)

My administration also has another Furman connection. One of the first people I see almost every morning is a Furman grad and my Director of National Intelligence: Admiral Mike McConnell, Class of 1966. (Applause.) I asked Mike if he ever took part in the "Midnight Serenade." He said, I'd like to tell you, but that information is classified. (Laughter.)"

Funny guy.

Check out the video on this page of it... http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/05/20080531-3.html

May 16, 2008

Mauricio looking somewhat inebriated, but he wasn't, it was just a perfect picture.

Mauricio's runts on my patio :)

Let’s see, nothing painfully exciting to write about I don’t think. I started cleaning around the house with the neighbors scythe and stepped in a few ant beds, wonderful. I am now a red and white gringo. All my wounds are coming to a close right now though, so that’s good. Although, I fell asleep last night in the hammock outside, and woke up later in the night, and my eye felt super swollen and itchy. So I just went to bed to avoid it. I woke up this morning though and it was somewhat swollen, but more really bloodshot red and itchy. I found some pure water drops in the kit, but nothing with any medicines. I sent for some in our dispensary, and not its better tonight, but I hope in the morning it will go away. There are few things more annoying than a bummed eye.

The gift to Dona Amalia from all the kids.

The cake from the kids to Don Raul and Dona Amailia for their 32nd anniversary

Oh yeah, they had Mother’s Day here the day before we do it in the States. It was kind of cool, they whole Lopez family came back, so it was a full house ( actually I think one daughter was absent). We played cards all day Saturday, and then that night they had a cake for mother’s day, and then one for all the birthdays that are going to occur this month (the majority of their family haha). Afterwards, it turned into dance and beauty pageant training for Milagro by Margherita. It was all pretty funny. I'm really not that tall.

The beauty pagaent practice for Milagro (background), however Margherita has taken over.

Dance lessons for Milagro, this was hysterical.

Sunday (11th), after the 8am Mass before the parish retreat, I shot back and made pancakes for me and the neighbors and then we headed up with half the guys in the family to play in the soccer game. Although, the other team was an hour and half late, so I had to walk back down to the ADESCO meeting, and then climb back up again to the field in time to play the second half of the second game. We ended up winning 2-1.

The ball got stuck in the tree.

Yeah, I'm out of shape.

Sara!!!... actually they call her Sarita. I'm trying to teach her to say my name right now.

Another thing….I got to go to some patron festivals in another community, San Juan Nahuistepeque the other night. It was actually kind of cool. I got to eat French fries! So good. They had fireworks too sponsored by the mayor. They had a parade with the Padre, and a large “float” of Jesus and Mary and later prayers yadda yadda, its part of a weeklong thing. Ohhhh, they also had a guy holding a firework ridden bull made of wire just above his body and chasing people with it. That was kind of interesting.

A firework at the festival.

The ladies killing and cleaning all the chickens for the meal after the closing Mass the next day

The eye campaign starts this coming Wednesday, but there are quite a few community leader’s that are acting quite sluggish, so who knows how that is going to all work out.

In other news, Aaron, the former volunteer here, is coming back next Friday for a few days, the community is really excited to see him, so that should be fun. He hasn’t got to see them all in 6 months.

I need help. Although it does look like I had bathed recently, that is a plus, haha.

Today was, the 32nd anniversary of Don Raul and Dona Amalia, my host parents here. Don Raul got back later on in the night from San Salvador where they have been going to visit with their daughter that has been in and out of the hospital there with an array of problems, I don’t know how they are going to pay for everything, but that is another story. Anyways, I made a flan and surprised them with it, and used two matches as my candles…using a third match to light them…haha. I think I got a pic of them blowing the matches out with the cell, it was funny.

What in the world did this gringo make us?

Ok, yeah I might be a little scared as well.

Blowing out the two matches haha.

PS… just read the Bishop England was voted the best private school in the universe my someone again… hahahaha. But that won’t last for long if they don’t get another rector in there.

Don Raul tying up the sack of avocados we had just cut.

The new kittens of the Lopez family that like to play around and on my feet always.

The two runts in their jailcell. I think that William with the smile.

Augustine..."At last he arrived [Faustus, a Manichean Bishop]. I found him a man of agreeable personality, with a pleasant manner of speech, who pattered off the usual Manichean arguments with a great deal more than the usual charm. But my thirst was not to be satisfied in this way, however precious the cup ringing with these tales and they seemed to me none the better for being better expressed, nor true simply because they were eloquently told. Neither did I think that a pleasant face and a gifted tongue were proof a wise mind. Those who had given me such assurances about him must have been poor judges. They thought him wise and thoughtful simply because they were charmed by his manner of speech.I have known men of another sort, who look on truth with suspicion and are unwilling to accept it if it is presented in fine, rounded phrases. But in your wonderful, secret way, my God, you had already taught me that a statement is not necessarily true because it is wrapped in fine language or false because it is awkwardly expressed....You had already taught me this lesson and the converse truth, that an assertion is not necessarily true beaccuse it is badly expressed or false because it is finely spoken. I had learnt taht wisdom and folly are like different kinds of food. Some are wholesome and others are not, ut both can be served equally well on the finest china dish or the meanest earthenware. In just the same way, wisdom and folly can be clothed alike in plain words or the finest flowers of speech."

Confessions, p. 97

I just wanted to send out a quick thank you to ladies at the Catholic Miscellany (Anne and Christina) for their help in getting out the word and opportunities to personally support worthy causes here in my town.

For those of you interested in reading the article, you can check it out in the May 1st Edition, or send me an email (listed on the top right of the blog) for a .pdf of it. It's also online:

http://www.catholic-doc.org/miscellany/

As far as news goes, you might find this source a little interesting:

http://www.catholicnews.com/

May 5,

CINCO DE MAYO! I was invited by a half Mexican volunteer to hang out in the capital celebrating it today, but we had the first monthly audit of our medical dispensary by the ADESCO today, so I had to attend. After all was said and done, the health promoter lady, Isabel, got $86 to live on for the month of May. I mean, I made that at Wal-mart of all places, every two days, and I didn’t have a kid (although here in the canton they don’t really have taxes, there is some tacked on to their light bills, but the government subsidy pretty much covers it). Most people in the US make that every few hours, haha. It was sad, because we had to cut her salary to half of what it was from the time when she worked for the NGO that was here. The nutritionist lady that works with the kids of the canton was dropped in half to $30 a month, but her role in running the dispensary is minimal. But they both do house visits every morning etc etc, so who knows. They do a lot of good work. I just hope people continue to support it in the town so that it can continue to grow. I am looking for NGOs to help out with the medicines that we have to buy at the end of every month, because they won’t give straight up cash to help pay our ladies while the dispensary is getting off its feet. As usual, anyone interested in helping out with something in my town, feel free to drop me a line.

Let’s see, on lighter notes…. Hmmm…. Ah yes, they have had vacation here from May 1 to May 4. It sounds like some version of Labor Day, mixed in with celebrations initiating the month dedicated to Mary….May. May 1, there was a parish wide parade and Mass, that I was actually drug to actually, because I had no idea what was going on and wanted a day of vacation :) It was cool though, every sector of the parish (its broken up to make it more efficient) made these big flower decorations and brought them to El Calvario, the other big parish church in town. There they had songs and prayers, and testimonies. The testimonies this time were more geared to miracles worked in their lives by answered prayers. My favorite was the second to last lady who said that her son had eaten some spines of some fish and had operations etc, but even after they said that he would have to live with some of them for the rest of his life (weird right?....maybe its in the translator :) Anyways, this son lived in San Salvador, and when he called his mom one day, she suggested them praying the rosary together, and she said that at the very end of the rosary, he began coughing and then coughed up the spines that had been “afflicting” him. Then she started crying yadda yadda, but I thought it was a cool story. Although, doesn’t say much for Salvadoran medicine, haha.

Everyone just leaving the Calvario.

Ole Padre Tino in the middle leading the people in prayer.

The people with some cool flowers

A shot a little further out. People filling in the church for the Mass.

Eventually, they processed to the main parish church, where the celebration was concluded with a santa misa. Wahoo.

Saturday, was jam packed too. First off, we were going to leave at 5:30am for our ADESCO excursion to the beach. I was first reminded at 5 in the morning though that I hadn’t made my cross. ??? Come to find out it was Dia de la Cruz, Cross Day! Ha, its amazing to me how some things through the history of humanity manage to find their way into cultures. Apparently, on dia de la cruz, every makes their crosses with fruit on it in front of their houses, praying for a good “winter,” their season when the rains comes and harvest etc. An external expression of an internal prayer, no harm in it. But I did hear some questions by the kids saying that if you didn’t put the cross out on this day, the devils would enter your house for the winter…. (later I heard the same thing from one of the grandkids of Don Raul, but he quickly shot that down, and rightly so of course.) It’s just cool to see the syncretic nature of Catholicism working in this culture. I mean, there has been some kind of sacrifice to the God or gods of people for thousands of years in every culture across the globe before the planting and harvest, but now in every one of those cultures all has been pointed towards its true source, in one sacrifice. (but then again, that’s what the other cultures all said too :)

Mauricio, the neighbor's, cross

My poor cross. Didn't have any fruit to hang in the 2 mins I made it before heading out.

The trip to the beach was pretty good. We made almost twice what we did in the previous excursion, which was good. The beach was a lot more grumpy this time around though. The waves were much bigger and the current much stronger. We didn’t lose anyone though, haha. From what I have heard though from other volunteers, it’s not rare to see a few dead people at the beach during your few years here. Interesting.

Although…it still amazes me that people who go around so much without shirts one insists on “bathing” in the ocean fully clothed.

OH, almost forgot, Aaron, you might find this note intriguing. I played in my first soccer game this Sunday. We traveled out close to Zacatecoluca with the two La Comunidad teams. I was kind of anxious to see if I still could play at all after ohhhh……9 years or so. I couldn’t help but laugh, they were taking shots at the goal, and when I finally went out to mess around, the ball eventually came to me, and everyone was watching to see how the gringo was. They were shooting from outside the box here and there. I mean, I couldn’t have had better luck than that first shot. I somehow kicked it really hard with spin curving it toward the upper left corner of the goal. The short goalie never had a chance. I completely fooled them, it was hilarious. There were going to be two games. One for the no. 2 team and then the good team. I played the first half on defense for the no. 2 team with Francisco, and then their coach guy told me to sit out the second half to rest for the second game. I warned him that I had gotten fat here and wouldn’t last. We won the first game 4-2, and then I got put up as a forward in the second game. So not the place for a worn out gringo. I barely made it through the first half, and we were losing 3-1. I took myself out for the second half, and we ended up tying 4-4. It was fun though, if I manage to keep playing, I will get back in cardio shape, that’s for sure. I have quite a few battle scars too, we don’t realize how lucky we are in the states to play on grass fields. It’s straight up dirt and rocks here.

Everyone will be glued to radios and little portable tvs this Wednesday at 1:30pm here for the Real Madrid vs. Barcelona game, “El Classico” they call it here. I am making chocolate chip cookies in the neighbor’s gas oven to celebrate, very excited. Hopefully I don’t screw it up.

The new Peace Corps group is swearing in this Thursday in the capital, but….. the party is expensive to get into, and it’s a lot of money always staying in the capital, so, I don’t know, most of the volunteers will be there though. We’ll see.

I’ve been slack on my studies and reading as of late, and I’m short on things to eat around the house, but other than that, things are chivo. Soon enough.

“The Church is called Catholic then because it extends over all the world, from one end of the earth to the other; and because it teaches universally and completely one and all the doctrines which ought to come to men’s knowledge, concerning things both visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly; and because it brings into subjection to godliness the whole race of mankind, governors and governed, learned and unlearned; and because it universally treats and heals the whole class of sins, which are committed by soul or body, and possesses in itself every form of virtue which is named, both in deeds and words, and in every kind of spiritual gifts.”

Catecheses, No. 18:23

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop of Jerusalem (315-386 AD)

April 27, 2008

Beware the random photos.

Wow, it’s been a while. Crazy Peace Corps. It’s a good time though. You should try it, the fireflies are crazy. HA, no seriously though, they remind me of the Eiffel Tower. I know, I know, what a comparison, but at night they had the tower sparkling all over, and that’s what nighttime in the pitch black street looks like right now with these things, just at a slower rate. Although it was super hilarious the other night when there was a drunk guy staggering in front of me as I was heading my house from Don Raul’s, and he was like ( in a slurred voice), “HEY LOOK, THE LIGHTS ARE BLINKING” while laughing hysterically afterwards. Needless to say, I was right there with him.This On Air sign before we walked in the TV Show Chivisimo

Chivisimo as we walked inApparently a 6.5 earthquake hit Guatemala a few days ago as well. It was kind of a cool feeling because we felt it for 10 seconds or so while playing cards on the patio. Francisco, just up and ran out yelling leave leave leave, but we stayed playing cards haha. It was very weak, but strong enough to feel what was like ripples in the ground. Nifty.

My neighbor Mauricio going crazy.

My cards partner again as we pound our opponents in what you would translate at "Dog" (Chucho...well slang)HAH.... Milagro cleaning Franciscos hair

Oh yeah, a Furman foreign study group showed up in El Salvador about a week ago. They are traveling through Central America, and stopped in Morazán for a few days to check out all the Civil War stuff. They stayed with Peace Corps volunteers for a few days, and then later all came back together in Perquin where the war museum is. I met up with them there and they were nice enough to set us up with a room and food. Dr. Ching invited a war veteran who had a traveling band before, during, and after to tell his story. He fought for the guerilla, and is a huge supporter of the leftist group here. He told some really good stories, and had some interesting opinions. One of the guys playing club baseball was there as well, he is going into the Peace Corps and will be French speaking Africa somewhere.

Our state of the art truck of the municipality we used to take recycling.

A random truck that we loaded 14,000 oranges onto until midnight

The next day another volunteer and I headed to San Salvador to catch a fellow volunteer’s birthday party. We celebrated part by making our way into a TV studio for what would be their equivalent of TRL. The studio had decided to film an hour earlier this day though because of some show called Dancing for a Dream, but we met a bunch of “famous” Salvadorans from the CHIVISIMO show. So it was kind of cool.

The Lopez's cat eating the rat that I had caught in the house during the night. Yeah, she ate it whole, and really quickly..i was impressed.

Mario, the religious crazy guy, evangelizing the dog. I eat breakfast with him often, hes a funny guy.

Also, after getting back, apparently Celia, Don Raul and Dona Amalia’s daughter, had just got out of the hospital. They said her headaches had got to the point that they had incapacitated her and she had pretty much gone unresponsive. When she came too she was numb in some parts and pain in all the rest of her body. It sounded like the hospital gave her something for the pain and then sent her home with an appointment for a CAT Scan a few days later, haha. I went with her mom and her, the dad couldn’t go, and everything turned out ok, from what the doctor said when they had it read the next day at a different office. They put her on some kind of medicine without knowing what it was, and it seems to have knocked her out somewhat, she sleeps a lot. Today she seemed much better though. Crazy stuff.

An intense game going on our felt table.Oh yeah, on a political note, I got preached to today in another canton by an older guy with a big red FRENTE hat on. That’s the “leftist” group that we have in the country. I put leftist in quotes, because some of the connotations that we normally associate with the left, does not apply as much here (religiously….yet). I think he had been drinking a little bit, but as soon as I sat down, he asked if I could speak Spanish and then started asking me what I thought about the government here, and the US government. Before I got answers out at all he was answering them for me. You know, George Bush is why we are poor here and then he moved on to something like that Americans are worth millions when they die and them worth houses? I’m not quite sure where that was going, but I eventually got out of there. The people all around got kind of embarrassed, crazy city-folk visitors. On that…. For those of you who haven’t heard, George W. Bush, will be speaking at Furman’s graduation this May. Wowzers.

Also on the political deal, has anyone seen where they are scientifically measuring the Colbert “bump” now? After Clinton’s win in Pennsylvania, I bet you he is all smiles. Actually I think they were basing their “science” on campaign donation trends, but whatever. Now I start a few pics the military sent me. This was the commander of the batallion. Awesome guy, he loves to ball.Me getting my but whooped by the chess teacher and sgt.

Let’s see what else. Oh I am a walking fool now. We are going to have the trainings for the Vision Campaign where I am bringing in an NGO named FUDEM to give free consults etc, for a week. They have numbers they have to meet though, so I am meeting with all of the ADESCOs of the cantones to get them organized etc etc. This is a bigger place than I thought. Tomorrow I go to the most remote part of the municipality, should be fun.

Living the good life.

Oh yeah, so continuing holding on the holding my tongue front after the US bashfest, a guy brought up evolution and religion right after I had finished the Origin of Species deal. There are these two guys that do work across the street in different parts of the year, and I had heard that they were “of another religion,” but the Lopez family always feeds them while they are here working, and they are really nice guys. Religious talk really never came up except for the last day they were here. It was more like a good convo and less of a confrontation. The guy brought up how he had a relative that went Jehovah Witness, and how that they aren’t really a religion, but more like Bible scholars….. :) Don Raul then piped up and told a story about a story brought to his attention by a lady in the community about a relative that had invited her to join a new church that had come in from without. She said they the church said that as long as you believed in Christ, that all the marrying as many people as you wanted (and other examples which I’ll generalize as “the moral law”) really don’t have any influence on your salvation. After a short convo, the guy was like, yeah well I think it’s the fault of the preachers in charge of those flocks, because ultimately that’s where this stuff germinates. It was an interesting conversation. It still amazes me how much bigger the 7th Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses are than any other non-Catholic group. The full bird colonel trying on the Salvadoran side arm. US wasn't allowed any weapons during the mission.

D'oh! I should have joined the military.

I had some quotes from the Origin of Species, but I already gave it away for the Spanish Literature master’s guy to read. I felt bad for him cause he’s been in the capital in therapy with a pinched nerve for a while. He’s going through books insanely fast.So, I leave ya’ll with something much more hilarious!http://youtube.com/watch?v=n4QFKS4LzS4

April 9, 2008

Esquipulas, Guatemala….what a dry place. Although it is the end of the dry season, so I can give it that, but still, it changes your idea of the tropics so see many parts that are very dry for large times in the year. Anyways, it was a fun trip. We headed out from La Comunidad around 330am, arriving in town (San Pedro Nonualco) around 4 or so, and then when the buses arrived, and after some initial confusion on how people were going to pay and board, we headed out at 5 am en punto. It was a full crowd on both buses, around 120 people in total at $10 a pop (Don Raul and Dona Amalia ran the excursion from La Comunidad, but invited the whole parish). So they made quite a bit of money for the festivals in August I think.

Crazy Peace Corps people...I wasn't there, but I was forwarded this pic and its hilarious

It was about a 4 hour bus ride to the border, then 45 mins to an hour at customs, then another 30 mins or so to Esquipulas in Guatemala. The border was fun, they had an army of money changers jump on the bus right as we stopped to get off so they could check the bus etc. They were changing every dollar into 7 quetzals. The exchange rate was about 7.55 to a dollar, so they were making half a quetzal on every dollar exchanged….that’s pretty good business, yet our people had no idea they were losing that. I didn’t bother to mention it with 120 people. I only changed 8 dollars at the border, originally I only changed 3 dollars, and then felt bad when I asked a guy for American change for my ten and didn’t change any money with him, so I changed five more dollars. It was a good thing I did, because things there in Esquipulas were more expensive than in El Salvador…..tourist trap. They actually were surprised that I made it through without them charging me because the gringos that passed before me on their trips had been taken aside to pay extra for entering Guatemala. Thank goodness for official government documents J I always carry my little green book with me for cases such as that.

Esquipulas is a quaint little city, surrounded by mountains as many are in Central America (valleys are preferred I think). It’s a big tourist draw because of its new renovated Cathedral which houses the Black Christ (its ok, you can smile at that, the black part just refers to the color of the entire thing now). It reminds me of the Black Virgin and Jesus up in Montserrat in Spain. Both are popular pilgrimage sites. The one in Esquipulas was carved back some 400 years ago (1595?) as gift to a bishop (?) and because of the miracles that were claimed by those who were praying to God before it, it became popular throughout the centuries to come and see and pray. But like in any material thing, one must be careful to never confuse the source of inspiration with the source of the miracle. I hope they realize that, after discussing with Don Raul, I think he does. I think thats my kiss me face Don Raul's kiss me face ahahaha... his brother is behind him Dona Amalia asleep.... like everyone else

They also make many types of candies there, so everyone was buying candies and crosses and rosaries to bring back to El Sal. I bought some ice cream for myself and spent the rest of my 56 Quetzales on candies for the kids (apparently the quetzal is the name of the national bird in Guatemala). As I said earlier though, things are expensive there. A 3 liter coke there is 2.50, and in el Sal you can get the same thing in a Super for $.70…or a $1.20 in a local store. Eventually, after perusing a little bit, we left to wait at the bus at the appointed time, 3pm. However, there was a couple that didn’t get there til 4, so we waited for an hour in a steaming bus and I spent 5 quetzales trying to buy a phone call off of random people because our phones didn’t work there (after my call to you Cari my phone shut off too like theirs).

Eventually we made it back around 830 that night, after having a bus that blew a tire. I hung out with the fam in the Lopez house for a while, gave out the candy, and slept away. It was a good trip. Francisco and the runt asleep in the hammock

Monday was 1st birthday of the twins, we had a piñata and it was fun. A sister of Don Raul from California was visiting as well. They loved to throw in English in most conversations and talk about the US a lot. I kept trying to turn the convo back to El Sal and include everyone there, but they made it hard. I felt bad for those who didn’t speak English or who hadn’t visited the US. Anyways, the husband was a machinist for BOEING and has 40 years with them, so needless to say. They have money beyond anything anyone here in the Cantón could dream. I just found out, for example, that Margherita, makes less than a dollar a day at her work in the capital.

I SHAVED…. They say I look like a 17 yr old boy now. :) Me with whats left of the head of the pinata

As far as my workload goes here, its pretty heavy going. I think I’ve bit off more than I should have at the beginning, but I hope it pays off eventually. The first two weeks of this month there was only 1 day I had free and it was a day of cleaning and washing. It’s all good though, I’d rather be busy than bored. I’ve lost a lot reading time though, that is the sad part.

What else, ah yes. They are now running church missions out to the canton farthest away from the pueblo to evangelize those who often can’t come into the main part of the parish for certain events. Our canton is sending a group this week to participate, and soon I will be working out there as well in preparation for the eye campaign that is coming by FUDEM that I invited at the end of May. It’s about a 2 and a half hour walk from what I hear from the upper part of the pueblo, which is an hour walk from me. I’ll be ready for a short vacation come July :)

Also, I finally broke down and bought a $40 Canon printer and 6 ft. USB cable for $1.50. I don’t want to be draining the ink from the only computer and printer in the town and now I can help out a little more promoting events with it. I just hope the ink lasts. The cartridges are 20 bucks a pop. So far though, it doesn’t seem to be having a problem with Windows Vista, that’s a good thing.

William! and the pinata

No one be expecting calls from me this month from here on out, my budget will have to be tight the next few months due to some expenses for some of the work here so, sorry, but always remember that incoming calls for me are free.

Finally, I would just like to say that a book was placed in my Peace Corps box in the office in San Salvador that is now the newest addition to my fiction section part of my library here in my house…..the Book of Mormon!!!!....its now right beside the Koran and Sun-Tzu. It was left as a joke between me and another few guys, knowing that is was Mormonism’s ‘biggest supporter’ during training. A note was left inside for me.

“-Rhett

Thought you might like the true word of the Lord.

-Joseph Smith”

Let me throw a few quotes for thought in addition to this.

“Please tell me where in the Bible, the King James Version of the Bible which you believe in and Mormons believe in, is the word “Bible” used, and where has the canon of Scripture been closed?”

-Bill, a Mormon, and a call-in to the Allen Hunt Show

“the Bible is a fallible collection of infallible books”

-J.C. Sproul, Protestant Bible Scholar and author

“I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”

*NIV Study Bible note…. “the warning here relates specifically to the book of Revelation.”*

St. John the Apostle, the book of Revelation 22:18-19

“I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”

Joseph Smith on the Book of Mormon

If you were asked if the Table of Contents of the Bible was fixed, how would you respond? Would it be the same as the Mormon’s answer? The Jesus Seminar answer? Allen Hunt’s answer? The Bible’s answer?

http://www.allenhuntshow.com/Listen/Audio/MP3/2007_0429_01.mp3

(I personally think the best quote was the guy who made a point saying “well…if you put the Gospel of John in parentheses” HA!... Can we tell him that’s wrong though, eliminating a book from the Bible, if it doesn’t ‘speak’ to him?)