happy thanksgiving, a few days late!

my site visit was so wierd. i love the geography and the terrain of ahuachapan. it’s super “frio” at night, compared to the other places i’ve been, and really windy. i didn’t know if that was because of the changing of the seasons, or because i was just in a really cold place – but when i got back to san vicente on thursday, and went into the training center on friday, i heard that el salvador is going through some kind of cold spell right now. ashley said that wednesday morning was the coldest she has ever experienced while she’s been here. there just seems to be such an extreme between when it’s cold and when it’s hot. it’s like we’re in the desert or something.
anyway – i’ve updated the blog....one entry for each day of my site visit. so if you want to read about the entire site visit, you have to scroll down until you get to the first day – which is titled “thank god for the simpsons.” if you don’t, then some of the entries closer to the top won’t really make much sense. but do whatever you want!

i just got a letter from my friend saying that crazy tom cruise and toledo’s own katie holmes are buying a house in toledo. apparently this is the same exact house where i lived with this humongous family and took care of their kids during my college years at the university of toledo......WTF?? i guess this is old news to everyone who knew me back then and lives in toledo now. i think it’s hilarious. they are getting a nice house, though. but what can you expect from tom cruise, doesn’t he always manage to get everything he wants one way or another???
i hope that you guys working at my old job at gallagher, sharp got the day after thanksgiving off. if not, don’t forget to put in your request for that day off in january!!!!

meeting important people in your pajamas is really embarassing (day 3 of my site visit)

so i slept until 7:30 on wednesday, which is really, really late for el salvador. since i went to bed at 8:30, i guess it does seem like a ton of sleep. so after i ate breakfast, i was sitting around talking to the grandmother when this dude shows up at the house. i was sitting near the front door, and so i got up to say hello, and then i realized it was the “promotor de salud” for san jorge – don tonito. the previous volunteer had written to me and told me that he was really interested in meeting with the next volunteer so that we can work on some kind of trash campaign together. but i hadn’t expected him to come over to the house at 8:00 in the a.m. i had no idea i was going to even meet him on this site visit! but whatever. we just chatted, as best as we could – given my broken spanish and all. then i mentioned to him that i had forgotten to give the letters to elba and he said that he was going to apaneca later in the day and could give them to her. i crossed my fingers and gave him the letters with much thanks. i figured it was the best option....as it was wednesday and i still had not seen or heard from her. anyway, don totino went on his way and we decided that when i come back in december, we’re going to get together to discuss the situation in san jorge. so after his visit, i was pumped because i had actually talked to someone in my community about something that i can work on when i get there.

so an hour and a half later, in walks in some other dude from the ministry of health – which is where don tonito is from, but don tonito is from san jorge. the other guy – don emilio – was from the municipality of apaneca, and was there to do malaria testing on the people in the house. i talked to him for a little bit, and then he saw that i had my camera, so he wanted me to take pictures of him doing the malaria testing. i’m telling you, the camera and the television shows were the savior of my site visit. anyway, after what seemed like forever, don emilio left and i decided i wanted to walk back down to the bosque to check it out. right before i left the house, the grandma said she would go with me, so we trekked back on down to the bosque. i could tell she was trying to help me find a house in san jorge because everybody we went and visited, she would drop hints about me needing a house and kind of in a roundabout way would ask them if they knew of anything. we stopped at the property that belonged to the rich woman, and the guy who takes care of the garden let us walk around and look at all the flowers. it was amazing. there were so many different colors and types of flowers, i couldn’t even believe it. then we walked over to the other side, and some woman let us go to the other side of her property and check out the pine tree bosque located there. that’s one thing i looooove about my site – there are TONS of pine trees there.

after that, the grandma decided she wanted to take me over to one of the big fincas in san jorge, so we walked over there and i was totally blown away. i couldn’t believe we were still in el salvador. this place had some cabins and an orchid grove and every plant and flower you can imagine all over the place. we hung out there for a really long time and met the owner and her daughter and i took so many pictures. the trees were huge and had these gigantic trunks that wrapped around over and over. i kept saying that i just wanted to live there. i actually think i’m going to be able to spend some time learning about the native plants and flowers of el salvador as another secondary project – to try and do some type of environmental appreciation with the kids, or even the adults in the community.

by the time we got back to the house, it was already dinner time and just when i thought my day was going to end on a fabulous note, that stupid guy and his daughters came over again. UGH!!! so we went through the same motions as before....them only saying “hola” and then igoring me. but then, i realized that the guy was DYING to say something to me, and finally he asked me who i was. so i told him. and his second question was “what’s your religion?” i said “what?” not because i didn’t understand him, but because i couldn’t believe that was his second question to me. when i said “what,” he said, “su religion!” and made some motion of turning the pages of the bible. it all came together for me – this guy had to be evangelical and was clearly reluctant to talk to me because the evangelicals are really wary of people who aren’t fellow evangelicals. the peace corps says that you really don’t want to affiliate yourself with one religion or another, but it’s also at your disadvantage to not say you are with any religion because then people think you don’t believe in god and then REALLY won’t work with you. so i simply told him that “my family is catholic.” which is true – in el salvador and in the states. i’ve got a whole lot of issues with religion, but i knew that coming down here i was going to have to deal with it one way or another......so while i’m here that’s how it’s going to have to be. for the most part though, the catholics seem to have a better grasp of reality – moreso than in the states. they don’t judge other people and seem to be way more accepting of outsiders and other people than the evangelicals. my town seems to be a mix of the two – so that’s good. but i’ll talk more about the religious and the all-important political makeup of my community (and of el salvador) in another post.

so this dude talked to me for a while, so it was better than the first time he was there. but they stayed forever, and finally, i had to just go to bed. i was freezing and i was ready to get ready to leave. i said my “buenas noches” and was off to slumberland.

i left early the next morning and it took me nearly 5 1/ 2 hours to get back to molineros. but i had a really great feeling about everything – like i had talked with lots of people in the community and built a pretty good confianza with at least some members......which is probably the most important thing you can do right off the bat. even moreso than starting any projects, just getting to know people and tell them about yourself is great. and, i’m fairly confident that at lesat half the town is trying to find me a place to live there. they think it’s absolutely awesome that i want to live there in the caserio with them. so i’ve got that going for me too. so the moral of the story is – don’t judge your entire site visit by your first day there!

don emilio giving mercedes her malaria test

mercedes washing clothes

fucia flowers in the backyard of my family´s home


orchids in the vivero/finca i visited in san jorge

the power of telenovelas (day two of my site visit)

at 6:45 on tuesday i heard everyone getting up and i seriously was feeling more depressed than ever. i did not want to get up and face the day at all. i had 2 full days ahead of me before i could bolt out of there on thursday a.m. i just couldn’t get into being there. i tried, but the rush of feeling alone and having to leave my family in molineros permanently and the not-talking that went on my first night in san jorge was just too much. plus, thanksgiving was coming and missing home in the states was on my mind. to tell you the truth, i was just happy to be going back to molineros on thursday. being in the states was the last thing on my mind. it seemed like thursday was WEEKS away.

i finally got up and the same woman who gave me dinner and cafe gave me breakfast. i tried to talk to her, but she would only smile and that was it. i started wondering if elba and the other teachers had totally lied to me about my spanish being ok.......maybe nobody in the house could understand me or something???? so after breakfast, i wrote in my journal and then the woman and the 13 year old left – so that made it a little more bearable in the house. only madelyn was there, and she at least had talked to me a little bit.

the morning kind of poked along and i finally told madelyn i had to take a bath and so she showed me where i could do so: in the yard. i’ve lucked out in all of my stays with other families, including my family in molineros, because i’ve always had private bathing areas. in chalatenango, it was kind of rough because i had to bathe in this tiny space that i could berely move around in, but it was a space that had a door that i could shut. at this family’s house, the bathing area was in front of the latrine, with basically no privacy whatsoever – from the family living there, or any of the neighbors. so i pretty much had to take a bucket bath in shorts and a tank top. don’t even ask me how i managed – it’s totally something you have to experience to understand. oh, i forgot to add that the “bathing area” was also in front of the chicken coop – so the entire time i was trying to take a bucket bath, i was being bawked and cawed at by a bunch of chickens.

after that though, i actually felt a lot better. i sat and watched a telenovela with madelyn and it was during this time that madelyn and i were talking a bit more – mostly about the telenovela. i wasn’t even really paying attention to the show – i was thinking about how friggin’ stressed out i was – but every minute or so, something would happen on the show, and madelyn would look at me to see my reaction and we would laugh. so i felt a lot more comfortable. then i got out my camera and was taking pictures of the flowers in the back of the house and that was also kind of an icebreaker. then madelyn asked me if i wanted to go down to the “fiesta” that was apparently taking place a few streets over. i was super excited to get out of the house and do something different than watching television. so we walked over there, but basically all that was going on was a pinata event for the kids, so we decided to just walk around. madelyn said the fiesta would be bigger in the afternoon.

later, after lunch, we heard some kind of marching band music, so we went down on the street and saw about 15 kids playing various instruments. it was the parade for the fiesta, and there were these weirdo dancers wearing masks like the one from scream and other miscellaneous masks. finally, that ended and we went up to the fiesta to watch more crazy dancing and more pinatas being broken. it started to get really cold, so we left and when we got home, there was still nobody there. so we sat around and you guessed it....watched more telenovelas. they are on 24 hours a day here, i’m telling you. oh, and during my time with madelyn that afternoon, i found out that the woman who was giving us dinner and breakfast and all that was her mom, mercedes and the 13 year old was her madelyn’s brother milton. yay for me!!! i cracked the case!!!! i should put in for a detective job with interpol, huh?

anyhow, later mercedes, milton and the grandmother came home and things seemed a little better. my camera was a big hit, and even though they all acted embarassed that i was taking pictures of them, they loved seeing themselves on the monitor of the digital camera. they kept asking me to show them again and again and again. we had crappy cafe again that night, but it didn’t seem nearly as bad as the night before – but i think it had something to do with how i was feeling emotionally too. just a lot more comfortable. i also met two other neighbors that night – juana and blanca, and blanca’s kid, jose. so it seemed like i was getting to know more people than just the people in the house.

after dinner we “desgranar”ed the corn that mercedes and milton had purchased in ahuachapan (the city) that day. basically, you just have to take all the kernels off the dried corn cob and then they take the kernels to the molino and then the family makes its own tortillas. i think they were glad i helped them, and they thought it was so hysterical that i was so slow at it. whatever. i went to bed feeling lots better, but i still was happy that i only had one more day left.

madelyn in the bosque

milton chopping wood for the kitchen oven

thank god for the simpsons (day 1 of my site visit)

so basically, anna and i left at 6:00 in the a.m. on monday, november 21st. we both had the same route until the city of sonsonate, so we figured we’d just go together. we were both kind of nervous about the whole thing, and weren’t in the best of moods on the bus trip. anyway, we went our separate ways in sonsonate and i got on the #249 and headed for apaneca. the route was so pretty....it really is the “rutas de las flores.” plus, the bus i was on had this AWESOME 70’s/early 80’s mix going on....stuff like ABBA and shit i haven’t heard since junior high from the mid 80’s. i can’t believe i heard ABBA though? during some of the disco tunes like “hot stuff” and “freak out” i was like, “um, ok....nobody on this bus gets it.” but they played that tune that goes “i come from the land down under.....can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder....you better run, you better blah, blah, blah.....heyaaaa.” seriously, when was that tune a hit? 1983 or something???? (for the record, i didn’t know the blah, blah, blah part in 1983 or whatever year it was, and i still don’t know it.) remember, this was a MIXED CD. i will probably never get used to the variety of music played here because it is so ridiculous. that should be my peace corps project......analyzing why the hell salvadorans love things that were a fad in the states 25 years ago. don’t even get me started on their adoration of looney toons characters accompanied with religious sayings. seriously....on this one bus from san salvador to vera paz, this bus had a sticker that said “cristo vive. buscalo” (christ lives, look for him) and this saying was under a picture of tweety bird with hearts all over. ????????????? anyway.....

so i got to apaneca and had no idea where to get off the bus. i finally just guessed, and followed some people, and with some luck i found the central park – the place where i was supposed to meet my counterpart – elba. the only problem was, it was 10:30, and i wasn’t supposed to meet elba until 12:30. so that meant i was going to have to spend 2 uncomfortable hours sitting in the park (parks in el salvador are generally places where drunks and hookers hang out) waiting for elba. i tried to find a spot on the outside of the park but was in the way of some dude trying to clean the grills (from the 6 inches of oil that was probably on them) from his fried platano stand. i managed to find a spot and read my book, and at around 11:45, i heard someone say “laura” and it turned out to be elba and 3 other teachers from the school – mirna, eli and bessy. (i found out later that they are the ONLY teachers at the school.) we all introduced ourselves, which was awkward, because my spanish is only “ok,” but they kept telling me that i understood so much and how great my spanish was. i found out later that it was because the volunteer before me really didn’t ever speak spanish that great. so i was totally geeked that i had that going for me. anyway – they took me over to this hostel where the previous volunteer lived. i really don’t want to live there, because for one, it’s in apaneca – which is the pueblo......actually, it’s designated a city, but it’s not really as big as a city. i’m going to be working in san jorge, and i really want to live in that community so it’s easier for me to get stuff to the school or even during my first couple of months when the kids are on vacation and the school is locked up, i’d at least have a place there so that i could get to know the community. but the problem is, elba was telling me that there weren’t any houses in san jorge for me to rent. so i told her that was ok, i could live at the hostel until i found a house somewhere. san jorge is only about 2 km from apaneca, so it’s not even that big of a deal i guess. but for the time being, apaneca is cool. actually, i think it’s going to be my advantage, because most volunteers live with a family for a month or two before moving into houses – so i’m actually going to be better off because i’ll have some freedom.

we took the bus to san jorge because i was going to stay with a family there. we were supposed to stay with our counterparts, but my counterpart – and every other teacher except eli – lives in apaneca. and since i was supposed to be getting to know the community i am going to work in, i had to stay with a family in san jorge. so we went by the school, and eli’s house – which is also the molino (where they grind the corn to make tortillas). then elba was telling me that san jorge really wants me to work with the ADESCO and the health department as well as with the school. i know working with the ADESCO is going to be hard, because getting a bunch of salvadoran men to work with the ADESCO is difficult. but whatever. i guess i’ll have nothing to do for 2 months anyway – i might as well give it a shot. we finally arrived at this house and went inside and a girl and her grandma came into the room and all of us sat around for a minute chatting. then elba and the teachers kind of just left. i was confused because i had no idea if elba was coming back. she was like “adios!” and i said the same, but i was also thinking, “...um, ok.....so what’s the deal?” and after she was gone, i realized i had not given her the two VERY IMPORTANT letters that i had to give her – which were the invitation from the ambassador to attend the swearing in on december 1st, and the invitation to show up at “counterpart day” on december 2nd. basically, she has to show up at counterpart day, because we new volunteers have to go back to our sites with our counterparts and all of our stuff – and the counterparts have to arrange for trucks or something because we can’t take all our stuff on the bus. but i thought maybe elba would come back on tuesday or wednesday to meet with me or something....so i didn’t think anymore about it – mostly because i was too wrapped up in the awful day i was about to have.

so after they left, i sat around not really talking to anyone in the family because nobody was talking to me. the grandma kind of talked to me, but the daughter – madelyn – really said nothing. and there was some other woman there that said absolutely nothing to me – she just kept walking through the main room with pots and pans, or laundry or whatever. then the grandma gave me lunch, a huge bowl of vegetable soup chock full of pipian (this vegetable i really don’t like at all). i ate it though, i don’t even know how...... finally, i used the excuse of the long trip to say that i wanted to lay down for a hour or so. so i did, and slept for two hours. when i woke up, there was some other kid there, who looked like he was 13 or so, watching cartoons. he didn’t say a word to me. i finally had about a two sentence conversation with madelyn and found out she was 15 and liked telenovelas. then the grandma told me she was leaving until 7:00 p.m. the next day. i was like “noooooo!” because she was the only one who had actually talked to me at all. it was soooo awkward. so basically i just sat and watched these stupid cartoons for what seemed like forever. then, this dude and these 3 girls (1 older, 2 younger) came over. they said “hola” to me. i wish i could say they said more during their 2 ½ hour stay at the house, but that wasn’t the case. it started getting dark outside (and really cold) and we all sat in the main room, in the dark, watching this awful, awful comedy sketch show. it was absolutely horrible. it had the look of that british show “are you being served,” except for instead of being funny like “are you being served” is, it was STUPID. and everyone else i was watching it with was laughing like it was the funniest thing they had EVER seen in their lives. i’m not kidding. i was forcing myself to laugh, and i don’t even know why. it’s not like anybody was talking to me anyways. the whole time i thought i was going to start bawling because all i could think about was the fact that i wished i was back in molineros with my family there. watching “mesa para tres” (this telenovela that mama rosa got me hooked on) and drinking cafe con leche and eating pan dulce. instead i was sitting in this garage-like freezing house watching this insanely stupid comedy show and feeling like a complete outsider.

finally, after an excruciating hour of that show, it ended. and to my surprise, on came “the simpsons.” i was so friggin’ happy because it was something familiar that i could grasp onto and take comfort in, even if it was only for a half hour. and it was FUNNY. the simpsons is funny....not that dumb-ass show we were watching before. my luck didn’t last though, because when that ended, the woman who didn’t speak to me, brought out cafe for everyone. let me tell you a little story about the cafe here in el salvador. some of the best coffee in the world comes from this country. IN THE WORLD. just to give you an idea, apparently starbuck’s has this premium line and there are only 3 coffees on the list and a salvadoran coffee is one of them. the problem is – most of the salvadoran population doesn’t get to drink it. they pick it and sell the beans to starbuck’s, or whoever. so most of the population here drinks – get ready for this – INSTANT coffee. can you even believe that??? so this woman brings us out these steaming cups of instant coffee, with no sugar...no leche....nada. i am used to the crappy instant coffee that my mom in molineros dresses up with sugar and milk, making it at least taste like some kind of donut shop version of a mocha. even anna and megan agree that my mom makes the best cafe of all our moms. so the cafe i was given that night only added to my depression of wanting to be back in molineros. to tell you the truth though, it was warm. and because it sounded (and felt) like a cold, fall night back in ohio, i was just glad to have a warm cup of anything in my hands.

after the not-so-tasty cafe, we had a really uncomfortable dinner, where i had to sit at this tiny table with the dude who had come over earlier. he strained his neck to turn around and talk to everyone else so as not to talk to me. i couldn’t believe what an awful night it had been. finally, the dude and the three girls left. oh, i forgot, they didn’t just say “hola” to me, they also said “adios.” silly me. then madelyn started watching “walker, texas ranger,” and i couldn’t take it anymore. i told them i was going to bed – it was 8:00 anyway....my salvadoran bedtime. i read my book for a little bit, then everyone left the house. yep, they turned off the television, brushed their teeth, and left the house. apparently (i found this out the next day), all the other bedrooms are in the back of the house, which isn’t actually attached to the main house. i still don’t know whose room i was sleeping in. the wind was blowing really hard, and it rattled the tin roof and it was just generally creepy. but i really didn’t care because i was in my sleeping bag and i was not watching that dumb show and i was not drinking instant coffee and i wasn’t cold.

the house where i stayed.....yeah, that´s the t.v. we watched all those programs on.....

the street in front of my family´s house in san jorge

the school i´ll be working in (it´s not a good picture, i know, but i had to take it through the fence...i´ll have more later when i can actually go down by the buildings)

graduación: kinder style

so on friday, megan, anna and i went to dayana´s graduation from ¨kinder,¨ which is basically kindergarten. this thing lasted longer than my college graduation, i´m not even kidding. at 9:00 there was a mass. at 10:00 there was the handing out of diplomas. at 11:00 there was a lunch at the school. after that there was another lunch at my family´s house. yes, you did read that correctly.....dayana graduated from KINDERGARTEN. the girls dressed up in these fancy gowns, while the boys wore these little suits. they had to have an ¨escort,¨ as well, to walk the ten feet from the school gate to the room where the diplomas were being handed out. then they got like 3 presents each from the school. did they get books, or pencils, or crayons??? no. the girls got barbies, or barbie-related items. the boys got toy tanks and airplanes. it´s kind of ironic that they make such a big deal about graduating from kindergarten, and spend virtually no effort to actually give these kids awesome educations after that. but, in any event, the pomp and circumstance was great, and the kids were cute.

we had an earthquake on thursday night (i think it was thursday...). i guess it registered 6.0 and it was centered somewhere in la libertad. this one was kind of weird, because i was standing in my room trying to organize some stuff, and i heard a bunch of dogs barking like crazy outside. then i heard the door start to rattle and i thought someone was trying to get into the house. i looked out into the living room and everything was shaking. my mom came out of the other bedroom when it was over and was holding her hand over her chest, saying how nervous she was. i guess after living through the two huge earthquakes that were centered somewhere near san vicente in 2001, she has grounds to be nervous whenever there is a temblor now.

i go see my site tomorrow. i´m kind of nervous, but i´m excited to see where i´ll be spending my next two years. aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!

i´m attaching more pics......also, i´ve added some in the ¨tortillas are better in the east¨ entry. these are from field based training.

adios!

dayana at her graduación (her escort is the kid in the blue)

dayana and i

dayana (and her escort) getting ready to walk to get her diploma

sindy and dayana

ana´s sister, jacqueline, and her daughter fiorela

and the site location is..........

well, i´ll get to that later. but let me tell you dudes, i got so hooked up re: my site. but first, i want to talk about travel weekend and what a great time we all had. on friday (the 11th) our spanish teacher, esmerelda, took sarah (she lives in las canas – which is close to molineros), megan, anna and i to san sebastian to look at hamacas (hammocks). there is where the best hamacas in el salvador are made – and it’s only about an hour from molineros. we traveled by bus, and we got off the bus and picked up nathan in his town on the way. the most hysterical thing happened though when we picked up nathan. we were waiting for the bus to take us to san sebastian and it came and it was absolutely full of people packed in like sardines. so we were like – forget it. then this van pulls up and it turns out to be a friend of esmerelda’s. so esmerelda asks him if he can give us a ride into san sebastian because he has this van and we have like 6 people. so he said it was cool, so we are walking over to the van and this old man wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a machete starts walking over there with us. we all get in the van and so does this dude, and we’re all kind of like "huh?" then he says something about being our "compañero," and we’re all dying laughing – because he is just making himself at home in the van. the friend of esmerelda’s is laughing too, but it was too awkward to say something to the guy. so we just head for san sebastian with this random guy in the van with us. then when we got there and all got out of the van, the dude gets out and is like "adios!" like we were all friends with him or something. talk about getting hooked up.....

anyway, the hamacas in san sebastian were awesome, but i didn’t get one because anna and i were taking the bus from san sebastian to san salvador to meet up with the ag4 volunteers that were going with us to the beach. the ag4 group had been on a field trip on the other side of san salvador. so we boarded a bus for san salvador around 11:00 a.m. and arrived at the estancia (the hotel where almost all peace corps volunteers stay in san salvador....it’s actually pretty much a hostel) around noon. we were so geeked about being there so early that we went to see a movie at metrocentro. the movie wasn’t that great – flight plan – but it was in english and i love me some peter skaarsgard. i ended up not seeing the end because i had to go to banco cuscatlan before it closed to get some money for the weekend. and standing in the line at the bank anywhere in el salvador means you might as well bring a picnic lunch....because there are always a ton of people getting their remesas. it’s ridiculous. anyway – after the movie anna and i went back to the estancia and met up with the other volunteers who had decided to make dinner at the hostel. so anna and i went back up to metrocentro and got stuff to make nachos. and they were some damn fine nachos, let me tell you. i miss mexican food the most here. i totally thought i’d not want much mexican food before leaving the states because i was going to a spanish-speaking country. i couldn’t have been more wrong. the food here is nothing like mexican food!!! in any event, there were some other volunteers there from other programs and they asked us to go out to this gringo bar with them later that night. that was really cool and it was a good start to the weekend.

the next a.m., anna and i walked to meet her friend diana who happened to be in san salvador that weekend. she apparently works in nicaragua and knows some people in san salvador, so it worked out that we could meet up with her and she could hang out with us at the beach on saturday. so we all packed up and got on a bus that we thought was taking us in the right direction. well, it turned out it wasn’t and when we got off the bus we were clueless as to what bus to get on. we asked for directions and some dude told us to get on this one mini-bus, so we did and when we got on it turned out we were still not on the right one. but it totally worked out because the guys (the driver and the cobredor) found out where were trying to go and they offered to drive us straight to where we were going for $2.50 a piece. plus, they agreed to pick us up the next day. so they basically got the rest of the other passengers that weren’t with us off the bus, and we rode in luxury all the way down to el tunco. once there, we found hotel roca sunzal and convinced the owner to let us stay in hammocks next to the beach for $5.00 that night. so we set up shop and headed for the ocean......which was raging like a crazy beast. the waves along the coast in el salvador are MEAN!! we basically just tried to break free of the waves for about an hour and we were super exhausted. none of us got any surfing done, because on sunday the waves were even more gigantic. it was crazy. oh, and on saturday night we built a bonfire and reminisced about bonfires back in the states. it was so great being there. i was surprised at how comfy the hamaca was to sleep in. i’m definitely going the hamaca route when i get to my site. beds here are kind of expensive, and i know i’ll never have enough dinero in the beginning to get one..... on sunday we spent most of the day in the water again and then headed for home. i was really super tired and sunburned, but had a fantastic time.

so, here’s the important information...... tuesday was the day we found out where our sites were. seriously, they couldn’t have made this whole thing more nervewracking. on days we are in the training center we have a schedule in 2 hour increments of things we’re going to do. that day, they scheduled the announcement of our sites for 3:00 p.m. WTF? so basically, we had to sit through the entire day freaking out about our sites. so 3:00 rolls around and we’re still doing some activity from the 1:00 to 3:00 increment and we’re all seriously getting irritated. finally, we go into the big area in front of the huge map of el salvador and these other volunteers come in and tell us we need to do a dinamica (these stupid icebreaker games) and we’re like "seriously, you have got to be kidding." so we had to write one thing about ourselves that is unique that nobody would know....something along those lines and basically, when rolando or whoever read the statement, the rest of the trainees had to guess who it was. then we had to read this piece of paper that had where our site was and we had to take a star with our name on it and stick it up on the giant map on the place where our site was. so i wrote "i still can’t speak spanish." it’s not an entirely true statement because i can speak spanish 150 times better than when i got here, but i want to be able to speak spanish without thinking about it. anyway – so i think there were only about 3 people that went before rolando read mine. and some people guessed it right away because i’m always talking about how my spanish sucks. so i go up there and read my site and was totally shocked because it wasn’t in la unión or santa ana, but in ahuachapán. the full site location is this:

caserio - san ramoncito
canton – san jorge
municipality – apaneca
department – ahuachapán

rolando totally told me the truth about giving me a "cold" site because apparently my site is in one of the highest areas of the country. anyway – i was so excited because i realized that my site is also near parque nacional el imposible, which is this protected area that has the most biodiversity in el salvador. apparently, scientists are now saying too that the biodiversity in that one area is looking to be more than all of costa rica.....but the jury’s still out on that. anyway, that was all i knew about my site.....i really knew nothing about the pueblo that is near me, or even ahuachapán. all of the things i knew about ahuachapán came from ashley (our tech trainer) who’s site is/was on the beach in southwestern ahuachapán. megan got a site that’s inbetween san vicente and san salvador, and she was pretty bummed about it because none of us wanted to be close to san vicente or the capital. but after talking to some people, we’ve heard that the place she’ll be is actually really pretty and the people in her canton are super nice. so she feels a little better about it. anna is also in ahuachapán, and she’s actually taking over ashley’s site. ashley’s two years are up now and she’s doing a third year as the ag4/ee tech trainer. she had started up an artesan business with the women in her canton, and anna is super good at that type of thing, so anna was totally happy. our sites are not that far from each other as the crow flies, but by bus it’ll probably be longer because el imposible lies right in the center. but we were saying how we were destined to be friends because in D.C. the peace corps put us in the same room. then here, they put us both in molineros. and now, they put us both in ahuachapán. it’s so hilarious. but it’s cool because we get along and it’ll be awesome to visit each other’s sites. there are two other volunteers that got placed near anna too, so it’s going to be fun visiting everyone.

so last night i was reading in one of my travel books about apaneca – which is my "pueblo" and i was super excited to read that it’s one of the towns on "la ruta de los flores." la ruta de los flores connects the towns of apaneca, juaya and nauhuizalco and is surrounded by forests and coffee plantations. i guess it is in the mountains and there are a couple volcanoes nearby. then today, megan and i went into the training center to work on our camp for saturday and we ran into this other volunteer who is already serving. he was asking us where our sites where and when i told him where mine was he’s like "what? you know about this town, right?" he was talking about apaneca and he was saying how it’s got the best scenic views in the country and it’s just really beautiful. i guess the climate is really great as well and there are a couple of lagunas near the area. i’m sooooo excited and cannot wait to see it for real next week when we go on our site visits. also – ahuachapán is the western-most department in el salvador, so that means i’m really close to guatemala too. when i get my green card and some travel days, i’m headed for the border!

tomorrow, we have to do a presentation on one custom of el salvador. molineros got assigned to do birthdays. over the travel weekend, melissa didn’t go anywhere, so she made up these charts with vocab words and all this other stuff – without even involving us three. she’s a bit weird, just because she is treating this training time like it’s school or something. she doesn’t interact with anyone here or in the training center. i mean, i understand if she’s introverted and just wants to be alone or whatever. but we HAVE to do things as a group – it’s part of the assignments they give us. plus, she’s got this reputation in molineros of being "proud" and "snobby" because she doesn’t really interact with anyone, and she hates kids. seriously, though, i think she’s going to be at a disadvantage when she gets to her site because a lot of how we are going to get things accomplished is by building relationships with people – not books. and basically, that’s all she does is copy down vocab and do things like that – and it makes megan, anna and i look like we’re hoodlums because we aren’t always studying. the thing is, we are getting community experience by going to birthdays and things like that. my mom invited megan, anna and melissa to sindy’s birthday, and only anna and megan came. the other night it was anna’s host sister’s birthday and anna’s mom invited all of us, and only megan and i went. anna, megan and i thought it would be cool community contact to tye dye shirts with the kids in our community, so we did that....but melissa didn’t participate at all. we made quesadillas with megan’s mom and chilakila’s with anna’s mom. and tonight we made mexican food with my mom. and all of those times, melissa totally said "no, i’m going to do vocab" or whatever. anything that might involve laughing, having a good time or just generally learning something by interacting with other people, melissa’s like "that sounds like a good idea. i’m not going to do it though. but you guys will have a great time." like we’re idiot kids or something. ugh! i like melissa, i just think she’s missing out on what our service is supposed to be about – and that’s building these relationships with the people so we can work with them. not holing ourselves up in our houses and reading how-to books so we can lecture to everyone. it’s just weird.

ANYWAY...... i can’t believe i just rambled like that.....so we have to do this birthday presentation, right? so anna, megan and i thought it would be a cool thing to learn how to make a REAL piñata and then make one for the birthday presentation. so tonight we did that and it was hilarious. we decided it would be funny to make a mosquito. so we made "the mosquito that gave erich dengue." one of the other trainees got dengue a couple weeks ago and he missed out on some stuff and he was super bummed out. so we thought it would be funny to make this piñata the mosquito that gave erich dengue so he can hit it. it turned out so awesome, and we learned how to make real piñatas from my mom and mama rosa....not the balloon/cornstarch ones.

ok, well i’m posting a bunch of pictures because i finally got my camera. i’ve posted pics in the "volcano" entry....those are obviously pics from the volcano hike. then i posted a pic in this entry of the piñata!

adios for now!


megan, anna and i with the dengue mosquito piñata

the countdown begins

well, actually we have been counting down ever since we got to san vicente, but it´s really starting to mean something now. i´m talking about our site assignments. we´re all freaking out about where we´re going to be assigned for two years. most of us want to be up in the mountains somewhere, and not everyone, obviously, is going to be able to go there. el salvador´s such a small country though, so it´s not as if we´re not going to be close to the mountains if we are assigned to be somewhere else. but still...... anyway, we had our second site interviews last week and in my meeting i told rolando that i wanted to be in a small site and i mentioned how much i liked evita´s site during field based training. and he says ¨so you would like to be someplace like that?¨ and i wasn´t really sure how to answer that question. because through the grapevine we´ve heard that if you tell rolando you want to be in a cold place (really, there is no ´cold´ place here, but when they say ´cold´ they mean in terms of humidity....a cold site has little humidity....), he´ll put you in a hot place. if you want to be on the beach, he´ll put you in the mountains. and so on. so i said that i liked her site for the supportive school and the program and all that other stuff without mentioning the geographical location and all that. he seemed pleased with my answer, and then i couldn´t help but mention that i did like the cooler temp at night there. he asked me some more questions about what i saw myself doing with the school and all that and i told him and he said he was pleased with our meeting and that he thought he knew where he was going to put me already. so i glance down at the paper he´s taking notes on and i´m trying to look at what he wrote and i see the name of some town called ¨los marias.¨ so i go back into the training center and immediately go to the huge wall map of el salvador we have hanging on the wall and look to see if i can find that town. and i find it and it´s close to where evita´s site is in monteca. so i was feeling a bit relieved because la union is beautiful and i loved it there and all that. so while everyone else was freaking out about their sites, i had a little bit more calmness because of how my interview went.

well, on tuesday, rolando was in the training center because he came to hear rufina amaya´s story (the woman from el mazote). after she spoke, rolando called me over and said he needed to ask me some questions. he asked me if i minded working with kids from grades 1-6, as well as farmers, and i said no problem. then he asked me how i felt about doing square meter gardens with the kids. again, no problem. then he said ¨if i remember correctly, you specifically asked for a cold site.¨ i´m like ¨well, yeah, i guess.¨ but then i said if it was going to compromise the size of my site, then i´d rather have a small site. because honestly, i feel more comfortable with a smaller group of people, or a smaller school, than a large one. so anyways, he said ¨great¨and that i was going to get exactly what i wanted and i was lucky. he said something about having to talk to one of the other volunteers and ¨making some changes.¨ and now, i´m wondering if he´s not going to have me replace a volunteer that´s in santa ana. ugh!!!! for all i know, he is going to put me right here in san vicente. the thing is, i don´t even know what anything rolando said actually means. none of us know what he means when he says anything. this whole friggin´site thing is like getting CIA clearance or something. it´s all a game, i think, that these trainers play each time new trainees come in. obviously, we shouldn´t be so selective about where we think we want to go, but come on!!!! and the funny thing is - i thought i would totally be more comfortable in a place that was less humid, right? well, that was before we went to deininger park yesterday.

deininger park was awesome!! it´s in the department of la libertad and it was super, super humid. it is a protected forest area, that has a bunch of cool trails through the forest. the guide took us down to this huge cave and as we got deeper into it, we started seeing bats by the hundreds. it was by far one of the coolest things í´ve seen so far. the ground was covered with jocote (a native fruit of el salvador) cascaras and it was like being in a completely different world. we trekked through the forest and saw some of the most gigantic trees ever. the conocaste negra has got to be the most interesting and beautiful trees here. i´m definitely going to seek out a house in my site that has one of these trees somewhere near so i can build a treehouse. i´m not even kidding. at one point we got to the side of the park and were high on this hill and suddenly we had this most awesome view of the ocean. we sat there for a while and begged carlos to let us have lunch on the beach later. he kept saying he didn´t think it was a good idea because the field trip wasn´t supposed to be on the beach. so the rest of the hike we kept pestering him about it. we kept saying how our group was small and it´d be so easy (b/c the environmental ed group only has 6 people). anyway, the whole time during the hike i was totally digging the humidity. it felt really good - better than the sun beating down on my head all day long. i kept telling ashley (our fantastic tech trainer) how i wished i had told rolando that i wouldn´t mind a humid site, and she was like ¨really???¨ her site was previously on the beach in ahuachapan and she said it was hard because it was so humid, and most people can´t stand it. and seriously, i was surprised i was loving the humidity so much. ANYWAY, when we ended the hike, we had somehow convinced carlos to take us to the beach. so we ended up eating lunch at this surfer´s joint on playa (beach) del tunco. we had huge meals and i had a huge mug of limonada - even though i shouldn´t have because i didn´t know if the water they used was good or not. it was sooooo good though. so basically, we spent two hours chilling at this place and listening to tunes and not wanting to go back to san vicente later. we ended up going back to deininger park to go through the center - where i also touched some plant that you´re not supposed to touch and carlos freaked out. but nothing happened.

so that was yesterday. and i´m happy to report that my legs have almost stopped hurting from the volcano hike. but for those of you who know my awesome grand canyon story and about my ¨canyon toe¨ incident, you´ll be interested to hear that it is also possible to get ¨volcano toe.¨ hahahaha. and i, of course, seem to have a couple of blisters underneath my toenails again. but it´s not nearly as severe as the canyon stuff. and it´s nothing a little nail polish can´t cover up! good times.

so i think for travel weekend about 5 or 6 of us have decided to go to playa sunzal, which is a little west of la libertad and playa del tunco. it´s supposed to be a good place to learn how to surf, which i´m all about. sweeeeeet. or as i´ve learned to say in spanish.....¨dulce!¨

well, by next entry, i will probably know where i´m going to be. so i´ll either be having a pity party or a congratulations party on tuesday. it can go either way........

at the bottom of this entry, i´m posting a couple of pics of chinchotepec i found on the web. they don´t do it justice at all, especially since the volcano is basically what we wake up to every morning in molineros. i´m also getting more pics from people who went on the hike with me so i´m sure they´ll be better than these. i also posted pics from suchitoto on the ¨where i´ve been and where i´m going¨ entry. it takes forever to upload pics, so i still have not put any pics of field based training, even though i have them. next time, i promise (unless i´m drowning myself in cerveza from finding out my site location).

that volcano was a bitch

yeah, so it´s two days post-volcano hike and my legs are a hurtin´. we started out around 7:30 a.m. on sunday. my group reached the top around 1:00 or so which was about an hour behind the fastest people in our crew and about 30 minutes faster than the slowest. why i do these things, i have no idea because as i stood at the base of nearly every switchback, i was like ¨are you EVEN kidding me?¨ because i´d be staring at the most vertical of vertical trails i´ve ever been on in my life. mossy, wet rocks lined the trail near the top, and it was insanely dangerous.i didn´t really know what to expect from the volcano, but it exceeded my expectations in every area. first off, i wasn´t expecting such an awesome change in the biodiversity as we climbed higher. it was really hot and muggy near the bottom where we started. as we got into the area that is home to the coffee trees and other fauna it began to look more and more like a rainforest, but it also got a lot colder. i expected the colder climate, but not the humongous trees and vines and orchids. most of the time it was hard to really appreciate everything because i was very sure my lungs were going to collapse right there on the trail - but during our (frequent) stops, i tried to examine the plantlife around me. so, i was saying before how chinchontopec has two peaks - well, we climbed the higher ¨chichë.¨ we were saying how we should get t-shirts made that said ¨we climbed the chiche¨ but then we decided maybe not, because when we actually wear them in el salvador, people would stare at us and we would offend people because basically in english it would mean ¨we climbed the boob.¨ and also, people might wonder which chiche we actually climbed, because there are two. anyway, i´m rambling. but i just wanted to put down in the record books that i actually made it to the top and back and although i was SO over the volcano by the time we reached the bottom (at 5:00 p.m.), now i´m actually looking back on the hike with fondness.

later this afternoon we are going to hear the story of the sole survivor of the massacre by the salvadoran army at el mazote (in morazan) during the civil war here. it´s going to be really hard to listen to, and i´m not looking forward to being depressed. but it´s pretty incredible that she´s coming to speak to us about it. our training has focused a lot on the history and politics of el salvador the past couple of weeks which has helped a lot of us understand the situation during the civil war more.

tomorrow the environmental ed group is going to denninger park, which is in a protected forest area near the beach. i´m pretty excited about that. then on friday we get to start our travel weekend......the beach. not much else has been going on...just recovery from the volcano. it´s weird because here, during training, if nothing really happens for just, like, one day - i´m thinking ¨nothing´s really been going on.¨ whereas, in the states, if i did one major thing a month, it was SOMETHING. we´ve just got so much going on during training. i´m sure when we get to our sites, things will slow down majorly. we´ll see though............

lastly, i´m going to try and post pictures from suchitoto and field based training on the entries where i wrote about them.....so look for those pics. and when i snag pictures of the volcano hike from aaron, i´ll post them too!!!

adios!

one of the trail views


view from about a quarter of the way up


view from somewhere near the top


courtney and i somewhere on the trail

the tortillas are better in the east....just an FYI

field based training rocked. we had such a great time up in la unión....i’m so glad that i was selected to go to evita’s site near monteca. she had awesome stuff planned for us, and even though we had a lot to do, it didn’t seem like things were too intense. in fact, things were really laid back and chill. the volunteers that were in my group were anna, courtney and nathan. we’re all in the environmental ed group, so we were kind of glad we got assigned to the same group for field based training. let me explain about the environmental ed thing first. our program is the “agroforestry/environmental ed program.” it’s all one program, it just has two different divisions. but, actually, no matter what division you’re in, you’ll end up doing almost the same type of work. the only difference is that your counterpart in the AG4 group is a farmer, or ADESCO member, or something like that. in EE group, your counterpart is a teacher or someone in the schools. we had program interviews with rolando - the guy in charge of the AG4/EE group – something like the second week we were here just to get an idea about what the program is and all that. i told him i didn’t care...he could put me in whichever area. he said that was cool and to think about it over the next couple of weeks, and he would have second interviews. so during that time i learned alot about the two areas.

the problem is, we’re dealing with a super machismo culture here and being a female and having a male, adult counterpart in the agricultural field is really hard. we’ve heard tons of stories here so far from female volunteers about the difficulties they’ve had working with their male counterparts in the AG4 group. some have had to change sites, or change counterparts because some males just don’t respect females at all – that’s just the way it is. they want help, but don’t want it from a girl.....so it’s kind of a bit of a problem. and we’re really not here to change the machismo aspect of things.....so it’s just really hard. we’re here to help people with farming and environmental issues and that kind of stuff. don’t get me wrong, some farmers are totally great – like the two farmers i worked with in chalatanengo. or even mario (megan’s dad). it’s just that some farmers don’t think women can do that kind of stuff. in any event, i didn’t want to take my chances with ending up with an asshole counterpart. so in my second interview i told rolando that given the problems that could arise, i think i’d be more effective in the EE program. plus i’ve done work with kids, which is a required part of the EE program. there’s still a chance i’ll end up with a shitty counterpart in the EE program too, but the chances are much less likely. we were shocked when rolando posted the assignments because there are only six of us in the EE program, and the rest of our group is in AG4. we started separate technical training sessions last saturday – which basically means we learn different things we can do in our sites. we totally love our EE group because it’s small and we can do a lot more. we did a hydroponics project and a square meter organic garden last saturday. we also started work on a tree nursery which was something i had really never thought about doing before.

so that’s how that’s all divided up. anyway, so on wednesday, anna, nathan, courtney and i loaded up into the NEW ride (the replacement for the truck that got totaled during that crazy week of rains), along with carlos and esmerelda – our spanish teacher. the trip to la unión took about 4 hours or so. halfway there we had to pick up evita – the volunteer we were visiting. her site is way up in the mountains in la unión – and it’s really beautiful there. you can see the mountains of honduras from her canton, and it’s like her site is hidden away from everything. she has a great relationship with her community and everyone knows her and loves her.

on wednesday when we got to her site, she took us over to the school and we did a map project with the fifth graders. basically, the project entailed having the kids draw a giant map of el salvador on the wall in this big open area of their school. (all of the public schools in the rural areas of el salvador are basically half inside and half outside) anyway, evita had already drawn the squares, and she had papers with the map divided up and drawn on the squares. we each had to work with 2 or 3 kids and help them draw our section of the map. that was kind of hard because explaining to them in spanish what they had to do was confusing. most of the kids got it though. although – the school situation here in el salvador is really weird and strange. kids have like tons of recesses, and even during this project, kids would lose interest and go play....or some would be really into it. then, it would be time for them to go back to their classroom and half of them would either stay with us, or they’d go play or buy snacks and just generally goof off. some kids would go back and study and the teachers basically only take the kids who want to work seriously, and don’t make the other kids come back if they don’t want to. it’s so totally different then what we are all used to. anyway, we got the map drawn and a couple countries painted before we had to leave. later, we hung out at evita’s house for a bit and then she took us over for pupusas at this woman’s house. turns out this woman also makes and sells pan dulce (something we’ve all grown to love) so we were salivating over that. that night we all realized too that it was going to be a crazy three days because we were all so hysterically laughing about the most stupid stuff. anna and i knew each other pretty well because we were roomed together in DC, and then both assigned to molineros. and we knew nathan and courtney, obviously, but didn’t know them really, really well. that night, we were dying laughing about something i can’t even remember and nathan brings up this laughing incident he and i had at one of our tech training sessions. anyways, nathan says to me “dude, i can’t even look at you without laughing.” so anna tells him that i am always making her laugh hysterically because we both think the dumbest things are just so funny. i was trying to explain to them about how funny it is when i get together with my best friends, or my other friends from my old job and nathan says that i have to be the factor in all those situations because he’s practically in tears from laughing so hard.

i’m not kidding you, my stomach was hurting that night – and i thought more laughing was not even possible. well, it was possible because later after we dropped anna off at her house, we had to park the car near evita’s house and walk to mine and courtney’s houses. so we’re walking in the dark, and carlos has a flashlight but doesn’t have it on for some reason. so we’re walking along and all of a sudden carlos turns the flashlight on and there’s this huge pile of dirt in the middle of the road. one more step and we’d have all bitten the dust big time. courtney’s dying laughing and we’re trying to walk around it when this mule appears out of nowhere on the side courtney and i are walking on. i about lost it. finally, we get around that and we’re still walking and courtney says “i feel like i’m in a time warp....all we’ve done is travel around el salvador and stay at stranger’s houses. we give them a couple of dollars and then leave a couple days later.” it’s so friggin’ true!! and it probably doesn’t even sound funny, but damn it was so funny when she said it!!! i guess you have to understand how it is doing this. we literally show up at the front door of these people’s houses. the only families that have any contact with the actual peace corps office are the ones we are staying with during training. the family i stayed with in chalatenango didn’t even really know maria (the volunteer)....she knew the nephew. so i showed up on their doorstep and stayed there for 3 days. my family in la unión at least knew evita. the mom was a teacher in the school, but it didn’t really take away from the awkwardness of moving into her family’s home for 4 days. these people are so nice....they give up a bed that every other night is being used by one of the kids, and make us our meals and give us fruit and pan dulce, and talk to us and ask us questions about ourselves and don’t laugh when we sound like total idiots. my family in la unión was so nice. norma and her husband mario have four girls...the youngest is 7 months (jisela), next was jessica (4 years), norma – or normita as everyone called her (11 years) and the oldest, Cassandra (15 years). anyway, in some way you have to experience this whole thing to understand how strange, funny and interesting it all really is. like when courtney and i were walking back to our houses later on thursday or friday, we were saying how we can’t believe we are experiencing this whole thing. i’ve seriously not ever in my life seen so many stars in the sky because we were in the mountains, and far, far away from any kind of city or anything. and we were walking back to families that we only met a day ago. it’s just really cool to think about.

on thursday we had to do some charlas in the school. nathan, courtney, anna and i were basically in charge and the first one we had to do was a sex-ed charla to the 8th graders. no, this doesn’t really have anything to do with EE, but it’s what usually happens when volunteers get to their sites. we’ll end up doing tons of secondary projects – which may have nothing to even do with what our primary project is. it’s all about getting into the community and participating as much as possible with the people who you’re working with. in evita’s case, it’s the school.....so anything she can participate in and help the school with ends up helping her primary project. so anyway, we had to do this sex-ed activity with the kids, and basically it was the nathan show because he speaks awesome spanish. he has a really thick southern accent, but when he has to speak spanish, he speaks perfectly and you’d never know he is from north carolina. we then had to present the same charla to the 9th graders, and that one went a lot better. i worked with a small group and was able to actually have a few conversations with them. after lunch we played soccer with the kids at the cancha. nathan got his ass handed to him playing with the boys. those kids are born playing soccer. courtney, anna and i played a mean game with the girls while evita laughed and took pictures of us. later that afternoon we gave a lombriculture charla to 6th graders and that was really fun. we briefly talked about lombriculture and then spent the rest of the time building a worm box. after that we went over to evita’s and she taught us how to make bracelets. that was a bit of a challenge, but i think we kind of got the hang of it. evita has gotten a group of women together in the community and taught them how to make these bracelets and they now sell them. it’s a small start, but it’s really necessary for some of these women to have some sort of income other than remesas. it’s strange how the communities are losing men to the united states. some men send back remesas; some don’t. it’s really quite sad that so many men just decide el salvador has nothing for them. they’re not escaping oppression or anything like that – it’s simply the lure of the united states and job opportunities. but i feel like that coming to the u.s. only burdens them with the feeling of always wanting more stuff. in the short time i’ve spent here, it’s kind of like the people that stay here don’t seem to be constantly “saving” for something new or wanting the new and improved thing that has just come out – like we are prone to do in the u.s. they’re not saving for a washing machine....they wash clothes by hand and it gets done and the clothes are clean. but that’s another issue i’ll have to take up on another day – the changing social structure here. it’s like it came to the point where i really had a great respect for mario – my host dad in la unión – because he hasn’t left and is staying with his family here in el salvador.

friday was spent hiking up cerro chato with the 4th graders. that was soooo fun. the kids were so into it, and they totally had a fun time. we took a ton of pictures at the top and just chilled out for a half hour or so. you could see the mountains of honduras, as well as the canton and even a bit of monteca. after we got back to the school, we had lunch with the teachers and then that afternoon finished the wall map. it looks really good and it was cool to think that it will be there for a long time. that night before we left the school there was the most awesome sunset on the west side of the school. we all were just in awe at how awesome it was. i would have never thought of el salvador when thinking about something like that – but it was just as awesome as anywhere else. we were walking back to evita’s that night and i was telling nathan, courtney and anna that i probably sound like a spanish neanderthal because my grammar isn’t super good yet....and that practically sent everyone over the edge laughing. but it’s true!!!!! i’m sure what i sound like is “hello!!! i laura. i teach you. worms. need newspaper. need plastic. need dirt. need orange and bananas. fun!” well, maybe it’s not that bad.....but still. i feel like that sometimes because it gets frustrating. back at evita’s we made pasta and talked about the following day. esmerelda made us chocolate – which is similar to hot chocolate, but without the milk part. it’s basically just sugar and chocolate melted into this fantastic drink. evita also told us that the next morning we would be capturing the two chickens in her backyard and taking them to my family’s house because we were going to learn how to make chicken soup. we were all like “you’ve got to be kidding.....”

well, she wasn’t. on saturday, we gathered at evita’s for the chicken capturing event. nathan was successful in catching the first one, and anna finally got the second one, although she didn’t really know what to do when she finally caught it. we carried them down the road back to my family’s house and left them there while we went out with mario to learn how to milk cows. that was friggin’ hysterical – as one of the young calves took to head-butting all of us when we weren’t looking. after realizing that we all made smart choices by not taking up cow-milking as our careers, we went back to my family’s house where we began the chicken killing. i’ve taken part in this before when i was a kid and my dad put our chickens down so that we could have a freezer full of meat. but as an adult, i definitely put much more thought into the whole event. it was really quite slow and norma cut their throats so methodically that it was almost as if the chickens didn’t even know what was happening. i’m never left feeling good when i see an animal lose its life.....but it was over so quickly and quietly that i only felt bad for a few quick moments and then realized that this is how this family – and most other families here – feed themselves. we took the dead chickens back to the house and did the whole de-feathering thing, and then watched norma de-gut them. that was actually as interesting as it was disgusting. a couple of hours later, we had a tasty chicken soup.

we were all super tired, and the ride back to san vicente was relatively painless as i slept most of the way. anna found a “brainquest” game in the back of the car, so we were playing that for a full five minutes before we realized it was for 7-12 year olds. i’m not kidding you......one of the questions was “was chicago’s al capone known because he was a gangster or an olympic skier?” WTF??? why did the peace corps have that game in the car????

well, i’m not sure if i exceeded my entry after my visit to chalatenango....but there’s just so much to tell about my time here. there’s going to be a lot going on in the next couple of weeks too. next weekend we’re hiking chinchontopec as well as visiting an archaeological site – probably the thing i’m most looking forward to. the following weekend is our second travel weekend. that week, i’m pretty sure we find out where our sites are going to be. i’m so nervous about that. we have to do a camp that next weekend, and then after that is our site visits – where we have to find a house and all that stuff. then it’s time to swear in. i can’t believe training is over half done. time flies i suppose.

oh, i think i’ll have pictures to post next time....i’m snagging them from anna’s and nathan’s digital cameras.

adios!

me - walking with three 4th graders on our way to climb the cerro

anna and nathan with the two unfortunate chickens