Well folks, I'm back home. I'm ashamed that I haven't posted in the last month, but my internet plan expired about a month ago and there hasn't been much to report. In the last month I have been busy spending time finishing up last minute projects, packing up/throwing out, saying goodbyes, and searching for jobs. This last week has been overwhelming (I flew in last night), with planned going away parties and lots of surprises. While I am happy to be home with, saying goodbye was extremely difficult. I really have grown close to a lot of people in my community and I appreciate how much they have taught me and taken care of me in the last two years, becoming friends and family throughout the experience. Touchingly, the goodbyes were difficult on both parts for I seem to really have become a part of my community. People thanked me immensely for my time, support, friendship, and willingness to try new things and have fun. I received gifts and hugs and many memories. I will greatly miss the generosity and kindness of the people in my community. Already I am finding it a little hard to be in the United States. I have noticed that no one looks up anymore - everyone is looking down at their phone/iPad/latest gadget. And there is really a lack of friendliness among strangers. I went for a run this morning and lots of people were out (a nice change from being the only runner in my area), but not one single person responded to my "Good Morning." Not one. What a shame. And life seems so much more complicated here with so many more things to worry/think about instead of relaxing in the hammock in the afternoon. Everyone is concerned about being connected with everyone else, though at home people are really isolated. I've seen one neighbor since I've been home and all we exchanged were "hello's." For being so electronically connected, people aren't genuinely connected. However, countless food options, couches, and hot water are welcomed benefits of being back. And of course being with my family and dogs is nice. On to the next adventure.

All of us are born into a specific social class that depends on luck, virtuousness, destiny, or whatever reason you choose to believe. As plenty of people have demonstrated one can move up or down the social class ladder throughout their lifetime or even up and down a couple of times. However, lots of people stay in the class they were born in whether that is because of low self-esteem/confidence, lack of opportunities, vices, bad judgment...again, the list of "whys" can go on and on and is usually case specific or perspective dependent. Moving up the ladder is definitely possible, but it requires a lot of hard work and good timing and opportunities.

I live in a community that lives below the poverty line. Everyone here was born into one of the lowest classes possible, though I'm positive not the lowest due to the number of opportunities there are. Lots of people from my community and throughout the country go to the United States in order to look for opportunities to get them a little higher up on the ladder. Some are successful for a period of time and then come back, use up the money they saved from the States, and return to the same class from which they came. Some stay in the U.S. and might live in low conditions for a resident of the U.S., but they are higher up than where they came from. They send money back home and raise their family members a little too. While I'm happy for them in their climb on the ladder, it saddens me that they seem to only be able to do so with help from the States.

There are some exceptions, for example my health promoter. She is probably one of the most motivated people in my community and I see big things for her in her life. She's got brains and demonstrated to her parents how crucial it was for her to be allowed to study. She started school at a time when most people here weren't sending their kids to school because it meant fewer hands around the house, but she wanted to take advantage. And she studied hard and was able to get a scholarship to go to high school, which eventually landed her a job as a health promoter. She has a steady job, which is something nearly unheard of in my village. From her income, she has been able to pay to go to college on the weekends and will graduate with a Bachelor's degree in business administration in December. Her income has also helped her pay for the internet, allowing her to study other languages on top of English at her university. To say the least she is gung-ho and she's got dreams and I'm sure will follow them.

Then, on the other side of the spectrum, is the majority of my community. The reason this came up as a blog topic was because I received a shipment of donated electric toothbrushes from my future brother-in-law who is an engineer at a product design company. Lots of people have toothbrushes here, but they are probably years old and not used with frequency or properly. Sure times are changing and tooth care is improving, but there's still a lot of improvement. Now, I didn't have enough brushes for every kid in my village, so I decided to give them to the poorest of the kids since it is a luxury item and often the poorest are the ones that can't afford toothbrushes. I held a meeting to do a brushing demo (with the health promoter) and to give out the brushes. And to my shock, some of the poorest kids didn't come. Maybe their parents were busy or forgot, but it just reminded me that sometimes people like their own pity party. A lot of people here complain about being poor, but do nothing about it. They don't take advantage of opportunities presented to them, no matter how small or big. They don't have the self-confidence to go out on a limb in order to live a better life.

While this concept is a little mind-boggling to me, someone who tries to take advantage of good opportunities and isn't greedy, but works towards a better education and more wealth, I can't do anything about it. I can invite, teach, demonstrate, provide, donate, and whatever other verbs apply, but if they don't have enough desire, there is no way that I can help. So I'll just sit by watching them scrape enough nickels to buy bread and listen to them complaining about being poor until they get it in their heart's desire to change their own situation.

There are plenty of little things that can happen in a community that make a volunteer happy and satisfied that they have done something good in their service. I have had plenty of those moments mainly in the last year and more in the last couple of months. Every time I see a woman from my shampoo group get excited about trying to sell their product to a new client, I'm like a proud mother. When I see the youth in my youth group get excited about a project idea and follow through with leadership, I jump with joy. When I see kids wanting to practice reading, wanting to plant a tree, or wanting to be involved, I am thrilled. Even people showing up on time gets me a little giddy.

Today I participated in something that I wish had happened at the beginning of my service, but was still great to see towards the end of my service. My (newly elected) town council had a meeting that included leaders from all groups/organizations in my community. There were male farmers, youth from my youth group, women from the health advisory group, teachers, representatives from the Catholic church and Evangelical church, just to name a few. It was the first time that I saw the community gather the leaders (representing quite nearly everyone), under their own volition to talk about needs of the community from everyone's perspective. The meeting wasn't perfect and wasn't completely time efficient, but it got lots of things on the table and really animated everyone to get working on projects.

I wasn't involved in the planning or execution in any way, I just went to put in my two cents and see what evolved. However, I had some proud moments in realizing that I had worked with a lot of the people in the room and that I had in fact created several of the groups represented in the meeting. Plus, I like to think that my own assertiveness has rubbed off a little bit on a few of the parties and allowed them to speak up indicating true needs of their group and the community. And it was just so nice to see people working together to prioritize projects and take the development of their community into their own hands. Good moment.

On another note, I am working diligently on a coloring book that I started a few months ago. I have all of the drawings done, scanned in, and touched up digitally. Now I am about halfway through adding text and details. Soon I will be sending out the book to get corrections from peers and some native Spanish speakers to make sure everything makes sense and it correct. Then I'll be working with a publisher to get them printed. So exciting! (Below are a few samples.)

Well, my time is nearly down to 50 days and I recently went to my Close Of Service (COS) conference. In other words, yikes! I've got less than two months left to wrap up projects, see anywhere else in the country I want to see, finish up Peace Corps paperwork, and say my goodbyes. It is slightly overwhelming, but it is also exciting and sad at the same time. I look forward to going home and being with my parents and helping with my sister's wedding, but I also feel sad about leaving a place that I have come to know as home for the last two years. I have to say goodbye to a boyfriend (no, I'm not bringing him with me), to friends, to the wonderful community that has really taken care of me for the last two years, and to a beautiful and humble place in the world. In a letter I wrote to myself to be delivered to me in 8 months at home (a COS tradition), I made a list of all of the things I'm going to miss. Well, as many as I could come up with in 15 minutes. Closer to the time I leave El Salvador, I think I'll make that list a blog post. For right now, I've got to stay on the now.

Carol and I are going on a vacation to Guatemala leaving tomorrow. It is kind of inconvenient timing since I'm in the middle of some stuff right now in my village, but I'm looking forward to seeing a different part of Central America and getting to spend some time with a good friend who is going to stick around in this country for another year. When I get back, I'm going to keep going on the projects I've got going on in my school right now. Some good-hearted guys in my community just helped cement two walls so that the 5th, 6th and 7th graders and I can paint a world map and El Salvador map, funded by my mayor. And we'll hopefully be planting the 80+ trees hanging out in the school right now waiting for a home in town. I've also got a few women still in the middle of learning how to quilt pillowcases, and I hope to do a mini workshop on basic jewelry making. My women's shampoo group has been maintaining success and I'm hoping to teach them a few more products before I leave, and my youth group has a whole list of projects they'd like to start working on. And lastly, thank God, I've got to finish up a coloring book that I've been drawing and get it printed and distributed before I leave. Whew. I've got my hands full.

On the "saying goodbye" side, I'm also busy. Aside from the required Peace Corps paperwork, I want to make sure I show my thanks to my community. I am working on a few little gifts to give to the people that I have worked most closely with as well as people who have helped fund my projects. I am trying to do a little craft to give to everyone in my community (something really small and simple, don't worry!), so they have a little memento from me. And although I'm not thrilled of the idea I am planning a goodbye party for myself. Peace Corps really recommends doing it and so in order to take control and make it good and not totally awkward, I'm going to organize it. Plus, I think it will be a nice way for me to say thanks to the community and say goodbye without having to go house to house, which can be time consuming and awkward. Part of the saying goodbye process for me will be easy because there are aspects of living here that I don't love, but other parts will definitely take a toll.

Right now I am staying in the moment in order to get everything that I need to get done, done and to enjoy my time while it lasts. Plus, I want to give my community what they deserve: my attention and work.

(I've just recently started playing soccer with the newly formed girls soccer team. This was a glorious fall my first game ever...ha, ha.)

I am finally recovering from a two-week miserable cold with double middle ear infections, two trips for treatment to the capitol, and a plethora of medications. But, my spirits are mostly high and I'm trying to stay busy here in my site.

Every week there's a savings group that gets together in my community. I don't take any credit for the creation of the group (it was established by OxFam before I got here), but I am a member and participate. Towards the beginning of this year I had been participating for over six months and felt like something was lacking to the group. People showed up, saved money if they could, took out loans if they wanted, paid loans, and left. I felt like it was a group but with very little group interaction. Sure, there were side conversations and at least it allowed people to get out of the house, but it still didn't feel totally worthwhile if you didn't save or deal with loans. So I made a suggestion that each meeting should start with a little discussion, activity, or mini-training.

Having suggested the idea, I was the one that started doing some of the activities, or charlas. Seeing as I'm an environmental education volunteer I have done some related to the environment, like reducing/reusing/recycling our trash. This past week I was feeling kind of down and decided to watch The Secret again and was inspired to do a mini-charla related to the concept. If you don't know anything about The Secret, I highly recommend it (the book more than the movie), and I'll give you a briefing. Essentially, the secret is the law of attraction: that each thought one has weighs something, positive or negative. Thus if you think positive thoughts, you will attract positive actions and the contrary holds true. For example, if you have a lot of debt and keep thinking about the debt, you will continue to have debt. But, if you have debt and just think about and visualize yourself with lots of money, the debt will subside and you will attract money.

Using this concept, and trying to just scratch the surface in order to get understanding, I did a basic activity with my savings group. I gave each member a piece of paper and had them put down one thing they appreciated in their lives at the moment. I collected them, redistributed them and read them out loud. (The idea being that if you focus on good things you already have, you will continue to have them.) Then I gave them a second paper and had them write something negative they think about themselves or their situation. Examples being, "Man am I poor," or, "I am so stupid." I collected them and we burned them. (The idea being that they shouldn't be thinking the negative thoughts, but focusing on the good and their desires.) In the last step they wrote down on a third piece of paper something they desired that was attainable, written in a very positive light. Then they read their own out loud, hopefully giving them encouragement from the rest of the group to really go after it. With The Secret, you have to be specific too and really believe it, so I gave them examples accordingly.

The idea from my perspective was to encourage positive thoughts and a sense of being able to accomplish whatever it is that they want to accomplish. What I forgot about, was the huge religious hold the Catholic and Evangelical churches have on these people. They put all of their faith in the hands of the Lord instead of their own hands. During the first round of papers, a lot of people wrote things like, "I appreciate that the Lord has blessed me and my family with happy lives." I had given examples like, "I appreciate when my kids help me with the dishes." That's nice that you appreciate that God has given you a happy life, but I was hoping for something more specific that you can manifest more of. We burned the negative thoughts without reading them, so I don't know if at least that step went wrong. For the third step I wanted, again, something specific. There were a couple of people that got it and put down things like, "I want another child." Or, "I want $5,000 by the end of the year." Everyone else put, "I want God to take care of me." Oh, man. What does that look like? How can you visualize God taking care of you? So, it didn't quite go the way I had hoped.

Hopefully, the activity at least inspired a little positive thinking. Because whether or not it is God you are putting your faith in, you can still attract positive things if you have positive thoughts. I'd like to encourage them to put their own future in their own hands, but that would take profound change of belief. So I guess for right now I have to hope that they'll take the first step of appreciating what they have, knocking out some of the negative personal thoughts, and thinking about good things they do want.

I can't speak for all Peace Corps volunteers in the world, but from my own personal experience and from talking with other volunteers, I think one of the reasons people join Peace Corps is to be bad ass. Sure, this might not be the primary objective for most volunteers (I hope not also), but I think it is a factor for joining the Corps. I know that one of my many reasons for applying was that I could rough it for two years and come back and have some bragging rights.

Once you are in country you start racking up bad-ass points. (This is all from my own perspective of course.) One might gain points for having no water or no electricity or might lose points for living an hour from the capital. In my tally, I gain points living in a place with no direct transportation (i.e. I always have to walk to go anywhere), but I lose points for having internet access in my home. I gain points for having gotten dengue fever, but I lose points for my somewhat ritzy living situation. I gain points for having a Salvadoran boyfriend, but I lose points for living in the cheapest department. I don't actually count points or compare to other volunteers' values, it just theoretical.

I mention this because yesterday I just gained some bad-ass points. I was going down to the cornfield (that along might gain me some points), to help prep the land for planting and to haul some firewood, when I noticed there was something in my pants. I figured it was just toilet paper balled up from being washed or something, so I knocked at it to see if I could slip it out of my pants. As soon as I touched my leg I knew that was a stupid move - it wasn't wadded up paper, but the hard shell of a scorpion. As soon as I felt the sting I took off my pants, not caring if other farmers were in the vicinity, and with my cuma (a machete-like tool) I pushed the scorpion out of my pants and killed it. Not feeling terribly up for work I went down to the field and told my boyfriend that I was going home because I got stung. On my way back home I felt some more mild stinging, but I figured it was just the initial sting bothering me. At home I took off my pants and realized that no it wasn't the initial sting, it was in fact a baby scorpion (I assume born in my pants), that stung me two more times. Lovely.

The pain, swelling, heat, and tingling in my leg was gone around the time I went to bed though it was never that severe. I did rest for a few hours but then I went for a run and did laundry by hand and went about my usual schedule. There is often numbness in the tongue and lips associate with scorpion stings, which was bizarre though not too much of a bother. So it was that thrilling of an experience. The whole thing probably shocked me more than anything. However, it did give me some street cred. I can now say that I've been stung by a scorpion while living in El Salvador. Point: scorpion. Two points: baby scorpion. Bad-ass points: Alicea.

This is not the actual scorpion that stung me...I didn't feel like running home to grab my camera. This is one that I've had visit me at home though.

I can't speak for all Peace Corps volunteers in the world, but from my own personal experience and from talking with other volunteers, I think one of the reasons people join Peace Corps is to be bad ass. Sure, this might not be the primary objective for most volunteers (I hope not also), but I think it is a factor for joining the Corps. I know that one of my many reasons for applying was that I could rough it for two years and come back and have some bragging rights.

Once you are in country you start racking up bad-ass points. (This is all from my own perspective of course.) One might gain points for having no water or no electricity or might lose points for living an hour from the capital. In my tally, I gain points living in a place with no direct transportation (i.e. I always have to walk to go anywhere), but I lose points for having internet access in my home. I gain points for having gotten dengue fever, but I lose points for my somewhat ritzy living situation. I gain points for having a Salvadoran boyfriend, but I lose points for living in the cheapest department. I don't actually count points or compare to other volunteers' values, it just theoretical.

I mention this because yesterday I just gained some bad-ass points. I was going down to the cornfield (that along might gain me some points), to help prep the land for planting and to haul some firewood, when I noticed there was something in my pants. I figured it was just toilet paper balled up from being washed or something, so I knocked at it to see if I could slip it out of my pants. As soon as I touched my leg I knew that was a stupid move - it wasn't wadded up paper, but the hard shell of a scorpion. As soon as I felt the sting I took off my pants, not caring if other farmers were in the vicinity, and with my cuma (a machete-like tool) I pushed the scorpion out of my pants and killed it. Not feeling terribly up for work I went down to the field and told my boyfriend that I was going home because I got stung. On my way back home I felt some more mild stinging, but I figured it was just the initial sting bothering me. At home I took off my pants and realized that no it wasn't the initial sting, it was in fact a baby scorpion (I assume born in my pants), that stung me two more times. Lovely.

The pain, swelling, heat, and tingling in my leg was gone around the time I went to bed though it was never that severe. I did rest for a few hours but then I went for a run and did laundry by hand and went about my usual schedule. There is often numbness in the tongue and lips associate with scorpion stings, which was bizarre though not too much of a bother. So it was that thrilling of an experience. The whole thing probably shocked me more than anything. However, it did give me some street cred. I can now say that I've been stung by a scorpion while living in El Salvador. Point: scorpion. Two points: baby scorpion. Bad-ass points: Alicea.

This is not the actual scorpion that stung me...I didn't feel like running home to grab my camera. This is one that I've had visit me at home though.

I don't consider myself to be living in a terribly rustic setting. I have water, electricity, a refrigerator, and notably, the internet. However, my recent interactions with creatures has made it dawn on me that I am still living kind of rustic. My cement block house with an opening all along the roof and below my door allows for all sorts of creatures to appear in my daily life. Here are a few that I've been involved with in just the last week.

The Wasp

I don't really know much about a typical wasp, but there is this one type of wasp in this area that has really made an impression on me. They are busy! They're pesky also because they are always around and make a considerably loud noise considering their size. Anyhow, I'm featuring them because these little workers have built their homes in my home. With perseverance. They build long hollow tubes on the wall out of a mud they transport from somewhere...I am curious where it comes from. Often one will start construction in my house right above where I'm working, so I'll quickly use the end of my broom to knock down the fresh mud because I literally can't hear myself think when they are building. Plus, if it is in a pretty location that will make it ugly I'd rather not look at it. One day, however, I spent the entire day out of the house. In the seven hours I was gone one little wasp built a tube over three inches. I was impressed. Then I sadly knocked it down. I swear I don't have anything against wasps I just don't want them raising their babies above my bed.

The Scorpion

I used to see scorpions a lot more when I first moved in - maybe I've scared them all away. In the last week though I've seen two little guys. I don't know if they were babies or just a small species, but literally they were as long as my pinky fingernail. (I didn't measure with my pinky, I'm just estimating. Small or not their sting probably hurts.) One of them I saw because I was up late one night and in the calm of the night I heard a rustling coming from a box in the corner. I assumed it was a mouse or a rat (there's enough material on those guys for a whole post), but I wasn't feeling adventurous so I left it alone. The next day, with my boyfriend at my side, we went through the box and the only thing that was there was this little scorpion. Here it is apparently bad luck to kill a scorpion, so my boyfriend just cut off its stinger and threw it out the window...I'm not sure which is more humane.

The Toad

I don't know if the toads here are just kind of dumb, but they are always wandering everywhere and getting killed. If I'm walking around after a storm I always see a few plastered to the road. The other night I had a little dark-yellow visitor. The space under my door is enough for some creatures to get in and somehow this toad found its way under my door. He hopped a bit, but didn't get too far into the house. Thankfully all it took was a little sweeping and he was on his way. Goodbye Mr. Toad!

The Cockroach

The same night that I thought I had a mouse and it just turned out to be a scorpion, I was convinced that I really need to wash everything well all of the time. Or just deal with a myriad of sicknesses I could acquire. It was late and I was up finishing Dan Brown's newest book and I think the creatures of the night know my schedule. So around 10:00 (way past my normal bedtime), all of the creatures started to come out, not realizing my unusual presence. And what disgusted me the most was witnessing a pair of cockroaches scuttling over everything. Namely my dining room table and entire kitchen area. Ewwww. I reorganized the room the next day hoping to throw off the cockroaches for a few nights, but I'm still grossed out.

The Tick

I get ticks here with some frequency. I guess just walking around in the monte (brush) does it to me every time. The thing with ticks here is that they are tiny. And they don't even enlarge much when they've filled up on your blood. So discovering them sometimes takes days. I think I'm done with this one - I don't like ticks or pulling them off of me. And I even dreamt about one last night. Yuck.

The Palomilla (type of moth)

During the first couple of storms of the "winter" there is a massive outburst of these little bugs. I translated their name, but I really don't think they are moths. Anyhow, they are these little black guys with long skinny wings. The funny think about them is that their wings fall off really easily. I had one crawling on my arm while washing dishes yesterday and blew at it to get it to move (since my hands were all soapy), and all I did was blow off its wings. The little body of the guy was wriggling around on my arm still. Can it still live after that? So right now all of the spider webs in my house are full of these little black wings. It's really more funny than unnerving or disgusting. Though they can cause trouble when getting over excited. I had one fly in my ear last year and had to have a friend pull it out with tweezers. Yikes.

The Ants

There are ants here as there are everywhere, but there seem to just be a ton. I think I've got some holes in my house where they are regularly living and there's always some type of brown waste of theirs spilling out. The worst though are the ants that bite because man are they vicious. I hopped down to my "backyard" the other day to collect some kindling for my stove and was walking around when I stepped on a nest. My foot had a scrape on it and that's what they all went for. I had maybe twenty bites on my foot, but was able to shake off the rest of the ants before they bit me. I walked a different direction in order to try to get a little work done and conveniently stepped (with the same foot, mind you), into another freaking nest. Even with somewhat quick reflexes and jumping around a bit I still walked away with no fewer than 40 white painful bites on my one foot. Damn ants.

There are plenty of other creatures that I'm in contact with on a regular basis. I had a hairy horse spider visit just this morning. I've gotten pretty used to all of the creatures, though occasionally one will surprise me or scare me. There are little moments though when these creatures remind me that I'm living out in the countryside and yup, it's kind of rustic.

I was recently talking about my experience in El Salvador in the Peace Corps with some family members and explaining how I feel like I am living back in time a little bit. It isn't considerable since they have electricity and running water (though those developments are recent), but they live off of farming nearby lands and have little transportation besides their own feet. Also they wash their clothes by hand and hope to have kids of both genders in order to fill both of the gender roles in the house (boys - work in the fields and girls - do chores in the home). The one thing that is odd is that it isn't quite like being back a few decades due to the technology that is here. The majority of families have televisions, even though they only get three channels, and they sometimes don't have enough money to buy necessities. Cell phones are pretty common and just today I witnessed a new "texting while driving" situation. I was riding in the back of a pickup on my way to go grocery shopping and saw a young cowboy on a horse heading out to his cornfield...yup, texting. And a couple of teens in my community have internet via USB/phone access, including me. I have even gotten facebooked by several people in my community. So it is an interesting contrast. I'm living back a couple of decades with the exception of modern day technology. Essentially, they've just bypassed all of the experimenting and changing of technology that the United States and other developing countries went through. People here didn't witness the size change of computers or cell phones from monstrous to pocket-sized. They didn't have the internet that didn't include YouTube and Facebook and that was principally used for finding and sharing information. They didn't get email addresses to communicate with people - they only have them to sign up for Facebook. They didn't have cell phones that just made phone calls; although, all of the modern gadgets on a phone aren't financially accessible to most people out here...yet. One of the unfortunate side effects of this relatively instantaneous access to modern technology is that a lot of education regarding these technologies hasn't been passed along. They haven't learned that things like chain emails and inane quizzes aren't to be sent out to EVERYONE you know. A lot of people pick inappropriate or weird email addresses - something that all of us, at least in my generation, might be guilty of originally (mine was sciencegeek1187). But there are 20+ year olds making email addresses like sexygurl101@. Nobody has really educated the proper use of some of these technologies. Viruses are abound on cyber cafe computers due to opening inappropriate websites and I've received my fair share of PowerPoints with kittens and bible quotes that they all think are adorable/inspirational. Phone etiquette isn't too bad, but volume level of listening to music and proper backtone selection could be reviewed. This introduction of a new technology without the education compliment is reminiscent of the introduction of plastic here. Nearly all of their trash here was biodegradable (for example: banana leaves and corn husks were used to wrap things), but then some developed country introduced plastic. I won't mention any names. I have my issues with plastic, but I'll agree that it is convenient and has had some amazing applications. The problem is that no one here was educated about what to do with plastic when it doesn't function in its designated manner anymore. So this country is covered with littered plastic. Consequences of lack of education. And I'm sure there are plenty of other examples. So as people in a developing nation, let's try to at least do the service of providing some education along with our new ideas/technology so as not to screw over some poor country trying to keep up to date.

There are moments when I think to myself, "This country sure is funny." This isn't going to be some in depth insight as to why this country has some funny quirks, I just wanted to mention what happened today. I woke up to "Boom, Boom, Boom" and "We're Going to Ibiza" by the Venga Boys this morning at full blast. What? The Venga Boys? And this was being played by a 25-year-old soldier...They listen to plenty of American music here, but that one really caught me by surprise. Life's daily occurrences really can be entertaining.

On an awesome note, the last of the stoves was constructed yesterday! Well, that's a lie. There are three stoves that are still going to be made, but the families have all of the materials and are waiting to make the stoves (they want to build a new house first or whatever the reason). But they are going to coordinate the construction. So as I write, my community has 62 fuel-efficient stoves with chimneys. Success. And lots and lots of thanks to everyone who managed to help me out with the project. All that is left are a few house visits to check on maintenance and one last meeting to hold about tree planting. Huge sigh of relief.

I probably won't be reporting in for a while. I've got a couple of busy days here at my site before I head off to meet a friend at the airport and do some traveling with her and Carol! (So excited!) Then I'll have a couple of days back in my site when the stove NGO will be coming up with American counterparts to see the stoves in action. Then I have a regional meeting and then I head to Washington, D.C. for a burial, a bridal shower, a White House tour, and a trip to Whole Foods! And of course to see family. Once I get back I have a day at my site then I'll go to a business training with a few community counterparts. Busy, busy, busy. And then I'll have four months left. Hang on 'cause time is flying now.

Yesterday I had a visit from my regional leader. There is a newish program (started just after I became a volunteer), where volunteers who have completed their two-year service can stick around for another 6 months or year and "lead" a region. They move to a central location in the region (anywhere from 1-3 departments), and are in contact with the volunteers they are of service to. They hold regional meetings to see what everyone is up to and to allow for collaboration and exchange of ideas among volunteers. They can be contacted for support, for help with an event, or with questions that maybe are better not to ask your boss...I think the program is a pretty good one and can serve a lot of volunteers. I'm a pretty independent volunteer though, and haven't really taken advantage of the program. In fact, I just recently met my regional leader even though he's been working in my department since November...oops.

Nevertheless, he's required to visit all of the volunteers in his region at least once so he came up and visited me yesterday. We didn't do anything eventful - he showed up later than I expected and a storm beat us home. In fact, the only thing he saw me "do" as a volunteer was hang out with women crocheting. (Yes, I've learned how to crochet. I swear I'm not an old woman yet.) And hopefully he didn't suffer through it too badly because the women were insisting he learned. But he did get to hang out and chat with a few neighbors and friends. I think it was fun for the boys to have a Spanish-speaking male gringo for a bit to talk about sports and other such topics that I'm not current with or interested in. We had dinner and then headed to Felipe's family's house where he'd be staying the night. I left him there watching a soccer game and I knew he was in good hands since that family is one of the most caring ever. He headed out this morning leaving with just a taste of what my service is like.

We don't know each other very well, but he said something to Nubia (my health promoter and Felipe's sister), that put a smile on my face. He told her that out of all of the volunteers he has visited I am the most integrated into my community. Awesome. I feel like a comment like that helps a volunteer feel like they're doing a good job. Maybe I haven't constructed a bridge (not that we need one...), or taught English classes. I haven't helped many make much money or made many super environmentally conscious. But what I'm confident that I have done is that I've lived with the people. I have a regular income here and a supremely different background and future, but I have lived with the people. I hang out chatting with the women, I eat dinner with families, make jokes with people in passing, and go out to the fields to see what farm life is like. I've made Salvadoran meals with women, I've gone to church with the Catholics, and I've joined in parties and dances with everyone.

My differences haven't gone unnoticed though either and maybe they've provoked a few thoughts. I go to meetings even if it's raining cats and dogs. I work in the garden with a cuma (machete-type tool), and cut and haul bamboo and wood. I'm not afraid of getting dirty. I don't go to church all of the time and yet still feel like I live a full life and live "sin-free." I like being alone and love to do individual things like read and draw. I don't throw out my trash, instead I hike 30 minutes to put it in a trash can. I like maps and can read them and refer to them with some frequency. I know how to bake and can cook things all-vegetarian, sugar-free, and with strange spices like curry and rosemary (two things I've never seen them use in food). I exercise and only feel good during the day if I've sweat a little bit. I fool around, dance, and act crazy in public and am not embarrassed by it. I get frustrated when people don't go to meetings, aren't on time, or don't pay attention. I don't blast my music ever and try to be respectful to everyone. I am generous and try to give what I am capable of giving. And I try to empower the women and men to go against their traditional role and do what the opposite sex goes through every day.

I still have time left at my site and I hope to take advantage of it, but at least I know I'll be able to say that I've done something that I intended to do. I've gained the trust of my community and tried to share a little bit of my wisdom and culture without trying to force it on them or tell them that it was the only right way to do things. So thank you to my regional leader - not for helping me out with my service or odd questions, I haven't needed that - but for showing me that I have been successful here. I have made an impression, however minor, on some 200 people in a tiny mountain village in a country the size of Massachusetts. After all, isn't that why I came?

Well the countdown has begun. The last group before mine is already on their way out and we are now the oldest group. (There are a few stragglers from previous groups, but as far as groups go now we're the oldest.) I've got less than 6 months and while recently I've been bored and sick of being here, this milestone has gotten me in shape to make the most of my remaining time.

I've got a lot of stuff to look forward to logistically - I've got regional Peace Corps meetings, an annual training for everyone in my program, a few other optional trainings that I can go to with counterparts from my community, a short trip to Washington, D.C., a friend coming down to visit, a 50th Peace Corps anniversary celebration on the 4th of July, and my Close of Service conference. Whew. So that leaves me realizing that I want to get going finishing stuff and doing some other last minute fun stuff around home.

So what am I up to? Well, I'm still working with my youth group. We're getting a garden going in order to have some veggies to sell and we're hoping to start doing some HIV/AIDS training for classes since my health promoter and I received a good training. My stove project is finally coming to a close. Just a few of the 65 stoves are left and I'm hoping that in the next couple of weeks they'll be done (especially with rainy season looming ahead, I don't want the constructors getting poured on during the chimney-placing step). This project has been a little bit of a headache, but I feel successful and I know that people are really benefitting from it. I've also helped push my women's group to try new things. They just started experimenting with making laundry soap, which is a widely used product in homes with lots and lots of kids and dirty clothes. The first time was a little bit of a flop, but little by little they are learning and changing the recipe so that they have a solid product. This skill is uncommon here, so it is nice to see them developing and changing.

In terms of new stuff, I've got some little stuff going on. I've finally pushed the town council a little bit to get them filling out an application for an Engineers Without Borders grant for a rec. center/health office/meeting space. This community could really use one. So I'm going to help them out and see if we can get the process rolling. I have also started facilitating regular craft workshops. I'm pretty craftsy and can have a little fun with this; plus there are lots of people in this town who can do stuff and teach others. There has just been a lack of a facilitator. So I have people over to my house and we hang out learning a different craft. I hope to sneak in some environmental techniques also like reusing materials or turning something old into something new. Since being here I have refused to teach English classes, but I have started to review English with the English teacher in the school. I don't do this a lot, but I think even the little bit helps him out and if he continues to teach English, hopefully a few more kids will learn how to say "hello" properly.

A common thing for Peace Corps volunteers here in El Salvador is collaboration with other Peace Corps volunteers. Being a little isolated, a little lazy, happy in my site, and a little frugal, I haven't had the chance/desire/opportunity to work with anyone else. Lots of volunteers to camps (the thought of which terrifies me due to various cultural aspects), or will do plays, activities, info. sessions...you name it. Well, I have finally decided to collaborate with a couple other volunteers sticking to my "site rat" style. I am putting together a coloring/activity book for young kids with an environmental focus and El Salvador specific. There are lots of activities we can do with kids to teach them about the environment but a lot of them are just a little too sophisticated for the wee ones. So hopefully this book will be able to reach a younger audience. So what's the collaboration? Well, another volunteer (who is quite talented artistically) has been writing and drawing storybooks based on the environmental lessons we give in the school. And Carol is working on the grant side of things and good editing. The project is coming along and is quite exciting.

Otherwise, I'm trying to see other places in the country that I haven't gotten a chance to go out and see yet. And of course I'm hanging out here doing the things that I won't always be able to do...like spend all day reading at the river (on a weekday). Or going to the sugar mill to hang out with everyone from my community. Or eating pupusas or any of the other typical foods. Gotta take advantage while I can!

I think any somewhat active Peace Corps volunteer in many parts of the world have something to say about this topic at their post. Americans are runners. We aren't all necessarily good at it, enjoy it, and definitely not everyone runs, but it isn't strange to run. We consider it a healthy habit, maybe a good release of endorphins, and something that will keep one fit. El Salvadorans are not runners. There might be a handful of people in the capital who run (they have a few more Americanized customs than in the country), but generally running is uncommon. Quite uncommon.

I don't love to run - it hurts my knee, my ankle, and a problem toe I've been blessed with. But I know I feel better after I run; I feel more active when I am regularly running; and when I go on runs in nature I do find it pleasant to see beautiful landscapes. During college when I rowed I ran some and it went from a horrible duty freshman year to a mildly pleasant workout senior year. When I first got to El Salvador a couple of us from my training community would go running a couple times a week and I continued this habit when I got to my site. Everyone was impressed. "Wow, she's running." Then some problems with one of my toes got in the way too much and I stopped running all together here in El Salvador. With some recuperation of my toe and some daily methods of pain and inflammation control, I've started running again. And the reactions I get I find hysterical.

Carol and I and plenty of other Peace Corps volunteers are going to be running in a "marathon," which they call it here but it is really only 11 K. Like I said, they aren't runners here so they probably think an 11 K is actually a marathon. When I decided to participate I upped the training I was doing. Most people have seen me going to or from one of my three running locations, and either suspect I'm doing something crazy or I've confirmed their suspicions by telling them I'm going to run an 11 K. Sometimes I think I'm a little crazy after running some 60 laps around my tiny soccer field to get in some distance. Here are some of my favorite comments I've received:

"Man, you are so red in the face." Yup, I get red in the face.

"Man, you are soooo sweaty." Yup, I sweat when I work out. That's almost the point.

"You're running in a race? You are totally going to win." Ha, ha, ha, ha. I'm most definitely not going to win. In fact my goal is to jog the whole thing without stopping. They just think I'm going to win because I'm the only person they see working out.

"I'm so impressed because you go out and run a lot, but even though you're white you don't get really burned." It's called sunscreen and is available to anyone.

"You going to go play soccer?" No, the only option for exercise is not soccer. Other types of movement exist.

"You ran all the way to Camalote?" Camalote is a town about a half hour walk and twenty minute jog away from my site. I walk out of my site to the top of a hill and then start running because if I try to jog out of my site, I die due to extreme incline. But really, it isn't far.

"You are going to get tired!" This is probably my favorite and actually quite common. I'll run by people and they'll see me sweaty and breathing hard and they will pull the concerned card and tell me that I'm going to get tired. Yup, that's the idea. I hope I am tired by the time I get home because otherwise I won't consider it a good workout. Oh Salvadorans.

I've gotten used to most of the comments now, though sometimes a couple of them surprise me. If you have ever tried to run in a third world country (where I get a feeling it is often considered strange), I'm sure you've had a similar experience. Happy running! I hope you don't get too tired!

Responsibility. It's something we all have and do our best to uphold. Sometimes it's not enjoyable and sometimes it is exhausting, but it still is there. Aside from maybe the two drunk homeless guys in my town, everyone's got some type of responsibility. Here, the kids are supposed to go to school and they often become the small-errand runners for the adults. Most of the kids also have work responsibilities either out in the fields (boys) or at home (girls). The teens that continue their education here have the responsibility to get decent grades so that the government keeps helping out with financial support. If they choose not to study, then there previous kid duties increase to full time - cooking, cleaning for the young women and field work for the young men. These roles are consistent throughout adulthood with the additional responsibility of child-bearing for the woman and hopefully some type of income for the man. Every case is a little different, but this is pretty much the gist of things.

I came into this town and started attempting to organize some of the people to give them some relief of their typical responsibilities. The women in the shampoo group have gotten more responsibilities with the management of making and selling a product, and the youth in my youth group have learned about the responsibility of working on community projects. I didn't start the savings group in my town, but the people in the group are learning about responsibility with their money. After numerous small successes, I was hoping to see some larger development in my groups - responsibility among the members in place of the responsibility I had with the groups. I want to see various youth in the group taking charge of smaller projects, leading. I want to see the women in the youth group changing roles so that they can all get a better sense of how things work and so that one woman isn't doing all of the work.

What I've noticed though is that people are afraid of extra responsibility. I think it is due to a lack of experience and being afraid they're going to mess everything up. They haven't had people pushing them their whole lives teaching them it is good to take responsibility and you learn from your mistakes. When I ask for volunteers to take charge of various tasks in my youth group not a single soul seems willing. I left a meeting a few weeks ago to show that someone needed to take charge because I'm not always going to be around and it is okay to try something new. After I left, one young man took charge and helped lead a project. Last minute (the morning of the event), he backed out, never showed up, and dumped the responsibility back on me and the other youth group coordinator. Man. We've had similar experiences in the shampoo group. There are three women who lead and are pretty good at it, but when we ask if there is anyone else willing to give one of their roles a try to relieve some of their duty, the room goes silent. They all tell the three leaders what a great job they are doing and that they couldn't do such a good job.

So I think one of the next steps is leadership training. People here need to learn it is okay to try and they can get help from others (being a leader doesn't mean doing everything, it means delegating), and that making mistakes is a part of the learning. I think with the Catholic idea of sin and blame, people are afraid of taking minor risks. Next goal: inspire some leaders in this community to strut their stuff.

We are into the new year already and I am left with just over 8 months left of service. I have been back in my community for a week now after a refreshing two weeks at home for the holidays. Though it was chilly at home in the Bay Area, it was great spending time with my family, playing with the dogs, going to a gym, bathing with hot water, and eating hummus (and other tasty foods that I can't get down here). The extent of materialism was a little overwhelming, though I hope the timing partly affected it. It was hard to come back to El Salvador, but I was looking forward to seeing my boyfriend again and keep going on old projects and start new projects.

I got back just in time for the New Year's celebration which involved a lot of dancing and noisemakers. I participated in the women's group amigo secreto (Secret Santa) that night and there was a community feast and a dance in our newly-paved street. It was quite a party, but my favorite moment was when midnight struck. It is tradition here to hug everyone you see and wish them a Happy New Year. I love this intimacy among the community.

Now I am spending time thinking about the coming year and what my goals are for my remaining time here. The women's shampoo group is now completely independent (though I show up on occasion), and it seems to be going strong. My stove project is coming along - about half of the 65 stoves are done and the rest are starting to get planned out. People seem to like the stoves and everyone keeps telling me that it will be a great way to remember me. I hope they remember me because of other things also, but at least they seem to be happy.

I've spent a good amount of my energy recently working with my youth group as well. In December we made bamboo benches for around the soccer field and painted them. We met just this week to talk about the group because it has transformed into more of a group interested in community projects, which makes me more than happy. So we are looking at forming a directive in order to better manage the group and we worked on a few ideas for community projects for the year. Our first one will be a mini fair day for the kids in the town. They are hoping to raise a little bit of money from the event in order to get the next project going. And to celebrate the success of the group we took a little trip to the nearby river and relaxed/played for the day.

Aside from the stove project and the youth group, I'm starting to think more about what my role will be in the school this coming year. I'd like to keep going with the eco-club, though I need to come up with some better ideas and would like to rework the various ages now that I know a little better. I would like to get another teacher and adult working with me since I won't be here the entire school year...but we'll see. People don't tend to be terribly interested in responsibility. I'm also thinking about doing a girl's arts and crafts club. Since art is one of my passions it wouldn't be too difficult. I'd like to put together worksheets for each of the activities in order to put together something people would be able to refer to. And I think I'd be able to get a young woman or adult woman in my site to help me lead it.

Otherwise, things are pretty low key as usual. I'm flying through books, working on my quilt, and attempting to teach my boyfriend English. I realized there's a pool close by to I was able to arrange a lower entrance price with the owner to go swimming for exercise on a regular basis - it is a nice change from just running. I'm working on constructing a grey water filter from my shower and sink to water my garden, which I'm in the midst of replanting. I brought some recipes from home and hoping to do some playing in the kitchen and keep the passing neighbors wondering what in the world I've got brewing in my house. The weather is getting warmer and the days longer. For all of you jealous of the warm weather we're getting down here you should check out airline tickets and pay me a visit.

Happy Belated Holidays, Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, and New Years! May the New Year bring you an abundance of opportunities and joy. Also, I'll be starting to look for a job in the environmental science research field for a start date of mid/late-September so echarme la mano (lend me a hand), and let me know if you know anyone or any job in the field...thanks! And thanks to everyone who has helped with funding for my projects. If you haven't been able to and would like to there are plenty of opportunities still - just let me know!

I feel like a more official Peace Corps volunteer - I've survived a "third-world country" disease: a dengue-like fever. They couldn't pinpoint exactly what the name of it was (they would have to send it to the CDC in Atlanta...), but it had nearly all of the symptoms of dengue and was, I assume, just as unpleasant. As long as I recovered, I didn't really care about the name. I ended up spending about two days in the hospital and then two days at a hotel in the capital, reassuring that I was nearly back to normal after having my white blood cell count drop by half. Of course, the worst of it all was the day before I was taken to the hospital when I was hit with long-lasting waves of chills/fever and a splitting headache in the forehead. I think this is just one of those things that you just assume will come with being a Peace Corps volunteer.

On a much sadder and much more difficult note, just after one day of being back after the illness, I headed back to the hospitals of San Salvador. My boyfriend's (Felipe) oldest brother (Balta) had been in the hospital for a few days and his condition was getting worse. Two months ago Balta was diagnosed with stomach cancer and when they decided to go in to try to remove the cancer they realized it had already spread to his lungs. Unable to remove all of it they decided to start with a chemo treatment and from there see what else they could get rid of. Balta hadn't had noticeable changes in health so already being in the advance stages of cancer came as quite a surprise. The chemo seemed to be going all right, but he was hospitalized when an acute headache occurred. The cancer seemed to have spread to his brain.

Felipe, two of his other brothers, and I headed to the capital to join the rest of the family who had been with Balta for a few days. During the hours of visitation we were able to individually see him twice. We all tried to give him support and animate him letting him know we were there thinking about him and knowing that he would get better. After the hospital closed the visiting hours we headed back to his house, decently content because most recently he had more color to his face and his pulse was up from 18 to 47. Shortly after we got home we got a call to return to the hospital. Balta had passed. I've never experienced watching a family receive news of a death, but man was it tough. My grandparents have all passed, but I was either young, not around, or not close to them. Balta left behind eight siblings, two parents, a wife, three daughters, and a whole heck of a lot of aunts, uncles, cousins, and nieces/nephews, friends, and co-workers. There was a heavy spirit in the room of sadness from so many who had loved him so deeply.

One of the cultural activities most Peace Corps volunteers get/choose to witness is a funeral process. This was maybe a little too close for my own preference of witnessing the process - I was a part of it without knowing what I was going to see. Since it was already late when he died we went back to his house and tried to sleep...though I doubt anyone of us got more than a half hour of sleep. In the morning we headed to a funeral parlor (this would normally happen in the house of the deceased in the rural areas), and spent more than 24 hours with the body. People came in and out throughout the day and night including family members, neighbors, friends and co-workers. Balta was a supervisor in the finance division of the police department, so about half of the city's police squads paid a visit. There were several masses, plenty of orations, and lots of singing. There were sad moments (thinking about the wife and kids moving on) and happy moments (celebrating his life), and it was that much more emotional since we were all exhausted.

After the day and night of accompanying the body before burial we headed to a church for the final mass and then to the cemetery for the burial. Since he was a police officer there were special recognitions given and many spoke about how active in the community he was and how he affected their lives. After he was buried all of the people that had come down from my community (more than just the family), headed back up. After having not slept for two days I crashed and slept for 14 hours as soon as I got home. The nine days of rosary started the day after we got back and I have been helping the family serve the required coffee and bread refreshment to all who attend. This Friday will be the last mass in San Salvador (9 days after the death there is always a mass), and Saturday it will occur in my community. It is quite the process.

I knew Balta and I was sad about losing him, but more than anything I have become a part of his family and it was so hard to see his family hurting so much. His parents consider me one of their daughters and his siblings, one of their sisters. I was touched to be included in everything and did all I could to provide support for his family. He left behind three girls - 15, 10, and 3. The family is hoping to go and visit them and have them up as much as we can.

One of the worst things to witness as well was economic disparity. Less than a week before I saw Balta in the hospital I was in the hospital bored out of my mind and feeling relatively normal. I had my own room, with a TV, a sofa and a fridge, and on-call nurse service. It was like what I would consider a typical hospital in the United States. When I went in by myself to see Balta a week ago, I asked the man at the door where I could find his room. The guy directed me to a hallway and said to keep walking, looking to the left, and I'd find him. I found him eventually, but after a little bit of shock realizing that the patients were very nearly stacked on top of each other. Here was Balta, in the last stages of cancer, one foot away from someone else with god-knows-what-kind of disease, with only enough room at the end of the bed for one person to stand. And he was a highly-ranked police officer in San Salvador?! I like to think that the quality of treatment he received wasn't compromised and that it was just his time to go, but in those conditions it is hard to be sure. The good news is that he died quite quickly and with very little pain.

I recently got back from a week-long stint in the United States. I went back to my Alma matter for a large crew race, the Head of the Fish. Many alumni return for the event and thus I was able to see friends who have graduated, current friends at Skidmore, and other faculty/staff at Skidmore. It was a little bit of a shock on the system seeing as it was my first time back in 16 months, but it was a nice break from minor cultural differences that were wearing on me and it was a great opportunity to reflect on my experience. And catching up with people who I have dearly missed was fantastic and gave me steam to keep going in this experience.

There were several things that caught me off guard from the moment I set foot in the United States. The first...talking to strangers in English. My thoughts, "English? Really? You speak English? Wow...I haven't talked to a stranger in English in a long time." And the first few hours especially I had a hard time recalling various English vocabulary and ended up saying the word in Spanish. After some confusion, I was able to come up with something close enough. The second...technology. I know technology changes fast and I haven't been gone that long, but I was still blown away with all of the new cell phones. I don't think I saw one phone without some huge flat touch screen and full keyboard on which you can watch movies, take photos, listen to your whole music library...all at once. That was weird. And third...where's the trash can for the toilet paper? After 16 months of a weak plumbing system I have gotten accustomed to the task of throwing away used toilet paper in a trash can. I forgot that in the States you don't have to do that and did it accidentally on a few occasions.

On a deeper level, one of the most profound differences of being in the United States was the sense of anonymity. I stick out in El Salvador. Yes, there are some paler-skinned people in El Salvador, but because of my hair, eyes, the way I dress, walk, and conduct myself, I stick out. It's inevitable. And because I stick out I am a constant source of attention - wherever I go I have people staring at me or coming up and talking to me. When I am exhausted on a bus just wanting a little bit of quiet time or busy trying to get stuff done it can be quite obnoxious, but sometimes it is nice because I can talk about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Plus, it can be a cool way to get to know about people here. In Saratoga Springs, New York I do not stick out. I look just like one of the upper-middle class college students and no one noticed when I walked by. I had no one coming up to me asking me what I was doing there and why I wasn't in El Salvador or what line of work I was doing. It was nice in some respect, but simultaneously a little bit of a slap in the face. "Why don't you care that I'm a Peace Corps volunteer in a third world country? Don't you want to know why I haven't been here in 16 months?"

I had the chance to talk to a few interested students in the Peace Corps and just in catching up with friends I reflected a lot on my experience. And I realized that I had a hard time coming up with negative aspects of my experience. Sometimes the language is hard, cultural issues can be frustrating, and boredom and inefficiency can be aggravating. But overall, I realized that while I might not love what I'm doing, I'm doing some good stuff and I feel appreciated and respected by my community. They are supportive as are people at home. It isn't an easy experience, but overall I think it has been positive. As I mentioned, this trip was a great break from cultural nuances getting to me, but I thought that when I reflected on the experience I would be more pessimistic and recount a lot of the difficulties that have been presented. I seemed to give a more positive review than I was expecting. It was a nice surprise.

There were plenty of other differences I noticed about being in the United States. It was COLD. And I rediscovered how incredible hot showers and baths are. It was nice to be able to walk many places without a half-hour hike first. I didn't go through two shirts in one day due to sweating. I had conversations with people about things other than the weather, gossip, or corn and beans. Exercising isn't bizarre...it is a part of a normal, healthy life. I didn't have to double guard all of my food from the hungry cockroaches, rats, or maggots. I was able to eat Indian, Italian, American, Organic, Raw, Vegan, Mexican, and Japanese food. What a blessing. I wasn't woken up by roosters. I could use a credit card. I was disappointed not to greet everyone when passing with a smile or "hello" or "have a good day." I used a dryer. I could drink tap water. And the list goes on...but it is very different and not necessarily better. El Salvador is much more tranquil and there are plenty of nice things about being here. But a break was nice.

Now I'm adjusted to being back for a few weeks before Christmas at home. It is cold here too (60 degrees F at night...with no insulation it gets pretty cold). I'm working on getting the stove project really rolling. My youth group finished their most recent community project and we will be starting to build benches for the soccer field starting today. The kids are off for the summer break as of now and so I'm hoping to come up with something productive to do with them for a few weeks so they don't die of boredom and can maybe learn something. Send me your ideas! Life's back to as normal as it can get in the Peace Corps. Happy November!

I wrote about flexibility in my last post and that theme is pertinent to my theme this week: change. While growing up I remember always hearing how the only thing that never changed was change. I have come to whole-heartedly believe that and in my day-to-day life here have learned to expect it. Although some things don't ever seem to change that you want to change (like people showing up on time for meetings), change in my life is pretty constant.

I've got some concrete examples. For instance, I've noticed a change in the size of the rat population in my roof - there is way more noise these days and I hear squeaks and fights of possibly younger creatures. And I'm hoping in the theme of change that the natural (bark extract and molasses) poison that I finished prepping today will bring some peace to my rooftop and my sleep. Though I'd rather not have this event change the rank coming from my roof due to decaying rats. Okay, this example is getting gruesome, I'll stop.

Another quite physical change that recently occurred was in the weather. Due to geologic systems that I faintly remember learning about in college, this country receives two seasons year-round: dry and wet. And if you've been following my posts you'll know that this rainy season (normally May to October), has been especially wet. The weather forecasters even predicted nonstop rain until November. But the God's seem to have decided otherwise - and this is actually what the people here believe. While we could still be in store for some more rain, about a week and a half ago the sun decided that it was ready for some change and came out...in full force. I literally haven't seen a cloud since the sun decided to shine. So all of my clothes went from moldy to dry. Sort of an ironic contrast, though quite depressing, the crops have seen some change too. Due to the heavy rains this year the first bean crop of the year was not very successful and had a low yield. Now the rain has stopped quite abruptly and a little bit early and the little bean plants for the second round of cultivation are drying up. This weather throws us through loops.

Lastly, I notice significant emotional change. According to one of the doctors that I've been to here as a young person my emotions should just be positive. Clearly, he hasn't been a Peace Corps volunteer. I regularly feel like I'm on an emotional roller coaster and I don't know if it's the meds I'm on, me going crazy, the experience I'm going through, or a combination of all three. While I didn't have any major lows today, it is fairly common, though I find frustration even more common (I guess that could be cause of some of the lows that I have). Here are some of my downs for today: the kiddies at school paid no attention when I was reading them a story, one of the girls I tutor in reading Spanish seemed to have forgotten the alphabet (after months and months of studying it), I found out that my health promoter is without a space to have consults and work and the community isn't doing anything about it, I realized the treasurer in my shampoo group still seems to be clueless on how to fill out the paperwork, and when it seemed as though no one was going to show up to my youth meeting. In conjunction, I had some ups when: my internet worked and I got out some important emails, I made a natural rat poison that was easier to make than I thought would be, I had a surprisingly good conversation with a neighbor, many kids turned in drawings for the monthly drawing contest, and my youth group meeting ended up going quite well and we were productive.

Those are a few of the changes going on in my life down here in El Salvador. Another nice change is that now that I've been here for over a year (11 months left!), not everything is new. Things change around here, but I can at least predict some things having lived here for quite a while.

(Fun photo of something that never seems to change… girls doing a tradition dance for the Independence Day celebration at the school.)

Flexibility and patience are virtues and can be difficult ones to practice. My experience in the Peace Corps has definitely already tested my ability to demonstrate both when it comes to language and cultural differences. Right now though I am practicing them both in large quantities regarding this one project.

As I've written before I am working on a stove project - members of my community will be trained to construct more fuel efficient and healthier (human health) stoves. I am still in the initial stages of the project and have finally turned in a Peace Corps funding proposal. However, we were already getting rolling and have the training for the stove construction this Monday and Tuesday in my site. I was in San Salvador this last week for mid-service medical review and therefore contacted the engineer providing the stove tops and the chimney hats that I would be around. He told me it wouldn't be a problem to get three of each to the Peace Corps office while I was in town for me to take back to my site for the training. Well, I returned to my site empty-handed yesterday. I called the engineer some 20 times, emailed him, and even got in contact with his co-worker and I have no idea what happened. All I know is that I don't have the stove tops and chimney hats for our training on Monday.

But maybe this won't be a problem. "But Alicea, you need a stove top to build a stove, right?" Absolutely. Though circumstances have changed and yesterday I got a phone call that all Peace Corps volunteers are in standfast, a stage of the Emergency Action Plan requiring volunteers to stay in their site. This isn't a problem for me, I have what I need here and am fine hanging out for a few days. Hurricane Matthew has decided to go tearing through Honduras and living in the northern-most part of the country we are getting hit by heavy and constant rains. What's new? The only thing this changes is that the training was going to be done by a fellow volunteer. If no one is allowed to leave their site, that includes him. So right now, I am stuck with the idea that I have no stove tops, but I also have no trainer. So I am doing all I can to stay flexible and patient and not get frustrated. It is just another one of those Salvadoran situations.

I think I've mentioned this in previous posts, but sometimes I am amazed at how helpful, caring, and genuine the people are here. One would think that poorer people would be more stingy in terms of help both physical goods and time/support due to lack of both of those things, but I find it isn't the case. The people here have just been raised knowing that they should give what they've got. Maybe they subconsciously believe in the "what goes around comes around theory," in which case I'm surprised the people here aren't rich yet because they give all they've got. I've got plenty of basic examples like people giving me tamales that they've just made, or someone helping me carry my bags if their hands (or head in the case of women), aren't full. The kids come and help in the garden (this might just be boredom...but still), and my neighbor has helped me bring in my laundry if it starts to downpour and my clothes are out trying to get dry. I guess it could be part of living the small town life too...help a neighbor because shortly they'll lend you a hand. It is a nice change of pace from the more distant/cold neighbor relationship culture of the United States.

I decided to write about this topic because I had an experience today that showed so much Salvadoran generosity and really helped me out a lot. I am so close to getting a stove project off its feet and have the training dates set up and the women where they are going to make the models ready. Today was the final push of going to the hardware store to order all of the components for them to haul up to my site. They had a good number of the things I needed (as I already knew having called several times), but I have had the worst of luck with pumice. I am not in a volcanic area and thus don't have pumice on the hillsides or flowing down my creeks. I've got to go find it. I was told by lots of people that just search through the sand that people buy for construction and you'll get a bunch. This has its problems though: a) I'm not thrilled about the idea of making people go with me or going alone to search through big piles of sand to find enough pieces to fill a sack, b) I was recently told that the sand selling places had been getting a lot of complaints of these rocks and so they had started sorting the sand before delivering it, and c) these companies have just been chucking the rocks and not saving them. I thought I was SOL. Then at the hardware store we were going over everything to be delivered and I asked if they knew anyone I could contact regarding my pumice dilemma. So while I sat there the secretary made five phone calls finding out if there was someplace I could find pumice. She found a guy who knew a guy and called him and he solved my pumice nightmare. And not only did she find me pumice she told me they could stop by and pick it up and bring it with all of my other stuff to my town. Amazing. Do we have service like that in the States? Maybe, but I think it is rare. This woman totally made my day and reduced a lot of pumice stressing.

I have discovered something that might increase the distinction between developing and developed nations: addresses.

In the United States and from what I have noticed in Europe as well addresses follow some type of pattern that includes something like the following:

Name

Number, Street

City/Town, Providence/State

Identifiable Code (like Zip), Country

Well, here that isn't the case. I first noticed addresses during training when all of my fellow trainees and I were assigned to host families in host communities. The list looked a little bit like this:

Alicea Cock-Esteb, Vargas family, Molineros (the town), up from the church

The last bit (up from the church), is their address. When I looked at the rest of the people on the list I noticed that Carol and Axel both also lived, "up from the church." Turns out we didn't all live in the same house, but we did live close. Here streets don't have names and houses don't have numbers. There are few mailmen and few people get mail at home. I currently get my mail at home because a teen guy named Carlos gets paid by my mayor's office to walk all over my municipality delivering mail. Most of the mail is care packages sent from the States and Carlos gets to know everyone. When he delivered a piece of mail to me for the first time he just figured out where I lived from asking other people. Since everyone knows everyone in the town they just told him, "Oh, the gringa lives in the middle of town in the purple and orange house, right next to Pablo's house." I guess that is my address. My official address is the following:

Name

Town

Municipality (like County), Department (like State)

Country

So there is some organization, though I still find it pretty miraculous that I get postcards, letters, and packages delivered to my home out in the middle of nowhere.

In the midst of this address revelation I started looking at food packaging for contact addresses for various companies. I have read many fantastic "addresses" at which I could reach the manufacturer, though this is one of my favorites. I was enjoying a Mexican meal (my version of it anyway), and was reading the back of the tortilla chip bag for fun. I noticed that to get in touch with company I could go to the Francas Portezuelos zone complex, near the uneven bridge, on the highway, 850 meters north of the lake, Building #4. Oh and there's a phone number in case I get lost. Ha, ha. At least they gave me a building number, but it doesn't even tell me the name of the highway...

I'll keep reading the labels and maybe I'll post some of the most helpful. :-)

In other news in my personal life, I got home a week ago from a wonderful vacation with my sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law. We spent some time in my town eating corn, visiting the corn fields, learning how to cook corn variations, and hanging out with people in my town, talking about corn. I think they got their fair share of corn (they were here in the primary corn-on-the-cob harvesting week). Then we saw a few highlights of this very mildly touristy country. They helped with homesickness, though shortly after returning home I got the news that my grandmother had passed away. Though it didn't come as a surprise it is hard to be so far away from home to support my family.

Lastly, some basic updates. We're getting a stove project going soon to provide families with healthier (less smoke and chimneys), time-saver (less firewood to collect), and more environmentally-friendly (fewer trees to chop down) stoves. I will be soliciting Peace Corps funds through friends and family so you will be receiving an email soon. I am quickly approaching my year-in/year-left date (September 5th), which is exciting. Sometimes I can see how much progress I've made and am proud of being here and doing what I'm doing, and other times I can't believe I've only been here a year and I'm ready to get the heck out. Thankfully the people here keep my decently motivated. Last note - my mayor reported to me Thursday that this has been the worst winter (quantity of rain and damages to roads), in the last 50 years. They have to spend an unexpected $30,000 building retaining walls (and for El Salvador that is a lot!). They have to spend an unexpected $30,000 building retaining walls (and for El Salvador that is a lot!). I guess that's why I've felt damp for the last several months.

I've been in the capital for the last couple of days taking care of some routine medical stuff and have been hit with materialism. I definitely am a budgeter (is that a word??) and try to save money and use it well. I don't leave my site with frequency like many of my fellow volunteers to go to the capital or the beach to go drinking. I do occasional trips to other parts of the country, but keep it to a minimum. I am a vegetarian, eat pretty healthy, and have a veggie garden so my food expenses aren't super high (though nuts here cost me an arm and a leg!). And I'm in my town's local savings group and try to put away $60 a month. (Just for reference, my monthly budget is $320.) When I go to the capital I make food at home and eat off of leftovers so I don't pay the outrageous prices in the capital. But I have noticed that it is so easy to be materialistic when material is presented.

I like my computer and my camera and I have an .mp3 player and plenty of clothes, though I've never considered myself truly materialistic. However, being in the capital around new clothes, new gadgets, and extravagant items makes me want, want, want. I even almost went to the movies last night even though I can buy movies here for a dollar and the hotel where I am staying has cable and I ended up watching a movie anyway. It is interesting to notice that when it is accessible and available it is of interest. Out in the campo, where I don't have a lot of things around to buy, I don't have the craving or the necessity to buy. Thankfully, my lack of cash kept me strapped and didn't allow me to buy unnecessary items. Plus, I had to make sure to save enough money to get to the airport to pick up my sister and her boyfriend! (They are bringing me some of those missed materials from the States too...that helps cut my costs.)

In other news, I'm trying to stay busy. My youth group finished two murals a couple of weeks ago and they look great and the youth are proud of their work. We are now working on making flowers out of plastic bottles to sell to locals to put on graves of loved ones for the Day of the Dead. I'll be teaching them how to make them coming up this week.

Mural 1, Environmental: "Protecting the environment together is saving everyone's lives." Mural 2, Non-Violence: "United for a country without violence." (More youth worked on the murals but they were all too shy to appear in the photo. We had about 20 total volunteers.)

I'm sure there are plenty of cultures that rely primarily on two staple crops, but coming from the United States where sometimes the options are overwhelming I hadn't ever considered it before. El Salvador, just as most Central American countries, relies heavily on corn and beans for sustenance. With more importing things have changed a little bit and now people here have other options like pasta (wheat is not something they grow here). However, in rural areas it is still common for a family to rely almost completely on their own crops.

I have had the opportunity to check out the corn and bean cultivating cycle this year and will hopefully observe through the end of the growing season. My most recent visit to the cornfield found the corn taller than me with young ears and the beans with quite developed pods. This bean crop is the first bean crop and the second (and principal) crop will be planted when the corn reaches full size and they bend the stalk to allow the corn to dry. The bent stalks serve as supports for the beans (rather than the sticks that we manually staked next to each bean plant).

Seeing the fields from a distance makes the amount of corn they are growing seem pretty minimal since I am observing all of the land also not occupied by growing corn. However, when I am in the midst of the corn fields it is an amazing quantity of corn that each family is growing. And thinking about the fact that they are growing enough corn for their entire family for an entire year is overwhelming. Processing an issue like individual food security is quite interesting and this country provides plenty of opportunities to do so.

(a partial shot of the corn field of a different family)(a developing ear)

(a green bean and bud - this is not the main red bean that they rely on, though many families grow a few vines as well)

(snack time after hard work in the corn field - Angel and Felipe with their mouths full)

I am feeling the need to post, but have no coherent theme. Good news is that I waited a while to (my internet connection is nothing to write home about) get a few photos posted. And happy late 4th of July - I painted a mural, went for a run, and worked on trying to get some money for a project. I lit a match to boil my water and thought of fireworks.

It is "winter" and with regular rain sometimes it is hard to judge when one should wash laundry (if you get lucky, the sun comes out). Yesterday morning I had allotted some time to wash my laundry and at 4:30 am a HUGE storm woke me up. It was grey when I got out of bed two hours later and thought, "My clothes are never going to dry if it stays like this all day." So, I counted my remaining clean pairs of underwear and decided to wait until today. The sun shone brilliantly all afternoon yesterday and all of my neighbors had warm, dry, and clean clothes by the evening rain. I started washing last night and hung the clothes on the line outside (and got lucky with no storm, unlike most nights), and woke up to...grey skies. Damn. With my fingers crossed and remembering yesterday's beautiful fate, I waited. And I had no luck. It was grey all day and rained in the afternoon. I had to put up some makeshift clothes lines in my house in hopes that my clothes won't mold tonight (wouldn't be the first time), and the sun will shine tomorrow.

(Me with my makeshift clothes lines. And yes, my hair has gotten quite blond!)

On a different note, my work at the school has shifted slightly. I've become quite busy outside of my required school classes, and have noticed increasing tension among the three teachers at my school, and increasing interest in participation among the students. So I've neglected the school a little bit and tried to remedy it a little bit this week. My eco-club and I spent a few hours in the garden yesterday and today in order to aporcar (put dirt on top of the base of the plants where the storms have washed away the plants), and put up guides for the cucumbers and tomatoes. Even though I've been neglecting the school a little bit, the regular rains (they do have a lot good aspects!) have helped the garden flourish. The mothers on cooking duty this morning pulled up a few radishes to put in the kids' soup and we already have some cucumbers and green beans growing. The tomato plants are big and we have another planting day scheduled. Nature can handle life without nurture.

(A few of the kids putting up guides for the tomato plants so that the tomatoes don't weigh down the plants when they start growing.) Speaking of gardens, mine is flourishing as well even though I've had no harvest. I haven't put any photos up of it yet so there is no comparison, but things are coming along nicely. I have planted tomatoes, onions (only one is still growing...I guess they don't like my soil), green peppers, romaine lettuce, green bean bushes, broccoli, carrots, and cucumber (that is in order looking at the garden from bottom to top). And while the rains are awesome because they relieve me of watering duty, they are problematic because my plants require lots of dirt reshuffling to keep the roots covered because the rains wash away the dirt so readily. I've also got some transplanted local basil growing and attempted to grow some aloe (see last shampoo post), but I think it got too wet and died. I'll post a photo in a month of my boyfriend (who has been quite the helpful farmer) and me eating some of the product.

(My garden - weird angle, but it was hard to capture at any better angle.) A huge project in the last two weeks has been painting two murals with the youth group, Vida y Suenos, Life and Dreams. Lots of them have come out to help, which has been fantastic since community participation is one of the main goals. We have one that focuses on protecting the environment by working together and the other which focuses on non-violence. It has been fun to watch the teens learn a little bit about mixing colors and drawing/painting since they all claim that they aren't talented whatsoever. And although it is frustrating sometimes to have little kids and parents hanging around, it is a treat to see them interested in something going on in their community. The murals are in the very center of town so we have had lots of onlookers. I will definitely post photos of the completed murals (hopefully they will be done in another week).

(A few of the youth from Vida y Suenos working on the environmental mural.) In other news, Nubia (my health promoter if you still don't know), was unemployed this week. The new government has switched around the Health Department and those who were under NGO contracts (like Nubia), were out of work as of Monday with no word as to future intentions. They were all put through tests and their supervisors had to put in feedback and some of them will be rehired through the new government. Yesterday Nubia got a phone call telling her to be at a training today, and even though she is not employed she went because she got word that they were only inviting those promoters they were planning on hiring back. So we're keeping our fingers crossed that the invitation was a good sign. I took advantage of Nubia's unemployment this week (and she is on her semester break from university for a month, so she really wasn't busy this week), and we tried to work on a few projects. First good news it that we have found a way to get our mayor to fund construction on the casa comunal, the meeting house/rec. center since it leaks, has no light or water or bathroom, and could fall off of the cliff at any moment. We had a general assembly yesterday with the entire town (well, a couple of people showed up), and had quorum and convinced people to sign an act saying they were in agreement with a re-priorization of projects, bumping the reconstruction to this year. So Nubia and I now just have to write a letter, attach the signatures, and get a stamp from the town council to get the project rolling. Success! The other way in which I took advantage of her sudden free time was having her call a bunch of institutions about funding for our new bakery project. (My Spanish is definitely good enough to make those phone calls myself, but it is easier for her and she's great at selling things.) We got a few leads and I think we'll be able to get training for the 25-30 women who want in, but we are still trying to find some startup money. So I am going to conclude this post with a plea for leads on a way to find us some mula. If you are still reading this post and have any ideas of U.S. companies/NGOs/grants/anything, please send along the information. We already have a lot of the major equipment (like an oven, and table, and shelving units) since there was a prior bakery here, which means we're looking at about $3,000-5,000. Any help would be appreciated.

This month one of my main focuses has been solidifying a group of women interested in working together to have a source of income. There are ten very dedicated women now making shampoo weekly. In the last month they have made and sold over 250 bottles of shampoo! They have made aloe and chamomile shampoos and just this last week tried out basil/lemon. We are selling individual bottles as well as half-dozen and dozens to stores locally. The expenses are pretty minor so each woman takes home about 4 dollars a week for about 2 hours of work: a pretty good chunk of change around here. The best part is seeing them motivated and excited about the work. Plus, seeing as I'm an environmental education volunteer, we are using recycled bottles that we disinfect very well, which means that we are also helping clean up the area and creating some awareness - wherever the women go they are always on the lookout for bottles. On Wednesday some of the women and I visited another community to see a fish project they have going and between the few of us we collected some 30-odd bottles. One of the neat things about Peace Corps is that yes, I am teaching people here new ideas and trying to animate them to do things, but I am also learning as well. I have been doing a lot of business planning in regards to this shampoo project and learning how to teach others about finances and keeping track of things. I was handling all of the money, the purchasing, the distribution, and what not, and slowly I am handing it over to the council of three in the group. The president will soon be running our weekly meetings, the treasurer is learning about costs and earnings, and the secretary is keeping track of how many bottles each woman is selling and local businesses that we have sold to and need to check in on in a few weeks. It is neat to see the transitions. In other projects, I have not encountered such a fantastic attitude. Recently it has come to our attention that a need in the community is a meeting space. We currently have a casa comunal (communal house), but it has no electricity or running water, no chairs, and leaks when it rains (every day). In other words, it isn't functioning. And now that I have a regular youth group, two regular women's groups, and an eco-club, we really need a space aside from the church to hold meetings. Plus, I like to encourage neutrality and separation of church activities and other activities, and that is hard to encourage when we only have the church to use for meetings. And there are at least three other groups in the community that could take advantage of a space as well. In meeting with the town council to discuss this issue (I made us meet in the current communal house in the evening and told the members to bring a flashlight and an umbrella), I essentially got a "no" from the president. It seems that it is too much work for him to consider and that he's going to just end up spending a lot from his own pocket. Everyone keeps telling me that he was a bad choice for the president and that he's not going to get anything done, but no one else wanted to do it. So with some help from Nubia I think we're going to start talking with the mayor and see if there is any way to get started and then go back to the council president to tell him, "Hey look, we started it. Now can you help us?" I'll keep you updated. There is plenty more going on around here - I am quite busy - there just isn't enough space to talk about it all. Plus, some of it is pretty boring. Also, I've posted a few pictures on Facebook. If you're on Facebook, check them out.

Random thoughts:

1) My parents have nothing to worry about for a little while...I am definitely not interested in having kids for quite some time. In the four houses in front of mine there are seven children under the age of 4 and six more between 5 and 10. The older ones don't cry too much (unlike their younger siblings), but the repeated, "Mami, Mami, Mami," cries calling for attention or the opposite from the mother yelling at the kid to come here, "María, venga; María venga;" get quite old. As I type there are no fewer than three crying children in hearing distance. Due to the thin cement or adobe walls and the fact that the kids only go to school for a few hours if it is a good day and the teachers showed up (and this only goes for the older ones), the crying children is really an around-the-clock issue. A veces, no aguanto. (Sometimes, I just can't hold out.)

2) We are in the rainy season and at risk. I love rain, really, I do. And I'm glad to finally be in the winter again (winter = rainy season). However, it comes with some concerns. My clothing is one of them - it is hard to get it dry with all of the rain and thus regularly it gets moldy and stinks. But, this is definitely not my biggest concern. Last Saturday night we had a rainstorm that reminded me of the one that hit Verapaz in November (look at blog post from November). This should let you know that there were bad thoughts going on. I woke up Sunday morning to men in my community gathering to go up the road to clean up the landslides. I had issues of my own (water poured into my house and created a bit of a lake), but I got on clothes and spent most of the morning moving mud. My town has one road and there were about five landslides that night that covered the road and made it impossible to pass. Not that many cars come in and out anyhow (it is too steep and when it is raining the road gets VERY slippery), but it needed to be cleared for access. Here's my concern: it is June and the soil is already saturated and falling of hillsides and the rain lasts until October...I'll keep you posted.

3) I get lots of joy from watching my women doing something that makes them happy. Yesterday a small group of women that I've organized got together to make their very first batch of shampoo. It was so nice to see them all joking around, learning something new, and just hanging out in the afternoon. And I think it motivates them too. This morning we bottled up, labeled, and distributed the shampoo among the group and in the afternoon I already had a quarter of the sales in my hand. We were going to meet in a week with all of the bottles sold to talk about finances and the future and we've moved the meeting to Monday. What a reward.

4) Food can really change one's mood. Sometimes when I eat the same meals over and over again here it makes my whole life and work here feel monotonous. When I do something special it makes me feel productive, experimental, and encourages me to keep going. Last night I made a batch of lemon-vanilla-walnut cookies (stellar!), and right now I've got a three bean chili with tofu simmering on the stove. It makes me feel successful. Plus, the good food is always tasty and gets lots of inquiring faces in my windows (since they don't know that food doesn't have to be monotonous).

5) Not only is there are wealth disparity between the people in towns/cities and those in small communities, but there also seems to be one within the small communities. In my small town (285 total inhabitants), of the five people that own a vehicle two of them also own motorcycles. Those two motorcycles are the only two in my town. Sometimes I wonder, "How is it that there are maybe 10 families that are significantly better off than their neighbors who daily are scraping together enough food for their family to eat?" Work. Someone in those "wealthy" families has a job. But how were they lucky enough to get one and not a different person? They have been to the United States, which gave them a jump start. For example, my host dad is one of the ones with a car and a motorcycle. He buys and sells cows, pigs, and whatever else he can get his hands on, for work. The only reason he can do this is because of the truck he owns. How did he buy the truck? He saved up money from going to the States one time. It's one of those things that makes you think.

6) Last one, I swear (my beans are about ready for the tomatoes and). I never forget how hard learning a language is, but I often forget how cool it is to be able to even just a little bit. Every day I ask at least 10 times, "What's that word?," and it is generally preceded by a "Huh?" I think this is normal and will last my entire service. But I was on the phone with a friend today and she said, "I bet your Spanish totally rocks." And when I think about, she's right, my Spanish kicks butt. I know at least thousands of words and can conjugate hundreds of verbs in no fewer than nine tenses. So even though there is sometimes a daily struggle with language, I need to stop and appreciate how much I already do know. On the same topic, I am teaching my boyfriend English...very slowly. It is quite a process, but there are small little rewards. Yesterday we were watching a movie in English with Spanish subtitles and after a sentence one time he said (in Spanish), "Hey, I knew what she said without reading the subtitle." Proud little moment.

Last week was a school garden planting day – squash, green beans, tomato, radish, cabbage, onion, and cucumber. I had kids from 2nd grade through 7th grade helping me out. I was hoping to include the littlest kids too, but they ended up going to recess sooner than I could get my hands on them. With the veggies we’re hoping to use them in the daily snack that gets provided to all of the students in the school. There is a program that provides rice and beans and a few other minor additions in order to prevent malnutrition in children – the food gets cooked by mothers on a rotating schedule in the morning for all of the kids. For some of these kids it is the biggest meal that they get all day. So adding a few veggies would be nice. If we have veggies that we don’t consume we are talking about selling them in order to get some funds for the school. What we’d do with the money, we’re not really sure…but it is a thought. Things have to grow first – we already have sprouts though! Preventing the rain from pelting them and washing the dirt away is a challenge.

In other planting news, I planted in my garden this morning in the pouring rain. (We’ve had about 3-4 days of solid rain…not kidding. Temperatures haven’t gotten above 74 degrees, though I’m not complaining.) I planted tomato and onion that I grew in egg cartons in my house first, along with green beans, soy beans, carrots, broccoli, two types of lettuce, and green pepper. Plus I was gifted four local basil plants and they have already taken well. I’m hoping to see some growth here in the next week. Plus, I’m giving some of the extra seeds to the women in my women’s group who have all supposed to have been starting home gardens (they have received a number of trainings). Hopefully my planting and extra seeds will put the fire under their butt to get going.

In more planting news, I headed out to the milpa last Saturday morning to plant some chilipuca beans. The milpa is the cornfield and nearly all of the men have their own little plot to grow corn and beans for their family for the year. Women sometimes will go there to drop off a meal for their husbands/sons/fathers, but it is rare to have a woman helping out. Because I want to experience the various aspects of life here and see what farming is like here, I headed out with my boyfriend and his brother and dad to see what a morning of work is like. The walk there wasn’t bad – nearly all downhill and early enough so it was still chilly. The work itself was sweat deserving, but at this stage (planting), it’s not the most strenuous work. More of the work comes before during the clearing of the land and afterwards in spraying the space with venom and harvesting and hauling the corn and beans. The tricky part about this job though is that here we are up in the mountains and all of the farmers are working on slopes of at least 45°, quite a slope. And a few other farmers saw me and will be talking about the gringa working in the milpa for weeks.

And speaking of farmers, I decided that I was slightly neglecting this population in my work so far. I’m working lots with kids, with women, and with youth, but haven’t touched the realm of the farmers. And they are just as important, though maybe a little harder to work with since I’m a girl and don’t have the farming expertise that they have. But I decided to give it a whirl. So I set up a charla (chat) on a natural pesticide produced from the leaves and seeds of the nim tree. I even bought several nim trees to give away to the participants to encourage the use. I had very few show up (a whopping four), but maybe as I develop the topic and start doing some practice sessions word can spread. There are many benefits to them and their families to using pesticides made from local plants rather than store-bought – both on their pockets and on their health.

Lastly, another fruit review. This fruit is called nance and around here the cosecha (harvest) is now. This small little fruit has a pit that takes up most of the space inside of this ball you see and in my opinion, it just isn’t worth it. The flavor is a little sour with barely any sweetness and the smell is overwhelming. It grows on a tree and the trees are all throughout the hillsides around here. They get a little bit yellower, but this is a “ripe” color. I guess the most important thing is that a lot of the people around here seem to like them.

I drove home in the back of a pick-up truck yesterday with 223 trees in the hot Salvadoran sun after a four-day long training. Now 39 families in my community are planting trees and I am a more informed person.

In the training I gained some really good information regarding funding projects and business plans and learned how to make natural aloe shampoo and mango marmalade. I also sat through some pretty boring sessions, but overall I got some good skills and knowledge under my belt and got to catch up with fellow volunteers. More importantly, I am excited to implement some of the new information in my activities here in my community.

In other news, I am sick...again. One of the aspects of being a Peace Corps Volunteer is dealing with all sorts of new bugs and sicknesses and injuries, and I seem to have experienced my fair share. Sure there are a few lucky volunteers who don't get to know one of the three medical officers extremely well, but they are far and few between and I'm not one of them. This week I am heading to the capital (the medical head of Peace Corps El Salvador), for a consult in which I will ask about no fewer than nine issues. Aside from the green-phlegm, no-voice cold, I need to adjust medication, go to physical therapy for an injury, ask about a different minor but still bothersome injury, refill medical supplies, do a previous illness follow-up, and check on a potential intestinal parasite, among a few other things. I'm not asking you to pity me; I'm just giving you a slice of Peace Corps life. I feel like "that kid" with all of the problems, and I'm probably a slightly extreme case, though I imagine there are others like me. And I even boil my water, sleep under a mosquito net, always wear shoes (some parasites enter via the feet), don't eat meat, wash my veggies (though I could probably do a better job with this), and follow basic medical safety tips.

This week's theme are living things, though I guess as an environmental education volunteer, most projects are probably going to be kind of related to this.

One of the projects that I'm working on is organic fertilizer using worms. I have a box full of worms in my house. I started out with a handful of worms and wet cow poop and with all of my fruit and vegetable waste and worm reproduction, I now have a box full of beautiful dirt and some worm juice that can be used as a fertilizer, and too many worms. So my goal is to get the kids in my eco-club to build a huge worm box at the school for all of the students to throw in their vegetable and fruit scraps. The worms make good feed for chickens or for fishing (a common activity for the boys around here). And throwing vegetable and fruit waste in the worm box prevents disease vectors like flies and rats hanging around the house in search of food.

Living thing #2: home garden. My parents and Carol can vouch for me when I say there is really no space to have a garden at my house. Recently my women's savings group got a couple of trainings on house gardens and now they need to step it up and make the gardens. So I decided that to get the fire going under their butts I needed to do something. So I took this tiny little scrap of land that I have on the cliffside of my house, cleared it of a rotting banana tree and weeds and am prepping it for a small home garden. I need to put up gutters on the roof of my house so the runoff doesn't kill the plants and I need to put up chicken wire to prevent chickens from coming in, but otherwise I'm going to start planting. I've got plenty of fertilizer (thanks to my wormies!), and will hopefully show the women in my group that it can be done, and anywhere. Maybe I'll get some worm boxes going at their houses too!

Living things #3: We're working on getting some trees planted. There is a nursery that gives volunteers a really cheap rate for trees ($0.15 a tree whereas normally it is about $4.00 a plant). The problem is that it is located decently far away. But I worked it out and if I can get help from the community for transportation costs, it would be worth the trip. So I've been going door to door in my community asking if they are interested in buying some trees. I ask for a dollar for transportation and then they just have to pay for the trees, still a really cheap deal. And some of the trees they can buy are fruit trees - the most desirable around here. So, it isn't a reforestation campaign since they aren't really planting trees where they are really needed, but there are still plants being planted. And with my eco-club, each kid is getting two trees (using funds from a grant that we just received!), and they have to adopt them and take really good care of them. And we'll also plant some of the trees that have made it in the nursery that we created.

Living things #4: With the arrival of the rainy season a ton of trees have started producing fruits, a lot of them quite foreign to me. In the last two weeks I have tried: jocote japonés, caspilo, nance, paterna, and manzana rosa. I have yet to try: pepeto, maracuyá, mamey, and sunsa. It has been quite the experience trying these various fruits and trying to describe the flavors. I'm going to start taking a few more photos to give you a better sense of the fruits. The fruit below is called paterna. You eat the white fleshy part covering the green and red seed. It is sweet and tasted a little like Christmas. Here they cook the seed thing to and throw them in beans or eggs. I haven't tried them yet...I'll let you know.

After over 9 months in the country and 7 in my site I am feeling decently adjusted and a part of my community...maybe a little much so.

April is the "hottest" month of the year, though I have to disagree and say that March was the hottest around here. Reason why? May is the start of the rains, but the rains don't follow months and they have already started to fall here. Last week we had four days straight of rain and this week we had two huge thunder and lightning storms with a calm rain day in between. It's raining here, to say the least. I love the rain, so I'm thrilled. Plus, it drops significantly in temperature during and after a rain. Here's where my first relative comes in. I am so well adjusted that when the temperature drops below 76 degrees Fahrenheit I get cold and put on a sweatshirt. I'm not kidding. It's pretty pathetic.

Relative number 2. I have started individual reading lessons with specific 4th, 5th, and 6th graders who can still not read, (a troubling fact in and of itself). One of my 5th graders that showed up yesterday doesn't know what any of the following things are: a comma, a period, a sentence, an accent, quotations, parenthesis, or paragraphs. Slowly I'm trying to clue him in to the world of reading. So when I heard him add inflection at the end of a question yesterday (by accident or not), I was thrilled. I don't think I ever thought I would be so thrilled by such a seemingly minor action.

I have a number of reasons to hold meetings and will often associate a time with them...something helpful to have to that everyone shows up around together. I used to be a 10-minutes-early-is-on-time-and-on-time-is-late person (and probably still am at heart), but have changed here. I am lucky if I arrive on time to my own meetings (or others for that matter), and I always seem bummed that I arrived when I did because I am always ahead of everyone else. While I am still a little frustrated by late arrival policy of people here, I know that I will never start a meeting at least until a half an hour after the set time (if I'm lucky). And it doesn't seem to bother me much now.

Last relative for the day. With the modern convenience of cars or buses I remember arriving to places relatively quick in order to make the most of a trip. For El Salvador (the most densely populated country in Central America), I live in a rural area. I am a half an hour walk from the nearest town with a store Due to these distances most people in my site stay at home most of the time, but it is not uncommon to go do other things in nearby communities. Sometimes the soccer team will travel 1.5 hours each way to play a soccer game and then come back. Last week I went to the graduation of the savings group that I'm a part of in my community (they have been organized for a year), in a community "nearby." A pickup truck came to get us – well, he came, we got in, and then had to get out to walk up the hill before we got in again (that’s how steep the walk out of my community is). Then we drove for an hour and fifteen to say a prayer, hear a few people say a few words, take some pictures, and eat tamales with coffee and bread. Before that seemed to me like a whole lot of transportation for such a minor activity, but around here it seems to be decently insignificant...and I'd have to agree. It is about the experience, meeting new people, and celebrating accomplishments, and the standard 2-3 hour round trip experience is just part of it.

In daily news, I am trying to pull off an Earth Day celebration for this Friday. I'm not really confident in how everything has progressed though and it ought to be interesting. I've started weekly story time with the pre-schoolers and, as mentioned, started reading lessons with the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders that still can't read. I just received the great news that my eco-club and I received a Kids-to-Kids grant that will allow us to start the school garden, go on a couple of field trips, as well as a few other things. Plus, on Friday we went to the creek installing a few signs asking people not to throw trash in the area, and did a cleanup campaign along the way. (And we went swimming for a little bit too when we got down to the stream.) Nubia and I had our first youth group meeting last week and had around 20 people show up. The youth group is meant to be a thinking-about-your-future-life-planning group. Monday will be our first day of material. And lastly, Nubia and I have a meeting with a USAID employee to talk about potential funding for a bigger project in my community. I guess I'm kind of busy...it's stressing me out a little bit, but is also a good feeling. It's been a while since I've busy. :-)

Easter here is a pretty big deal and includes a full week and a day of vacation for all government employees and schools. The week is called Semana Santa (Saint's Week) and was quite busy.

On Saturday (March 27), I rode back to my site with a new volunteer who now lives in a town of my county. The volunteer, Megan, is a rural health volunteer and in a small town (bigger than mine though), about 40 minutes away from me. Once she gets settled and goes to her second set of training (in two months), we could end up working on some projects together. It is cool to feel like a mentor and show her around a little bit.

Sunday was Palm Sunday, which is celebrated here with a procession through my pueblo (like a county head), with lots of palm leaves. The procession ends in the church with a seemingly normal mass. The coolest part was the quantity of palm leaves that everyone had and that the color of the palms matched the color of the walls of the church.

On Tuesday there was a long procession called Via Cruces (Cross Path), up to La Montañona (a tiny town in the middle of the nearest mountain, which also is a protected forest). There are 14 stages along the walk that apparently reenact the path that Jesus took to the cross. For me it was more about spending the day walking with friends from my community up to a beautiful pine forest. Everyone had kept telling me that they were going to take me up there during the summer (of which we only have a few weeks more), and not once had we gone. Aside from realizing how much I missed forests and appreciating the smell once again, I also had a really interesting historical/cultural experience. This area was heavily affected by the war and many of the guerilla troops made tunnels in the mountain to live in, maintain the radio, and use as a hospital. A number of these tunnels are now open to the public and you can go in and see how some of these people lived. They were hot, small, dark, and being in them really gave me a perspective on how tough the war was on the people in this area (as war always is). Hopefully I'll be getting some photos up soon.

On Thursday Carol (one of my good friends and fellow volunteer that most of you know), made the 6-hour trek from her site up to mine. We spent the afternoon walking around my site, although it doesn't take much time to see everything. Friday morning was a smaller version of Via Cruces in my community, which happened at many houses with altars along my main road. Seeing as this has been happening every Friday for the last month here it wasn't new for me, but it was something that Carol hadn't seen.

Saturday night was the night of the Easter mass, a mass that started at 10:00 PM and ended just a little after midnight. The first hour was in candlelight (everyone brought candles and there was a ceremony outside of the church before the mass to light all of them), and had a darker and somber feel to it. Then the second hour recounted the resurrection and there was jubilation with lights turning on and peppier songs. Aside from being extremely late at night and much longer than a normal mass, it was an interesting event to see.

Seeing as Thursday through Saturday are days when no one is supposed to work or really do anything besides sit around (no music aside from religious, no fishing, no excursions, etc), Sunday becomes the day of festivities. A number of Felipe's family, Carol, and I went to the closest river for the day. It was a pretty typical river day with lots of playing in the water and a lunch. The biggest difference was that we went by foot (about 2 hours one direction on quite steep slopes), and thus were quite wiped out when we arrived back home in the evening.

Today (Monday) is still technically vacation around here, but things will be returning back to normal tomorrow. I have quite a bit of catching up to do in the school since I was not in my site for a week and a half and then we had a week of vacation. And my health promoter (Nubia) and I working on starting a youth group this week to talk about life planning. If you are on Facebook, look for photos in from this past week in the near future.

I get regular reminders that there a good number of people in my community who really care for me and consider me a part of their family or community. The reminders can include some free oranges or bananas, a simple smile or hug, or even a special invite. This past week I had an evening full of reminders.

Last Wednesday I was heading down from my site to my city to go do my weekly grocery shopping, and was still fighting a pretty tough cold (though the worst had definitely past). I was in a pickup truck amongst many people who had hopped on at various points throughout the trip, but also happened to be joined by one of my boyfriend's sisters and her husband (Tere and Nelson). Their presence made me extremely thankful towards the very end of the ride when I started to feel light-headed and short of breath. I turned to Tere and told her I wasn't feeling very well and she and Nelson helped me out when I nearly fainted. The pickup stopped at the bottom of the hill and with their help I climbed out of the truck, paid the driver, and hopped on a bus to my city. After sitting down for a few minutes, drinking some water, and some deep breathing I was feeling relatively normal when I arrived in Chalatenango. Part of me knew that I should call the Peace Corps doctor though since I had fainted about a month ago (for the first time in my life) and have had two other recent spells in the States. The Peace Corps doctor wanted me to come into the capital, so instead of grocery shopping I hopped on another bus to San Salvador with my grocery bags in tow and no spare clothes or toiletries. After X-rays and blood tests we confirmed that everything seemed to be fine (minus the pesky cold), and the near faint was random.

The moral of this story wasn't my health though. That afternoon I got five calls from different members of my community checking in on me. Word travels fast (and I had missed a meeting), and people were concerned about me and my health. In the States I doubt a neighbor would ever notice if you didn't come home one night and would definitely not call you to check in. It just is a great example of the caring and kind nature of the people here.

Well, I have let quite a bit of time lapse since my last post...sorry about that! And I actually have some stuff to update.

In February my parents made the trek down to El Salvador and after briefly stopping in San Salvador to say "hello" to my friend Carol, we headed up to my site. I'm proud of my parents...they sat through the jam-packed 3 hour bus ride up (an hour of it in the winding mountains). The two days at my site were quite busy, but I think my parents had a good experience and I know my town had a fantastic experience. I had arranged for several women to teach my dad how to cook some of the local foods, and even though his Spanish vocabulary is limited to "hola," "gracias," and "¿Ádonde está la baño?," everyone had a great time. The women rarely see a man in the kitchen, so it was a nice sight, and my dad convinced the rest of the people watching (mostly boys) to also partake. It was a good cultural experience for some of the residents in my town and my dad learned how to make pupusas, pasteles, Salvadoran quesadillas (a type of bread), and tamales.

The other highlight of my parents visit in my site was a community-wide lunch that we hosted. My parents wanted to do something for my community when they came down and while physical things are nice, I came up with the idea of hosting a lunch for the entire town. Now, I have a small town and lunches are cheap, so it wasn't much of a burden, but I wouldn't recommend this to volunteers with larger sites in more expensive areas. My host dad helped transport the lunches and we handed them out in the church. People stayed and hung out, possibly for the company but likely because they wanted to win one of the soccer balls my parents brought down and were raffling off. After the absolutely crazy raffle I handed out slightly melted Valentine's Day candy (the lunch was Feb. 13th) and translated kind words that my parents had for my community and kind words my community had for my parents. It was really touching to see how little one can do to touch a person's heart. Eventually my dad also went down to the cancha (soccer field) and played some soccer with the boys and one of the new balls. They had a blast and still talk about my dad playing soccer and racing them back home.

Then I went on vacation to Costa Rica with my parents. It was nice to get away and spend some time with my parents. We did a bunch of the tourist stuff, which was unusual for me and a nice change of pace. It was hotter down there, so it was nice to get back after a week, even though it meant saying goodbye to my parents until December.

Now, back at my site I had some readjusting and integration to do. After having been gone for a week I needed to spend some time getting back into the groove of things and to explain to my community that I hadn't gone back to the United States permanently. I picked up some of my usual activities including environmental science lessons and my women's savings group. I also picked up with my eco-club who now knows how to make bracelets out of the plastic snack bags they normally just throw on the ground. Plus, we now have a small vivero (tree nursery) with just over 100 trees. Hopefully we'll start seeing some growth and in a few months be able to do a reforestation campaign throughout my town. We are creating a bulletin board for the whole school to get regular environmental tips and know what we are up to. We've planned the school garden and are just waiting for some funding. In addition, I hope to set up a monthly environmental award from each ciclo (set of grades - 1, 2, and 3; 4, 5, and 6), to try to encourage a competitive environment to care for the environment.

In other news, my women's group (who works with the NGO Cáritas), is planning on creating household gardens to grow their own vegetables. The goal is to create a little more independent wealth (cheaper to grow your own veggies than pay to get to the city to buy your own veggies), and a healthier diet (organic produce and actually incorporating some vegetables). It has taken a while to get the project off of the ground, but an agronomer came just a few days ago and taught the group (and some of the men who stopped by out of interest), how to make an organic pesticide and an organic fertilizer. There is currently a strong dependence on agrochemicals from large manufacturers, so bringing techniques that reduce the dependence is awesome. Hopefully soon we'll start looking at curing the plots of land they are going to use to get some good dirt in and some seeds going. My personal organic fertilizer is going well and I hope to get it implemented in the school soon. I have a box of worms hanging in my house and I can throw in nearly all of my vegetable and fruit waste as their food. Due to being a vegetarian, I actually have too much waste for the size of my container and would benefit from a large bin in the school also. I'll keep you posted on our lombriculture.

Lastly, I just want to mention a meeting that I went to this past week. El Salvador has 14 departments (like states) and the 140 Peace Corps volunteers are spread throughout 12 of the 14. Peace Corps El Salvador has recently set up people called Regional Leaders who are volunteers who stay for a third year to work directly with the other volunteers and help with anything they need help with. You could call it peer support. Geographically it is easy to divide the country up pretty evenly to give each of these new leaders a couple of departments, with the exception of the department I live in. We are so far north and just not terribly accessible, so we have become our own region. This is slightly funny because there are only 11 of us - 5 will be leaving the country in just another month, but we will be getting a handful at the end of this month when the new group of volunteers swears in. That was a lot of background, though I felt it was necessary to explain.

So all of us in the department, and the regional leaders we are borrowing from other regions until we get our own leader, met up in La Palma for two days. Not only was it nice to get to know a part of the department that I hadn't been to (and is one of the artisan hotspots of the country), it was good to meet the other volunteers that live "close by." I say "close" because the nearest one lives about two hours from me. The idea is to get discussion of collaboration going and share good information about more local projects (based on climate or specific NGOs that work locally). I am the youngest one in the group, so it was particularly helpful for me to hear what some of the other volunteers are doing and work through various ideas that I have. I ended up coming back to my site ready and roaring to get a bunch of new projects going. Seeing as this post is already really long, I'll update on those ideas as soon as I start getting some of them going.

In my neck of the woods there isn't a commercial production of sugar cane, but there is an intense amount of local proccessing. A family I am close to owns one of the two mills (trapiches) in the area and I had the cool experience of spending a little time down there with them. Cane sugar proccessing is quite involved and this one family spends several weeks camping at the trapiche while proccessing all of the sugar cane they grow.

The first step is cutting the sugar cane field and collecting all of the stalks.

Then using cows they extract all of the liquid from the cane stalks.

Then they begin to heat the liquid and they take off a green foamy layer to eat at the moment or to save and eat layer. It is pretty liquidy at this point still.

In the foreground of that photo is a pumpkin-type vegetable called ayote that they boil in the sugar cane honey and then eat the insides that are carmelized.

Then they boil the liquid down and pour it into molds to have blocks of sugar and they also make a taffy like candy which does eventually harden.

I was recently on the phone with a friend from the States and she asked me what I missed most about being here and not in the States. I gave a typical response of, "the food, the efficiciency (even though a slow-paced life is nice sometimes), and the education system (you'd understand if you saw the disorder around here)." And then I realized that there is something else. I've come to realize that there really is no great word in Spanish for the English word 'awkward.' There's incómodo (uncomfortable), extraño (strange), and raro (rare), but no 'awkward.' I speculate the reason to be that people don't honestly consider things to be awkward. They don't seem to notice awkward conversations or situations. It is perfectly normal to have long silences in conversations with people you only kind of know. It is perfectly normal to stare at someone for long periods of time for no apparent reason. Sometimes these situations bother me and I find them terribly awkward, but more than anything I'm bothered by the fact that I can't describe in Spanish that they are awkward.

On another note, I have been doing charlas (chats) on trash in all of the classes in my school. Due to timing I will have to do a few after my vacation. Included in the activity is information on different types of trash (organic versus inorganic and toxic) and dangers of trash in the open (parasites, bacteria, and diseases, vectors for these such as rats, flies, cockroaches, and mosquitos, plus sources of ground, water and air contamination). I also do an activity with decomposition rates and what this means for the best method of disposal for the different types of trash (compost for organic, mini pit landfills for inorganic). Plus we talk about the three R's, reducir, reutilizar, and reciclar. I've had some fun making a few examples of things you can do with your trash. The students seem to be receptive and have been participating and I think learning some things. Now putting the education into practice is the next step. Old habits die hard. We are going to try to make things fun though, like decorating trash cans and using lombriculture (compost but just with worms), in order to increase interest.

Switching to a different topic, it has come to my attention that geography is a subject area really lacking in the schools here. For a little bit of perspective: I have three large maps on my wall. One of the maps is of El Salvador, another of my department (like a state but due to the size of this country it is more like a county), and one of the world. The two 'local' ones are in Spanish (the language that kids here are taught to read, write, and speak), and the world map is in English, though a lot of the names are cognates like the Atlantic Ocean (Oceáno Atlántico). I have started asking the kids when they come into my house what the maps are of and if they can locate where they live. I guess that is asking a little too much, because I have found that in fact they can't identify the local maps unless they read the titles in Spanish and they can't identify that the world map is of the world. So it looks like a new activity on my priority list is geography lessons and potentially a world map painting project.

My last note for now is that I am in fact, writing this post at my dining room table. I finally have internet in my home using a portable USB internet connection. Pretty cool! So, I am able to use Skype and should be on with more frequency. Look me up: acockesteb.

My last post incorporated most of what has been going on. I did find a training for my women's group and that will be happening in late February. I formed an eco-club in my school of about 15 kids grades 3-6. They all seem eager to be a part of the group and excited about doing environmental projects.

Just this last weekend I spent some time in Suchitoto with Carol and her parents as well as a friend, Kat, and her mother. It was nice to be a tourist for a few days and see some art and artesans. Plus, it came at a great moment when some cultural habits were starting to irritate me.

Aside from my job, I am also working on welcoming my parents to my site for a few days before heading to Costa Rica in February. I'm thrilled to see them and have my community meet them.

Wow it has been a long time since I have updated...I am sorry about that.

Since last writing I have been doing a few things and making plans for upcoming things. The first is the creation of a women's group, which is now meeting regularly with about 15-20 women from my community. They have decided on what they are interested in doing for an income source (either jewelry making or natural shampoos and soaps), and now I am working on finding a training to come to my community to get them trained in one of those areas. If they have the ganas (the drive, the spirit) to make a product, market it, and sell it, it could turn out to be a very exciting project. It is already nice to see some of the women getting out of their houses and talking about being more independent in terms of income.

Christmas and New Years also occurred. It definitely wasn't the same as it is for me in the United States with my family and so it almost feels as though Christmas didn't happen. They celebrate on the 24th and basically there is a celebration (mass but without a priest and communion), and then there is some dancing. I spent most of the afternoon/evening with my boyfriend's family and helped them make a big dinner for the whole family (eight of the nine siblings and their respective families were there). On the 25th as well as the 1st, it is a tradition to go swimming in the nearest creek or river - ours being the Sumpul, the river that divides El Salvador and Honduras. New Years was nearly the same with a celebration and dancing, though there was more dancing as well as large numbers of fire crackers.

Looking into the future, the school year starts today (they just finished their summer vacation), and so shortly I will be more busy. I will begin environmental activities in my school in February, but in the mean time hope to start an eco-club and will start thinking about the potential for a school garden. Plus, I have picked up some story books and hope to start doing some story time with the pre-school students. I find that imagination is something lacking in the minds of these kids and hope to get some juices flowing. I am starting to do some one-on-one English classes, but might try doing some in the community since there seems to be a dire interest in them. Lastly, the town council/public works (Asociacion del DESarrollo COmunatario) should be meeting soon to talk about their proposed projects for the year, one of which I think will be garbage management.

Physically, emotionally and mentally I am doing pretty well. I am still dealing with a nuisance fracture in a bone in my toe, but otherwise am in good health. Life here is at a much slower pace, which mostly is refreshing (from the fast pace of the United States), but can get boring at times. I hope that you had a pleasant holiday season and I'd love to get updates on the New Year from you.

First thing: the swearing in was in the news. It was all in Spanish, but here´s the link if you are interested in seeing a clip of the event. There are some pretty classic gringo accents highlighted, and the last to speak is the current Vice President/Minister of Education.

http://www.esmitv.com/vernoticia.aspx?id=1197

Anyhow, things are going well, though not much new to report. My two host brothers (and a pack of boys) took me down to the nearest stream and I can say that this will probably be my new spot when I need to get away from it all. The area we went to has three consecutive waterfalls and pools and the area is forested and gorgeous. The local boys go there with some frequency when they are not working in their fields or at school. The girls don´t go very often because when they are not at school they are helping with household chores.

I titled the blog ´Boys´ because for the first time in my life I am around a lot of boys. I have two host brothers, the counterpart that lives in my town has three boys, and they all hang out with boys at my house. Plus there are neighbor boys and cousins and uncles (of all ages) and just friends. I don´t consider this a bad thing, it is just very different from what I´m used to. It has been a trip watching them (and joining them) in games of marbles and pickup soccer. Their energy is very different and it has been entertaining.

In general I feel like the community has started to get to know me and I have gotten to know a lot of people in the community. I know probably a good 75% of the community by face and about 25% by name. I´ve done some observing in the school and some house visits, so names and how everyone is relate to one another (they all are), is coming along quickly. I think there are only about 7-10 last names in the community (and there are some health issues showing up because of this).

This last week was the Salvadoran Independence Day. I haven´t checked Carol´s blog (link on the right), but I hope she wrote about it. The event is pretty similar across the country. My community is so small that there was only a small event at the school over the weekend, but we all went to the town for the actual day. The only noteworthy thing was that the mayor had me sit with him at the Table of Honor to watch the traditional dances the school kids presented. Oh and good thing I know the national anthem and flag statement (I don´t), because I had to fumble over it with the whole town watching...

Carol mentioned heat...I´m pretty cool up here relatively speaking. I don´t have a thermometer, but it is probably in the upper 70s to 80s most days with some humidity and quite a bit of rain and fog. Apparently the coolest months are November-January though.

More to come in the future!

Last Friday all 33 Peace Corps Trainees that arrived in El Salvador in July were sworn in at the U.S. Ambassador´s residence. It was quite the formal event and included a small speech by the current Vice President (also residing as the Minister of Education). For this reason the press was out of control and we ended up on TV and possibly in the papers. It was a little more emotional than I had suspected, but we really have worked quite a bit in the last two months to get to this point. Plus, the first ever Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in El Salvador was there with a student he had while serving. It was followed by a great feast (of traditional American foods), and a party late into the night, planned by our sister PCV class.

Saturday morning I woke up decently early to make sure I could say goodbye to all of my fellow PCVs heading out to there own sites. I headed out midday and arrived in the far north mid-afternoon. One of my counterparts (community members selected to work more closely with a PCV to help with integration), met me in the town where the bus passes through and we took a small mototaxi to the town. The area is absolutely gorgeous. Seeing as it is still rainy season everything is green and the hillsides are covered with trees, corn, and fruit trees. I can practically see Honduras from my bedroom.

I am currently living in a room in a small unit apart from the family house, but with a family. I eat all of my meals with the family and spend a good amount of time with them. This morning I woke up early to horseback ride to where the family cows are kept and we milked the cows for the afternoon cheese. I went with the youngest boy in the family (Uvaldo, 10) and his best friend (Carlitos, 11), who are the cutest kids around. The family is a pretty small one (mother, Estela and father, Pablo), because they only have two boys (Douglas, 15 is the other). They are extremely nice and I could see myself possibly staying in the house apart from theirs for the two years. We are not supposed to move on our own for two months, but if I choose to live in this house for the two years, I might start making it my own space sooner and cooking for myself sooner.

The community itself is extremely small. It is about a half hour walk (straight up and down) from the nearest town. Everyone is really nice and a lot of the community already knows who I am. I plan on observing some classes at the really small school today (three classrooms), and will be going with the health promoter to the other town I´ll be working in (a half hour walk in the other direction, and an even smaller town), tomorrow. For the first two months I´ll be doing a lot of observing and house visits in order to get a better idea what the two towns need in terms of environmental education. As of right now it looks like I´ll be doing most of my work in the school, but all of the kids I´ve met so far are great.

I sent out an email with my new mailing address. If for some reason you did not get this email or would like me to resend it or send it to a different address, please let me know.

More updates to come, but for now, salu pues (the El Salvadoran ¨have a good one¨).

We just finished finding out where we are in the country for the next two years. I AM SO PUMPED! While I am pretty far away from most people, I am way up in the mountains near the Honduras border (department = Chalatenango). (Don't worry Mom, it is as safe as any area in El Salvador.) It will be a very "fresco" site (fresh = cooler than most!) and I'll be working with two small elementary schools. I am the first volunteer there, which I'm also excited about.

I'll write more later. Training is closing up really fast and in a little over a week I'll be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Hope everyone is doing well! This is the group of Molineros with the big map of El Salvador and where we are all going. This is probably the furthest apart Carol and I have been in years. :-)

Thanks to everyone who has sent me postcards, letters, or chocolate (:-D). However, I do need to ask that you stop sending things to the address posted earlier. This mail box will disappear into the abyss in just a few weeks and let's be honest, things don't get here that quickly. I will be getting a post office box in the nearest city to my site as soon as I humanly can. I'll post it as soon as I know. I have been sending out a few letters every week and I'm trying to get to everyone...it might take a few months.

We had our site interviews yesterday and I think my conversation with my program director went really well. I conveyed the preferences I have for my site and he sat there with his list of sites and pencilled me in for one he thinks will be good. If it is the site I eventually get (you never know if he'll change his mind), I should be close to a market (for the veggie access), have water and electricity, be able to run in my site alone, and have a small community and school. We should find out a week from tomorrow and hopefully I'll send out an email to let you know exact location since I'm not supposed to post my whereabouts on a blog.

What's all this talk about a site? On September 4th we'll all be sworn in at the residence of the American embassador (assuming we don't royally screw up between now and then), and the next day we'll find our way to our own community. We'll have two months there setting up shop (hopefully including my home for two years), and doing preliminary evaluations of what our community needs and what we can feasibly envision helping with. Then we'll come back to San Vicente and our current host families to spend two weeks learning how to go about doing the things we think our communities need. Should be good.

Otherwise things are going well. We are still spending quite a bit of time working on our Spanish skills and getting to know as much gritty detail about how communities function around here, which of course will likely be completely different in our own sites. We are also starting to think about our final presentations on what we've learned and proving how far our Spanish has come along. Once we find out our site placement we'll also be drilling our families to find out how much they know about the area and how hot it really will be. :-) We have our first and only weekend off starting Friday at 2:45 pm (I'm not counting down...) and all 33 of us are heading to the beach! Should be a good weekend of getting away and not thinking about what we have to be doing.

I'm getting more used to the flavors here, it's kind of hard not to when you practically eat the same thing everyday. Corn, rice, beans, corn tortillas, eggs, corn, potatoes, corn, yuca, and sometimes tomatoes. No it's not too bad, I just find the lack of green and fiber to be tough. Plus it isn't easy being a vegetarian and allergic to sugar here. Cheers to the joys of cooking for myself at my site as soon as I can. I have figured out that if I plant a part of a banana tree root once every two weeks, after nine months of being at my site I should have fresh bananas every day for the rest of my time in country. I'll let you know how this plan works out, though I don't think I'll sicken of bananas.

I think that is all for now. I guess the last quick word is that I am currently writing this from my own computer using a USB internet connection. It is slow, but hey, it works. I am test-driving it to see if it is worth buying my own for when I get to my site. I'll keep you posted. Hope you are doing well!

I tried out writing this before my limited time on the internet in the training office in San Vicente in hopes that it would be more insightful than, “Today I did this and am prepping for this upcoming thing…” I guess we’ll see.

I feel like I need to do some backtracking, so I guess the first thing I should probably briefly explain is how training around here works. The training program in every country is a little different, though the general concepts are the same. Here in El Salvador we have a community-based training so we all live with a few other trainees in small communities near a main training center. Two days a week we spend in the training center learning about all of the diseases we can (and do) contract here in country, talking about security, cultural things, and technical topics (in our case local environmental issues). The other three and a half days of the week (we work on Saturdays), we spend the mornings in our community taking Spanish classes and in the afternoon we have “community contacts.” The community contacts include investigations about the education system, garbage management, the local government, and other cultural nuances. We also work regularly with a group of youth in the town doing social service activities of their choosing. Those are the technical details. Amazingly, we are already half-way through this program and will be starting to prepare our final assessments of our time here faster than we know it.

I realized yesterday that this will be the first August in 16 years that I have not spent time prepping for the start of a school year. However, the learning here has been immense. My command of the Spanish language has increased, though more importantly the cultural adaptations have been beyond explanation. In fact, I’m not really sure where to begin.

Coming from an environmental science background I think one of the most interesting aspects of being here has been garbage management. El Salvador is a country that was hit by the plastic plague, introduced by our very lovely country about thirty years ago. Before the introduction of plastic, nearly all of the materials and waste were of natural products. This being the case, the appropriate custom of waste management is disposal out the bus window, over the shoulder, onto the street, and burning or burying, plus other seemingly inappropriate methods. With disposable organic garbage, this system works and the waste becomes fuel for new life. With the introduction of plastic these methods of disposal have a real negative effect on human health (respiratory infections from burning are a leading cause of illness in this country), and increases contamination of the land that people here rely on so much. I can see some of my work here in the realm of establishing a cultural shift needed due to my own country’s influence.

Another area in which I will be challenged is the idea of female empowerment. El Salvador is known as a machismo culture, though it is different from how I imagined macho playing out culturally. Here in El Salvador women have plenty of responsibilities, though they primarily include cooking, cleaning, and taking care of their children. The men often work in the field, a labor intensive job, just as is the women’s job. None of the parties involved seem to be at odds with the gender roles, but I think the biggest thing I have noticed is pena. Pena is guilt or shame and I see it keeping the women and girls afraid from speaking up. For those of you who spend much time around me, you know that I am the first one to voice my opinion so this is a difficult thing for me to observe. Encouragement and empowerment for girls is going to be a focus of mine.

The other extremely present cultural issue is the issue of remesas, or remittances. I don’t think I have met one family here that does not have financial support from a family member in the United States. In fact, a large portion of the families here would not be able to put food on the table without support from the United States. While I think it is great that these families are being supported financially, I have a hard time supporting such a separation of family—often it is the father or a sibling of a family that moves to the United States. The other major issue I have is that it is creating such a reliance on the United States. Often the family in the United States lives in a low economic state and the family here lives in a similarly low economic bracket. It seems as though a family could be together, work hard together and live at a similar economic bracket, without being dependent on foreign aid. It is a topic that is ever present here and I doubt that it will change, so it is something I will need to adjust to.

There are plenty more cultural observations, but I’ll save those for another time. In the mean time I am having a good time with my fellow trainees in the heat and humidity of El Salvador. Packed buses, slang expressions, pupusas, and bugs of all descriptions are part of the daily life. We had a cleanup campaign with our youth group last week and will be making and decorating planter boxes from two-liter plastic bottles that we collected. I will be giving my first technical charla (chat/lecture) today (on soil conservation) and will be teaching my first English class this Thursday to ninth graders. New countries, new experiences…así es.

Hello All! I am running to a tree nursery in just one minute with the rest of the group, but I thought I'd let you know that things are going well. I had a productive weekend that gave me a good insight as to cultural norms that will be challenging for me to face at my sight as well as a better idea of what volunteer life is like.

I spent six hours walking yesterday, with god knows how many families, along the PanAmerican highway, following four saints. This week is the week of Fiestas Agostinas. Google it.

I'll be in touch soon!

After some time here in El Salvador (we are in week 3 of 8 of training), we are getting ready to do a three-day immersion. Each of us will be travelling to a community in the country to stay with a host family for two nights and a current volunteer for one night. We will have a chance to see what life is like outside of our well-prepared host families and our communities with several other trainees.

In the last week we have created a youth group in our community and will be selecting a community activity this week to pursue over the next five weeks. We spent some time in Sal Salvador (the capital) getting to know how to get to the Peace Corps office via bus on our own. We also had the opportunity to go to an anthropological museum to get a better foundation of the history and culture of the nation.

Over all everything is going well. It is hot here, but I just imagine winters in Saratoga Springs, NY and am ecstatic with the heat.

Hope all is well!

Not a whole lot to report on the El Salvadoran front. I am adjusting well and enjoying being in El Salvador. The group of us in my town have been getting to know the town pretty well and will be meeting with our newly formed youth group tomorrow.

My host family is extremely nice and welcoming and helping me practice my Spanish. I have learned how to make the tortillas - the local staple of the area. I also learned how to vigorously wash my clothes in the sink here, a skill that will help me avoid the dirty American stereotype.

I have included an image of Katheryn and Carol helping out Adam's mother with making an altar for the Corpus Christi procession as well as a photo of the area in which I currently live.

Last Friday all of us received our community posts for the next two months of training. Carol and I are destined to be together--we were assigned to the same community. We live in a town whose name I am not allowed to say (the title of this post is the English translation), with four other trainees (Rosellen, Axel, Katheryn, and Adam) and have Spanish class every morning from 8-12 with Esmeralda. In the afternoon we are working on various social service projects. These will include some of the following: going into the local school to find out about how the school system works, spending a day with a farmer, or learning about local measurements or the local PTA. Every Tuesday we spend the day in the city of San Vicente with the entire group getting shots, having a medical charla (chat), and some other type of training. I assume at some point in the near future I will be getting a cell phone. I'll post that when I have the opportunity.

Training is great, but a huge part of it is living with a host family. I live with the family Vargas, who everyone in the town seems to know and who have hosted thirteen previous volunteers (the first who was named Alicia). My host family includes my host mother (Irene) and father (Mario) plus three of their six children (Mili, Marissa, and Luis Miguel). The son that lives at home has a child (Camila) who also lives in the house with her mother (Melissa). There are three houses all next to eachother where three siblings live (my host father and his brother and sister). Their parents also live in the vicinity.

We live in a house made of concrete and have a TV and the computer on which I am writing. However, we take bucket showers and have a latrine, both located outside of the house. The kitchen is a separate open air unit as well as the large sink (pila) where dishes, hands, and clothes are washed. The food is mainly really thick tortillas, beans, and rice. Sometimes avocado, cucumber, queso fresco (fresh and quite salty cheese), and a few other minor veggies are thrown in. Everything tastes pretty good though the fiber content is low and the monotony is getting high.

All is going well (life is hot and slower paced), and I hope to be able to post in the near future. I'll get a few photos discretely taken. HopefullyFor those of you who know Carol, she seems to be doing well. She lives two houses down and live with a host mother and her grandson. There is more to that story, but I'll let her tell it. She thinks she might have internet access, but she hasn't tried.

Love and miss you all.

After an extremely early morning (3:15 A.M.), lots of waiting in the airport, and many hours on a plane, the 33 new Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) arrived in El Salvador to an extremely welcoming staff. We completed about twelve hours of orientation in Washington, D.C. before heading out and are now training from 8-5 M-F and 8-12 on Saturday. We had interviews in Spanish today to get our Spanish class placements and will relocate to host families tomorrow.

Half of the class (the group of us who arrived at the same time), is working youth development and the other half of us are working sustainable agriculture/environmental education. I will be working in environmental education in my community (which will begin after the two months of training), and will most likely be in a classroom. Everyone in the training class is extremely friendly and we are all having a great time--at least it appears so.

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their summer time. Once I arrive in my community tomorrow I will have a better idea of my internet access for the next two months. For now, much love to everyone.

P.S. It is hot and humid here, but it feels great so far!

I thought I'd help put my location into context. El Salvador is the only Central American country with no coast on the Atlantic Ocean. For help with scale - El Salvador is approximately the size of Massachusetts.

As my leave date approaches, I am starting to sort out my things and pack.

Here is my address from July 8th through sometime in September:

PCT Alicea Cock-Esteb

Cuerpo de Paz ~ El Salvador

Correo Nacional

Centro de Gobierno

Apartado Postal #1947

San Salvador, El Salvador, Centro América

Please do not send packages.

My good friend Carol and I just reached our final destination after three weeks of driving from Saratoga Springs, NY to San Francisco. The tour of the country included seeing family and friends as well as a slew of National Parks/Monuments (Effigy Mounds, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Jewel Cave, Wind Cave, Devil's Tower, Bighorn, Glacier, Yellowstone, Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Zion, and the Grand Canyon). Highlights also included: Niagara Falls, Chicago, Maquoketa Caves, Eau Claire, WI, St. Paul, MN, the Corn Palace, Bozeman, MT, and Las Vegas. Our experienced weather ranged from 93degreesF with sunshine to 30degreesF with snow.

We had a fantastic time and are both excited to be starting our adventures abroad. Carol and I will both be leaving for El Salvador on July 8th from Washington, D.C. We will begin two-three months of training and then go into our service.

(The photo is of Carol and me under Pine Tree Arch at Arches National Park.)