In case of flood, do not use stairs.

10/22/11 The storm has passed and the sun has returned. From around the tenth to the twentieth we weathered a couple of major storms, with rain lasting the whole ten days and not a ray of sunshine. The news said it was the worst storm in about 50 years, killing more than thirty people here in El Salvador and leaving many more homeless. The main dangers were houses built near rivers and landslide areas. Luckily where I live has not been too deforested, so there is not much landslide danger. The Peace Corps put us on house arrest to minimize travel and dangerous situations, so that meant ten days of not going outside or really doing anything. I am taking the GRE (standardized test for admission to grad schools) next month so the rain did give me a good chance to study. Everyone was definitely going stir crazy by the end though. I have never been more delighted to wake up to sunshine finally streaming back into my life. In other news, I received a kindle from Mom for my birthday, which I had been wanting but could not rationalized buying for myself. This little gadget can surf the internet using cell phone signal for FREE even here, and Amazon foots the bill. Being able to check email, facebook, news, and blogs from my village has been a revelation; it makes such a big difference in staying connected and not feeling like I live on a different planet than everyone else. Thanks Mom! School was closed for the duration of the storm, and will be open only for another 2-3 weeks before the 2.5 month break. This also coincides with the coffee picking season, which means no work for me to do until February. If you remember last year, I have retired from coffee picking, luckily I don’t have to work all day in the fields to make $5. In February I plan to do a world map mural on the side of the school, give the teachers more classes on how to use our new laptop and projector set up, and make sure we get this reading pavilion thing built at the school (basically a roof and tile floor making an area for quiet reading time and outdoor classes) Other than that, I am looking forward to a string of visitors here soon, I can’t wait to spend time showing family and friends around crazy world I find myself in. Everyone is still invited, if you don’t have plans to visit yet (I’m not sure who still reads this) you could come in early March, or anytime in May or June. Think about it. If you are coming, nice work taking the initiative, I promise it will be the experience of a lifetime!

9/19/11

Well, this last Wednesday the 17th marks one year since I arrived here in my site in Laguna Verde. While I have been in the country for 14 months, the first two were spent in training in San Vicente, a city on the other side of the country. However, my real work and home is here, so the anniversary presents an opportunity to reflect on the last year. To briefly summarize my experience thus far, I think I can confidently say that it has been satisfying in the personal aspect while less than satisfying professionally.

The personal side of the experience, things such as living in a foreign country, learning a new language, making new friends (both American and Salvadoran), and living with a host family have been very fun and rewarding. Getting to know different places in El Salvador has truly been awe-inspiring, and I feel that I have a solid understanding and appreciation the physical and cultural landscape. Learning Spanish feels very rewarding now, after the initial pain of being reduced to one word sentences and utter confusion. I still don’t understand everything said to me and still have to put thought into every sentence, but for the most part I really enjoy communicating with people here not just in Spanish put in their local dialect, complete with idioms and slang. One the most rewarding parts of my time here has been living with my host family. Living in a house of eleven people nearly everyday for a year has given me a constant source of interaction and opportunities to learn and bond with them. Although I may never be a “member of the family”, I do have a meaningful relationship with them, which keeps getting better as we share experiences and gain further insight into one another’s lives. I consider my relationship with them my most important achievement here on a personal level.

In contrast with the personal aspect, the professional aspect of my first year has not been as satisfying. I consider the girl’s camp and the stove project to be my two successful and worthwhile projects, but I was hoping for more rewarding work. My official job is Environmental Educator, but I have found that the community does not have much interest or need for such a person. Instead, I help out in the school with whatever I can (mainly applying for grant money thorough organizations that give money to Peace Corps volunteers for projects). This leaves me an abundance of free time and a lack of job satisfaction. This seems so be a common problems for volunteers, and we are told to not worry too much about it and that the cultural exchange aspect of our job is just as important. I sometimes feel like I am wasting my time, but these feelings are brief and outweighed by the personal satisfaction I experience.

So, with all that said, here is the best and worst of my first year in El Salvador:

The Best:

1. I speak Spanish now. Awesome.

2. A remote village in an obscure country now feels like home.

3. Once you figure out their language and culture, Salvadorans are very friendly and never fail to make me laugh (in a good way).

4. I have all my food cooked for me.

5. I know years from now the good things will far outweigh the bad in my memory

6. My job is to help people in whatever way I can.

7. I pretty much do whatever I want, whenever I want, and get paid for it (barely), with no virtually no oversight from a boss.

8. My fellow volunteers are some of the most motivated, good-natured, educated, and positive people I have ever worked with and befriended.

9. I can eat out, stay at hotels, and travel for dirt cheap.

10. If nothing else, Peace Corps is full of challenges, so I am constantly learning and evolving.

11. I have a new appreciation for English, good food, friends, family, the opportunities bestowed on me, American culture, and all the little luxuries we all take for granted.

The Bad.

1. Face-numbing, catatonic-state-inducing homesickness/loneliness.

2. Beans and tortillas are really getting old.

3. The environment is not a priority here.

4. Seeing people who want more out of their life unable to follow their dreams

5. The gang and crime problem

6. How American culture has replaced much of El Salvador’s and left in its wake Rambo, 50 Cent, and junk food.

7. Losing contact with most of my friends.

8. That nagging feeling that I should be doing more.

9. Always being the center of attention just because I have white scan. I miss blending in.10. If you have to dry clothes outside and it rains everyday, you run into some problems

My three girls and I

All the girls with thier diplomas and t-shirts

9/5/11

I am happy to report that our girls empowerment camp was a tremendous success. 19 young women ages 12-18 participated in a three-day two-night camp in one of the cultural hubs of El Salvador, Suchitoto. We stayed at the Centro del Arte para la Paz (Art Center for Peace), which is an old church renovated to host guests, youth groups and tours of the on-site museum. Over the course of three days, seven Peace Corps Volunteers (including myself) led a series of activities aimed to be both fun and educational. Topics covered included: self-defense, body image and self esteem, relationships, leadership, career planning, STD and contraception education, and yoga. The girls also participated in a tour around the city, movie night, manicures, a bonfire, a question and answer session with successful Salvadoran women, and a tour of the museum. At the end of the camp, each girls received a diploma and a t-shirt.

The whole weekend ended up being really fun and overall it was probably the most rewarding experience of my work here. At the end a few of the girls made short speeches saying how much they learned and enjoyed the camp and thanked us for putting it on. I feel like we really changed these girls’ lives for the better, at least in a small way. After seeing women being treated like second-class citizens here for so long, it felt really good to do some work to change things. Although equality here is far behind what we have achieved in the U.S., things are changing. Progress is being made, and we tried to impress upon the girls the idea that they can be the leaders in this movement, that they can spread the message of equality and empowerment of women to their peers and hopefully achieve some degree of progress. I am really proud of our work, I want to thank the other volunteers involved and especially the our donors, whose generosity enabled all of this to happen. I wish everyone could have been there. Hopefully these pictures can convey some of the excitement.

8/19/11

El Salvador Birthday Round Two

I just had my 23rd birthday on the 17th, and this one was definitely better than the last. My 22nd was during Peace Corps training, and I had to spend it sitting through lectures. However, it was made better by a birthday card signed by 30 of my fellow trainees and a surprise birthday cake from my original host family.

This time, my friend Sarah and I decide to try to climb the tallest volcano in western El Salvador, Santa Ana. It is a moderate hike with police escort to the top, where I have heard there is still a gurgling pit in the crater, along with incredible views in all directions. It is made even more exciting by the fact that it erupted only six years ago, killing two people.

However, when we arrived we were told we needed a bigger group to go, but we could join the group of 60 high schoolers who were there on a field trip that day, who planned to hike the adjacent peak, Volcán Izalco. This volcano is not as tall and has not erupted lately, but has the traditional volcano shape of a steep cone with a crater on top, while Santa Ana is more of a ridge. I have read that Izalco is the youngest (most recently formed) volcano in the Americas. It has a very dramatic appearance since it has almost no vegetation on the sides, just loose rock.

Both hikes leave from Cerro Verde, an older volcano between the other two. To summit Izalco one must walk down Cerro Verde and then up Izalco, then come back the same way, making for a very strenuous hike. Going up Izalco is a very steep grade on loose rock and sand, plus at over a mile high I definitely noticed the air being thinner. Sarah flew up the slope while I slowly huffed and puffed my way up, pausing every few minutes to catch my breath. My struggle was downgraded by having 15 year old girls passing my on the way up. It was just more proof that Salvadorans have more strength and endurance that I ever will.

The top was worth all the effort though. Steam billowed out of vents, and the views were incredible. We saw the dried lava rocks at the bottom, where the last eruption had eaten into the vegetation. We walked around the rim of the crater and then headed down, which involved sliding down loose rock and sand.

We got to the bottom already exhausted but still had to climb back up Cerro Verde. This involved some 1400 stairs winding up the mountain, which nearly destroyed me. We soon deteriorated to climbing about 100 stairs and then resting for a few minutes. When we finally got back, I promptly downed two Gatorades and passed out.

We finished off the day with steak for dinner, a swim in the lake and some wine drinking. It turned out to be really nice birthday, but the next day turned out to be a challenge.

The next day we headed back to our nearby city, Sonsonate, to try to receive the money donated to girls camp and put it into a bank account. This turned into a multi-hour ordeal of visiting western union offices and banks with red tape blockades at every turn. After that, I headed home, picking up a cake I planned to share with my host family to celebrate my birthday. The bus drops me off about an hour walk from my house, which is a solid uphill climb. Usually I don’t mind it too much, but this time I had a heavy backpack, a cake, and legs that felt like jelly from the day before. To make things worse, the sky opened up and poured nearly the whole way. All I could do was try to cover my cake, phone and wallet in plastic and trudge on. I finally got home soaked and exhausted.

I was soon informed that my host dad’s father had just died, and that I should come to the vela. When someone dies in this culture, the whole community gathers with their surviving family and stays late into the night, praying, singing, eating and drinking coffee. This is supposed to show support and keep the family too busy to be sad. Grieving is very communal here, which I think is a good way of dealing with death. I have been to these gatherings (velas) before, and should have known better, but I went anyway. We left around 7pm, and I was told we would be back around 10. We ended up getting back around 1AM, making about 5 hours of sitting around doing nothing trying not to pass out. I was stuck for a good portion of that time with the an old man explaining bible verses to me on my right while simultaneously a gay teenager hit on me from the left. Not my idea of a good time. I was definitely happy to leave, and that was the last vela I will attend for a long time. I am used to these kinds of things happening though, and I can now take everything in stride. Its just another day in E Salvador.

Families, real and host

First papusas

At the ruins

6/28/11 Visitors!

I had my first visitors from the states last week, my dad and his girlfriend stayed with me for ten days and had just about the most ideal vacation possible in El Salvador. Here is the breakdown of what we did.

Monday, June 13- arrived at airport. They met some trouble as they had no destination address to tell the immigration desk. Apparently “some village somewhere” is not good enough, but rather than have two angry Americans on their hands, the officials had to let them through. Then we ran into some difficulty renting the car, as they tried to charge us more than we had reserved it for. After some good old American ranting and raving we got a good price and a larger car. Luckily we had air-conditioning since the airport is in one of the hottest areas I have ever been in. After stopping at a roadside coconut stand and then making a few wrong turns, we headed for the beach. We arrived at playa El Tunco (pig beach), the touristy surf-bum beach town. We checked into the hotel and immediately downed some beers and got a chance to relax and catch up. Later I introduced my dad to some local flavor in a hot sauce I call “green napalm”. I think he’s off hot sauce for a while.

Tuesday June 14- Left the beach after an uncomfortable night with no A/C. Spotted what we decided was a ring-tailed lemur (maybe) darting across the road. Went grocery shopping at the mall in the city of Sonsonate. Finally got up in the mountains and out of the heat to my town of Apaneca, where we bought some local gourmet coffee and headed to my village, Laguna Verde. Got them moved into the local guesthouse. (I am really lucky to have this place nearby. It is a full house with 4 bedrooms and a kitchen and everything you need. It is well landscaped with flowers and such, and sits on the lip of a huge crater with awesome views overlooking Ahuachapan city and into Guatemala. It is ridiculously cheap for what it is, only $10 per person.)

Wednesday June 15- Decided to lay low for the day, played some cards in the gorgeous setting of the guesthouse. Walked down to the Laguna, checked out the coffee fields and local flowers. Did a general community tour and introduced them to my host family.

Thursday June 16- I had read about a mega-resort on the beach about two hours away, so we decided to spend a night in luxury. (All you can eat and drink. Case closed.) We headed down there and decide to kill some time exploring a small fishing village that was nearby. It turned out to be a Salvadoran tourist beach with restaurants right on the age of the surf zone. We drank some beers and were serenaded by a mariachi band, which pleased my dad to no end. Then we headed to the resort. This place was ridiculous. It had an endless amount of pools, a saltwater pool that stuck out into the ocean and was covered during high tide, beach chairs everywhere and all the beer and mixed drinks you could handle. Paradise. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly that night, and headed back to the guesthouse the next day.

Friday June 17- We got back from the resort late in the afternoon… I can’t really remember what we did…

Saturday June 18- We started off with a tour of a local coffee processing plant, where they wash, shell, ferment, dry, de-husk, sort, roast and grind coffee that is picked in nearby fields. I think my guests really enjoyed it, and I liked the opportunity to show off my Spanish skills translating what the tour guide said. They picked up some local gourmet and a burlap coffee sack to hang on the wall. We then explored the town of Ataco, an artsy tourist area for picking up souvenirs and seeing art. Next we went to Juyjua (Why-you-uh), where they have a food festival every weekend. We ate some incredible pork ribs, saw some antiques, bought some Mayan artifacts (legal??? Maybe.) and visited a reptile zoo.

Sunday June 19- I wanted to exposed m visitors more to my host family, since they are who I am closest to here in my village. This was tough to do since they had about 5 common words in which to communicate. So we extended an invitation to join us in exploring some local Native American ruins. The two girlfriends of two of the brothers decided to go with us, Soyla age 14 and Rosa, age 22. It is hard to explain how great having a car here is, as a daylong bus adventure turns into a climate controlled joy-ride that takes a third of the time and stress. So we arrived at the ruins and got to check out the large structure that has been excavated. (Search for Tazumal ruins, el Salvador if you are curious) We also checked out some sort of native ceremony that was going on, but we soon left since it felt inappropriate to gawk. They was also a museum to explore, with some amazing pottery and sculptures that had been excavated from the site.

Monday June 20- We had a relaxing day, spent mostly around the guesthouse. We also visited the local hot springs, which a located near the country’s geothermal power plant. After having to walk the last bit because the road deteriorated, we enjoyed a nice soak in the hot pool.

Tuesday June 21-Headed to the big city, San Salvador. First we stopped off for lunch at a restaurant overlooking Lago Coatepeque, a large crater lake that is amazingly beautiful. There we ate the national dish, papusas, which are beans, cheese and meat or vegetables inside a fried tortilla shell. The city proved quite a driving challenge for my dad, but he did a great job. (I had to explain the two main rules of Salvadoran driving: DON’T PANIC and the signs and rules arenot laws, only suggestions.) We parked the car at the hotel and took a cab to the modern art museum, which proved interesting but a bit abstract for the likes of my dad I.

Wednesday June 22- Drove up to the San Salvador volcano, which tours above the city. It has a huge crater from when it last erupted in 1912 or so. At the bottom of the crater is a perfectly formed dirt mini-crater, it is really an amazing sight. We also saw some excellent views of the sprawling city. On our way to the into the city we hit an open manhole in the middle of an intersection, which miraculously did not break any part of the car. This confirmed that driving in San Salvador is at best extremely stressful and at worst borderline-suicidal. Next we went to the national archeology museum, which had exhibits of the history of the country, with exhibits of the all the major crops that have been farmed here of particular interest. Next we went to a tourist market to get some souvenirs, including a hammock, shirts, and aprons.

Thursday June 23- Time to say goodbye. Back to the airport and back to normal life for me.

It was great to finally share this place and my life here with loved ones, it makes me feel less alone since someone knows what I am doing and where I am. I had fun traveling around and being an interpreter and translator too. I don’t feel sad since they left, since they had a great time and the whole trip seemed just about perfect.

I hope this story serves as bait to get some more people to come down here and visit me. There is a lot of fun stuff to do, it is fairly cheap, and you will have your own personal tour guide and translator, not to mention a connection to a beautiful rural community. This is a rare travel opportunity for everyone, so think about buying that ticket; I promise we’ll have a blast.

P.S. I am still looking for donations for the girls camp, if you’ve been financially blessed lately share the love and change the lives of some young girls. Shoot me an email if you are interested.

June 3, 2011

Good news! I received my first grant! All thanks and praises be to the Santa Barbara Peace Corps Association, who funded my project to build a small pavilion at the school. Basically, the school director approached me with the idea a few months back about building a pavilion over the old disused school latrines. This will just be a simple floor and roof held up by supports, no walls. This will be a good spot to have class outdoors when the weather is nice and to send kids to do some quiet reading. Although this is not a big project, it will be nice to leave a physical structure at the school and know I have made a lasting impact, albeit a small one. Construction should begin in a week or two.

Last week I helped facilitate a visit of four engineers from Engineers Without Borders in a neighboring volunteer’s site. They wanted to teach a few lessons in the school about volcanoes, so I helped translate and manage the kids. We made model volcanoes with the older ones and just helped the younger ones draw volcanoes. I had such I good time that I am going to help a different group of engineers next week. It is nice to see other places in the country and work with enthusiastic gringos who want to do good put need some linguistic and cultural assistance. (My gringo enthusiasm is not what it once was)

The soccer teams I was coaching have kind of fallen apart, both because of people not showing up and some of the kids not behaving and generally pissing me off. The fact that the rainy season has arrived doesn’t help either. I might just call it a season and try again when the dry season comes.

I am really excited to host my dad and Marietta who are coming down here the 13th for a ten day visit. I haven’t had any visitors yet and it will be great to show someone where I live and what I do. Also, we are going to rent a car, which opens up a new world of possibilities here; we should get to see some of the great sites this country has to offer.

On a sad note, one of the two dogs my host family owns died the other day. The family had three dogs to begin with, Uno, Dos and Tres. Tres was the mother (go figure) but if you remember, was lost for a while and we later found her head in the woods. Well Dos just met his end too. It was really bizarre because I was having a dream that the dog was eating from the table and I kicked it, but harder than I meant to. This broke its neck, and it started stumbling around and yelping. I knew it was dying and could not believe what I had just done. Then I awoke to people yelling outside, and when I got to up and went to look the dog was moaning and twitching, just about to die. I guess the noise it was making seemed into my dream; it was really creepy. One of our neighbors had gotten tired of him barking all night and had fed him poison, which I think also happened to his mother. It was sad since I had made friends with Dos, he was a really sweet and playful dog, one that seemed to almost be human. Now we are down to just Uno.

May 25, 2011

As you may remember, I live in the coffee growing mountains of Western El Salvador. Most of the land around here is coffee fields, all of which export coffee to the major coffee corporations around the world, including Starbucks. Therefore you would expect the coffee that my host family makes by shelling, drying and roasting the coffee the old fashion way to be absolutely delicious. You would be wrong. The coffee they serve is watery and ranges in taste from smoky to kind of like caramel on good days. Nothing like you want and expect coffee to taste like. I had assumed that this was either because they use only the leftovers from the coffee they export or the cowboy style they use to prepare it. Nonetheless, I drank it with three meals a day and got used to it. The other day I finally learned what is going on with this stuff. My host family let it slip that they use half coffee and half corn to make it. That’s right. CORN. I was outraged, to say the least. It was like a cruel joke. They said it was too bitter without corn. “Are you all insane?!?” I demanded. I have since calmed down a bit but have decided to make get a coffee pot and make my own. I still can’t believe they took the thing they do best, producing world class coffee, and completely ruin it with corn. Unbelievable!

Yesterday I had some gringo visitors here in my site. Matt and Liz were working for an NGO trying to quantify carbon emission reduction from using the fuel efficient stoves that I sold a few months ago. They came out with the bosses of the stove company to ask people questions about their stoves and take pictures. I found a house we could visit that said they used the stove everyday. When it came time for the woman to demonstrate how she makes tortillas on it, we could not get the fire to light for about 15 minutes, all the while the stove billowed smoke everywhere. So much for efficiency. Apparently we were using pieces of wood that were to big. Finally got it going, and we cooked some delicious tortillas and ate them with cheese. All the while Matt and Liz snapped pictures with what must have been thousand dollar cameras. It is always strange to see stone age methods juxtaposed with modern technology. I see this kind of thing daily, such as women pausing their daily grinding of corn on a rock slab to answer their Blackberry. What a crazy world we live in.

Also, I am still looking for donations for the women´ empowerment camp, check out the last post if you missed it.

May 10

I’ve been busy lately, although my standard of busy has fallen drastically. I attended a training session that lasted four days last week. This was my last mandatory Peace Corps training session, and it took place at the national agricultural university. The focus was on helping local people to start small businesses. These are important since most Peace Corps projects have a tendency to fall apart after the volunteer leaves, unless people are making money, in which case there is a good chance of it being sustained. We were taught how to make soap, shampoo, hair gel, disinfectant, marmalade, and dried fruits. These are relatively simple group activities which can bring a small income. However, some of the profit margins seem razor thin, demand for some of the products is doubtful, and some ingredients are only available in the San Salvador, (three hours away) adding transport costs that can further diminish profit margins. That being said, some volunteers have been successful in forming a reliable small business group and making profits, especially with shampoo. I am interested in doing this, as it sounds like a good way to interact and connect with people and teach them about business. My challenge is that no community group exists, and starting one is a rather intimidating task, in that one must have the right amount of people who will actually show up regularly, and not making the whole community bitter if we make a profit and they aren’t included. I am going to try marmalade, hair gel and shampoo first, and see what happens. It’s funny how a big part of my job is taking things I know almost nothing about (business, making products like these) and showing enough confidence to lead other in doing them. We will see what happens.

Another project I am really excited about and need YOUR help with is a women’s empowerment camp that me and a few other volunteers are putting on in July. We are each bringing three girls between 13 and 18 years old to a three day camp where we will do fun activities and workshops on themes aimed to keep girls in school, help them find jobs, and generally inspire them to follow their dreams and aim high in life. This is especially important in Latin culture since women are much less encouraged to pursue careers and a lot of them end up having kids and leaving school early and becoming housewives. The lessons we will focus on include self defense, self esteem, how to pursue careers, sex education, empowerment, and interaction with successful Salvadoran women like policewomen, lawyers, doctors, nurses mayors, ect.

Here is where everyone who is reading this can help. We need money for transport, lodging, food, supplies, and all other costs. We are each raising $350, and our primary source is friends and family back home. I believe this is one of the most direct and intimate donation opportunities you will encounter, as I will be able to provide a personal connection from these girls to you via text, pictures, and storytelling, whereas aid agencies can distance the donor from the beneficiaries. So if you have been blessed financially and want to help inspire these girls to rise above cultural barriers and follow their dreams, now is your chance. Please let me know in a comment here or an email to forest.carter@gmail.com if you would like to donate and how much, and I will let you know soon how to send it. (We are still working that part out). I will gladly email pictures, answer questions, and take suggestions from everyone involved.

Thank you, and please pass the message on to anyone you know who may be interested.

4/22/2011

I admit it, I’m losing steam on this blog. I do want to keep it going though, as I believe a have a fairly large audience and is a good way to promote the Peace Corps third goal of promoting understanding among Americans of other cultures. It does get harder to write since everyday things seem more routine and less new, and weeks go by without much happening that is really newsworthy.

However, I did have my first major illness in my time here. The fact that it took this long is a small miracle that I was very much appreciating, but illness is inevitable, especially in a foreign land. I had a low fever for a couple days and took fever reduces to keep it down, but then one night I woke up and was completely out of it. I took my temperature twice and it showed 104. That being the highest the thermometer goes, I decided I needed some help. I called the Peace Corps office who sent a car for me, and headed to the doctor in San Salvador, who examined me and told me to stay in the city for a couple of days and take medical tests. His guess was that I had Dengue fever. I waited around in a hotel for two days, took more tests, and was diagnosed with stomach amoebas, a type of parasite transmitted in contaminated food or water. After an antibiotic regime, I am thankfully feeling back to normal. It is scary how out of my mind I got when feverish, I was incapable of logical thought.

In other news, it is Holy Week, which is a major celebration here, most people get off work and travel around the country to beaches and other touristy spots. We have been getting lots of tourists here to enjoy the lagoon, most of them are Salvadoran from the cities. School is out this week, so there is not much work to be done for your friendly neighborhood gringo. Our school recently had a projector donated, so now we are trying to find a way to buy a laptop so presentations can be made to classes, which would go a long way in our fledgling computer education department.

March 26

Earthquakes! I can’t remember ever feeling any earthquakes in my 10 years in California, but here they having been averaging about one a month. Yesterday was the biggest yet, a series of five medium size tremors in the morning and a sixth in the afternoon. In the morning I was helping run P.E. classes with the younger kids when the field started shaking. It was interesting to actually hear them coming and be able to tell what direction they came from. I realized that we were in the safest place in the community, as nothing could fall on us and a landslide was unlikely. The soccer games stopped and everyone gathered together as four more tremors arrived. Some of the kids started crying and the school director explained to them that the quakes were caused by the “moon changing”. I tried to explain the tectonic plates theory, but no one really understood. School was dismissed early and everyone went home. I don’t think where I live is too dangerous in regard to earthquakes since the roof is tin and the walls are brick, which I think can withstand most earthquakes. The whole community is built on the side of a mountain, so a landslide may be possible. I wonder if there will be any bigger ones while I am here.

March 27 update: Channel four news came up here to interview people about the quakes, since the epicenter was here in the community. I showed my smiling gringo face and was interviewed, I think I managed to state that I felt them and that earthquakes can be dangers (thanks for that valuable information). I’m going to try to catch myself on the news tomorrow. TV interviews in Spanish are not easy.

Lately I have gotten back into coaching kids soccer after a few of the kids begged me to do it again. I had gotten mad at the last practice back in November since the kids were disrespecting me and being lazy about playing and generally being little punks. It is going better now since I made it clear that is they don’t respect me then we won’t practice. We have a girls team and two boys teams, 4-6 grade and 6-9th grade. They basically just scrimmage while I referee. Hopefully in a few weeks I can organize some away games against neighboring schools.

Here is what the stoves looks like, complete with Salvadoran tortillas!

Here is me and my buddy Facho loading stoves into his pickup to bring to Laguna Verde

March 4

Alright, its been almost a month so its definitely high time for another post. I have been dabbling in a few different projects lately, here is the round-up-

Trash collection service – So I was getting increasingly fed up with smelling burning plastic and seeing ditches and gullies filled with trash, so I charged into the mayors office (which is in the nearest town, Apaneca, about a 45 minute walk from Laguna Verde, my village). He was surprisingly compliant and understanding, and sat through my speech in particularly bad Spanish (some days my brain and mouth just will not cooperate). Laguna Verde had a trash service in the past, but people filled trash bags with dirt, sand, rocks, dead animals, and other ridiculous things which angered the mayor’s office since they pay by the pound to put the trash in a landfill. This is where I come in, I plan to visit everyone I can with a picture-laden brochures (not everyone can read) and explain why and how to use the trash pick-up service. We are now trying to agree upon a time and day for the truck to come, so hopefully this whole operation will start soon.

Recycling- A freelance pickup has been making the rounds in the community to buy recycling such as metal, plastic and paper from people, haul it to the city and sell it for a profit. Gotta love entrepreneurs! I sold them 53 pounds of plastic that I had inherited from the previous volunteer for a cool $3.75. Not a lot, but a good start. They also let me know that they pay well for paper, so I got motivated to try to start a program in the school. I’m starting small, a box in each room to collect cans, bottles and paper that I store in my house until I can sell it. The money will go to painting a mural of a world map on the side of the school. I briefly explained it to all the classes but output has been slow, a couple of cans and pieces of paper in the first week. I need to go back and do some more motivational speaking to get the kids into it. There is a lot of motivational speaking involved in being a PCV, which is something I previously did not have much experience in. I believed that if what you are talking about is important and compelling enough to warrant enthusiasm, you shouldn’t have to trick people with fancy speeches, it should speak for itself. I now understand the importance of speech and in setting a positive attitude in your audience. Enthusiasm and motivation are critical to start new enterprises, and both are highly contagious.

Outdoor classroom- My school director approached me and proposed building a reading area behind the school over some old latrines. Basically he wants a foundation, floor and roof, but no walls. This would serve as a place for reading, meetings, music practice, and other uses. This would be nice since there are not always classrooms available for these things and would be much nicer to be outside in the beautiful weather. We only need $225 to build this thing, so I will be writing some grants to try to get us the funds.

Environmental Lessons. PCVs have compiled a book of these in Spanish that are to be given to various grade levels in a participatory way that promotes learning through doing. I have been preparing and assisting in giving these lessons. First we made a worm compost bin with the 5th grade and then did an activity to learn about how water cycles through the environment with the 6th grade. The kids really like these and it is nice to have a written plan to follow. I will continue to do a couple of these per month throughout the school year.

Also, Obama is coming to El Salvador! He is visiting a few Latin American counties and is going to stop here for a day to talk to the Salvadoran president. Get ready for broad, positive, nonspecific heart-warming messages like : “The US is determined to fight poverty alongside allies like El Salvador” ect. Although good for general propaganda purposes, nothing much seems to come of visits like these. However, I may journey to the capitol to see the man and hear a speech.

Other than that, I’m just living life in a bizarre parallel universe. Staying healthy and happy are full time jobs here, but I have been blessed with both lately. Please leave a comment with questions or, well, comments. Sometimes I wonder who is out there reading on the other side…

Coffee tasting

Drying coffee at the factory, some of which was grown on the volcano in the background.

Murals for development project in the next town over, Ataco.

2/9/11

Hallelujah! The stove project has been financed in full. A generous local donation finally came through; effectively subsidizing the 45 orders I have for stoves. (In case you forgot, these are concrete cooking stoves that use wood and are superior to traditional open fires because they use less wood and produce less smoke. Google Stove Team International for more info) This alleviated much of my worries about having to use a huge chunk of my own savings and/or sending out an embarrassing mass email to friends and family. Thanks to those who offered to donate, your support means a lot. On Saturday we are going to collect the stove from the factory and bring them to the community, and I will try to track down everyone who ordered a stove. Hopefully the ten dollar down payment they paid will bring them to me. Peace Corps project number one nearly complete!

Next? I’m thinking of trying to talk to the mayor about a regular trash pick-up service. This may not be hard, the hard part is to get people to bag up their garbage and bring it to the street at the appointed time. This will probably involve me going door to door with pamphlets and explaining why it’s bad to burn plastic and throw trash down the mountain. Could be a smashing success or a hilarious failure, but there is only one way to find out.

Also, the school environmental club. I can’t decide if I should start it now or wait until I can spend more time in the classroom with the kids to build trust. I’ve been helping out with small tasks in the school (the custodial arts) to build my relationship with the teachers and students. I also taught an improvised math lesson, which went fairly well. Actually making kids learn and knowing for sure that everyone understands is a lot harder than it looks.

Skateboarding did not last long around here. The kids loved it and I was having fun teaching them, but some people got worried about the kids getting hurt. I personally think the soccer kids play here is more dangerous, but people fear the unknown. The boards are now enjoying retirement in my room.

I got to visit two coffee factories recently to see how coffee is washed, shelled, fermented, dried, ground and roasted. One of the tours ended with a coffee tasting, which was fun. It´s amazing how many different tastes coffee can have.

Multicolored chickens. Not sure why.

This is what happens when you bomb hills on a cheap bike when the road is covered with an inch of dust. Dont worry, it will heal.

Skateboarding hits Laguna Verde

1/27/10

I’m back! (in El Salvador) I spent a week back in Arcata with my friends and family. It was the best vacation I could ask for. I got to see my mom and sister, play ultimate and disc golf, hiked in the redwoods, went to the beach, went biking and skating and even sledding, pretty much covering everything I wanted to do. I also got to bring back some goodies, such as energy bars, chocolate, waterproof shoes, a solar shower, my ukulele and three skateboards. The trip back was 26 hours of attempted sleep in terrible seats, so it feels nice to be back here to my second home. I took a nap as soon as I arrived, and opened my eyes to see that a mouse had made a nest in some pants I had left on the bed. I threw the pants on the floor and went right back to sleep. This kind of stuff doesn’t faze me anymore.

I officially introduced skateboarding here; everyone wanted a turn, which resulted in much falling and hilarity. The younger kids learned pretty fast, while the older ones seemed to fall more. I don’t really have a good reason for bringing skateboards, besides giving the kids something new to try and to share one of my passions with them. I’ll keep everyone posted on their progress.

School starts on Monday, and I am going to help the teachers out wherever I can and give some environmental lessons. I hope to start the environmental club within the first month, although I am worried about if I will be able to make it interesting and fun enough to draw interest and continued attendance.

Some friends after a late night soccr game

Friendly PCV basketball game. The guy with his arm around me is my boss, Rolando

My host brother and new best friend, Edwardo, and his little sister mary

Jan 5.

Happy New Year to everyone, 2011 arrived here in the midst of dangerous fireworks, tamales and drunks. Everyone lit off the dynamite sticks all day and night. These things are just a bunch of black powder and newspaper packed together and sold to eight year olds for a quarter. This leads to an entire country covered in newspaper and a ringing in my ears. At midnight I went to a spot on the mountain that overlooks the nearby midsize city of Ahuachapán, where the city was boiling over with fireworks. There were about 5 explosions per second coming from all over the city in different colors. All the country side all the way into Guatemala was also shooting them off, making an incredible exploding panorama.

I have confession to make. The title of this blog has proven very inaccurate. The one piece of mango I have tried here was absolutely terrible and I probably done a total of one hour of teaching because school has been out since November. So a much more accurate title would be eatin’ tortillas and sittin’ on my ass, but that just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Lately I’ve been continuing to sell the fuel efficient stoves, I’m up to 23, but coming up with the money to subsidize the price is not looking good, so I may have to pass the hat so to speak here in a few weeks to see if we can raise this money to get the stoves to the community. More info to follow. I have also been teaming up with the local health promoter to help him with his job and do house visits. Most communities here have a health promoter who does house visits to give vaccines, medicine, advice, chlorine to purify water, and other general health work. The guy we have here is around 30 and is becoming a good friend of mine. His Spanish is much clearer than most people’s too, which really helps us get along. I go to people’s houses and just kind of hang around while he does his job, but it is a good way for me to visit with people and learn more about the community.

1/9/10

I just finished reading Salem’s Lot by Stephen king, and today something happened that is straight out of a Stephen King novel. The family I live with, the Garcias, had three dogs up until about a month ago. One mama dog and her two male offspring, named tigre uno, tigre dos, and tigre tres, with the mother inexplicably being tigre tres. About a month ago I left for a couple days and when I got back the family told me that someone had fed the mama dog poison through the front gate and killed her. Actually, I found out that she was only missing, and this was their leading theory about what happened. No one had seen or heard from the dog in a month until someone found her head in a nearby grove of trees. We all went to verify this, and sure enough, the head of tigre tres. I can’t imagine who would cut off a dogs head, especially around here. It was a spooky sight, and got me thinking about the dark side of El Salvador that I have heard much about and felt its presence since I got here. Here is a list of reasons why I think this place has a dark side:

1. El Salvador has one of the highest homicide rates in the world.

2. Of the three people I have heard of dying since I’ve been here, all three were murders.

3. People are generally paranoid of bad people lurking about.

4. People are quick to blame any strange noises or occurrences on anonymous evildoers.

5. Ghosts and spirits are widely believed in.

This is all made doubly strange since on the surface everyone seems so friendly and generally happy. I guess I’m starting to see deeper into the culture, below the superficial appearance.

Salvadoran Christmas

It didn’t start off well. I woke up to a small stick of dynamite exploding outside my door. I burst out of my room, all excited to be able to say “Feliz Navidad” instead of the usual boring “buenas diaz”. I was disappointed to not be met with the same gusto. Everyone barely seemed aware it was Christmas, even after talking it up for weeks. Breakfast was beans and tortillas. So was lunch. No rice or eggs (yes they do excite me when served). After a couple of calls back to the states, I was about to chalk this one up to another terrible Christmas in a foreign county. However, this one had nothing on my Christmas two years ago in some god-forsaken village in northern Burkina Faso. Then I was in a hot, dirty desert town, sick, alone, no French, no one knew it was Christmas because they’re Muslim, and I spent the night in a sleeping bag at a bus station. There really is no going down from that low.

This Christmas surprised me though. My host brothers suggested we play chess, which is always a good time, watching them squirm in their seats with anxiety as they lose pieces is hilarious. I also figured out a way to install a pull-up bar, so now I do my favorite exercise from back home. Eventually people started gathering at our house, a border-line festive atmosphere developed. Dinner was a specially roasted chicken, which was actually very tasty. It was also used to make chicken and vegetable sandwiches which were passed around and enjoyed by all. I should note that this day was punctuated by ear-splitting fireworks that people set off all the time everywhere, with no effects except for being LOUD. All I want for Christmas is to keep my eardrum intact.

Most of the men find Christmas as an excuse to get rip-roaring drunk on very cheap liquor and beer. This motivates them to engage me in nonsensical and never ending conversation. Usually I have to escape to my room, but it being Christmas I decided to stick it out and celebrate with everyone. Hours of repetitive, stupid conversations ensued, the entertainment of the evening was watching the Gringo talk to the drunks about the 3.5 words of English they know. Actually this resulted in some shared deep belly laugh about what comes out of these guys mouths, so felt like I was bonding with people and had a pretty good time.

That was all on the 24th, which is when Christmas is celebrated here, so today was more uneventful. I did attend my first Salvadoran Wedding, which was kind of fun. The groom was a friend of mine who is only 19, and its still bizarre when people younger than me get married. The church had a no walls, a dirt floor and blown out speakers, but the ceremony took place like any other, just with a couple hours of hymn singing beforehand.

Christmas is coming right up, it will be interesting to see what actually happens here. Some people say gifts are given, but I’m not sure. Everyone tells me that there will be more fireworks than normal (great) and asks me if I will drink beer with them. Although drinking here in my site has a certain appeal and may help me bond with my host brothers, word of it would inevitably get out and may cause some of the more conservative people in the community to think less of me and therefore lower my effectiveness as a volunteer. The big day here is Christmas Eve instead of Christmas day, I’m not really sure why. I may stay here for New Years Eve or I may leave to party with other volunteers.

I’m excited to say I’m coming back for a nine day visit to visit my mom and sister back in Arcata. Although part of me wants to be the bad ass traveler that doesn’t come home for two years, I am looking forward to some family time and all the comforts of home. I also think it will give me a chance to step back and look at the big picture of what I am doing and give me some perspective. When I stayed in Ghana for ten months without coming home I started going a little loco by the end, so maybe this will take some of the pressure off. I will be back the Jan 18th thru the 27th, if anyone is around during that time in Humboldt, hit me up!

I got to do two really fun things this past weekend, the first was releasing baby sea turtles into the ocean at a beach call Barra de Santiago. Me and 4 friends stayed in a hotel on the beach and got to “help” (actually watch) as about 80 one day old sea turtles were placed on the beach to scurry their way to the water. A local NGO collects the eggs that the sea turtles lay on the beach and hatches them since leaving them on the beach makes them vulnerable to predators (including hungry humans). After they hatch, it is important to place the turtles on the beach so they somehow can get a sense enough of it to come back to the same spot to lay their eggs. It was really special event to be present for.

The other fun thing was the Peace Corps Volunteers played a series a soccer games against the JIKA team. JIKA is the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps, with Volunteers serving for two years in various sites in the country and doing development work. There are only about 40 or so of them, but rumor has it they are much better funded. Our men’s teams lost a close 1-2 game, but our women crushed in 10-0 blowout. Afterword we got to meet them over snacks and drinks and find out which of them worked near our sites. Most of them spoke good Spanish, so we were able to communicate, albeit in neither of our native tongues. That was definitely something new.

On the work front, I’ve started selling the cooking stoves that use less wood and produce less smoke. I made up some flyers and scheduled for the company to come out to demonstrate how the stoves work. I’ve been going door to door telling people about the stoves and the demonstration. A lot of people seem interested, so I end up taking a lot of orders. This is a little intimidating since for every order I take I have to find $22 in a timely manner to subsidize cost. It will be time to try my hand at grant writing.

12/13/10

Today I went with 4 of my host brothers (there are five, plus one girl) to harvest coffee. The harvest season is from the end of November until the end of February and there are miles of coffee fields in every direction, so a lot of families work the harvest to make money. Everyone thought it was hilarious that I was going to do this, especially when I went into town to buy the large basket you need. We left the house at 5:30 this morning (it was dark and freezing still) and walked for an hour straight down the mountain until we meet with the other workers. We were divided into teams and assigned locations to work. I definitely got some funny looks being the whitest and tallest guy around. Coffee harvest involves tying a large basket to the front of your waist and just ripping beans of off the trees. There are trees every three feet or so and most are loaded with bright red or yellow beans. Sounds easy, but the catch is the trees are on steep slopes with loose dirt and sticks which you have to maneuver around on while not spilling your giant basket. I stumbled twice and spilled beans, losing about twenty minutes worth of work. I also got “stung” by some kind of caterpillar with venomous spikes. That one caught me by surprise. Overall, the work is fairly easy, just standing there plucking beans, trying not to fall down the hill. The kicker is however much you harvest you have to put in a giant sack and carry up the mountain. I made a trip with about 50 pounds and felt like I was going to pass out, plus girls younger than me were passing me with twice the weight. Salvadorans officially kick my ass in all forms of physical labor. After lugging that sack I didn’t pick with as much vigor, knowing I had to carry whatever I harvested. We picked for about six hours, with my total coming to about 70 pounds. This was also hilarious, since a minimum of 100 pounds is required to not be ridiculed. The hardest part of the day was the 2-hour walk back up the mountain, which nearly finished me.

Giant basket: $2.00

Harness: $.75

Total day’s pay earned from 70 pounds of beans harvested: $2.75

Breaking even and retiring from coffee picking: Priceless.

Makes minimum wage look pretty good huh? The pay is one dollar for every 25 pounds harvested. A really long, good day for an experienced picker might earn $8. What a different world.

12/7/10

Firework season is here. The stores stared selling them from little one cent poppers to one dollar dynamite sticks. These should not be legal. All they do is explode, no sparks or colors or shooting. They are sold to kids of all ages who just put them everywhere and light them. Sometimes when I’m sitting in my room what sounds like a sonic boom will occur right outside, making me jump about six feet high. It’s the kind of explosion that where you can feel the sound waves, it hits you in a blast.

Work is slow here (non-existent). School is out until late January and I don’t feel like I really know the people, languages, and needs of the community well enough to undertake any major projects that involve co-operation. So now I’m just studying and practicing Spanish, meeting and hanging out with people and generally making myself a presence in peoples lives.

Yesterday I was walking by a house when I heard the familiar shout “Don Nacho!!!” I stopped to see who it was (someone I had met but forgot his name) and ended up helping him install a gate to his yard. This time was filled with the usual casual conversation, which I want to share with you so you get a feeling for how my conversations go.

Dude: (something completely indecipherable) phone for five dollars?

Me: What?

Dude: sell the phone for five dollars

Me: What phone?

Dude: FIVE dollars. To sell.

Me: My phone? Or whose?

Dude: Five dollars. The phone.

Me: What phone?

Dude: Oh OK. (turns back to his work)

Me: WTF happened?

While this is happening I am creating and weighing various possibilities as to what he might be saying. Does he want to buy my phone? Is he selling me a phone? Is he asking how much mine cost? Am I expected to now sell my phone?

This is a typical failed conversation. Most are better than this, but when these utter disasters of communication occur I am left completely baffled and have to wonder whose fault it was, if anyone’s. I thought that my Spanish is good enough to have this kind of basic dialogue, but the local dialect is full of letters and whole words left unpronounced, as well as slang that does not exist in any dictionary.

After that he invited me to have lunch with him, and I mentioned that I was going to go to town to get a haircut. He said that he cuts lots of peoples hair and I must let him do mine, because “I will make you so handsome that you will be the champion of a mountain of young girls. It will be a very cold two years in your bed if you don’t find a girlfriend.” Indeed an offer I could not refuse. Haircuts here are infamously terrible, I have seen some infamous mullets, bowl cuts, and ridiculous gel-jobs. I now am the proud owner of some kind of bowl cut gone wrong, with the back and sides really short and an area on top three times as long. I’m to ashamed to post a picture, so just use your imagination. The good news is there is no one here to laugh, everyone else thinks its standard issue. I won’t be leaving to see other volunteers much in the near future, so I can give my hair some time to heal.

There have been some hilarious attempts to set me up with local women. People seem confused when I point out such minor flaws as “she has three kids” “she’s pregnant” or “she’s 15”. They just give me a look like “so what?”

More later….

I can hardly believe this worked. This is a little house tour for everyone to see where I am at. The street in the begining is the center of town, and that is the school in the background. Then we go into my room, then the store, then the kitchen, then the game room, complete with pinball machines, well sort of. Sorry for the writing in the middle, thats what you get for not paying for software. Now who wants to come visit?

Nov 20

Alright, I’m still here and still alive. I just got done with our second round of training, which lasted two weeks. The first two weeks took place in the town where my first two months of training happened. We learned more technical details about projects for us to do, such as organizing community politics, teaching English and about the environment, starting women’s groups and environmental groups, and doing world map murals. The second week was spent at the national agricultural university where we stayed in the dorms and learned about various agricultural techniques like grafting, composting, worms, soil nutrient balance, and crop rotation. All of this was difficult to learn and pay attention since it was in Spanish, but I still learned a lot. Most of it was not applicable to my site since they only grow coffee here, but it can be used for small scale gardens, of which only a few exist here.

Next week I have been invited to have Thanksgiving dinner with a family that works for the U.S. embassy. It is a tradition for these families to have volunteers over to celebrate. After that, in the middle of December, we have been invited to play against JIKA in the national stadium. JIKA is the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps. They also stay for two years as volunteers, but there are only 30 of them and word has it they get much more money for projects. Events like this are really nice get always and it really helps to have things to look forward to.

School ended here for the long break, and it starts back up in late January. Then I will be trying to form an environmental club and start teaching more. Until then, the coffee harvest just started, so everyone is helping with that, including lots of labor from out of town. I’ve heard that this is a dangerous time, since people actually make a lit bit of money the number of robberies increases, so I’ll have to be extra careful. I am told that for harvesting 25 pounds people are paid between $.80-$1.25 and in the best conditions a person can harvest 200 pounds in a day, but usually less. This is some really hard work with really low pay, but is better than no work at all.

11/21-

The men’s soccer team that I have been playing soccer with won our first game today, after about 5 weeks of ties. I let by an easy goal again, partly because the ball is always taking crazy bounces on our crappy field. It wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as last time, and I made up for it with some crucial saves later. Our offence came through with four points in the second half, for a 4-1 crushing.

Here are my project ideas as of now:

1. Stove project- I want to sell cooking stoves in the community that produce less smoke and use less wood. Some have already been sold, but I think there is opportunity to sell more. They cost $42 but people can only afford around $20, so I’m looking for some money to subsidize. I may be hitting up friends and family for donation if I can’t pull it off myself, so keep your checkbook handy.

2. Getting a trash pickup service- Apparently there was one for a time, but no one would bring their trash to the street. Now people just throw their trash in local rivers and ditches. It may be as easy as talking to the mayor and doing an education campaign to get the trash to the street, but it could also prove very frustrating.

3. World Map Mural- This is a popular PCV project that usually is done in the school. It helps kids learn about Geography (many can’t even find El Salvador on a map) and makes the school look nicer. It should be easy and fun, but I have to wait until school is back in session.

4. Environmental club- this would involve recruiting kids in 4-6 grade to do cleaning campaigns, make a garden, compost, watch movies, go on trips to parks and natural areas, and receive lectures on environmental topics. The hardest part will be drumming up sufficient interest and motivation.

5. Women’s Group- I think there is potential for a group of women to organize and do various fun and money making activities. This would build community cooperation as well as empower women and teach business skills, and would be a good setting to discuss women’s issues and the problems with the male dominated culture here. I am admittedly intimidated to start this one, usually female volunteers do it and I don’t know how well they would respond to me starting it (or their husbands for that matter)

6. Giving Environmental lectures in the school-fairly easy and straight forward, I have received a book of lectures and a calendar of when to do them. I will probably do one or two a week. Time to tap my inner professor.

7. Coaching the youth soccer team- the team was already formed when I got here, I just ref while they scrimmage. Hopefully I can find some funding to take them on some trips to play other teams. I have some trouble keeping the little bastards in line sometimes, but overall its fun and easy.

8. Economic development- my site has a good number of tourists coming every weekend to hang out by the lagoon. Now we sell them some food and drinks, but I think we could expand to souvenirs, jewelry, more snacks, and maybe even rent canoes or kayaks. This is kind of a massive project that I’m not sure will work, so I probably won’t start for some time until I get a better sense of things.

These are my main ideas. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and go catatonic thinking of all the things I need to do. The main problem now is that I don’t really understand the community enough to start, and I still only understand about 50% of what people say. Only time will tell what actually ends up happening. Let me know your questions or comments, I welcome advise and suggestions.

The central area of my house. The store and kitchen on the right, my room and the bathroom on the left, water basin in the middle.

My room. I actually thought i would be roughing it more than this.

Also, I have found a large interest in learning chess. After teaching one kid, word spread, and now every night is spent with 3-7 kids in my room listening to music and playing chess.

Town meeting

10/25/10

My town meeting happened on Friday, I had invited everyone in the community to come to the school and hear me talk about my job and to introduce myself. The director of the Environmental Education Peace Corps program came to support me and to say a few words the people would actually understand. About 80-100 people showed up, which packed the classroom we were in and lots of people had to try to listen from outside. I had written a speech and made posters saying my ideas for possible projects. I was pretty nervous, but everything went pretty well. Two women in the front row sat down and promptly started breastfeeding their babies which was a little distracting. At the end of everyone’s speeches the meeting transformed into a general town meeting. I was not aware this would happen, I was told to sit down and listened to someone call out the names and ages of all the infants in town. People would respond with “Si” so maybe it was checking if they were still alive.

I’ve been playing soccer almost constantly here, which I really like since it is an easy way to make friends without talking and is pretty fun. I play in the street in front of my house with neighborhood kids, ages 6-20, with goals being two rocks on either end of the street. This is some rough and tumble playing, as small space, pavement, rocks, sand, gutters, and barb wire fences make it feel like winning is more about survival than goals. We also play in a campground by the lagoon, which requires navigating trees, rocks, bushes, picnic tables, roots and fences, while trying to maintain control of the ball. A few of the kids have some funny nicknames, one kids is called “lodo” which means mud and my favorite “pachuga” which means chicken breast. I started calling one guy “godzilla” since he is tall and wide and plays like a freight train. Everyone thinks this name is hilarious and is definitely better than his old name of “gordo” which means fat. Everyone here calls me Nacho or Nachito or sometimes my personal favorite “Don Nacho” Every time I hear that one I have to stop and ponder the chain of events that lead to my name being Don Nacho and I just have to appreciate the absurdity of life.

I also play with the men’s team in very organized matches at a nearby soccer field that is in pretty good shape. These games are more serious and include registered players, a ref, uniforms, and a tournament schedule. The last two weeks I had played for one half and managed to neither make a any good plays nor make a fool of myself, which was my primary goal. This week they put me as goalkeeper, a scary position since everyone puts their faith in you. I was honored that they trust me that much, and decided not to mention that I hadn’t played on a soccer team since I was ten. All was going well in the goal until, in a moment of terrible judgment I let a high kick that I thought was out over the goal pass, which somehow curved precisely into the goal. I turned around to look and wanted to die. This put the other team in the lead, my team hadn’t lost all season, there wasn’t much time left, and I had just experienced a goalie’s worst nightmare, letting an easy one through. Amidst plenty of catcalls from the sidelines I tried not to think about what an ass of myself I had just made. All eyes were on my in these games anyway since I’m the only white/tall/foreign/non-spanish speaking guy out there. As the game continued all I could think about was my teams shattered trust, my loss of street cred, and the next flight back to the states (just kidding, kind of). These games don’t see high scores, but I was praying for us to score a goal or even for them to score another, since then the loss wouldn’t be caused by my mistake alone. With about a minute left my guys managed to put one in, and I’ve never been happier for a goal in my life. So we ended up tying instead of losing, which saved me from what may have been early retirement from El Salvador soccer league. We see what happens next week.

Finally, once a week I coach the youth soccer team, which just involves being the ref while they scrimmage. The kids range from ages 7 to 15, so I admire the tenacity of the little ones. Being a referee turned out to be harder than imagined, since no matter what call you make half of the players will be mad. I’m starting to get the hang of it, and hopefully next year I can organize for us to travel to away games.

Other than that, I don’t have a lot to do right now, since in a week I will leave for two weeks for the second part of my training, which last for two weeks. There we learn more about specific projects that we can do. I’m trying to come up with a project that could be a business for the people here, since most people said that lack of jobs is the biggest problem here. Aside from opening a new Nike factory, it is tough since no one has much money to buy anything. There is a decent flow of tourists though, so maybe we could sell them more food, arts and crafts, or souvenirs such as postcards or posters or something like that.

Im actually happier than this. The Lagoon in the background is the towns water supply and tourist attraction.

The school had a kids day. It was the most enthusiastic piñata destruction I have ever seen.

10/7/10

I have been here three weeks, but it feels like a lot longer. My days are filled with reading, studying Spanish, visiting houses and playing soccer with the kids in the street. I have gotten more used to not accomplishing very much, since my real goals are to meet people and gain their trust and improve my Spanish. I have visited 50 houses now, and I have noticed that people seem more and more friendly. This may because they have heard of my visits and are expecting my and generally know who I am and why I am here. Most people are hard pressed to think of any problems in the community when I ask them, even though I can see many problems from my perspective, they don’t seem too worried about them. The main problems I see are the terrible road conditions, lack of a health clinic, and lack of a garbage pickup service.

I plan to talk to the mayor about getting the garbage pick-up service going again. It ran before but stopped since people would not bring their garbage to the street, but would just throw it down the mountain like they usually do. I am going to start coaching the kids soccer team next week, we will see how that goes since I still can’t understand most of what they say.

I travel to the other side of the country (nine hours by a series of busses) to meet up with other volunteers for a night of American fun and to play on the Peace Corps soccer team the next day. It turned out to be really fun; it was good to know that I can compete with the adults here. They have much more skill and better footwork, but I can just bowl people over, so it evens out.

8/11/10

We had a regional meeting the on Friday which is where the 20 or so volunteers in this department and the neighboring one get together to share what we hae been up to and try to collaborate and share resources. (The departments in El Salvador are like states, there are 13 or so). I got to meet a bunch of volunteers who have been here anywhere from 6 months to nearly 3 years, and who have sites close by. It was also nice to catch up with the three girls I was in training with who are now in my region. I am finding out that there are a lot of NGOs that provide money and resources if you apply and qualify for them. For example, one NGO will come to your site for a multiday workshop that teaches vocational skills to kids such as sewing or woodworking for free. The catch is you have to have an organized group that is willing to learn. (easier said than done.) There are a lot of opportunities for grants from the states too, but often they require a lot of paperwork and are competitive.

I feel like I am beginning to bond more with my host family and to a lesser degree the community as a whole. I played in a soccer match yesterday that was very official with jerseys and teams from different towns. I didn’t do anything spectacular, but didn’t embarrass myself either, so that’s a win in my book. Everyone is getting more used to me being around, and I am feeling more comfortable here too, so things are looking up in the cultural adaptation department.

Also, I will coach the kids soccer team for the first time on Wednesday, we’ll see if I can lead a group of rambunctious kids with broken Spanish

The volunteer that I am replacing left today, after our 3.5 week overlap period where I tried to extract as much information and advice out of him as possible. He’s heading back to Massachusetts to eventually attend medical school. I’m on my own now, no more English speaking and no more easy explanations of things about the community. It was really nice to have someone around to share my feelings with and just talk things over with. Although I had just known him for three weeks, I felt kind of sad when he left; we had become best friends by cultural default. We had a nice goodbye dinner for him and everyone said a few words about the good work he did and the friendships he built. Their sincere gratitude was so heartfelt that it strengthen my resolve to do my best here to improve their lives in whatever ways I can.

I have arrived! I came in the back of a pick-up and when I stepped down a heard about 60 kids yelling “Nacho”! The school had made welcome signs and was waiting to meet me. I nervously said a few words in broken Spanish and then started to move into my house across the street. I am living with a family in a basic but nice house. I have my own small room, next to their small store that sells a few basic things and candy. The family is a guy and his wife who are about 45 and their 6 or so kids, ages 9-22. They are really nice, but I still don’t understand a lot of what they say. The water runs every other day for a couple house to fill their water basin. They have a flush toilet (gotta love it) and showers are done in the small room with a drain which also contains the toilet. I dip a bowl in a basin and pour freezing water over myself to bathe. Their cook over an open fire in their kitchen and we eat a lot of beans rice and tortillas.

The community is small, maybe one eighty houses scattered throughout the mountains. We are about 3 miles up a mountain from the nearest town. The most common crop is coffee, which the people export. There are also a number of vacation homes that people from the capital own and occasionally visit, which creates a sharp economic divide with the locals. There are several volcanic craters, some about 300 feet deep and half a mile across, some with lakes in them. There was a series of small earthquakes last night, I was baffled and a little scared since my room is probably not very earthquake proof. Luckily, they weren’t very strong.

The climate here is really nice; it reminds me of northern California. There are forests to shade the coffee plants and fog/rain rolls in periodically throughout the day. It is one of the few places in the country that is at high enough altitude to never get very hot. The people get their water by taking water from one of the crater lakes and chlorinating it.

The volunteer that I am replacing is here until Oct 11 so he has been introducing me to people and places in the community. He teaches science and environmental studies at the school, mostly by doing small hands-on experiments. He has also been doing a revolving loan program, started a small recycling program, and coaches a youth soccer team. I will probably be taking over these projects, but now I am still getting settled in. Today I am heading into town to print out a brochure about myself, the Peace Corps, and my role here. I am then going to visit all the houses I can and pass out my brochure to try to get to know everyone and invite them to a community meeting I am holding next month to present my ideas and talk about the communities ideas.

9/25

So I’m one week in, and things are going well. Its rains here everyday, sometimes multiple times. I have been visiting houses and passing out my brochure and asking people about their family and what they think the problems in the community are. The answer to the questions about problems have ranged from “everything is a problem” “to there are no problems”. Other people mention lack of jobs, lack of trash pickup, and poverty in general. I’m hoping to work on the second one, the other two are some pretty big problems to try to solve. People are very welcoming, I am treated with interest and respect since I am a new and important person here. I just walk up to people’s houses and start asking a bunch of questions, and people are usually interested and open with their lives.

I’ve been observing the volunteer I am replacing teach classes and do science demonstrations for the kids. Its going to be tough to keep class moving with my level of Spanish, but I’ve got lots of time to practice. I’ve been trying to shake my American sense of having to be accomplishing things all the time. My main job now is mostly just to live here to gain trust and familiarity with the community.

I usually either read or study Spanish in my free time. I also try to just hang around people and find an excuse to talk to people both to practice and to build relationships. I’ve also been playing soccer with some of the kids in the street. Soccer is the universal language.

The other day, I went to work at the coffee farm with two guys my age who I live with. I thought we were going to work but ended up just hiking around the mountains for 4-5 hours, which was fun but exhausting. We went by an enormous volcanic crater, about 300 feet deep and half mile across, with very steep walls. However, there was a cornfield at the bottom, apparently there is a steep tiny trail down the side and someone goes down there and farms it. Most of the land here is coffee farm, which is shade grown so they have planted forests to shade the crop, so some mountainsides have checkerboard patterns from these planted trees. Other parts sre to steep to farm and are native growth jungle. Which is dominated by hanging vines that give the hillsides a rainforest appearance.

It’s finally here! The swearing in is tomorrow and the next day we all travel to our sites. I found out that my site is in one of the most beautiful and coldest regions of the country (I got really lucky with this one). There is a tourist town nearby with paintballing and go-carts. Not what you expect in rural El Salvador, but surprises have become the norm. I will be replacing a volunteer who will go back to the States in the middle of October, so there will be a month overlap so he can show me around and help me set up. I have heard that he works with intensively with the local school teaching environmental education and also coaches a youth soccer team, which I am eager to take over. It’s a little sad to leave my family here since it feels like we were just becoming close and I was part of the family, however I will return in two months for our second round of training that lasts two weeks. I will be living with a host family in my new site too, hopefully everything will work out well. I can’t say much now, but I’m sure next week I will have a lot more to tell everyone.

One more week of training left, I’m ready to stop talking about it and get down to the business of volunteering. We had our final Spanish class yesterday, and I feel like I have made a lot of progress. I am able to write out pretty much what I want to say, but using things in a conversation in a timely manner is a different story altogether. I have my second Spanish interviews today, which will tell me how much I have improved. The PC encourages everyone to make it to Intermediate, but if I don’t it just means I will have to come back for a couple of extra class days in two months. Once training is over we are sent to our sites and are on our own for towo months until there is a second training phase that lasts for two weeks. Our focus in the first two to six months is to meet as many people and build “confianza” which means build relationships and trust so later the people will want to work with you on projects.

As an Environmental Education volunteer I have heard that our group has one of the most structured programs, in that we are given a book of environmental lesson and should give then over time to the local school we are assigned to. This is a base for our work, and then we are free to work on anything else that our community wants or that we want to do. I don’t have many plans yet, except maybe a gardening and composting project, as everyone seems to do these and are fairly easy and effective.

I don’t know if I have described my daily life so I will here;

6:00 Get up (never thought this would happen)

6:00-7 Get ready, shower from a bucket, have breakfast made for me, get dressed)

7-8 Work on homework or projects or read in English (my guilty pleasure)

8-12 Spanish class with three other trainees and our teacher in an extra room in my house

12-1 Lunch with Spanish teacher

1-4 More class

4-7 Work on projects, investigate community in areas like healthcare, water, holidays, school system, flora and fauna, beliefs ect. Sometimes play soccer or Frisbee with the kids

7-730 Eat dinner

7:30 -9 Work on homework or projects, read, listen to music

9 – go to bed (earliest since I was about 8 years old, but I’m exhausted by then)

At the Army Museum

This one is of my birthday fiesta with my family

Salvadoran Backflip

This is part of my house during a fiesta for mt now nine year old host-sister.

Kudos to Katie for the Costa del sol pics.

Training here is winding down gracias a Dios. We have our swearing in a week from Thursday where we actually become PC Volunteers instead of trainees. I’m really looking forward to being in my site and getting to know people. They have been keeping us incredible busy here with classes, projects and other activities. Once we are in our sites we get to completely set our own schedule and do whatever we want whenever we want. I find out which town my site this Thursday, which is probably the biggest thing that I have ever left to chance in my entire life since I will be spending two entire years. They have been emphasizing to us the importance of building relationship our first few months in our sites. This involves meeting everyone, participating in local activities and building trust. I am really excited to do this since I my only responsibility is to hang out with everyone. Sounds like the worlds best job to me.

Life here has been good, I have given up trying to learn Spanish quickly and have resigned myself to a more “slow and steady wins the race” approach, which has relieved some of the stress I was feeling. I can get my basic point across usually but still get very lost in most conversations. My go-to Spanish words are bastante which means plenty or enough (I have heard this when I asked how many kids someone has), quisas which means maybe and va a llover which means it is going to rain, which is almost always the case here and can serve as a great conversation in itself.

We had a free weekend for the first time last weekend and most of us pooled money to rent an enormous house on the beach complete with hammocks, a pool, patio-bar, and general awesome tourist amenities. We finally got to drink a bit and hang out and speak English and get to know each other better. The house was right on a beautiful beach and was basically a slice of paradise to relax in. It was a very much needed vacation.

We have been meeting with a group of kids for the last few weeks trying to get them to do a community project of some sort, and they decided to do a community clean-up today. However, none of them actually showed up this morning. The other gringos seemed a bit surprised, but I knew that the last thing kids probably want to do on Saturday is clean up trash in the mud. We’re going to try again Monday morning.

Even though my malaria medicine gives me strange dreams, its usually stranger when I wake up and remember what I’m doing and where I am.

So my 22nd birthday came and went, and ended up being pretty nice despite being significantly more sober than my last one due to the no drinking during training policy here. The other volunteers surprised me with a cake and a card they had all signed, which really made me feel appreciated and surrounded by good network of friends. When I got home my family also had a cake form my, and proceeded to sing “feliz cumpleanos” and other spanish songs. It was a really nice gesture and I feel closer to them now.

I have just returned from a PC event called “immersion days” where I went to visit a volunteer in his site that he had been in for one year. His site was a tiny village of less than 300 way out in the mountains of the west. It was an hour and a half hike from the nearest town, and the roads were so bad it is almost impossible to drive to. The village had no running water or electricity, but had a school and a church. I stayed with the volunteer and his host family for three days way out in sticks. They grow lots of corn, beans and rice, which is about all they eat. Our host volunteer was a bit sick of the lack of food variety. The highlight was visiting two absolutely gorgeous waterfalls. One had a narrow swimming hole at the bottom, which was deep enough to jump off of the surrounding rocks into. The other was over 200 feet tall and absolutely astounding. The surrounding protected area highlighted the natural beauty of tropical areas and reminded me of why I am here and definitely boosted my morale.

Hope all is well in the States.

Much love.

PS. I mis-typed my phone number before, its actually- 001 503 7516 3289

Aug 13

Well, I’ve been slacking on the blog writing, there no denying it. This is partly due to the fact that the Peace Corps keeps us really busy, and the little free time I have is spent sleeping or reading. I’ve been reading a lot since it my only escape from speaking Spanish, which I can only do for so many hours a day. I’ve finished Obama’s Audacity of Hope which was really a good read and made me more proud and enthusiastic than ever about being an American. Although we get cynical and focus on problems a lot, I really believe it is one of the best places to live and we should keep trying to fix the problems and not give up. I also read Living Poor which was written about a PC volunteer’s experience in the late 60’s in Ecuador. That book sure made it feel easy here, the people in the book we so poor that a pair of shoes, a complete diet and a night sleeping in a bed were luxuries. Hard to complain after reading that, but I do anyway.

I went to a local waterpark last week with some a couple of families from my town. We piled about 10 people into the bed of a pickup and drove for about an hour and a half, with about one hour being in a large circle that I never figured out the purpose of. It starting raining really hard too, and it turns out that raindrops kind of hurt at 60MPH, but it was really fun anyway. The water park was fairly large, with two major pools, a slide, waterfalls, a zipline and other features. The pools were un-chlorinated and filled with small fish that like to nibble at legs. The water was probably really dirty since so many people were in it, but I’ve haven’t gotten sick yet.

I also bought a large machete at the market the other day, complete with frilly sheath. The people in my town thought it was pretty funny, but I know I will need it at some point. I haven’t found anybody to sharpen it yet, since apparently the first time you should use a sharpening machine and not just a file. Should be good to hack at some foliage and give me some credito de la calle (street credit).

Today we went to the American Embassy, which was a strange place after walking around the dilapidated caipital. We had to go through security complete with xray machine, which then lead to a huge courtyard. We filed into the very formal and posh ambassadors’’ house, which decorated how I imagine the white house is. We talked for a while with the head honcho (there is no ambassador right now, they are in the process of appointing one) and had lunch. It was fully catered by butlers on gold-plated dishes. It was probably the fanciest place I have ever been, and was a culture shock after roughing out in the country for a month.

I finally got a cell phone, my number is (001)503 7516-3289, the best time to call is 5-9 my time, which is an hour ahead of California time. I would love to hear from anyone who wants to talk!

The days are beginning to pass more quickly here as we fall into routine. Most of are time is occupied either by Spanish class, cultural immersion activities or going into the PC office for a day of lectures. Today we met with our “youth group”. We had early gone to a school and sat in on an English class, and at the end passed out invitations to come to my house at a specified time to participate in PC community activities. The class we visited was 9th grade and the kids were about 15. We passed out 14 invitations and 4 girls ended up showing up, 45 minutes late. We explained to them (in pre-written, badly executed Spanish) who we were and what we had in mind, and then asked them to take us on a tour of their community. We walked down to the local stream, were all of the local greywater drains to. The water was a frothy diluted milk color, and there was trash everywhere. This is all too common, 90% of surface water here is deemed unfit even for animal consumption. When we came back, we asked them for ideas about a project to better their community that we could help them do. They had some good ideas, such as more trash cans in the community and community workshops on environmental principles. We are very constrained on both time and money, however, so we have to set our sights fairly low. We are planning to meet with the girls every week to start getting a definite plan into motion. The project is a little strange since the PC has predetermined all the steps, and it is not really geared toward getting results, it is mostly to serve as a training exercise for us, so we can do actual work when we get into our sites.

We got a really good lecture from Rolando, our Environmental Director the other day. He is a Salvadoran who got a PhD from some school in Mississippi in Agriculture and has been with the PC here for 16 years, since the program reopened after the civil war. He basically highlighted that the environmental movement in the US hasn’t always been what it is today, that it really got started in the sixties, and he basically challenged us to make the same thing happen in El Salvador. That’s a pretty intense mission objective, but also inspiring. However, one can’t help but notice that the Environmental Movement in the US rode on the back of unheard of economic prosperity, and we don’t have that luxury here. However, Costa Rica stands as an excellent example of what can be done, and its close proximity encourages hope El Salvador.

Rain comes hear just about every afternoon, usually around 4 or 5, sometimes accompanied by intense lightning, which I really enjoy. The word for storms here is tormentas, which is fairly appropriate. I just watched some of the news with my family that was showing a bunch of flooded houses and street in the capital, I think some people were killed too. I am living on a high hill, so I think we’re safe.

I went to catholic church with my family today, which was one of the most pleasant church experience I have had. The service was outdoors, with a long paved area in the middle of a forest, so it wasn’t hot and everyone was in the shade. It only lasted for about an hour and a half, which I was happy about, I heard they can last for four hours here. I mostly was zoning out the whole time since I couldn’t follow what was being said, but it was nice to listen when everyone was singing. The was a whole market and a bunch of food vendors outside the venue, so I got a papusa (beans and rice in a tortilla pancake) lunch with my family.

I am slowly noticing improvements in my Spanish, but the going is slow. Sometimes I am really motivated to learn as much as I can, other times I wish I could just give up. I am really excited to move to my site and start doing projects, but that’s not for another 6 weeks.

Much love to everybody,

-Ignacio

Hola a todos. I finally have some time to write. Its been a whirlwind of activity for me here. I have been living with my host family for about eight days now. It was an extremely abrupt change, going from hanging out with 30 Americans and living in hotel to living with a family by myself in the countryside. I quickly realized that my family speaks no English and my Spanish was not very functional. Although I seem to know the names of obscure nouns like tie, umbrella and credit card, I am not good at speaking or understanding speech. I am in a small town (about 100 people and maybe 25 houses, a school, a small store, and a small restaurant) about 20 minutes away from the training center. My Spanish teacher introduced me to my host mom and left, leaving me and my luggage with this Salvadoran family. After “Hola, como esta?” I pretty much exhausted my skills, and the ensuing conversation quickly dissolved into silence and awkwardness. My family consists of a mom, dad, and two kids, a boy who is 5 and a girl who is 9. I am getting along well with the mom and kids, but the dad just barks Spanish at me and gets impatient quickly. The mom is really nice and cooks me three meals a day, which I take at a formal dining table by myself, which was strange at first but I quickly got used to it. The countryside here is beautiful, very green, jungle-like and mountainous, with an occasional volcano throw in for good measure.

I have Spanish lessons every morning with a PC teacher who comes to my house. We meet with the other three volunteers in my town and have class from 8-12, break for lunch, and then either do a community activity or study more Spanish. Our first community activity was to round op some kids in town and get them to show us around town and have them draw a map or the community. That was fun, although the other volunteers are better at Spanish and did most of the talking. We did “A day in the life” on Monday, in which I just hung out with my host mom and observed here daily routine.

My family is surprisingly middle class. The dad is a teacher in a driving school (pretty dangerous around here, there are no traffic laws). The house is fairly large and comfortable, except for there is just a tin roof and some of the rooms are open air. My room is pretty basic, just a single bed in a 8X10 concrete room. There is a toilet which usually flushes and a shower (no hot water of course) and a sink in the bathroom. The family has two dogs, three small parrots, and a few chickens. They also have what must be the worlds loudest rooster which lives right outside my room and wakes me up between 4-5 each morning. I’m wondering if I could kill it and hide the body. There are also two hammocks an the front porch, which are great for siestas (even though they aren’t part of the culture here, I take them anyway.

The hardest thing about living here is definitely not knowing enough Spanish. It is very rare for me to understand a complete sentence, but by picking up key words, context, and gestures I can usually get the jist of what people say to me. I pretty much study Spanish all day every day, so hopefully I will get better fast. The words I try to learn often just go in one ear and out the other, and my mouth has problems receiving instructions from my brain in Spanish.

Similar to my time in Africa, I experience dramatic highs and lows. Sometime I have the so much fun here and can’t wait to get some important work done, and other times I get really frustrated with the language and fell like I can’t stand it anymore.

Some of the most fun I have is playing sports with the other volunteers and local kids. The kids are easier to talk to and I don’t have to worry about mistakes or offending anyone. They love soccer here, but we taught them ultimate Frisbee. They picked it up in about five minutes and really like to play.

It is consistently hot and humid, and lately storms have been rolling in every afternoon that dump rain for an hour or two. It is some of the most intense rain and thunder I have experienced, its no wonder erosion, landslides and floods are major problems here.

I am living here for two more months, getting to know the culture and language and receiving training in environmental education. After that, the PC places me in my “site” which I will live in for two years and teach in a school and do various projects. The really nice thing about the PC (called the Cuerpo de Paz here) is they tell you to first get to know your community and basically ask them what changes they would like to see in their community. You then work with people to help them make the change, and ensure that they know how to maintain it after you leave. The main idea in the environmental education program is that you train the teachers how to integrate environmental issues into the curriculum and then teach it themselves. Its supposed to be teaching people to fish rather than giving handouts.

I seem to have more developing world experience and more of a background in environmental studies than most of the other volunteers, but I have the least Spanish experience. Its ironic that the one subject I hated in school and could barely pass has become my primary goal.

Also, I changed my name to Ignacio. Forest was to hard to pronounce.

I'm doing well, I'm healthy, and moved in with the host family. Not a lot of computer time, but I will write much more later. Much Love!

Today was a full training day. First I had my spanish placement interview, which was definitely a struggle. I was asked open-ended questions for about 20 minutes to place me into an appropriate level of spanish instruction. I will probably start at the bottom, but everyone says it comes fast and I will be fine. Tomorrow we move out of the cush hotel that we are in ( air conditioning and wifi!) and into a host family house. Im excited, I will get a real taste of life here and some real spanish practice. We had papusas (pa POO sas) for dinner, which are a very common. They are beans and cheese in the center of a thick spongy corn tortilla ball smashed flat. They are eaten with salsa, sauerkraut, and pickled cauliflower and carrots, with spiced hot chocolate to drink. They were unbelievably good, the food here seems right up my alley. We also had training today in common health problems that occur as well as how to avoud being the victom of various types of crime. Although El Salvador has the third highest rate of crime among PC countries, it has one of the lowest volunteer drop out rates, which really speaks for the country and the program. Since all I can compare it to is Ghana, thus city seems pretty, clean and well kept to me, while everyone else seems it as a ghetto. Its all relative I guess. My spirits remain high, I feel so blessed to be here.

-

After much preparation, waiting and planning, the time has finally come. I am currently in LA awaiting my 11PM departure to San Salvador (the capital city) I flew down here from Arcata yesterday morning with two suitcases just under the 80 pound weight limit combined and a large backpack. After a nice flight and night at the LAX Radisson courtesy of the Peace Corps, today was our staging event. About 30 volunteers are leaving with me, all in their twenties, with some assigned to environmental education like me and others is the youth development program. Today was filled with goofy ice-breaker and get-to-know-you activities. We also discussed challenges we will face down there as well as some of the reasons we joined the PC and what we hope to accomplish. The volunteers are from all parts of the country and most of them recently graduated college. Some are already fluent in Spanish and some are still beginners like me. Now we have a few hours to buy last minute things and make calls, post on blogs, ect. We arrive in El Salv at 5AM tomorrow. I was happy to find out that they use the same electrical plugs as us, and also use the US dollar, which will simplify things. Its been nice meeting everyone who is in the exact same situation as me, and we all can share our enthusiasm and anxiety. Overall, I am more excited than ever and can't wait to get there.

Much love to everyone.

So I'm done with college and on a road trip with my dad back to Arkansas for 2 weeks to visit family. Thank you to everyone at my graduation, it was great to get everyone's support for my Peace Corps endeavor. I'm using Rosetta Stone and making progress with my study of Spanish. I leave for staging (its like an orientation/group meeting) July 19th, after I fly back to Humboldt July 1st. I'm getting more and more excited, but a little nervous about the language barrier. Hope everyone is doing well, and thanks for reading!

Welcome to my future PCV blog! I hope everyone is ready for another adventure because I sure am. I caught the traveling bug in Africa and now I'm off to El Salvador. Wait, first I have to graduate...