¨Tajumulco¨ in the local indigenous language of Mam means ¨to enter the clouds.¨ Tajumulco is a non-active volcano and the highest point in central america. My job is to lead tourists up there to spend the night. It´s cold, but worth the view for sunrise.

Things are going well here. I am signed up for my first hike this weekend. to an active volcano. The living here is good in the organization. all the guides take turns cooking for each other with the money that they pool together from the tips. and they eat really really well. the soil here in this part of the country is amazing. so all of the fruits and vegs are glorious looking and tasting. i haven´t eaten so well in a long long time. it feels good to be healthy again.

Here is the link for Quetzaltrekkers, where I'll be working as a trekking guide.



www.quetzaltrekkers.com/guathome.html

Last night i arrived in Xela, Guatemala. it took us a while because there were protests blocking all of the major roads that day. the teachers are demanding higher salaries. we were stopped for like 6 hours in one spot. but i still made it in one day from San Salvador.

I was so tired when i got here. hadn´t slept much in the last few days. i was with my friends, saying goodbye in San Sal. and then we all ran in a half marathon on Sunday morning. 11 km. i did really well actually despite; wearing my boots, having not run in a long time, and being up all night drinking the night before. i finished in under an hour and beat everyone in Peace Corps except one guy... who wasn´t wearing boots.

I was thoroughly exhausted in every way when i arrived last night to the hostel where the Quetzaltrekker house is. but the place is great. travelers from around the world are packed into a huge room filled with a sea of beds. the QT office looks real nice also. they were having a meeting so i met only a few of them last night, and a few more today. they all cook for each other and live in a communal house. maybe in a week or so, if they accept me into their tribe, i will be able to move into the house also. they are nice people from around the world.

I go on my first trek this weekend. first as a paying customer, and then if things go well i get to be a staff member. i chose a trek that goes through the jungle to an active volcano. should be fun. tonight we have a dinner with the kids from the orphanage. tomorrow night we play soccer with them. and on thursday night we have a benefit party at the house for backpackers, to raise money for the organization. on saturday we leave for the hikes. they seem to always be busy here. looks like a lot of fun too.

I´m in jocoro again. it´s so nice to be back. I´m on the move quickly though. The organization (orphanage) in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala is asking for my help. On Sunday i hope to be in guatemalaand start my new job on monday.

2/13/2010

I am in Nicaragua, currently on the island, and thinking of going today to Granada. there is a poetry festival there today and tomorrow.

I missed the boat primarily to the island on tuesday, so i was stuck in a little town in the south for a few days. it turned out really well actually and i`m glad that i had an opportunity to explore that area. i went down in a boat to an even smaller town down the El Rio San Juan. it`s an important river; geographically it composes the border with Costa Rica, historically it was used for trade routes to Granada and Leon and was the route that the British, French, and pirates used to raid Granada various times. where i stayed there is a castle constructed overlooking the river where the men on guard would launch canon balls at the approaching ships. Mark Twain traveled that river in 1866 and wrote about it in a letter home. i think he and i may be the only Missourians to have made it down there.

Next week i hope to be in El Salvador.

Happy chinese new year! the year of the tiger.

2/9/2010

I arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica, today. Had a good time traveling. Met some weird people along the way.

Tomorrow I plan on heading towards Nicaragua by a different route then normal. There is a way to arrive by boat down a river. Sounds more exciting. Then I am headed to the big island of Isla de Ometepe (on the Lago de Nicaragua) again. It`s on the way and I have two friends from the Peace Corps that are there now. Then to Granada, Nicaragua, then El Salvador, and then on to Guatemala. Should be fun. 2/8/2010Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! I just arrived in Panama City after an eventful 6 day boat trip down the coast from Colombia aboard a cargo ship. It was amazing. We stopped in over 20 different Kuna villages (Kuna are the indigenous peoples of that region) selling all sorts of things. I´ll tell you all about it someday. adios!

I am currently in a small port town just inside the Panamanian border. the going has been slow. things around these areas move at a snails pace, or perhaps that is even too fast to call it. i got a few boats from Columbia to make it this far.But from here it is another trek to get to Panama City. tomorrow i am most likely getting on a bigger boat that will go 3-4 days down the coast to arrive somewhere where i can take a bus or car to civilization.I´ll write again when i can. if i can make it to Panama city i might jump on a bus right away heading for Costa Rica. so i´ll write from there then.Everything is fine. it´s been a good journey so far. and tomorrow will begin another good journey through islands with indigenous peoples and whatnot. should be fun.

1/31/10

I am finally finished here in Colombia. saw the doctor for the last time yesterday. everything looks good (I had laser eye surgery in Medellen on Thursday). I am ready to begin a journey to Panama. tonight i will head for the port city of Turbo, Colombia on the Caribbean coast. hopefully tomorrow i can get the first of a couple boats that will drop me off in Panama. i`ll try and keep you guys updated. it shouldn´t take more then a few days though.

Tell grandma thanks for the b-day gift and that in September she will have a new roomate.

Last night i danced Tango with a group of Argentinians.

1/21/2010

I have been enjoying the city of Medellin. it is a place of tremendous history involving the drug cartels. the head of one of the largest cartels, Pablo Escobar, lived here. i took a tour of his former houses. he was the 5th richest man in the world at the time of his reign. this place was and still is in many ways a Gothem City.

I emailed and heard back from the organization in Guatemala that i am still interested in working for. they said that they need volunteers badly. especially ones that can speak Spanish. so i feel excited to maybe be a part of something again. even just for a little while. they ask for a 3 month minimum service. i think 3 months would be perfect.

1/20/2010

Medellin, to visit the former residence of Colombian drug lord and 5th richest man in the world, Pablo Escobar, and then maybe to the zoo if there`s time.

1/18/2010

Today I am leaving Bogota with my two friends, an american guy and a french guy, and we are headed to Colombia`s second city, Medellin.

I had a good time seeing the city here. the capital is interesting and very militaristic. the country is still at war with the FARC, backed heavily by Venezuela. the US is of course backing the right wing Colombian government. same old story.

I saw Avatar in 3D. very cool. yesterday my american friend and i wanted to watch the NFL games, but they weren´t televised anywhere in the entire city except at Hooters. so we went and took the French guy with us. haha. he got a good taste of American culture. and was left a bit puzzled by it.

ryan

1/14/2010

I`m doing really well in Columbia. i have had two very successful couchsurfing stays in the two cities that i have visited. the first was an older man living by himself. he was very kind and smart. he was able to answer all my questions about Columbia. in 2012 he has plans to sell his business and get on a motorcycle and travel south america. he is in his early 60s currently.

The second stay, in which i am at currently, is a family. they are very very nice and insist on feeding me every meal. today i climbed a smaller mountain with the younger woman of the family and her friend. we had a nice view of the city.

Early this evening i am going to the bus terminal and taking an overnight bus to the capital city, Bogota. two of my friends will be at a hostel there. should be a nice couple days in the big city.

ryan

1/13/2010Like Batman I travel to Bogota, tonight, under the cover of darkness

1/12/2010Cali, Colombia; Where it is an official city claim that the most beautiful women in the world are born and raised here. vamos a ver..

1/8/100,´ 0,´ 0,´ degrees latitude, or so they say...

My irish friend barry showed up last night. so i spent the day with him. we went to the equator. crossed over into the northern hemisphere and then returned to the south. Tomorrow i am headed to Colombia. going to try some couchsurfing along the way too.

1/6/2010

Robbed with a knife. first time ever. i was beginning to wonder if i was somehow immune to the common act. in my pockets i had $3, lip balm, and a peach. they took only the $3. i ate the peach right afterwards. it`s taste, in the moment, was exquisite.

1/6/2010

I did see Avatar. in Lima. i really liked it. to me, it represented the story of the Spanish Inquisition of central and south america. the details were very similar. and, so yes, it was very relevant to what i have been learning about on my trip. they even mentioned that the natives practised a spirituality that was similar to Shamanism. and also the experience of integrating into a foreign community reminded me of my peace corps experience. i didn`t get a chance to catch it in 3D. but i`ll keep my eyes open for that.

i`m planning on leaving Quito tomorrow and making my way north to Columbia. just like Alex and Jason, but the bus rides here are a lot longer. unless, however, my Irish friend shows up late tonight or early tomorrow. he is coming from Columbia and so we thought that our paths might cross here in Quito. but i haven`t heard from him on-line in a few days. so we`ll see. but if he shows up, i`ll spend an extra day with him trading stories of our travels.

i`m excited that, in Columbia i may be able to meet up with two other friends of mine that i met while traveling through Guatemala. the French guy is working at a hostel there. and my American friend (i told him to come to Columbia and he is actually doing it!) is flying into Bogota next week. so that should be nice if it works out.

i climbed a mountain today and rode an enclosed ski-lift kind of thing down. it worked out perfectly. i knew about the tourist ski-lift thing but i didn`t even realize that it was at the exact point to which i was climbing. it was the most difficult climb i have ever done, due to the elevation and high altitude. so i was glad to take the ski-lift down.

i`m reading the book ¨Alive,¨ the story of the Uruguayan rugby team that crashed landed in the Andes mountains and had to eat their dead friends to stay alive. it is an incredible story! and really well written. it touches on everything human. maybe one for the less squeamish of your ladies book club.

1/2/2010

I`m doing very well in Ecuador. visiting the city of Guayaquil. it`s big with lots of history. saw some good museums today. tomorrow i plan to head out, maybe to Quito.

December 31, 2009

I´m good. i´m in the north of Peru. i´m staying with a guy who i met in Lima,

at his surf shop for a few nights. we are on the beach. a place called Mancora.

From here i hope to move towards Ecuador, and see what happens.

>December 30, 2009

> I had a good day. just relaxing and reading. i´m reading a book that

> includes the history/politics/geography etc about several south american

> countries. it´s written by an older british woman who bicycles. she is

> following the path of Che Guevarra during his first journeys away from home.

> it´s interesting and inspiring to me.

>

> I´m going to relax here in Lima for a few more days. but from here I am

> headed north along the Pan American Highway. This highway, amazingly, can

> take me all the way to the States. It goes from Alaska to Chili. I plan

> on hitch-hiking.

>

> love,

>

> ryan

>

the trek was great. machu pichu is amazing. maybe the most amazing thing i have ever seen. i have been to many impressive ruins before, but it´s the placement of machu pichu that really brings it all together. you can ask cousin marci about it some time. she can tell you a lot about the energy and whatnot of the location. and i agree, its something special. we climbed several mountains, crossed a ragging river in a basket hung from a metal cord, saw lots of alpacas and other strange animals, walked long distances, road a train, and finally climbed the mountain to arrive at machu pichu at 4am yesterday. we had a great group of people along for the trek. all of whom are now my good friends. all very nice. our guide was great. i road a llama.

it was tough leaving from the mountain top of machu pichu. the scene was so magnificent, and one never knows if they´ll ever be back there again. in fact, i was so late in leaving that i had to run the entire way down, skipping and leaping over the steep steps and pushing children out of the way, in order to catch the train headed back to the big city. i made it. found my new friends. we had beers on the train.

we arrived late to the city last night, exhausted. the people here speak ¨quechua¨ as their first language. its of indigenous root.

with no time to lose, tomorrow, my new friends and i, are meeting with a shaman. we have to fast all day, and at 6pm we are going to be lead to a ¨sacred dwelling¨ where we will begin the 8 hour ritual, all through the night. the ritual involves drinking a potent medicine that has hallucinogenic effects. from there we will participate in chanting and be lead through, well who knows what. i´ll be able to tell you afterwards, i assume. most people vomit and/or poop themselves at some point during the ritual. and almost everyone has life changing visions, of some sort. i´ve pooped myself before, almost every gringo in el salvador has at one point or another while traveling long hours on a bus with diarrhea, and it isn´t that life changing of an event. but i´ll be sure to give you a full update afterwards.

that´s all i got for now. take care all. happy holidays!

love ryan

12/16/2009I got into Cusco yesterday. the big city close to Machu Pichu and met somereally great people at a hostel. they had been looking around for a good and cheap trek to Machu Pichu. what they found is cheap indeed, and also sounds amazing. so i booked it also this morning and we leave tomorrow morning for the 4 day journey. We bike the first day, hike through the jungle the second day, and climb the mountain on the third day to camp below the ruins. on the 4th day we visit Machu Pichu. there are hot springs also along the way. sounds great. meals, sleeping arrangements, park entrance fees, guides, and train ticket back to the city are all included; $150. that is about half the price that most travel agencies charge for the trip. it is slightly alternative then the usual Inca trail, which is why it is less expensive. but it sounds fine to me. 

ryan

12/14/2009I am currently at a town called ¨Puno.¨ it is on the Lake Titicaca. it is cold here also due to the very high elevation, but may be not as cold as where you guys are. I got in yesterday on a bus from Arequipa, a bigger city where my friend and i spent a few days. we visited an old convent there. it was used as a small city for nuns for 400 years. it was really incredible. so beautiful and tranquil inside. while the busy city life went on outside the walls.  my friend left for Chili. so i´m on my own again.

I wanted to get over into Bolivia, to the capital of La Paz, since i am very close. but Americans have to pay a $135 tourist visa. tough politics against the US are to blame. basically, their president hates the US. so i can´t go. so from here i will make my way to Cusco, the big city near Machu Pichu, and ask around for what the best thing to do is to start a hike and visit the ruins. i´m excited about that. ryan 

12/6/2009 Yesterday i met up with my friend here in Lima. it´s been sort of a long time here waiting, but i did get to see a lot of the city which was really nice. it´s a big city with a lot going on. and the hostel that i stayed at had all sorts of characters here staying and working. So i think that later today i will be getting on a bus to travel into the northern part of Peru. it´s an over night bus, which is nice, because every bus ride here is really long... like 12-16 hours! we should be leaving around 7pm and arrive sometime the next morning. i let you know how it goes.

12/8/2009 

So with my friend we visited a little village in the mountains of Peru. It was really great and interesting and cold also. the people are small and wear big funny hats. today we are headed for the beach to recuperate. and then back down south, first to Lima, and then all the way to the most southern part of Peru. from there we will part ways; she is headed for Chili and Argentina, and i will head for Lake Titicaca and then Machu Pichu. I think that after my grand assent of Machu Pichu, I will feel satisfied and begin my return trip north. I am having fun camping in my tent and seeing more and more of Peru. ryan 

11/30/2009 i arrived to Lima yesterday afternoon! everything went really smoothly. i checked my backpack on the plane so that i didn`t have to give up any of my knives or shampoo. i was worried about having to give up my stuff. but the plane was great. i was surprised, realizing that it was the first time in a while that i was surrounded by people of the first world. everyone was so clean and pleasant and i felt like i could drop all of my money and passports on the ground and fall over and people would help me out and not even think about stealing anything. i even sat in the ¨executive¨ class on the plane. they served us drinks constantly and a three course meal with appetizers and desert. and i sat next to a really rich Korean girl who has lived in Mexico city, Argentina, and now Lima. She went to Panama City just to do shopping for the weekend. She told me all about Peru from her perspective. it was a fun trip. Peru is great. i`m just getting a taste of it so far. but i went out with three peace corps volunteers here last night that a friend set me up with. they taught me a lot about the country. i`m staying in a really funny little hostel. the owner is really high energy and crazy. he is just getting his hostel started and is using the few of us that are here, just myself and a young british couple, to help him make fliers and advertisements. there are many other big and commercial hostels in town, we went to have drinks at one last night, but i always seem to find the most down to earth and non-pretentious places to stay. that's what all my friends who are traveling now say, and it´s true. speaking of my friends, i got to see my friend barry and antoine, an irish guy and a french guy, the night before i left Panama. they arrived just the last day i was there. it was really nice to share stories with them. we cross paths often and will hopefully run into each other in south america.  i will be here in Lima until the weekend, i expect. i`m waiting here for my friend to return from Machu Pichu. then we will go and visit a family in the north who was a host family to one of her friends in the peace corps. i`m excited to see the country side. ryan 

11/28/2009

My flight is tomorrow morning, Sunday the 29th at 10am. I should be in Peru by tomorrow afternoon. I´m really excited. I am expecting to meet my friend there next week sometime. She is doing Machu Pichu right now and then will head back to the capital to meet up with me. We are planning on visiting a family in a rural area that was the host family to one of her friends during her peace corps service. so it should be really interesting. Peru is largley indigenous. The people are decendant of the Incan Empire. I can´t wait to check them out.  

Peru

Machu Picchu

11/24/2009 i´m doing well. i arrived to Panama a couple days ago and already i have successfully climbed the largest volcano in Panama to reach the highest point in the country. i did it with a few travelers from Holand. it was difficult at times and i didn´t sleep at all, when we camped at the top, because it was really really cold and i wasn´t prepared at all for that type of weather. but that was a good wake up call to prepare myself for colder temperatures in south america. and yes, i do hope to make it to south america soon. i am going to Panama city in the next day or two and will look into flights to Lima. i think it will be a good idea to start in Peru, and then go south to Chili, maybe Argentina, definitely to Bolivia, back to Peru, and then to Ecuador, and finally Columbia, and then take a boat back to central america from Columbia. that´s my plan at least, a rather loose plan though.  i bought a tent in Costa Rica and have slept in it a few times already. but now i realize that i need a few more supplies, like a sleeping bag and some new shoes or boots, to continue camping in south america. fortunately i can do some good shopping in Panama City. it is a very developed capital that has almost anything that you could find also in the States. so that´s also my plan.  i´m super excited to see south america and thus, in my mind, complete my tour of latin america. ryan

10/8/2009

i am writing from el salvador, once again. i am having a great time reconnecting with everyone here and expect to stay until the end on october.

my time in guatemala was excellent. i fell in love with the country; the beautiful landscapes, cool weather, indigenous populations, and the tremendous tourist industry. in fact, i came upon a small volunteer non-profit organization that really caught my attention. they are based out of quezaltenango, guatemala`s second biggest city. but for a big central american city it is surprisingly clean and orderly and surrounded by wonderful volcanoes and hot springs. not a bad place at all. if i choose to, i can sign on with the organization for a time span of three months minimum. i would work as a guide leading tourists and backpackers of all sorts on 3-6 day hiking and camping expeditions. the trips go into mountain ranges and through indigenous villages where the tourists get a chance to really connect with the local people. all the money from the organization goes to fund local school programs and an orphanage. i am really inspired by this opportunity.

first, however, i may continue traveling south for a time. but we`ll see.

i have been encouraged to share some of my stories from traveling; so here is one:

a few fellow backpackers and i (an irish lad, a french guy, and an israeli guy) found ourselves renting a small house on the edge of lago atitlan, guatemala (a big beautiful lake surrounded by mountains). we were brought there, unsuspecting of what we would find, by our israeli companion. apparently, the lake is used as an annual meeting location for all traveling israelis, during Yom Kippur. we found ourselves accompanied by nearly 100 israeli travelers. during this time, they hold a big fancy dinner and several parties and such, all of which were nearly fun. the environment was rather surreal, leaving one confused as to whether they were really present in a poor latin country, or perhaps not. i experienced a moment in which my entire reality came full circle all at once.

this was the moment: i was walking alone at night towards one of the discos in which the israeli party, for this particular evening, was being held. before me, from the opposite direction, i saw the silhouette of a stumbling and seemingly drunken local individual. they call these guys ¨bolos¨ in central america. they live outside and drink plenty. he approached with interest to interact with me. i`m no longer phased by these20characters, and in fact several of this type proved to be great inspirations of joy for me in my little community in el salvador, so i stopped to hear what he had to say. in perfect zombie-like form, dirty and hunched over, he scanned my face for what he must have been looking for. neither of us spoke, until finally he delivered his message to me, which was this, ¨shalom.¨ then he moved past me and we each continued on our ways.

i realize that my plans for the next several months do not involve a return to the united states of america. part of me is saddened by this, especially because i want to, and promised to my grandmother, that i would visit her. and i will, i promise. maybe sometime mid to late next year. i hope that is alright.

i am enthralled by my time here, and the never-ending opportunities to learn more and go deeper. that; mixed with hearing consistently from friends back home that they feel trapped and uninspired by their lives and work, leaves me wanting to be here exploring and stretching myself further.

i hope everyone is doing well and had a splendid Yom Kippur!

ryan

9/21/2009

I am currently in a medium sized town called San Pedro. It is on the Lago Atitlan of Guatemala. I arrived here a couple of days ago from Antigua, which was once a colonial city of spanish rule and the former capital of Guatemala. The Spanish constructed cathedrals and other monuments and designed the city to look like one of europe. it is quite amazing to find it in the middle of Guatemala.

The lake here is beautiful. Two guys and i are renting a small house during our time here. it is nice to have a home with a porch and hammocks and a place to have a fire. It looks a lot like my old place back in el salvador. so i felt right at home. The other guys were a little surprised by the bathroom, toilet, and shower situation. but they are getting along fine.

I have been sort of an anthropologist during my time here. it is interesting to be able to witness a culture and people that are from a blood line that is so ancient and different then my own. their ancestors migrated here almost 80,000 years ago from asia. and my own from the opposite direction coming from europe. so it´s almost like a complete other species of people. and they have lived so remotely for so long that their ways of life really haven´t changed much over the years. so it is like witnessing an archaic and indigenous form of mankind. or maybe a snapshot of what our ancestors were like once upon a time, thousands of years ago.

I am currently, in between hiking and kayaking of course, reading the famous hermann hesse novel ¨Siddhartha,¨ where he makes the claim that the ¨true profession of man is to find his way to himself.¨ i believe that´s what i am doing, what we all are doing, from many directions. whether it be anthropology, psychology, or maybe even proctology...

9/16/2009

Sill in guatamala. I spent yesterday taking an ¨alternative route¨ to the normal road and spent the day hiking through a grouping of mountains. but i got lost and out later then expected and couldn´t make it to a town before nightfall. so i spent the night in an indigenous community in the mountains. it was really incredible. i hung up my hammock on the front porch of the only store in town. i was able to interact with the people, in our own way of course. they speak quiche, but most of the kids are learning spanish in the school.

I was able to take a bus out in the morning. and now i´m in a tourist capital. very different setting, but i think i´ll be sleeping in the same hammock either way.

9/11/2009

Hey everyone, I hope all is tranquilisimo for you. I had a great time exploring the local cultures, tourist attractions, and backpacking scenes of honduras and belize. I arrived in guatemala yesterday.

Some of my most memorable experiences include the following:

The mayan ruines of copan: I spent a few days in the nice little town outside the site of the ruines. I hung with two american guys who would be well entitled to receive a label of ¨world travelers.¨ they have made lives of taking teaching positions around the world and then backpacking in between jobs. they taught me a few things.

San pedro sula: the second largest city in honduras. I spent a few nights there with a couchsurfer. to borrow a line from obI wan kenobi, I would describe the city as, ¨certainly the center of the most possible scum and villainy imaginable.¨ maybe that´s a bit of an overstatement. but I did go to the central park twice and on both occasions we watched fights break out between mobs of people. and one of the fights featured trans-sexual vs. just normal prostitutes.

I took a boat from honduras to belize. accompanied by backpackers of all sorts.

A few of the other backscratchers and I were invited to stay in a mansion on the coast of the carribean where the boat landed. an argentinean guy was house sitting and wanted some company. we were happy to oblige. I was in the pool before proper introductions were made.

I spent a day with my mother and aunts in belize city. they arrived by cruise ship. we hired a local guide and saw mayan ruines, heard the history of the country, and had a very nice lunch together. it was a very pleasant day.

I visited the island of caye caulker. the water surrounding was clear and beautiful being protected by a coral reef. I spent a few nights participating in local events. the first of which was a 3 v 3 basketball tournament. on my team was a traveler from spain and a local boy who played without shoes. we were surprisingly hard to beat. the second night featured a local beauty pageant titled ¨miss big and beautiful.¨ the contestants were in fact the largest girls on the island and each took turns shaking their tremendous backsides to the wild applause of the crowd. it was fantastic.

I stayed a night in the capital of belize, belmopan, with my former boss in el salvador, bryan dwyer. he is now the pto of peace corps in belize. he and his wife and adopted salvadoran daughter live very well and enjoy their time in belize.

San ignacio, was my last stop in belize. there I met travelers; an american, an irish lad, an israeli, and a german. us five guys formed a fellowship of sorts and visited mayan ruines, night clubs, and local swimming holes. the conversations between us, inspired by the times had, are nothing short of hilarious. although I really respect people who speak outside their primary language, it is still difficult not to laugh often at awkward phrases. we are still together, minus the german kid who was going the other way, in guatemala.

Take care everyone!

Ryan

August 23, 2009

Hello,

I am in honduras. having had more fortune then the current president elect of the republic. I was able to creep into the country crossing the northern border of el salvador two days ago. the bus ride was long and slow, having to go over a very mountainous region. the land is gorgeous though; thick pine forests, rivers, deep valleys. the climate is cool and at night it is downright frio. i wanted to hop off the bus and hike in. so badly. and i had to pee also the entire time. it was torturous to see so much deep forest, and hence, great places to pee and not be able. it was getting late and that was the last bus through the area until the morning so i had to decide between camping out my first night on the road or taking the bus into the first town of marcala. i decided to stay on the bus and get settled in, exchange dollars for lempiras, etc.. sleep in a bed etc..

When i got to marcala it was nearly dark and the town was not at all impressive or interesting. i felt lost and ungrounded and still had to pee badly, so i went into the first large building i saw. it was called "china palace." i used the bathroom and figured it a good idea to order something to eat also. there were authentic asians behind the counter, but only the honduran workers made contact with me. the meal was bland and unsatisfying. they took my american dollars but charged me $8, which is a good eight times what dinner should cost in these countries. i was upset.

I checked into the cheapest hotel i could find for $10. it was awful. nothing worked and everything was either wet or dirty or both. i dried off a small portion of the bed and laid my stuff down. i tried to touch the floor as little as possible. i left to check out the town. it was dark. people shuffling from here to there. nothing really upbeat or happy going on. very dreary.

I woke up agitated and knew that my trip had to take a different course. i exchanged $40 dollars for lempiras and asked where the road to la esperanza was, which is the next town over. i thought it was funny as soon as i said that, esperanza means "hope" in spanish.

I headed in the direction of la esperanza, walking. a bus was waiting on the road going in that direction, but i turned it down. i was sick and tired of slow and cramped buses. i just wanted to walk. the land was incredible, as i described before, and seemed to open up and deepen in beauty just outside the city. i was having such a wonderful time. the sun was shinning, but the air was nice and cool. the valley below was long and deep on the side of the highway. everything was covered in pine trees. i felt my head clear and my chest lighten. i looked over the valley and across the country and saw smoke rising from adobe homes and men working in fields below and women washing clothes and tending to children. i offered up a prayer to all those living and working and whatever below me. that i could send them each a little something, a small piece of my spirit spread thinly and evenly out over everyone to help them along their ways and ease their troubled minds for just a moment. it was fulfilling.

While walking along the road everyone who passed me gave me a huge smile and a greeting. i turned down several rides from passing pickup trucks because i was having such a great time walking. i accepted one ride, from an old man in an old rustic and awesome truck. a truck that reminded me of something you would see in an old world war one video. he was only going a few kilometers, which i thought was perfect. i just wanted to ride in the truck for a moment and then return to walking.

I walked for half a day, drank all my water, and began to think it might be nice to look for a ride the rest of the way. i realized something else; that honduras is a much larger country then el salvador. the atlas that i have shows each country on one full page. however, honduras is scaled down to fit on the page more then el sal is. so an inch on the honduran map is actually a lot further then an inch on the salvadoran map, which i was using to compare to figure out how much i could walk in a day.

I also realized that i hadn't seen anyone for a long long time. it became apparent to me that the reason for this was due to the inaccessibility of the road that i had turned on to. the bridge was collapsed, i would find out later.

I was really thirsty and started to worry a little about that. i swam in a nearby river, but wasn't ready to drink out of it just yet. the water was turquoise and swampy. i remembered how much they talk in the peace corps trainings about the problems with pollution from factories in the rivers and streams in these countries. i thought it was a shame to see so much flowing and undrinkable water nearby when i was thirsty. it made me wonder what it could be that is being made in the factories that is more important then accessibility to rivers and streams. i walked on the best i could.

I was really tired then, and stopped a lot and rested and thought about my time in el salvador and what it meant to me and how much i changed and what i wanted now and all that. it was nice in a way.

But i became really tired and thirsty and saw a place in the stream where the water was rushing very fast. i decided that i had no other choice then to tempt my fate and drink it. i drank a lot. it tasted so good and felt even better. it immediately gave me energy. i walked on. that was yesterday, and i feel fine today, so whatever..

I walked and walked. it was an amazing path through places that felt so isolated. finally towards the end of the afternoon i came upon a bypass intersecting the path. i walked to it and saw a middle-aged woman standing on the side of the road with a suitcase and an umbrella. we talked. i asked her where we were and in which direction was hope. she pointed but told me that hitching a ride would be a better idea. i agreed. we talked more. she told me that she works as a teacher and had hosted three peace corps volunteers in her home previously. i was delighted to here that. i figured she wouldn't mind one more for the evening. we hitched a ride and i helped her with her suitcase into town. finally she invited me to the house and i met the family. the grandma is hilarious and boisterous, the grandpa is sweet and intellectual, the brothers are fun-loving, the little girl is smart and dramatic. i fit right in and connected to each person in our own way. they led to me a shed with a big bed in it and offered me the stay. the house was modest but very clean. it's amazing how comfortable somewhere can be, despite having money, but instead just taking care of what one does have. i was very happy. they fed me beans, rice, an egg, and 5 tortilla, and then we went out for chicken later that night. it was so nice to be with a good warm and fun family instead of all alone in a crappy hotel.

I will most likely be with them until monday morning. sunday we are celebrating the grandma's birthday. from here i plan on heading out towards the next town over and see what happens there.

I won't detail my entire trip like this, but i just wanted to give you guys a little taste of what it might look like. pero vamos a ver.

Take care everyone!

Ryan

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August 26, 2009

My second update comes in the form of a haiku; although i'm sure it doesn't fit the standard syllable format that would make it a haiku. It's just a weird little poem then

La Esperanza

Manifestantes manifestando

Mujer Lenka vende peras

Vistas hermosas y aguas termalesNicolas de Suiza

Monos y pumas

Cheke

For my parents, a translation:

La Esperanza was the name of the town i was in, and means "hope" as well.

Manifestantes are the leftests demonstrators that are upset by the current political situation.

I watched them parade around and yell things in the town center.

I saw my first indian! a woman of indigenous decent. there are still tribes preserved throughout honduras and guatemala. she was really interesting. very different. big wild eyes.

she came to the door selling pears with a baby slung around her back in a sack.

I climbed a mountain, the highest point in Honduras, with a Swiss guy named Nicolas.

His travel guide claimed that there would be monkeys and pumas where we were hiking.

We saw no such creatures. we did see a deer. and we swam in thermal waters. waters that are heated naturally by the earth or lava or something.

"Cheke" is what hondurans say all the time. it means "exactly" or "correct" in sort of a cool slang kind of way.

Cheke,

Ryan

7/7/2008 - Here is a link to a video that my friend put together of our Morazan crew giving one of many recycling charlas (classes) on city buses. He added subtitles in english. I am the "referee" in the red shirt.

Title: Please Take Care of Our Planet.

“A bunch of Peace Corps’ volunteers in El Salvador who thought seeing people dressed up as trash would be a lot more interesting than infomercials for natural medicine or fire-and-brimstone sermons.”

Click on this link: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=x_8FiK08Uew#

7/1/2008 - Trash, Sex, and Chinches

There isn’t an abundance of resources to be enjoyed in El Salvador. There isn’t a wide variation of potential hobbies to choose from or job opportunities to be had. In fact last night I was sitting in the park with a friend who was explaining to mehis many reasons for wanting to immigrate to the states. His complaints about the circumstances here were as follows: mucha gente, no trabajo, mucha ladrones, mucha basura, todas las cosas son caras, mucha chambre, no hay arboles, y mucho mucho calor. A translation of his observations regarding the state of this country would be as follows: lots of people, no work, lots of thieves, lots of trash, everything is expensive, lots of gossip, no trees, and it’s very very hot.

I certainly understand his complaints about life in El Salvador and especially that it is above all else the tremendous and relentless heat that often tips the scale to a feeling of downright oppression. It’s so hot.. and all of the time; but I don’t mean to belittle the gossip either.

And so it is strange to find myself writing that I thoroughly enjoy my life here. In fact I really really thoroughly enjoy it. I’m not ready to use those three all important words just yet, but someday I am sure that I will love it.

It is with a great understanding of our differing situations that I recognize my friend’s need to leave in search of work. I find myself in a unique position being sent money from the United States government each month to buy food and rent a house. For that reason, and the fact that I am not trying to build a sustainable life here for myself, that I have had to blaze my own trails and create avenues for what will occupy my time here.

Trash is in abundance. In fact it is everywhere. El Salvador consumes much from other larger and more industrialized nations and there simply isn’t room to house the leftover packaging. The land is covered by either people, cattle, or pigs and no where can additional landfills be dug. For these reasons trash separation, recycling, and organic composts have been issues of focus for my work in various forms. At the schools in my pueblo we have begun recycling projects that seem to carry great momentum. I have become somewhat of a expert on recycling and decomposition having given countless informational talks to students and community members. Who knows how long it takes for plastic to decompose on it’s own? Glass? The answer is 500 years, and never for glass. That’s a long time. Often I seek for entertaining ways to convey the messages of trash management. Recently with other volunteers near my site we have performed plays for students in the schools and even on public buses in attempts to spread the word. That has been plenty of fun and there are a couple of videos floating around on U-tube of our efforts.

Human beings would be included in commodities that are abundant in El Salvador. In a country the size of Massachusetts there are over 6 million people. People are everywhere and it is all too common for females in their early teens to become pregnant with their first of many children. Naturally sex becomes an issue to be addressed with the youth of this country. Although the majority of this culture is either adherent to Catholicism or Evangelicals there hasn’t been much opposition to fellow volunteers and I discussing sex and contraceptives with the kids in the schools. The majority of the teachers and school directors are inviting to our presence and relieved that we are the ones giving the lectures. Perhaps it helps to be in some ways outside of the community and thus excused from normal cultural restrictions.

Chinches are killer insects. Well, not directly are they murderous beings. But in result to their biting and defecating in a person’s skin a virus can enter the person’s body that will bring on death if untreated. Chinches happen to be significant threats to humans in this region. They are terrorists of a different breed whose insurgency lies in unclean living situations and adobe homes. I learned a lot about Chinches from a Japanese volunteer working for JICA (a comparative organization to the Peace Corps) who is stationed near my site. His name is Yasu and he wears a Chinche cased in amber around his neck at all times. The Salvadorans call him ¨Chino¨ which means ¨chinaman¨ and consistently ask him to perform Karate. Yasu and I are scheduled to give more lectures on the presence of chinches in our homes.

The Chinch Bug

There and Back Again

Going home to the States for two weeks was something surprisingly beneficial for myself being here. Among the joy that I received from visiting friends and family in the States was an excitement to return to El Salvador and be here for another year and a half. It helpedto watchmyself in the backdrop of my old life and social engagements to really appreciate my opportunities in being here. I can see clearly now the mechanisms that are in place to stretch myself in so many ways. The physical comforts and perceptual thrills that accompany a life in the States will only increase in their complexity, and certainly will be present when I go back there again. For now I am excited to fall into the roles of what my life here has presented. Opportunities to be a teacher, a mentor, a community organizer and always the chance to feel completely disoriented. The process of growth and deepening into our ourselves occurs inside of the physical work that we are engaged in. In happens while sorting through trash with students at the Centro Escolar, it happens while discussing safe sex practices with students in the Instituto, and it is in abundance while facing a nemesis such as a chinche. The trick lies only in trusting what it is that is in front of us to bring forth exactly what we need to pry ourselves loose. Even if it happens to be as ugly as an adult chinche.

My good friend Nick had just moved into his new house in the cantone where he lives. We spent an entire night painting the walls, drinking rum, and making pupusas. Spider Man was proud of the toilet plant that he had painted.

3/10/2008 - “Suave” (swa-vay) is a word used often here in El Salvador. It’s literal translation would be a mixture of smooth/cool/comfortable. Suaveness is more than just an adjective for objects or events but rather a state of being that this culture strives to maintain. At least an appearance of suaveness in behavior is all that is asked forby those around you. And to their benefit I would agree that most people here spend a largeportion of their day in “suavedad.” It seems as though people here don’t carry as much on themselves as we do in the states. That observation is meant to be taken figuratively speaking because the women here do all in fact carry large buckets or sacks on their heads. I still have to fight back an overly large grin when I see them carry something funny like a single pineapple or bagged meat on their head with their arms crossed in front of them.

My life here has made a turn to suaveness in nearly all facets of it’s composition. Where once boundaries and limitations of a most stringent order encased my efforts I now find my days spent flowing from one task to the next with tremendous reception and support from those I work with. It is greatly different, and forgive me if my previous writings lacked the warmth and inspiration that I certainly would like to be transferring through the detailing of my experiences here. However, up until the start of this new year it had been an experience of something else. It was a struggle to adapt and to find aworkable self in the contexts ofthis cultural backdrop. It certainly wasn’t easy and the process of changing habitual thought systems that were previously adhered to for one reason or another can feel close to a feeling of tremendous loss and accompanying a reluctance to do so. Throughall of my personal and work related developments here I was well cared for by my community members and supported by my family and friends back home. A state of suaveness has been reached and now it is certainly the appropriatetime to “dale la gasolina.”

Preparing pupusas in Nick´s kitchen.

Later that night Spider Man had joined us to help.

Three days a week in the mornings I find myself giving English classes to the students in the kindergarten . Yes the kindergarten. As if my classes with adults weren’t frustrating and fruitless enough I am currently working with 3-6 year olds. I love them and just as often find myself dreading their presence. They are a blessing and a headache. They are life itself thrown into full throttle and turned up to the highest degree. We laugh, cry, bleed, bite, and learn our ABCs in a matter of five minutes. I think they were the last straw to breakdown my previous hesitations and adapt me fully to this culture. They are forces irreconcilable and find great joy in pretending not to hear me. But everyday when I leave all fifty of them to run to give me a giant hug and say, “salud profesor.” I can’t stay mad at them for too long.

Surprisingly, when a teachable moment does occur they are well apt to learning English numbers, colors, and phrases with a much better memory recall and ability to pronounce than most adults. Their favorite way to learn and the only one that sort of keeps their attention is by watching me do clown-like routines that involve audience participation. Perhaps why they no longer listen to me is that to them I am no differentthan the clown performing at their birthday party. Except that this clown makes them "talk funny."

We sing and listen to children’s songs in English. Our plan (although they took no part in deciding this) is to eventually put on a concert for the parents that will show off our skills in the English language. This plan of course rests on the premise that I don’t bite one of them first and am asked to leave the school.

Tuesday and Thursday mornings I hold classes in the grade school. Currently I am working with the 4th and 5th grades. These classes are calmer, and with less biting. In this atmosphere I am less of a clown and more of a respected teacher. For myself the classes have been a great way to consistently be a part of the school’s affairs. As a staff member I am invited to meetings and given updates in schedule andcurriculum changes. This has been beneficial to my efforts because there isalways at least one extra-curricularactivity that I am working on with the kidsafter school that requires a knowledge of schedule changes. Our latest was to paint a huge mural of the solar system (it ended up being more than 5 meters in length). In order to do so we raised the money that was necessary to buy the paint, brushes, and plenty of paintthinner (things get wild in the grade school as well and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between where we painted and where we didn’t. Plenty of paint thinner is a must). Our procedure has been tohold a fund raiser and then paint or build something. This week we held a movie night to show a film and sell tickets to it. This week also happened to hold national women’s day. In honor of this day and in the name of gender equality we showed "A League of Their Own." We raised 15 dollars, and with that we should be able to do a mural of El Salvador with the different departamentos (states) colored and labeled. Considering of course that I don’t bite anyone.

If for some reason anyone reading this would have questions pertaining to Pelibueys, the market for Pelibuey purchase and sale, or even just what the hell a Pelibuey is; I am currently the guy to ask. To clear up the last one, not that I intend on undermining your knowledge of exotic farm species, a Pelibuey is a type of animal that can most accurately be described as a cross between a sheep and a goat. They are cute, easier to handle than goats, and in one of the smaller and more rural areas of my municipality we are working on a Pelibuey project to provide an additional source of income and nutrition for the families that live there. Currently, and with the help of another volunteer in the area, we are coordinating efforts between various NGOs. One that surveys the land of a community to determine what could function as an additional small business endeavor and one that specializes in training impoverished communities to raise and care for various species of livestock. Eventually, after the work and preparation from the NGOs and community members, the combination of an additional NGO, adesco, or municipal headquarters could possibly provide funding to purchase a small number of Pelibueys to begin with. In other words we still have a long way to go before we will find ourselves sitting around a table enjoying a fresh glass of Pelibuey milk.

Undoubtedly the hottest new thing to hit Jocoro, El Salvador is the chess club in the high school (my attempt to help localkids with much needed critical thinking skills). In fact it is so desired that nearly everyone is reluctant to reserve a spot and be so selfish in their attendance of it by potentially denying someone else’sinvolvement in the club. That must be what was happening and during the first three weeks there was only one boy who was that selfish. He came once.

Another teacher and I carefully prepared materials for the students to make chess boards out of wood and then sand and paint them. We argued back and forth many times about how the kids were to make the chess pieces. After several trials with homemade clay, flour, and other methods we finally agreed on using plaster molds and filling them with a material that I can’t pronounce and don’t have a clue as to spelling it. But it seemed to work, and everything was lined up to host a sweet chess club. Then nobody came, except for that one selfish little boy.

This happens often throughout the service of a Peace Corps volunteer and leaves one with a strange feeling that may hint at, if I dare say, a questioning of purpose. But I chose not to go down that road this time and instead just to reassess the details of the chess club project. After a thoroughly objective look at the circumstances I decided that it was worth pursuing. So I went ahead with announcing the club on a massive scale. I printed tons of flyers and spoke to nearly all of the classes in the surrounding schools. I showed a level of excitement surrounding the game of chess that hasn’t been entertained since a prepubescent Bobby Fischer witnessed for the first time the movement of pawn to B-4. My enthusiasm paid off as our last meeting involved eight members.Not quite checkmate, but close enough.

Adios, Ryan

My new house :)

Hiked all the way to the ocean. Not a margarita in sight!

Jocoro 100 year celebration

I realized that most of the older students, which is a large portion, aren´t coming to learn English out of any specific or urgent need for the language. In fact it is quite to the contrary. Most of them live and work right here in Jocoro and possess not the slightest ambition of utilizing English for any business or otherwise pressing matter. Others do have a need, and I try to recognize this and provide more attention or schedule additional practice sessions for these individuals. As far as the rest go, the classes are something new and different to stretch themselves with by offering a bit of an intellectual and expressive challenge to their lives. It is a new medium of communication, and forces the mind to loosen its grasp on old habits of expression. These students get to see themselves from a new angle and perhaps let go of old and worn out perceptions of themselves. It isn´t surprising then that the most spirited of my students are the women ranging in their late twenties to early thirties possessing one or two kids left over for them to care for after their husband has left them or gone to the States to work. This is common here and these are some of my favorite people to work with. They like to act as big sisters to me, and we have a great time just talking, normally in Spanish with a few English nouns thrown in at appropriate times. Last week after class five of the women came over to my house for a grand feast of fish soup, tamales, and pineapple. They always try and do my laundry for some reason, and love to consult with me on which girls are appropriate for dating. The wisdom they offer to me is normally pretty bad as with great certainty it follows along the lines of, ¨well that person is gay because their mom didn´t feed them right.¨ But their advice is always quite humorous and I appreciate their effort to steer me straight on living correctly as a Salvadoran. This week they want to have a party during class to ¨welcome the teacher, ¨ despite the fact that I have been teaching them for more than two months now. But I suppose somebody has to welcome in the teacher and so we are going to eat empanadas, drink soda, and play Pictionary with our English vocabulary words. It took me a little while to reach a place where I would allow myself to just enjoy the circumstances of our meetings. Rather than finding worth in the extension of my students´ noun capacity, now I just show up to class ready for an experience. Usually it is an experience filled with laughter of the deepest and fullest kind. It isn´t always fun and games that accompanies the learning of English and I have various students whom do possess a serious need for the language. These are mostly individuals whom have made the decision, out of a desperate necessity to find work, to immigrate to the States. The lack of sufficient-paying job opportunities is a serious issue here and forces many many people to immigrate north to the States or to other developed nations around the world. Often in the rural parts of El Salvador it is nearly impossible to find males from eighteen to thirty years old. Nearly every male and plenty of females have already departed on their search for work. The U.S. and Salvadoran governments recognize there being 1.8 million Salvadorans living and working either legally or illegally within the U.S. borders. However, the actual amount of Salvadorans currently in the States is estimated to be well over two-million people. Theentire population of El Salvador is only six million, and so absolutely everyone you talk to here has brothers, sisters, cousins, parents, children or spouses working in the U.S. It is an immigration phenomenon that creates great hardships for the immigrants themselves and for those left behind with the task of maintaining stable family structures. It is out of a financial necessity that these people choose to leave behind their families, and heartbreakingly there are often times children left behind here to be raised by orphanages, cousins or even older siblings. It isn´t an issue that will be going away any time soon as working in the agriculture fields or even in a restaurant job at Pizza Hut here will earn someone five dollars a day. Everybody is well aware, having heard from friends or other relatives that the same job at Pizza Hut within the U.S. borders will pay more than that every hour. Not to mention the possibility of working construction; people here love to boast about a relative working one of those jobs. A good friend of mine that I am currently working with on a project in the municipal building has just made the decision to leave for the United States. He is twenty-six years old and well past the age where it becomes a call to nature to migrate north. He studied in a university for a year and a half but then found it financially impossible to continue. It costs less than two thousand dollars a year for an advanced education here in El Salvador. To immigrate illegally to the states, through Mexico, will cost him six thousand. The price of continuing his studies here and that of immigrating illegally to the states would roughly come out to be the same investment. However, he doesn´t have six thousand dollars for either purpose. There are people whom he can borrow the money from, but only for thepurpose of him going to the States and thus making the money back quickly. Therefore, the decision has already been made for him, and unlike most Salvadoran males he admits that he is terrified of what can be a most dangerous venture across the Mexican border. There is a whole list of things that could potentially go wrong with his journey. Top of the list includes; the coyotes whom are responsible for sneaking him across the border are seldom trustable and able to just take his six thousand dollars and leave him stranded somewhere in Mexico, or there is always the possibility that he will be caught by American officials once he arrives in the States and then deported having wasted his borrowed money once again. I certainly feel strongly for my friend’s situation and wish there was more I could do to help him and the millions of others that are in a similar situation. Unfortunately, decent paying jobs are a necessity to these people and aren´t something that can be overlooked, even for the sake of maintaining one’s family cohesion. Therefore, I am teaching English to various people knowing good and well that they are planning on using it to immigrate illegally to the States. This isn’t a moral dilemma to me at all, but rather I see it as an opportunity to relieve at least a slight amount of the suffering that will inevitably meet these people on their upcoming path. Having a fundamental knowledge of the English language to build on will provide for a transgression and immersion into the American job market that will be certainly less painful and abrupt to these individuals. In this way, I see it as a service of relieving a small, but perfectly tangible, amount of human suffering. I feel that each of us needs only to work toward relieving the suffering of the individuals that are in front of us, in the present moment, and worry about nothing more than doing just that. Working to alleviate the suffering of others doesn´t seem to take a consistent or fixed form. Therefore, if the alleviation of suffering is truly our goal, then, for this reason I don´t see the benefit of strictly adhering to one form of social service or political ideology. The form of social service must be allowed to change to meet the needs of the society. That’s why I like to do both; I like to help some individuals immigrate more gracefully to the States, while also helping others remain here to create a life and offer their skills to the internal development of El Salvador. Being in a position to either help others or simply enjoy the company of others certainly feels good. It is especially great when you are able to witness and experience fully the efficacy in what you are doing, or simply able to laugh loud and hard with your companions. There is no doubt about the resultant joy in the moments when I am able to be close to the members of this community. I met a guy named Garth. He has been living in a hotel in northern Morazán El Salvador for nearly eight months now. Garth is in his late twenties. He is tall with long blond hippy hair that gets tied up a good foot and a half over his head. Being in such a remote part of El Salvador, unaffiliated with the Peace Corps and carrying a cool and silent demeanor, his entire essence proclaimed nothing more than that this guy has a story to tell. I was intent on finding it out. Garth moves around a lot. Never really spending too much time in one place he has lived in nearly all of the coolstates that the U.S. has to offer. He skipped over Missouri, for some reason, but was gracious enough to tell me that he may have a cousin that lives there and he thinks that they like it. Thanks Garth, now go on with your story. His original reason for coming to El Salvador I never uncovered, but I imagine it changed rather quickly and he certainly hadn’t planned on staying as long as he has. Currently he is living in room number twelve of this particular hotel for what has been almost a year’s time. It is a hotel owned and managed by an American, also with quite an interesting story to tell, but for now Garth´s is enough. Garth and the owner of the hotel, Ron, have a goal to build a new school for the local children in the area to attend. They have a rather progressive plan in mind, involving the school teaching each child three different languages; Spanish, English, and one other of choice, either French, German, Italian, etc. They also hope to staff a group of the best teachers possible to be found in El Salvador. So far, they have only a plot of land where the school structure could potentially be built. Garth plans on being the architect of the school project and see through its construction. However, and certainly to be expected, the major problem remains that of finding somebody to fund this project. There are some barriers present to Garth´s plan that are in addition to the issue of funding; he doesn´t speak Spanish nor does he know of, or have connections with any Salvadoran NGO´s. However, he is determined in his quest, ¨I´m learning Spanish¨ he says, and possesses a calm and pure-hearted sense about him that must offer support to Ron, the hotel owner, whom I assume acts as the real mover and shaker of the project. This, Garth does well. ¨What the hell are you doing here, Garth?” was the first question I asked when I met him. I was tired from the day andnot at all interested in sugarcoating my initial inquires into Garth´s presence being nearly a year at the same hotel in rural El Salvador. His answer proceeded with his tale of the school project and ended with him staring downward as if sorting out through his mind the relentless details of the project that were not at all fitting nicely into his initial plans. ¨I hear you Garth, ¨ that sentence and the names of the few NGO´s that I was familiar with was all I could offer to him at that moment. I don´t know much, or anything, about building schools in El Salvador or why he is bent on doing just that, but what I meant was that I understood his situation. I understood what it feels like to be at the mercy of so many uncontrollable circumstances supported only by an idea for progressive and helpful community change. It isn´t an easy position to be in, and can leave one feeling all together frustrated when the desire for efficacy in daily labor is not met with merit. This leads me into a discussion of my opinions regarding the role of a Peace Corps volunteer, and as usual, perhaps a little more. We aren’t paid much as Peace Corps volunteers. In fact, it makes me laugh to even write that as I recall that last week my diet consisted almost entirely of bananas. Being toward the end of the pay period bananas were all that I could afford. Before you all start whipping out your checkbooks and sending remittances to me from the States I assure you all that I am perfectly fine. I happen to really like bananas, and surprisingly even after numero sixty. No actually, it has only been a problem for me to eat when I have to travel for meetings or to visit other volunteer’s sites either helping with or learning about other projects. This can getexpensive and all together outside my budget of six and a half dollars a day for food and traveling expenses. Like I said, we aren´t exactly paid much. However, when I am at my site, there are families that are residing on the brink of warfare over who gets assigned the esteemed task of feeding me. There is one family in particular that has adopted me, and when I attempt to spread around my food consumption toother homes we have to have a small reconciliatory meeting to come to terms with why I didn´t show up for lunch that day. The woman of the house and I have to discuss where I ate, if I liked it, and why that was an altogether silly decision for me to be eating somewhere else. But to her, I imagine, that me going somewhere else for lunch is similar to when your cat suddenly decides that it would rather live at your next-door neighbors house instead of at yours. In doing so, he sits on your neighbor’s front porch and gives you that blank guiltless cat stare. When you try and question his motives for leaving perfectly suitable living conditions he doesn´t even bat an eye in response. I at least try and explain my actions, but maybe I shouldn’t, and just be more cat-like in my behavior. aoljpictureUpload, aoljpictureUpload_1

1/7/2008-Comment from Mom & Dad: We just returned from a week with Ryan in El Salvador – Christmas day to New Year’s day. The rain has long stopped and the weather was warm in the day but comfortable morning and evening. It was beautiful and a great time to visit. We loved his home town of Jocoro and felt safe and comfortable at all times. We observed that Ryan is so beloved by his community and thus we felt in turn an open-armed welcome from all. They took turns having us for meals. We celebrated New Year’s eve by having a dinner of tamales with the mayor’s family, attending mass (3 hours long all in Spanish) and receiving a hug by all of the 400 people attending. Then dancing in the streets around a bonfire with fireworks shooting everywhere – all hosted by the local school principal. We definitely weren’t in Missouri.

Our trip pictures are viewable on the Other Journals link on this screen (scroll up to the top on the left) titled "Family Visit – December 2007." Thanks Ryan for your patient interpreting and tour guiding.

Mary - Protector of Jocoro

11/1/2007

¨Rain rain go away, please come again another day, ¨ is the only song I can think to sing to myself as I lie and watch the rain continue to fall. I like rain; I enjoy watching it or just listening to it, but this is too much. In fact it is way too much. It has been raining nearly constantly for five days, and without showing any desire to cease it will continue to halt another day’s worth of activities. It isn’t a nice gentle rain either where one could easily overlook its presence and tip-toe through it with the aid of an umbrella. No, not this rain, not even a super space-age umbrella- made of a futuristic material and utilizing and advanced form of umbrella technology that creates an impenetrable bubble around the person harboring this miracle invention would suffice in keeping one even remotely dry. Well, maybe an umbrella of that kind would suffice after all, but the important thing is that, if it does exist, I don’t have one. Therefore I am left inept and mostly just bored.

This rain means business. It is a torrential downpour causing everything here to come to a stop. Not that there was much going on to begin with, in my opinion, coming from a Gringo’s point of view, perhaps. But I did have an English class planned for this afternoon that surely nobody will be attending. Folks here generally refuse to exit their homes and face a rain such as this, and especially not towards the goal of attending educational classes. Perhaps, if a two-hour block of flashing bright lights, pounding regitone music, heavily greased food, maybe a piñata or twelve, and a troupe of dancing midgets were scheduled instead of English lessons I would receive an audience to my class this afternoon. I must apologize now; for my cultural bitterness is normally well overcome by my sense of humor and a striking ability that I possess to find appreciation in the ridiculous. However, today it continues to rain on my parade. And although the parade that I had lined up was a grand one, filled with new vocabulary words and plenty of mock conversational situations to practice, it would still be lacking in dancing midgets. And there in lies my blunder…

Therefore I continue to sit/lie in a hammock that is stretched tightly across the back porch of theone room house that I am currently renting in El Salvador. Unfortunately, I’m not even fully succeeding at this activity. There is a definite art to laying in a hammock that involves laying diagonally and thus allowing the body to remain somewhat straight. I still haven’t been able to master this skill despite the plethora of opportunities to practice it. No I lie curled upwards causing all of my internal organs to be squeezed firmly together forming one large mass of cramped and suffocating intestinal despair. One wouldn’t initially reason that lying either correctly or incorrectly in a hammock could evoke such strong emotions, but after nearly five days of nothing more than this, I assure you it can happen. But most of all following yet another defeat to adapt to this way of life, and especially having it be one as simple as failing to lie correctly in a hammock, one has to begin to question just what in fact they are doing here. It is a question that seems persistent; certainly throughout a Peace Corps volunteer’s experience, filled with constant failures to adapt gracefully and impenetrable periods of downtime which are able to be spent meddling through the multitudes of barriers that are seemingly fixed in place halting any sort of progressive or helpful action to the community. In other words, societal development here moves slowly, or just not at all. And it is especially difficult and often frustrating to a volunteer when they would like to help forward development but aren’t exactly adapted fully to the culture and therefore not exactly one-hundred percent proficient with the language or customs. These are just some of the barriers. In addition, hypothetically speaking of course, they may lack the necessary funding or experience that is required, but we will discuss that later. For now, it is a simple question of purpose with which this volunteer is wrestling. However, I must recall that my existence in the States was not immune to this question either. But now more than ever, perhaps due to the foreign circumstances and my relative inadequacy to act in them, the question is raised persistently.

I have a plan; don’t think for a second that I would leave myself without any sort of direction. I am waiting for the Cat in the Hat to show up with a suitcase full of magical games to play and crazy ideas to manifest. Ok, so the plan isn’t a great one, but at least it is something. More so I am waiting for the attribute of unwavering persistence in action that accompanies the Cat in the Hat’s presence. What I always found startling about that Cat was his absolute certainty that the kids can and should be playing wildly fun and imaginative games that were always on the verge of completely destroying the house. Without the parents home; that son of a bitch is crazy, I always thought. Even as a kid I wanted to jump up and scream that. But maybe there is something beneficial we can take from The Cat in the Hat’s logic that seems to be contradictory to our normal domain of thoughts.I mean, he did leave the house having caused no real problems, and the kids did certainly enjoy the afternoon more so than they would have had spending the day watching the rain fall. Kids like myself spending a good portion of their lives waiting for the rain to stop need a voice like the Cat in the Hat. We need someone to say, ¨yeah it is raining outside, but look at what lies here inside and perfectly within our reach.¨ Not that I would desire spending my afternoon stacking furniture (if I had any) to the ceiling in my room and placing a small fishbowl at the top. But often I feel as though my thoughts dwell on boundaries that are present in my environment, and thus an experience of severe limitation ensues.

Alright, here is a thought— what if these momentary limitations were actually helpful and it is through my interaction within these boundaries that I find purpose. It does seem that a Peace Corps experience is normally undertaken by a person whom is either going through or willing to allow considerable life changes to occur. For this reason it isn’t surprising that, at least primarily, there is an abundance of perceived limitations to consider and work through. It keeps us on track, maybe, and fully involved andaware of our experience until we are able to dictate for ourselves what we should be. Thus our boundaries act as training wheels on a bicycle keeping us upright and guiding us towards fuller realizations of ourselves and eventually towards the experience of one day living completely unrestricted. But that would take an incredible amount of insight to realize and even more patience to consciously follow such a plan.

In that case, for now I’ll stick with, ¨this just sucks, ¨ and my inclination to do so is most likely the reason why the fish was always my favorite character in the Cat in the Hat. He was pissed off at having to be involved with the Cat in the Hat’s altogether silly and purposeless games. He preferred the relative safety of his fishbowl. But I don’t anymore; I’m ready for the ocean.

Surprisingly enough, the Cat in the Hat hasn’t shown. It would appear that for today I will be on my own.

I don’t blame the Cat in the Hat for not showing up. He must be busy with plenty of other houses residing on Grey Street this afternoon in El Salvador. Unfortunately for me, but not the Cat because he loves rainy days— I heard from a passing neighbor that the rain is predicted to persist for at least three more days up to possibly a week more. He didn’tsay it like that, it was more of a comment such as ¨Mas agua para una semana, creo¨ or ¨more water for a week, I believe.”

This has got to be considered a hurricane or a tsunami or something. I’m not even exactly sure what the difference is between the two, and to get any real news I would have to venture out into it and find a tienda carrying newspapers. Then I would have to read the newspaper, with my dictionary in hand of course. For now I am content on just calling this ¨mucha agua, ¨ as the people here do. To me that phrase is funny for what is happening here. I do offer myself this, and ironically it was a topic that I wanted to cover next even prior to this weeks rainstorm, a concept of patience.

Before I arrive at any sort of conclusion regarding what a concept of patience means to me, I would like to quickly outline the story of my English classes, which have proven to be a most worthy medium to practice the cultivation of patience, and most of all a discovery of what that can lead to. But first, let’s go back to the alphabet…

There are twenty-six letters found in the English alphabet, and although the letters appear to be either the same or at least similar to those in the Spanish alphabet, they make different sounds. I don’t even remember learning the different sound combinations so it makes it kind of weird to teach. When I see an ¨sh¨ combination of letters I automatically think to make the proper sound, ¨shhh.¨ This is not the case for first time English learners, and so often times early on in my classes it felt like I was trying to teach a person how to breathe. I don’t remember learning to breathe; I just do it, and so follows my experience with the English language. I realized quickly that I can’t just throw new words at them each week but that wewere going to have to spend a great amount of time going over each letter and the sound that it makes when combined with another letter. Talk about cultivating patience. I don’t know how many times we have been over a ¨th¨ sound. It isn’t found in the Spanish language and so their tongues just refuse to comply and make a proper ¨thhh¨ sound. Repeatedly, over and over, every single class period I stick my tongue out and make the sound, ¨thhhh¨… ¨thhhh¨ … ¨Como una cobra¨ or ¨like a snake, ¨ I say. We practice and practice making this sound and still there are only one or two students who are able to do it. Our number line consists of ten, eleven, twelve, a baker’s dozen, etc… with all hopes to avoid the ¨th¨ presence found in the number thirteen and with an additional hope to eventually move on to following numbers as well. I was about to tell my students that if they go to a store in the States, I don’t care what they are buying, it can’t be in the intervals of 3, 13, 30, or 300. Pick a different amount I would tell them, and I don´t care if you do happen to have thirteen kids.

This is how I felt initially during and in preparation for my English classes. I took upon myself the job of teaching English very seriously, a little too seriously looking back on it now. I made hundreds of copies of handouts and materials to give to my students, from grammar to mock conversations to endless amounts of vocabulary. It was way too much to look through, even for myself being an English-speaker. The secretaries at the municipal building had to politely cut me off from using their paper source and copy machine to make handouts for my students. I was a handout junky, and showed all of the normal responses to having an addiction. In my defense, I feel, I had every right to be slightly nervous regarding my prospective English classes. Here I was in a foreign country by myself, trying to teach in a foreign language to an unknown crowd ranging in anyamount and age possible. I had never even formerly taught anything to anyone prior to this in my life. In addition, it didn´t help that practically the entire town was interested in learning English, and not only that but seemed adamant about attending my classes. In that case, I was preparing for… what… a hundred students, if not more. Informational materials-ism was the ideology of choice to combat so many unknowns.

Well, needless to say, most of the handouts still sit idly by in the corner of my room. Gracias a Dios, less than twenty people consistently show up to my classes. That has been a perfect amount of people to work with. The handouts themselves have also proven to be just overly advanced for the majority of my students right now. Occasionally we will work with a new list of vocabulary words but it really isn´t entirely beneficial when we are still struggling to make ¨th¨ sounds. I will be able to use them someday, I´m sure, but not any time soon. The alphabet in its possession of sound combinations that are foreign and entirely confusing to Spanish speakers has proven a worthy nemesis for the moment.

I also eventually remembered, perhaps it became apparent just after a slight settling of my nerves, that I know English. I know it pretty damn well too, if I might add. Maybe my usages of commas or hyphens doesn´t always follow what a textbook would say to do, but I can speak. I know what words would be exchanged between two people meeting for the first time, or vocabulary for someone arriving at an airport, or even possible phrases for yelling when your cows escape. I guess maybe I don´t know the correct phrases to use for all of the hypothetical situations that I put together in our classes— like meeting someone in the airport whose cows have just escaped, but I can take a pretty good guess as to what would be said. Anyways, now I just show up to class with only one handout present and maybe a general idea of what could provide as a good activity for the day. Quite often I don´t do either, and I just show up. I´ll ask the students, ¨What would you all like to learn today?¨ They respond with, ¨words for family members, or body parts, or how to order food in a restaurant.¨ Then I will quickly set up a hypothetical situation involving family members talking about their body parts in a fancy restaurant. We have plenty of fun in our classes, did I mention that?, And often we tend to laugh more than speak either language.

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My front door Anyway, my point is this, that eating lots of bananas causes constipation. No, actually it doesn´t, maybe the stomach parasites help to cancel that out. I´m not really sure about that, but my body seems to do really well on bananas. My real point is this; as a Peace Corps volunteer it would appear that what we lack are resources. We lack the resources that are necessary for a quick improvement of conditions in our communities. We lack the resources often to even afford simple materials for our classes or workshops with kids. This is what can be frustrating. My title as a volunteer is ¨municipal development, ¨ implying that I am to work out of the municipal building headquarters of my pueblo to aid in the construction of new bridges, schools, roads or water projects in the rural areas, which don´t currently possess access to running water. I feel that the access to clean running water is something that as Americans we would all deem as a necessity and a priority for the community and its people. Therefore, I feel a strong urge to move forward with our potential water projects in the rural areas of my community, pronto... like now… and I´m not sure what the hold up is. It’s freaking water and the people need it. However, not only do I lack any real hands-on experience or knowledge regarding the commencement of water projects, but more importantly, the access to the necessary funds to support such an endeavor. Therefore, a Peace Corps volunteer is responsible for coordinating efforts between multiple organizations that may be willingto offer support. In result, once again, the word patience comes into play. The non-governmental organizations that may be willing to fund a project can be difficult to work with for a number of reasons. Most of which includes the reality that nobody is really that enthusiastic about freely giving away thousands of dollars. If an organization is willing to offer financial support for a developmental project they are most likely only interested in doing one at a time, and not without extensive and time consuming checks into the investment. This process could be the definition of the word ¨slow.¨ Also, heavily entrenched in the issue of funding is the reality that the volunteer happens to be working out of the municipal building and in-conjunction with a mayor of a specific political party. Politics in El Salvador is amazingly even more malicious and immature than what we entertain in the States. Thus a healthy dosage of political strategizing that accompanies the efforts of your co-workers adds a messy and frustrating component to a volunteer’s work. It is not uncommon in El Salvador for a mayor of a municipality to refuse services to, and even the communication between, a cantone that was found to be in favor of the other candidate during the previous election. But most of all, and due to the combination of all of these factors with a cultural tendency to ignore any sense of urgency, the process is slow. ¨Como una Tortuga va el proyecto¨ or ¨like a turtle goes the project¨ is the expression we use here. I am glad that they even have an expression for a slowly moving project. This implies that they at least recognize the relative slow pace of their work and don´t deny completely the fact that circumstances are certainly capable of moving faster. As an American, I feel that in order to get something done we would be inclined to just hire someone, tell them what you want, throw enough money at them, and just ram the project through. That doesn´t work here because there isn´t any money. Instead, the endeavor to accomplish anything requires the cultivation of something much deeper and closer to home. It would appear that what we attempt to do here is create something from nothing. With eyes fixed solely on progress and physical development it would certainly appear to be that way. But I have discovered the actions of a volunteer to be different, and often times precisely other than producing from nothing. What could possibly be made from nothing? The word ¨nothing¨ itself would provide the answer. Thus reaching into the bottom of the barrel of physical resources doesn´t always leave one with a flat and inescapable nothingness. In fact, it often allows, or perhaps forces, another aspect of creation to emerge that wasn’t being utilized before. The forces behind this new discovery seem to be purely whole and creatively inspired. This can be witnessed in the immense care, generosity, and sense of community that accompanies the carrying out of projects here. These attributes must be present, for there is nothing else remotely tangible to work through. I have never been a fan of labels or the pre-fixed connotations they often carry, but for the sake of comprehension I would be inclined to call this essence spirit. It is my greatest counterpart and the only one that consistently shows up on time. It isn´t to say that spirit doesn´t accompany many of the actions and projects that occur in nations with access to greater physical resources, because certainly it does, and in response some amazing things are capable of being carried out. Here, I feel, it is easier to witness first hand. Patience to me, therefore, is a word we use to describe an attribute of slowing down or even disregarding the often rapid pace of a desperate and unfulfilled mind just enough to notice the reflection of spirit unto our world. With experience comes the wisdom to hold this attribute. It is the process of running through experiences over and over and banging our heads against the walls of our limited reality that eventually exhaust and perhaps even wisen us. After winning and losing personal battles of every sort we eventually realize that there just isn´t anywhere truly better to go. This is the realization that has been the most terrifying for myself. The act of waking up to absolutely nothing, and doing it routinely. Having no obligations, no adversaries, no personal goals, nothing I am able to work on or truly help with, just nothing. Just me lying alone in a room listening to it rain once again. It is something that I detested early on, to the point of insanity, but have grown to tolerate and am becoming increasingly more comfortable with. I would normally refrain from any attempt at deriving a causal theory to the presence of limitations in my reality, but I have a theory. And ironically the theory itself centers around the possession of an idea. Upon my arrival to El Salvador I carried many ideas. I had an idea about everything. I had thoughts about who I was, what I was doing here, what I needed to be, and many many more. But more so than just possessing ideas regarding my own life I thought I knew how circumstances should appear regarding others´ lives as well. I thought I knew what circumstances it would take for one to be physically healthy, the proper ages for certain life events, and how time should be adhered to. Being thrown into circumstances that reflect a cultural discrepancy in each of these areas can leave one feeling like a constant outsider and most of all as if nothing was ever ¨right.¨ It left me feeling as if I was never ¨right¨ and an especially painful disparity was felt when my aspirations of being a ¨successful¨ volunteer were not being met. Certainly the customs here in El Salvador are different than most of ours in the States, but it is the word ¨right¨ that signifies the presence of a pre-fixed and stringent idea concerning the matter. The idea lays the foundation for a limited reality. It is the idea itself that interrupts an already inherent perfection in ourselves and others. That of which I seek is certainly present but merely twisted and contorted by self-concepts and ideas of how circumstances should appear. This is the flip-side to possessing a mind powerful enough to discriminate between circumstances. The ideas we cherish absolutely become our enemies to freedom simply because they are in exact opposition to the present wholeness of our reality. They are carrots on a stick that will forever be just outside our reach for fulfillment. Its like in the Empire Strikes Back when Luke is told by Yoda to enter into the magical ¨Cave of Fears¨ where one’s deepest and darkest fears are able to be revealed to them. Luke asks Yoda what he will find in the cave of fears and Yoda replies with, ¨only what you take with you.¨ Meaning that the images Luke will find are merely constructs of the concepts he already holds about himself and his reality. What Luke ends up finding in the cavern is an image of Darth Vador to which he immediately engages in battle. After decapitating the image of Darth Vador Luke sees his own face in the newly separated head. Upon seeing this visual, and considering the implication it made to a journey to the dark side of the force for Luke, he had had about enough of the cavern of fears and left abruptly. For Luke it was his aspiration of becoming a Jedi that caused him to fear immensely the circumstance of him turning to the dark side. This fear was brought ever closer to home after Luke made the discovery that Darth Vador, the embodiment of the dark side of the force, was also his paternal father and followed a similar path as Luke until his turn to the dark side. Luke wasn’t able to fully become a Jedi until he faced Darth Vador and resultantly the emotions in himself that he had once feared would lead him astray. He lost the previous concepts that he held concerning what it meant to be a Jedi. Only then was he actually a Jedi. I´m not a Jedi. But it wasn’t until I let go of the idea that I needed to be a ¨successful¨ Peace Corps Volunteer, and what attributes that entailed, was I finally able to be of some real help to my community. I am no longer attached to form that my work takes or the results that are subsequently produced. Therefore my work has moved to areas that I hadn’t previously conceived of myself being involved in. I also realized that I don´t need to work at this alone. In fact any changes that are to be made in the community should absolutely require a strong community involvement and thus take the form of their desire. The work I do here isn´t for myself, so why should I create myself in it? I get to go home after two years to the comfort of washing machines and hot water. Until then I am more than happy to help out with anything that I can, but I won’t be inclined to force anything for my benefit. In this newly created space I have found peace where previously had rested strong concepts of what I needed to be and how my reality should appear. I saw Garth again, the next morning, at the hotel breakfast. I said to him, ‘Hey Garth! What the hell are you doing here, man? Go home!’ He just smiled; I assumed he wasn’t at all interested in answering that question being so early in the morning or the thought of trying to explain a return home to himself or anyone else for that matter. For now, his home is room number twelve. Mine is Jocoro, El Salvador, and that is just fine by me. Adios! Ryan Waterfall in Perquin

Alba, one of my "other moms"10/1/2007I have touched base with the Universal Inspiration. I eat ice cream. I attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, teach English classes, play plenty of basketball and soccer, and comer bastante (get plenty to eat). I am also involved with the church´s youth and Bible study groups, but that is just for fun... I have found that that of which I seek is most certainly found in any situation imaginable, or should I say projectable. Whether it be behind the podium at our AA meetings sharing through broken Spanish stories from my days in the fraternity to hymns and Bible passages that I possibly wouldn´t understand even if they were in English, it´s there... In fact, the two groups provide a similar experience for me and often I have to remind myself in which manner I am expected to express at least a slight sense of guilt. But there is also a reverence found in each location that maintains my interest and my membership. Feeling proud about one´s situation in El Salvador, in the midst of material poverty and especially after a devastating civil war, can be difficult. So we start small... Alcoholism is prevalent in El Salvador and nearly half of the adult men are convinced that they suffer from this ¨enfermedad¨ or ¨sickness¨ in English. Young boys will voluntarily come to the 2-hour meetings that take place every single night as a method of prevention that in turn provides for an excellent men and boys´ club. There are executive positions to be had in the group. Each night attendance is taken, collections of a quarter are made, and the assets are carefully counted and tallied on a chalkboard for all to see. The monthly expenditures for the group include; bread, coffee, and sugar. Halfway through the meetings we enjoy our bread and drink our coffee, with plenty of sugar. The reverence normally ends there as it is common practice to bad mouth yourself or other drunks that do not attend the meetings. Either one is acceptable. At our Bible study groups we like to bash the AA members. Nobody realizes that I am playing for both teams, and absolutely love the people in each group. Occasionally something very profound will be said at either group. Perhaps even divine inspired... My friend, during one meeting, recounted that for him ¨Dios¨ or ¨God¨ is found half-way through a can of Pillsner. I understand that. For him before he opens the can he has to consider the consequences of his actions, whether he should be drinking, what will the other AA members say, etc. At the end of his can of beer he must decide what to do next. Another can? What will that cost? Should he have another? However, in the middle is pure experience, and in his mind comfort and occasionally even bliss. I understand this and it is the reason I go to these ridiculous meetings. I enjoy the people and it is where I find the most heartfelt and sincere expression amongst the adults. The subject matter couldn´t be any less important but we need something to bring us together... I feel good here. Each day promotes new circumstances and offers surprises that ultimately suggest I am never truly alone or lost. I have developed a great place in the community with lots of close friends and acquaintances that continually surprise me with deep and heartfelt expressions of care and sincerity. I have begun to teach English classes. That has been a wonderful opportunity to give back to a community that has remained ever so conscious of my needs upon my arrival here in Jocoro. I have thoroughly enjoyed coming up with fun and creative activities for the students. Right now we are exploring the music of the Beatles. Each class we have new activities to do with various Beatles songs. It is great to then hear in the market someone singing loudly for all to hear, ¨Let it Be.¨ I like that and it makes me feel part of things here... The culture here, carrying the same general characteristics of most Latin nations, is one that is centered less around the individual and more so on the collective experience of the community. It is often difficult for Americans to immerse themselves into this style of interaction, at least primarily. As Americans, I feel, our culture tends to promote an ideal of being a strong individual and raises us accordingly. This conflicts with a culture here that doesn´t recognize a need for individuality, privacy, or personal boundaries. There is no concept of ¨alone time¨ and nobody reads for enjoyment. These were difficult transitions for myself. But a closeness that can be shared with many many people is absolutely rewarding... Luckily, for now, I am seen as being a member of the community´s family. This is important here and dictates greatly one´s experience. I have found the thought processes here to be almostentirely dualistic. There is no grey area with nearly any perception made. One is either with the in-group or they must be with the out-group. You are either a follower of Christ or you revere more highly of the Devil, you can use either Tigo or Claro (you must decide), and most importantly it is between either Real Madrid or Barcelona futbol clubs (and you must make this decision before you come)... Being subject to this type of thinking was also a difficult transition for me, and I still don´t completely like it. However, I feel as though now I understand it more and am able to work through it without compromising too many of my own personal principles. Some of my most meaningful conversations occur between myself and the community members that get labeled as ¨drunks¨ or ¨prostitutes.¨ In fact the mayor´s wife and I had to have a conversation about this very thing. She tends to worry often about my reputation amongst other community members. She is also someone who takes excellent care of me and invests the most time in my well-being. Being two sides to every coin I just try to enjoy the perks of being seen as a family member to the community... I haven´t eaten dinner in my home for weeks now. Nearly every night I am invited over to someplace different to share in a cuisine that I am told is very special but to me appears and tastes exactly the same as everywhere else. I understand what they are trying to say and I appreciate every gift I am offered no matter how greasy or excessively sugary it may be. What it represents is beautiful, and never seems to stop. In fact, if I may suggest I have found that the can of beer that my friend equates to his personal bliss never does seem to run dry. The deep generosity I have been shown from the community members represents to me an eternal loving experience of the grandest proportions. A book I just finished reading for a second time is titled, ¨Eat, Pray, Love.¨ It centers around one woman´s year long journey alone and through foreign countries in search of a deeper aspect to herself. Along the way she is continually helped and guided by passing strangers and forms remarkable bonds to the most unlikely of people following similar paths. In the end of her book she attempts to pay recognition to each person that provided assistance to her in one manner or another during her travels, but instead found it impossible to rightfully do so. She writes, ¨In the end, though, maybe we must give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it is wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosityand to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.¨ We are that generosity. We can´t ever be separate from it. Don´t worry, don´t worry, don´t worry and give, give, give. And, a very very special thanks to all who have been sending packages! Adios! Ryan

I am known as "Don Blancito"

8/22/2007 My new apartment is cool. I’ll get some pics up of it soon. I have furniture now; a mattress, two dressers, a mirror, a stove top, and a very small frig. I enjoy my nights with a book lying in the hammock on the back patio. Currently I am re-reading “The Autobiography of a Yogi,” Paramahansa Yogananda´s book. I forgot just how wonderful that book is. I play soccer on Sundays with my neighborhood’s team. We are the Barrio Nuevo Tortas and we have really cool jerseys. ¨Torta¨ means ¨a fat person¨ in Spanish, and we have a few. The team is a motley crew of old fat men, myself, and two boys that are 14 years old. We are pretty bad compared to the competition. The Barrio Nuevo Tortas haven´t won a game yet and our last meeting resulted in a 10-0 loss. We consistently seem to play eighteen year olds that are in perfect shape and incredibly good at soccer. Despite our outcomes I have a good time and enjoy being a part of the team.

I am meeting people poco a poco and feeling increasingly connected to my community. My work right now involves getting to know physically each section of the city and rural communities. I attend meetings in the alcaldia (city hall). A project in motion currently is the construction of a new school in one of the neighboring cantones. The project was due in large part tothe coordinating efforts of Kris, the former PC volunteerin Jocoro. He contacted FUSADES, an El Salvadorian NGO, whom work with Japanese beneficiaries to carry out development projects. Kris was very diligent and persistent in his efforts to initiate the school project and I am enjoying/learning greatly from reading over his paperwork. Using the same combination of organizations there is a potentiality for a portable water project to be carried out next year in one of the cantones. I am trying to learn as much as I can to take part in the project. In the meantime I am ever working to improve my Spanish abilities and hope to start teaching English classes soon. (8/19/2007 - Update: Ryan moved into his new apartment in Jocoro. It’s quite simple; one square room, no furniture, two windows with bars (but no glass or screens) “services” and a hammock in the back yard. Today he’s on a trip to San Salvador with the mayor to begin planning for a newschool. (8/12/2007 - Update: Ryan moves to Jocoro at the end of this week, following a “swearing in” ceremony in San Salvador conducted by the U.S. Ambassador.) 8/1/2007 My 10 week training period is up next week and I just received my site assignment. It is the town of Jocoro (pronounced hocoro) in the estado(state)of Morazan, in the eastern part of El Salvador, 82 miles east of San Salvador, and about 40 miles from the ocean. It sounds great. It is a decently sized pueblo that is relatively developed. They seem to have all of the basic services for the people and many other services as well. It is run by the political party Frente. If you are not up on your El Salvadorian politics, that is the left wing party, and the mayor isrumored to be very laid back. So it sounds alright. The only thing I keep hearing that is slightly scary is that it is Hot! Real Hot! But it is in a nice part of the country and just below a very great place for tourism and hiking in the mountains. On Monday I leave for Jocoro for 4 days. I get to meet people and look for a house. Adios. 7/30/2007 Hola Todos y Todas, and for those not fluent in Spanish, hello everyone! Don’t worry, much likemy friend Jesse´s parking job, my language abilities still leave much to be desired. Thanks to everyonefor the e-mails and blog comments. They are much appreciated. I only wish I had more time to respond to each one in greater detail. The training program here rarely allows for adull moment and least of alltime for reflection. I have been a part of many interesting events and activities and after each one I debate on writing about it. It always just seems too secondary of an experience to isolate myself and document the event. Normally I just can’t force myself to do it. In addition itdoesn’t help that I am usually just too physically exhausted to stay up past 8:30pm. The roosters here begin their song and dance around 4am, church bells ring every half hour beginning at 5am, birds and cats patrol my roof around 5:15am, and my family and dogs are always up and going by 5:30am. Early mornings and the cognitive energy spent constantly deciphering and interpreting between two languages makes for a long and tiring day. This is the routine that I have become accustomed to, and more so I have found immense joy in. My days here as of late, although still extremely busy and still somewhat stressful, are becoming increasingly comfortable. The time that I do get off is enjoyed thoroughly in mylittle pueblo of Santo Domingo. Having been forced by pressing circumstances to release previous tendencies in thought and behavior I feel as though a tremendous weight has been lifted from my character. Within that extra space I feel fuller. Most of all I am building upon a strong foundation of trust in myself and reverence for everything that is, or that isn’t, depending on yourphilosophy. I don’t know how better to explain it and yet I still feel as though I am not giving the experience themerit that it deserves. Maybe in essence that is to be expected. One of my favorite Indian Gurus, Ramana Maharshi, used to end every one of his spiritual talks by saying, ¨Now go find out.¨ I’m beginning to understand why. Continued below:

The hotel we stayed at in the mountains of Perquin.
Our cabin for the night.

Our group meeting with a war veteran and listening to his story.The memorial site where the massacre of Mozote took place. My friends with the two previous volunteers in my new site. Kris and Hanna, a married couple now returning to Seattle Washington. They left me big shoes to fill. My new car! I got a pretty good deal on it, maybe a slight gringo tax.The beginning of the greasy pole fiasco as the entire town watched. (Story below.)

The three of us made it up a good 10 feet, and then were puzzled to find that there was still much more pole left. There was plenty of falling down involved. Myself being drunk with the revelation of insurmountable odds, my partners remained solely drunk.
With reinforcements we were able to build a strong effort. Eventually the pole was scaled and the town was saved!

To quickly recap some events that you all may find interesting:

- During a three day immersion exercise I traveled to Chalatenango, one of the 14 departamentos that compose El Salvador. There I stayed with a family in the cantones. A cantone is a rural outskirt from a municipality. Life there posses as much variability from the pueblos as El Salvador does from the United States. It was very different and fun to be a part of. There was no electricity present, water was pumped from a nearby river, and every type of animal native to the region coexists with the people. I was quickly put to work in the maiz field and later got the opportunity to milk cows, feed chickens, and meetevery single person living within the proximity. ¨Gringo TV¨ is a term we use for when the native people sit and stare at you without conversation, and for no particular reason besides simple curiosity. I got to experience Gringo TV to the fullest in the cantones. One of the other trainees commented that it is fine for them to watch Gringo TV as long as they don’t have the remote. It was a terrible joke, but I laughed.

-An activity included in the Peace Corps training program required us to individually, and in Spanish, give a “charla” to a local classroom of students. A charla is a common activity here that normally includes an ice-breaking activity, an informational presentation of a topic, followed lastly by a snack session. My chosen topic was communication skills and the targeted audience was the 6th grade in my community. I had several interactive group activities planned that were designed to facilitate an opportunity for the kids to discover, on their own, the importance and benefits of good tactics for communicating. Other lofty possibilities included the children discussing the importance of good communication in worldly affairs and maybe even recognizing that the ability to understand another person’s perspective can be used as a mechanism to avoid conflict. Well that was the plan at least, and it looked great on paper. In actuality, problems arose and communication lines were severed between the students and me. The local school had been experiencing sewage problems for weeks prior and were eventually forced to hold classes elsewhere while human waste was removed from the school hallways. The 4th, 5th, and 6th grades, each of which was composed of over 40 children, were holding classes in one enclosure. I was responsible for giving a charla to the 6th grade in the midst of a 4th and 5th grade of which were busy enjoying an unstructured recess. There was no communication between the kids and me. Some groups spent the entirety of the time drawing ridiculous pictures. Others simply refused to interact and pretended not to understand the directions. While the majority of the students, and maybe even a teacher or two, spent the time chasing each other around or asking me questions about the United States. There was one point towards the end of my presentation which captured the attention of the students. I had regrettably wrote at the bottom of my last giant page of quality information the phrase, ¨Dulces para todos!¨ Which translates into nothing short of, ¨Candy for everyone!¨ Someone must have been paying attention because a chant of ¨Dulces para todos, Dulces para todos!¨ rang out through the classroom and didn’t stop until every student did in fact have dulces in their hands. The experience was horrendous and possessed a typical flavor of Peace Corps protocol which lets you fall directly on your face and then be required to pick yourself up and put back together the pieces. I still don’t think I am worthy of any teacher of the year awards but since then I have given many relatively successful charlas on leadership skills, the English language, and nutrition. They have all been much better, but I am still looking to one day inflict my communication charla on somebody...

-The Municipal Development group took a two day trip to Perquin, a beautiful mountain location in />Northwestern El Salvador. Perquin is a region that has the potential to become a great place for tourism. There are several NGO´s (non-governmental organizations), GO´s, and Peace Corps volunteers currently working to aid the developing region. Aside from being a location of tremendous natural beauty the area also posses historical significance to the country of El Salvador. During the civil war of the 80´s and early 90´s the departamentos of Morazán housed the center of the resistance movement. Guerrilla fighters set up strongholds throughout the mountainous region and communities were forced to band together to fight off the impeding government troops. We visited two museums, the first of which has a historical telling of the events during the war. The second museum provided a rather difficult and emotionally laden endeavor. We traveled to the town of Mozote where during the war took place a horrific massacre of an entire pueblo. In 1981, civilians gathered in the pueblo to avoid the conflict of the war. The government forces were not winning the battle at the time and recognized the event of people massing in Mozote as an opportunity to make a statement of terrible power and authority over the region. The soldiers massacred over 935 men, women, and children. As disturbing as it was to recount the details of the event it was increasingly terrifying to be reminded that it was the United States, during the Reagan administration, that provided the financing, weaponry and training to the El Salvadorian army to crush the political uprising of the lower class. The United States, at the time being terrified of spreading communism, trained the troops who committed the massacre in Texas and Georgia. As one can imagine being from the States makes it difficult to discuss the war with ex-guerrilla fighters and people currently living in post-war El Salvador. However, the people here are wonderful in their understanding of our situation and don’t at all hold resentment against us. They are quick to point out that our government was the entity involved and we held no responsibility for the situation. However, some of us still remain skeptical of the United State’s involvement during the war andthe current involvement in El Salvadorian politics.

-To end on a lighter note, the last of the noteworthy events involve the patron saint of my pueblo, Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo as I imagine was a dynamic individual with brown hair and a short brown beard. He was some Spanish guy, and I was lucky enough to carry a life size figurine of him through the town on one of many processions in his honor. When we arrived back at the church and carefully set the honorable Santo Domingo on the ground I happened to be standing next to him causing the collection of people to begin remarking at how much we resembled each other. The resemblance really is quite remarkable and it provided for a very awkward situation on my behalf.

Each year a week long festival is held in honor of Santo Domingo. The festival encompasses the entire community. Vendors set up shops, carnival rides are assembled, food is prepared, a plethora of fireworks are enjoyed, live bands perform endlessly, and there is dancing... oh is there dancing! The festivalkicks off at 4am on the first night and doesn’t stop until a week later. The majority of the people hardly sleep during the festival. The dances go all night and the fireworks and music begin at 5am the next day. It is insane. There are parades, beauty pageants, and various competitions. One particular activity resulted in myself once again being put on show for an entire community of spectators. A tradition involving a 40 foot greased up wooden pole was erected upright in town square. At the top was a flag and in between was a heavy coating of Vaseline and various other greases. Whoever can get to the flag is entitled to a prize of $100 cash held by the mayor. It sounds easy enough and worth trying, to me at least. But what I didn’t know, and the mayor neglected to tell me, was that it is absolutely impossible for one person to climb the pole himself. In fact a group of at least 10-12 men is necessary to succeed in the endeavor. Each year, using a sophisticated technique of stacking and reinforcing, a group of climbers end up splitting the prize. Coaxed by my American counterparts, and while the entire town watched, myself and another man at attempted to scale the pole. My partner, although initially appearing to be remarkably determined, quickly reveled himself to be obscenely drunk. He and I put on a ridiculous display of climbing on top of each other and then falling down that lasted nearly 20 mins. To say the least, we failed. However, we did eventually reach the top with the help of 10 other more experienced greasy pole climbers. I made $11, but I still smell like grease.

(7/16/2007)We visited a current volunteer´s site and participated in a paper recycling workshop.

Ninos busy recycling paper.

Steve working with the boys.

A group presenting their work on why it isn´t a great idea to throw trash on the ground or in the rivers.

The view from Allison´s house (the volunteer we visited).

My friends and I in our pueblo celebrating Quiyen´s birthday.

Strange fruit, sleeping dog... maybe we don´t need a caption here.

(6/26/2007)Working with kids in Santo Domingo to figure out proper trash disposal.In the future we will get to climb that volcano on the left.

Tags: Picture tag here.

(6/17/2007) My situation here has certainly improved from the time when the word ¨diarrhea¨ was used as a verb and took the place of ¨going to the bathroom.¨ ¨Let me diarrhea before we get on the bus again¨ is a phrase heard less often amongst the other volunteers and I. Instead it has been replaced with what could easily be overstated as an air of confidence or familiarity with our situation, but most certainly a comfort with each other. Getting to know the other trainees has been a thoroughly enjoyable experience thus far. Unfortunately, it is under a bitter sweet context as we will have to depart from each other when it is time to head off to our individual sites upon the conclusion of training. That will be the real endeavour; the ¨Big Time.¨ These next few months are only a pseudo-immersion as we are able to confide in familiar comforts with each other. It is hilarious to observe what each of our minds choose as the one thing we would do anything for. Top of the list includes pizza, any movie in english, any clean restaurant, a hot shower, and much much more. Americans are difficult to break! But it is still early and there are many more pupusas to be had. During one of our training sessions one of my favorite fellow volunteers asked if the work we are doing here is ever sustainable. Her questions seem to usually result in a jolt to our collective reality that leaves us all with the momentary sting of having to reestablish our boundaries. The trainer, conflicted by being both determined and intelligent, was forced to answer ¨no, our efforts are often not sustainable.¨ To that we had nothing to say, but merely the ability to move on to the next topic of how to better facilitate our unsustainable efforts. ¨Why?¨ Is a very simple question that has always plagued me. It is particularly difficult to avoid when you are knee deep in diarrhea. (We love diarrhea jokes here, it is our only reliable form of entertainment.) But the answer comes, not in so many words or even one definitive idea, but merely in a feeling of purity that can´t be mistaken. If I were to offer advise to anyone still reading past my diarrhea jokes I would suggest that ourreality is best used as a simple vehicle to bring through ever-deepening layers of our true nature. I find that a richer experience can be had when there is less emphasize placed on the form that our essence appears to manifest as. It could not be more painfully obvious thatstriving for certain results in this world is utterly nonessential. Nobody really expects anything from us, and if they appear to do so then their search is mislead. So see not a burden of responsibility or a triviality in events, but rather each engagement as an opportunity to bring forth heaven on earth. Only in this manner are we able to produce anything being both worthy and capable of sustainability. On that note I think I still have time for one more good diarrhea before bed. Adios! The middle area of my host family"s house. I like to spend time in that chair.This is the laundry station. I am still learning the fundamentals of washing cloths by hand. This is the kitchen.Maria and Fabio are my host parents. Their niece visiting from the States is on the right. Melinda, Qyuinn, and Rebecca are the other trainees living in Santo Domingo. Idalia, our Spanish teacher is in the middle.This was a small dance party held during a fathers day celebration at my host family"s house.Gringos!Fabio is a dancer.So is Maria.(6/10/2007) HolaTodos y Todas,The daily downpour began so suddenly this afternoon that it knocked a cat off of our roof. I made the comment to my host mother that a dog will most likely follow next. Instead of laughing she provided me with my first lesson in cultural exchange; popular sayings are not universally shared. Little did I know this would becomeacommon trend. I arrived in El Salvador last week and am currently living with a host family in the town of Santo Domingo. The municipal can fittingly be described as a rather tranquil and closely-knit community. Mi casa is adjacent to the town center, where in lies a small park and a basketball court. Seldom can the streets of Santo Domingo be caught without multitudes of passing dogs, vendors, and unaccompanied children. By far the most practiced pastime is to sit somewhere in the vicinity of town square and engage passers with a conversation or at least a simple ¨bueno.¨ I enjoy the location of the house and look forward to becoming more involved with the community. I am lucky to be living in a house that is relatively large by El Salvadorian standards. The house is rectangular in design and in the middle lies, for the lack of a better word, a small forest. I have my own room equipped with an overhanging light bulb and a much needed mosquito net covering my bed. Bathing is done in a slightly different manner; buckets of cold water! But for all intents and purposes I am fortunate to have received a host family that is extremely generous and supportive. They seem invested in my situation and have excitedly assumed the role of personal language and custom tutors. For the next three months I will be engaged in a language and technical training that can often times feel rather intensive. This results in a direct contradiction to the apparent El Salvadorian way of life. Whether it be the product of tremendous hardship or a cultural discrepancy there is a feeling of general looseness herethat is difficult to find in the States. Time constraints are a foreign concept and meeting times are generally not adhered to. It makes the activity of ¨getting things done¨ rather difficult and offers a resounding suggestion to just enjoy circumstances as they reside. I am still adapting in many ways to this manner of life and if my stomach could offer it´s sentiments it would declare nothing less thananimmediate return to the States. But fortunately its not calling the shots so I will remain here and discover what my situation offers. ¡Hasta Luego! Ryan My home for the next 10 weeks (host family house in Santo Domingo)Santo Domingo ninos y ninas (6/7/2007 - Ryan arrived in San Vicente to begin his 10 weeks of training. The El Salvador Peace Corps office is located there. Tomorrow he will meet his host family which he will be living with for the duration of the training period. He reports that it's very hot, all the trainees are exhausted, but very excited.)(6/5/2007 - Ryan left D.C. for San Salvador Tuesday morning.)(6/4/2007 - Ryan left St. Louis for Washington D.C. Sunday morning.) (Click on Show Recent below to see reader's comments.)

When did I leave for El Salvador?On June 3, 2007 I left St. Louis to attend a two-day staging event in Washington, D.C., and then got on a plane to San Salvador on the 5th. How long will I be here?The standard term of service for Peace Corps Volunteers is 27 months, which includes 10 weeks of training and two years of service. So my term ends August, 2009.Will I come back to the States at any point during my service?Possibly; I’ll have to see how I feel about it once I’m established in my new environment. Volunteers get 24 vacation days a year, and there are no restrictions on where we can travel outside of letting a bunch of people know where we’re going to be. The Peace Corps strongly encourages us not to go home; cultural immersion is a big part of what the Peace Corps wants for its volunteers, and there’s a sense that returning home throws off that dynamic. How long is my training going to last, and where will it be held?In-country training is currently scheduled to run through August 10th. Training will take place in San Vicente, a small city of 70,000 about an hour away from San Salvador by bus. I will be staying with a host family nearby.What will training consist of?Language training, cross-cultural training, team-building exercises in our skill areas, and standard Peace Corps guidelines on how to stay safe and conduct ourselves and stay out of trouble.What am I going to be doing in El Salvador?I will be working on the Municipal Development project, which is geared toward strengthening democracy. In broad terms, this means helping the local government improve services to their constituents, and helping citizens become more involved in local politics. What this means in terms of my daily activities will depend on which town I’m in.How many Peace Corps volunteers are there in El Salvador?There are currently around 130, and 34 are working in municipal development.What will my living situation be like?All I know for sure is that I’ll be living in the downtown area of a city somewhere, and that I’ll probably have my own space. In terms of the standard of living, my home could be a modest one-bedroom apartment with running water and electricity, an adobe clay hut with a dirt floor and no utilities, or something in between. Will the Peace Corps pay me for my work as a volunteer?The Peace Corps pays for flights to and from the host country at the beginning and end of service, and provides a living stipend for rent, food, and transportation expenses based on the cost of living in the host country. All volunteers receive a repatriation bonus of around $6,000 after completing their 27 month service.Is the Peace Corps a government agency? The Peace Corps is an independent agency within the executive branch of the United States government. The President of the United States appoints the Peace Corps director and deputy director, and the appointments must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Initially established by President John F. Kennedy by Executive Order on March 1, 1961, the Peace Corps was formally authorized by the Congress on September 22, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act. The first volunteer started service on August 29, 1962. The Peace Corps enjoys bipartisan support in Congress. One senator (Chris Dodd) and six representatives served as Volunteers themselves. Among the seven returned Volunteers in Congress are both Democrats and Republicans. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is charged with general oversight of the activities and programs of the Peace Corps, and the House Committee on International Relations serves a similar function. The Peace Corps' annual budget is determined each year by the congressional budget and appropriations process, and is part of the foreign operations budget. The Peace Corps' annual budget for fiscal year 2005 was $317 million. The Peace Corps budget is about 1 percent of the foreign operations budget.What's the Status of the Peace Corps in El Salvador? Peace Corps/El Salvador, which began in 1962, was one of the agency's earliest efforts. Since then more than 1,500 Volunteers have served there. The program was closed in 1980 because of civil war and reopened in 1993, after the war had ended.Today, Peace Corps Volunteers coordinate with local municipalities, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and community groups to develop better water systems, make health and sanitation improvements, provide environmental education, and assist municipal development projects. In the aftermath of earthquakes, Volunteers played a key role in providing damage assessments, which helped the government and local NGOs facilitate the distribution of resources to the most affected communities. Just as important as the Volunteer's primary job is the cultural exchange that occurs with the Salvadoran people. Volunteers live together with Salvadorans and teach each other about their histories, languages, and cultures and most importantlly serve as "good will ambassadors" for the U.S. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Contact MeIf you have someting to tell me, you can "Add you own" comments to this journal (which everyone will see - but, I just found out that you need your own AOL account to do that), or you can e-mail me at: ryan.beech@gmail.com If you would like to send me a package, here is the address to send it to (my work address). Ryan BeechAlcaldia MunicipalAv. Julio Ventura y Calle Gustavo GuerreroBo. El CentroJocoro, MorazanEl SalvadorMy cell phone: 011-503-7892-3366 Note: In an emergency, please notify the Peace Corps Office of Special Services. During normal business hours, call 800-424-8580, select option 2, then extension 1470. After normal business hours and on weekends and holidays, call 202-638-2574. Link to the Peace Corps site:http://www.peacecorps.gov Disclaimer This Journal is private and personal and in no way represents the views, opinions, and policies of the United States Government, the Peace Corps, or the Government of El Salvador. ABOUT EL SALVADOR HistoricalBackground El Salvador achieved independence from Spain in 1821 and from the Central American Federation in 1839. A 12-year civil war, which cost about 75,000 lives, was brought to a close in 1992 when the U.S. backed right-wing government and leftist rebels signed a treaty that provided for military and political reforms. Size 21,040 km (slightly smaller than Massachusetts)Climate Tropical on the coast, temperate inuplands. Temperatures are around 87-92 degrees Fahrenheit year-round. Two seasons: rainy season is from May to October, dry season from November to April. (Still not as hot as a St. Louis summer day.)Terrain Mostly mountains with narrow coastal belt and central plateau. El Salvadoris known as the Land of Volcanoes, with frequent and sometimes very destructive earthquakes and volcanic activity. The country's location also makes it extremely susceptible to hurricanes. Geography El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America and the only one without a coastline on the Caribbean sea. It's about 300 miles south of New Orleans, and closer to St. Louis than San Francisco.Population 6,704,932 (as of July 2005)Ethnicities Mestizo 90% (mixed Indian & Spanish) , white 9%, Amerindian 1%Values El Salvador has the strictest abortion laws in Central America. Not only are there no exceptions for rape, incest, fetal deformity, or protecting the life of the mother, but in the most extreme cases women have been convicted of aggravated homicide andsentenced to years in prison. (NY Times Magazine, Apr. 9, 2006) Religions Roman Catholic 83%, Other 17%Note: There is extensive activity by Protestant groups throughout the country; by the end of 1992, there were an estimated 1 million Protestant evangelicals in El Salvador. Languages Spanish, Nahua (among some Amerindians)Literacy Definition: Age 10 and over can read and writeTotal population: 80.2%Male: 82.8%Female: 77.7% (2003 est.) Government RepublicCapital San SalvadorAdministrativeDivisions 14 departments (departamentos, singular -departamento); Ahuachapan, Cabanas, Chalatenango, Cuscatlan, La Libertad, La Paz, La Union, Morazan, San Miguel, San Salvador, San Vicente, Santa Ana, Sonsonate,Usulutan LocalGovernance 262 municipalities (a bit of an anomaly; Costa Rica has three times the land mass as El Salvador but only one third the number of municipal governments) ExecutiveBranch Chief of state: President Elias Antonio SACA Gonzalez (since 1 June 2004); Vice President Ana Vilma DE ESCOBAR (since 1 June 2004); note - the president is both the chief of state and head of governmentHead of government: President Elias Antonio SACA Gonzalez (since 1 June 2004); Vice President Ana Vilma DE ESCOBAR (since 1 June 2004); note - the president is both the chief of state and head of governmentCabinet: Council of Ministers selected by the presidentElections: President and vice president elected on the same ticket by popular vote for five-year terms; election last held 21 March 2004 (next to be held March 2009)Election results: Elias Antonio SACA Gonzalez elected president; percent of vote - Elias Antonio SACA Gonzalez (ARENA) 57.7%, Schafik HANDAL (FMLN) 35.6%, Hector SILVA (CDU-PDC) 3.9%, other 2.8% LegislativeBranch Unicameral LegislativeAssembly or Asamblea Legislativa (84 seats; members are elected by direct, popular vote to serve three-year terms)Elections: Last held 16 March 2003 (next to be held March 2006)Election results: Percent of votebyparty - NA%; Seats by party - FMLN 31, ARENA 28, PCN 15, PDC 5, CD 5 JudicialBranch Supreme Court or Corte Suprema (judges are selected by the Legislative Assembly)For more information on El Salvador history, politics, culture, music, etc., view these two sites:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_SalvadorLonely Planet Online - El Salvador

College graduation - May 2007--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Me and Tom Jefferson. The Family - Graduation DayClick on this link to see my Spanish class project: (It's about my Mexican co-workers at Moe's -- Be sure to see the end.)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ0m6-f8JHY---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Click on this link to see my California trip slide show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrYPo8gWwEM Deep Thoughts
8/24/2007I have begun my descent. No, I´m not in an airplane, but in similar fashion I am ready to land somewhere different. A different plane of existence, and the key word being different, not plane. Descent is a process during the human experience that precedes rebirth and follows just after obliging to undertake a difficult task or otherwise known as a ¨calling.¨ Being called from comfortable surroundings in order to face dragons and monsters galor has always been the role of a mythological hero. During the hero´s journey he/she, but lets be real it is usually a he (I always make a point to enjoy the advantages of a machismo based culture), suffers greatly in the task and undergoes some form of either literal or symbolic death. The death is a release and allows the hero access to a greater collective power source that he was previously detached from. There are many books on this subject and I wrote a paper discussing this common process easily recognizable in literature of nearly all cultures. I found it tremendously interesting and obviously inspired by the human drama or perhaps predicament. The bottom line is this, in order for one to discover a fuller and grander version of themselves there must be a release of the previous deterrences. We often call this growth and speak highly of it, but seldom do we remember the important step of release. That is the part that often hurts. In essence it is death. A large part of me is dying and absolutely reluctant to do so. I am reassured slightly by a hint of faith in the process and an elementary knowledge of a higher self. Ergo I have begun a descent to face the dragons of my mind and I can feel the reluctance brewing inside me. However, I am deterrmined to take my descent by storm and move through it with a passion for release. So to the tune of ¨let it be,¨ and myself sobbing in the background, let´s get through this stage of development. This entry is inspired by change. More so the appearance of differing circumstances accompanied by the loss of familiarity. Twice now I have experienced drastic changes in environment just within the past 3 months. First I left behind a life filled with family, friends, and a girlfriend, all of whom I love. Next I was united with a small group of trainees fixed on a similar path as my own, and a most quirky and compassionate El Salvadorian family. All of whom I grew to love and care for sincerely. Then I left again... I feel as if most would not linger in their thoughts of love loss so deeply as I do. But I feel more than I think and posses not ambitions or expectations for worldly advancement. Thus I am left without a crutch to safely lean on. Trapped on the fringe of existence in this world I find myself somewhere in between aspirations of being and not being. The space is vast and I am reassured only by the certainty that fools strive sincerely to become something. I normally avert from writings of distinct pessimism, but I am left with no choice amongst such overwhelming contradiction. My former ambitions to create a life of subsequent worth are continually vexed by the¨laws of nature¨ we succumb to. Going to such lengths to avoid what I already am is a task too outrageous for my liking and with the potential for this ambition to reappear at a moments notice makes me want to cry. One of my favorite quotes in the past came from a Crosby, Stills, and Nash song, ¨Love loss, such a cost, give me something that won´t get tossed. Like a coin that won´t get tossed rolling home to you.¨ I searched far and wide for this very thing. I sought for permanence in belief and philosophy. I sought for permanence in thought. And since everything I know is lined with the thread of impermanence I sought to separate myself from nearly everything that will eventually disappear. Needless to say, I didn´t find what I was looking for, due in part because I am here. Or at least I possess a very convincing belief that I am here. And in the presence of continually changing circumstances I have realized one important thing. There is no love loss, not really. Merely there is an ability we each hold to separate ourselves from an awareness of love´s presence. It is here now, in this language holding this form. But that is not to say that it isn´t found in any other language taking on any other form. We hold the choice to recognize it. Potentially, love could be my last crutch holding me upwards from nonexistence. Well, if that is the case, then so be it, there really isn´t much I can do in response but await the eternal thrill of nonexistence. So in the mean time I plan on recognizing love here, once again. Switching gears slightly but still sticking with the theme of the day I would like to comment on love in the romantic realm for a moment. Since this is my ¨journal¨ I do feel so inclined. I have never had a journal before. This is kind of cool. In my experience, romantic love being sweet and innocent in nature, also accompanies conditionalities of which unmet go become forces of intense suffering and despair. What is the root of necessity for conditions in our love? I read somewhere that our special loves always stem from our special hates. The hatred is directed towards ourselves, from ourselves, and requires the search for outward recognition and acceptance. A truly depressing thought, but recently having been subject to long periods of unstructured time spent in solidarity, I can profess to a defiantpresence of self-hatred and intolerance. Being alone for so long simply hurts and causes one to face uncomfortable perceptions that were otherwise avoided through numerous distractions and entertainments in multitudes. What I wouldn´t give to watch one man throw a small round object at another man with a stick, I think they call it baseball. Speaking of which, how are the Cards doing? We won the World Series last year, great! I still hate being alone with myself. I recently experienced strong feelings for an idea. Or should I say, I met a girl. She was afriend and a companera during times of trial for both of us. During moments she became my focus of intense feelings of longing. It is the idea that sabotages the engagement. An idea that impregnates the union with unfulfillable stipulations, mainly being a mode for salvation from intense feelings of longing (And no I didn´t impregnate anyone that word carries a different context). It is our ineptitude for comfort in ourselves that ultimately leaves the feelings hollowed out and unable to remain consistent. I mention all of this, one because it is my journal and I have never had a journal before, and two because I see this process of courtship as being symbolic of the happenings in our own inner dwellings. Being alone most of late, I have become quite intimate with my inner dialogue. It is a relationship in itself, often dysfunctional, and in desperate need of mending. I understand why we seek refuge in dialogues outside ourselves, it is relatively safer. There is a perception of physical distance that can be relied upon to remain present. When the time is right the two bodies can go their separate ways and safely place blame or explanation upon the other party. This simply isn´t the case in our own minds. The ego isn´t as easily divorced. I am seldom critical of love, even in the romantic sense, but during my descent phase I find a cloak of confusion to be spread over nearly everything. I assume I am supposed to be alone right now. As far as the girl goes, which I´m sure is what everyone is interested in mostly, there isn´t much to say. Much like the disconnect in mymind we are currently unable to share anything. There are too many misperceptions in each of us that need to be dealt with individually.I feel that there comes a point in self discovery when relationships function as barriers to hide behind. Currently, during a definite phase of descention from previous patterns in thought and behavior, is a time of tremendous self-discovery. It shouldn´t come as a surprise to me that placeing awareness outside of myself just isn´t ideal. I care for her greatly in a manner as gentle and consistent as a flowing spring. However, the burning conditionalities that manifest as my feelings sprung from an inner animosity, must be let to dissolve first. Only then can a stream composed of unconditional love bubble forward for both myself and her. I see this as a process that becomes easily articulated through romance but in which lies indispensably as the individual and collective work for all men and women.This may be my last writing for a while. During my descent I offer no words of encouragement or inspiration of any kind. If I may suggest, however, it is more inspiring to me of the process itself and not a specific position in it. I really don´t feel that I could ever be truly lost from it, although there are times when it feels to the contrary. Until next time I wish you all tremendous love and luck on your own paths. My only advice is to not be afraid. I feel we are always in the perfect position to work from our level of understanding regarding ourselves and our place in the cosmos. I love you all and look forward to a day when I will be ascendinginto a heavenly embrace with each one of you. RyanDisclaimer Este diario es privado y personal y representa de ninguna manera las vistas, las opiniones, y las políticas del gobierno de Estados Unidos, del cuerpo de paz, o del gobierno de El Salvador. This Journal is private and personal and in no way represents the views, opinions, and policies of the United States Government, the Peace Corps, or the Government of El Salvador. aoljpictureUpload, aoljpictureUpload_2