life through the eyes of rural salvadoran kids

well, despite my life crisis (well, it's really not a crisis...just a need to make some decisions), things here continue as if it doesn't matter what decision i make or not. and that's a good thing, you know? it puts things in their proper place. you realize that you're not the center of the universe.....if i stay of if i go won't really effect the daily lives of the people who live here, or back in the states. my friends and family both here and there will go on with their lives no matter how important i think this decision is.

last wednesday really put things in perspective as well. our school was chosen by the ministerio de educación to be one of the schools this year that got to go to the children's museum in san salvador for a field trip. this isn't a yearly thing.....it's maybe a once every ten years thing. so we were lucky to be chosen this year. and believe me, the kids at my school were so super lucky because lots of kids in rural areas such as san jorge never, ever get to do anything like this their whole lives. it's not like back in the states where every year the kids are rewarded with field trips to the zoo and other museums like that. so anyway, our school was given a field trip, all expenses paid, to tin marín, the children's museum in san salvador.

i can't really explain to you how this trip affected my sense of our place in this world. seriously. you just have to imagine the lives that some of these kids have....some kids don´t even have electricity. their lives consist of day in/day out the same routine of taking ice-cold bucket baths and helping their parents cut coffee or leña or whatever. they never get to go anywhere, unless it´s to the pueblo to get whatever it is they might need, and more often than not, they walk there. same with school...they walk through the woods to get there. seeing some of these kids faces when the bus traveled down the highway and finally into santa tecla and san salvador was just something that'd make you just about cry. a couple of kids said they'd never gone anywhere but ataco or ahuachapán....that this was the first time they'd been anywhere outside of their backyard. we pulled into the museum parking lot and their faces just lit up, like they'd just arrived at some magical place that only existed in their dreams. imagine what it was like once we got inside.....

i was completely blown away by the museum. obviously, it was geared towards kids, but i was so impressed by the activities and education that the kids were able to take part in while there. we split into three groups and had a guide for each group. they had a miniature airport where the kids were able to climb into the front section of a boeing 757, sit in the cockpit and check everything out. they had a life-size train and boat as well. there was a gravity house that sent me and mirna into hysterics as we tried to walk around. they had a butterfly house that was soooo cool....it had the morfo azul, which is this beautiful blue butterfly that we have around laguna verde that never stops flying around and is impossible to take pictures of, but is THE most beautiful butterfly i've ever seen. they had craft areas where the kids could make stuff like recycled paper, teaching the kids about re-using materials. there were stations that taught them about different parts of the world. there was an area where they learned about colors and light and they got to paint part of a volkswagen beetle. there were areas that taught the kids about different areas of el salvador like el imposible and the parque nacional de los volcanes. it was like a mixture of a children's museum and a science museum. so totally cool. obviously, the kids couldn't do everything in the museum. there were areas soley geared towards kids of the pre-school/kindergarten age, and other areas for older kids. we got lunch and breakfast and the kids got to watch a movie.

i just can't imagine the sensory-overload that the kids were experiencing, you know? i mean, all this stuff right at their fingertips, when their normal everyday lives are filled with practically nothing to do for fun except play pelota. i don't know. the museum was really cool and i wish we could have stayed longer, but since we had about a three hour trip back to apaneca/san jorge, we had to leave around 3:00. before we left, we were in the cafeteria area of the museum and there were three vending machines in there and the kids, and teachers as well, were like "how do we use these?" can you imagine? it's stuff like this that makes me realize how different my life is compared with the people down here....at least people in the rural areas. they had never seen a vending machine before. why? because they don´t exist outside of san salvador or the metrocentro areas in sonsonate or santa ana (where most of these kids never have set foot before). soon i was like the queen of the vending machines because i knew how to operate them. the kids were so amazed that i knew how to operate them, putting their money in the machines, pressing some buttons, and voila – here comes the bag of chips. anyway, i must of spent at least 15 minutes just operating the vending machines for the kids. isn't that hilarious?

anyway, we made it back to apaneca with nothing crazy that happened the whole day. the kids were amazingly good on the bus, despite having to be on the bus for 3 hours there and 3 hours back. it was a good time and it's days like that that makes me realize that no matter how frustrating things can be at the school or whatever, the kids love to learn and anything i'm doing is like an ice cream sundae to their normal, boring, lecture-filled day. so now i'm even more dedicated to using my creative ability to educate the kids and if i decide to stay another year, it should be a lot of fun, right?

on the bus

waiting for the museum to open

third graders gloria marisol and alba eating our breakfast of a pupusa and empanada

miguel reading some butterfly information





mirna with a butterfly that landed on her

inside the gravity house

our guide giving a demo on gravity

more from inside the casa de gravedad



inside the airplane

brenda at the helm

mirna wishing she was flying to the u.s.

third grade girls wilma, cecilia, alba, brenda and gloria marisol...waiting for lunch



making a craft (which i never figured out what it was.....i made one too, but i wasn´t paying attention when we started and then felt like too much of a dumbass to ask what it was we were making. everyone else seemed to know!!!)

javier (the computer teacher) with the craft we made....do any of you know what it is?? what am i missing??

the bed of nails....the kids got a kick out of that



painting the car

the huge volcano...something we know a little about here in el sal

should i stay or should i go?

if only it were just the title of a clash song....

this week i received a visit from my APCD (director of the ag4/ee program) rolando. it was his 3rd and last visit to my site, one where he brought information on the dates and whereabouts of our COS. COS is a big roundup of all the remaining volunteers in my group, three months before our last day here in the country and as volunteers. at COS you as a group reflect back on your two years and all that fluffy bullshit, as well as talk about how it´s gonna be going back to the states, leaving all your close (or not-so-close) salvadoran friends and family behind (for most volunteers, this means leaving them forever). our COS is going to occur during my birthday and i´m not sure how i feel about that. i don´t want my birthday to be filled with all this crap. i don´t care if it´s going to be at a location on the beach. blech.

anyway, during rolando´s visit, he also talked briefly about whether or not i´d be wanting to extend my service. i think i mentioned here or there to you all before that you can ask to extend your service for any amount of time up to one year after your two-year service is up. you might not get approval to stay, but you can apply. i think it´s up to how much money your program has during the given year, as well as if the projects your working on warrant an extension of service. rolando said he thinks there´s enough money for 3 people to extend, and i don´t think there are many people in my group thinking of extending. from what i´ve heard everyone else (besides maybe courtney) are counting the days until they can go back to the motherland.

as you all know, and referring back to my ¨indecision insanity¨ entry from july 25, 2006, decision making really isn´t my strong suit. there are days where i think about being back in the states, lounging on a comfy sofa in front of the television, watching curb your enthusiasm ´til my side splits from laughing so hard. or i think about summer parties at my friends´ houses, having the greatest time just talking nonsense and feeling completely non-threatened, or just having backyard (or garage) barbecues at my house, with my dad at the helm and my mom making coleslaw from cabbage from the garden. these things make me homesick, for, well....home. a place where i have a car and if i feel like shit, i don´t have to pray that i make it on the hour-long bus ride back to my house. (seriously, antonio and i went to a movie a couple of weeks ago in santa ana, and we added up all the time we spent either waiting for or on a bus and it was longer than the time we actually just got to hang out.) a place where i can be anonymous if i want to. a place where i can go to the movies or the bookstore whenever the hell i want. a place where i can be outside my house after 9:00 p.m. and not have to wonder if it´s safe or not. i miss seeing my friends and i really miss hanging with the fam. but i don´t miss my ¨life¨ - i know it´s confusing, but it´s how i feel.

but i´d say, for every minute i spend thinking about home, i spend wondering how in the hell i can leave here. i love being here, honestly i do.....that is, i love being in apaneca. i hate san salvador, and i´m sure if i´d have been assigned any other site in the country, i´d probably love it less. but apaneca.....sweeeeet. i´ve written over and over about the great things about being here. i think i differ from a lot of other volunteers in that i haven´t come to hate el salvador. some people just can´t love it. some people are just so over it. in some ways i am over certain things (the fiestas at the school...today we celebrated mother´s day...which was actually last week.....and i didn´t take one picture of the cute (ugh!) little kids dancing. seriously, when all these kids can read a book.....well now that´d be something spectacularly cute, and i´ll take pictures all day of that!) there are other things i´m over as well, but i just don´t think i´m ready to leave. i feel at ¨home¨ here...i guess, i feel at home in my life here. certain things i do are salvadoran, but i still have my american side which is why i think i´m comfortable.

though, the primary reason i´m not ready to leave is because here i am, six months away from leaving and i now have all these projects i´m in the middle of. i´m starting a library at the school for the kids, the committee i´m working with wants to talk about doing something big with the zona verde part of san jorge (like a casa comunal or something), plus we got this trash thing we´re working on. i want to do a lombriculture workshop at finca los andes.....the list goes on. i told rolando that i could see myself extending for a year and he said, ok, he´s noting it.

if that´s not enough, apparently another cantón in the area (up near one of the lagunas) wants to solicit me to work for them for a year. antonio was talking to the promotor de salud for that area, who talked to the director of the school, who said he wanted me to work up there. i suppose that´s an option if i´m not working on anything big for san jorge anymore. craziness, i tell ya.

so here i am, having yet another decision breakdown. if i do stay, peace corps does have to send me home for a month (i think it´s related to visa issues), so i suppose that would be nice. i´m not really ¨ready¨ to come back to the states for good.....i don´t know if i ever will be. there are other personal issues related to this (probably more important than i´m giving them credit for here in the blog) that i´m not going to go into just because it´s boring and fairly obvious and some of you have already figured it out. so i´ll just let that nancy drew mystery continue for the rest of you......

so, i´m not ready for COS, and even if i do stay, i still have to go to COS which will be a big ball of nothing for me, really. we´ll see! until i have more on this subject, i´ll leave you with some happiness from molineros!!

ok, so dayana´s now in second grade (and can read like a flash....i´m so proud of her!). meanwhile, sindy´s in kinder and still as cute as pie. they both are. i love them soooo much!




mama rosa getting a relaxing pedicure

mama rosa with dayana, sindy and their cousin fiorela (who´s just as damn cute as the other two)

the gang in front of the cross that ana decorated for día de la cruz (may 3rd)









dancin´ to saturday night tv favorite chi-chi-chivísimo!!!

sindy´s ¨bed head¨ - clearly the salvadoran little orphan annie

a tale of two mayors

i cannot begin to explain to you how friggin' proud i am of the people in my community – especially, ESPECIALLY, the members of the committee that was formed in april. they've officially named themselves the "comité de saneamiento ambiental" and we've met five times since forming the committee. let's see....the first meeting was basically a "ok, so here's the problem, here's some solutions, what can we do?" meeting. the president, don wilfredo suggested that we figure out some ways to raise some money – raffles, excursiones (community trips to the beach or other popular places in el salvador), etc. then they decided they'd write solicitudes to the local fincas and viveros (which are all owned by people with money) for any help they can give us. then, they decided to write a letter to the mayor of ataco asking to use their landfill to get rid of the trash that does end up getting picked up by whoever we found to collaborate with us and pick up the trash (i say "get rid of," even though dumping trash in a landfill isn't really getting rid of it, but believe me, a landfill is the best solution for el salvador right now...). so we wrote up these solicitudes and then i printed off all this stuff at the internet place.

we had another meeting on the following saturday and invited people who were passing on the street to come in and meet with us. i've come to realize that i'll never attend a meeting in el salvador where there will be a quiet setting. it's all but impossible! i already told you about the turkeys and geese (and i failed to mention the traffic on the highway that could be overheard through the trees) at finca los andes for the first two meetings antonio and i had. well the following meeting at niña reyna's (the treasurer) house there was this little dog running around barking at everything, as well as kids playing pelota on the street. well, this meeting was by far the worst as far as noise was concerned. there happens to be an evangelical church right across the street from don jorge's (the vice president) house, and they decided to start up the blaring, jazzy, electronic keyboard and singing right about when we started the meeting. ugh! but salvadorans don't care one bit. amid the praise be to god singing and dogs barking and kids coming in and out and in and out and in and out, we got all the solicitudes signed and decided that guillermo (one of the guys who volunteered to help haul the trash for the cleanup campaign) would be the guy the community would hire to take the trash. he was at the meeting and he said he'd charge $15 (that's about the going rate for something like that) to pass once a week through the main streets of san jorge and along the main road. everybody agreed that that was reasonable. so it was then a question of where to take the trash and how to get the community to pay for this service.

so sunday morning we (me, antonio, don wilfredo, don jorge, geovany, diego and carlos) took the letter for the mayor of ataco to try and give it to him at his house. ok, so let me explain why we were asking for permission to use ataco's botadero (landfill) and not apaneca's – because san jorge is part of the municipality of apaneca. here's why: it's simply the location. ataco's botadero is closer to san jorge (located right on the main road outside of ataco), while apaneca's is on the other side of the pueblo and up on the road that leads up to laguna verde....a way longer trip. so we go to "meet" the mayor. we went and waited outside the swank hotel that he apparently lives in, along with another group of people waiting to see him. i felt like i was back in medieval times – we were peasants waiting to be addressed by the king or something. so ancient!!! we waited for about a half an hour and then the mayor came out and greeted us. his name is oscar gomez, but everybody calls him "el capitán." nicknames are a big thing here for the men, and you don't always know why someone is called that certain nickname. and sometimes men won't tell you what their nickname is...it's like this big secret (like our boss rolando won't tell anyone his nickname). but this guys nickname wasn't a secret, nor the origin: he was in the military. anyway, he turned out to be a big asshole! first off, we told him we were from san jorge and he was like "oh, no i can't meet with people from other pueblos today. come back wednesday...." but somebody managed to ask him if we could give him the letter we wrote so he had an idea of what we wanted to talk to him about. so he read the letter and was like "absolutely not.....you need to go to apaneca. san jorge is part of apaneca's municipality, that's YOUR municipality." like we didn't fucking know that. we explained in the letter that we were asking to use ataco's botadero because it was closer, AND then don wilfredo explained that theoretically trash in san jorge is ataco's problem because san jorge's at a higher altitude and all the trash that it is in the cuñetas (drain ditches), by the laws of gravity, flows down into ataco. but he just continued being a jerk and was like "no, i can't permit anyone from outside the municipality to use it" and folded our letter up into like 8 pieces and stuffed it in his shirt pocket. so we walked away and were like "well, i guess it's off to ask the mayor of apaneca..."

while we were walking back to the bus stop don wilfredo and don jorge said that they were suspicious of the directiva (specifically the president) of the ADESCO because they'd come to find out that the ADESCO is mad that we formed this committee. and apparently they heard through chambre that don rodolfo (the president of the ADESCO) went to the mayor of ataco's office and told him ahead of time that we were looking to use ataco's botadero, and advised him not to allow us to use it. now, i'm not sure if this is exactly what has happened, but i certainly would not be surprised. you see.....people here do things like this. and it's all politically driven. don wilfredo emphasized at the beginning of at least two meetings that this is not a political committee. the only focus is the trash problem in san jorge. we've got members of ARENA, FMLN and PCN, as well as members who aren't a member of any party on the committee. but it doesn't matter who is for what party – this committee has nothing to do with that. but don rodolfo is ARENA and from chambre in the community i've heard that he's not into this type of thing....our committee. for someone like me it can be super frustrating because i've not been around for 20 years to see the various problems that have passed back and forth between people, nor the origin of grudges that are still held to this day. most of the people i talk to in san jorge have willingly told me that the ADESCO doesn't do shit, and i'm inclined to agree with them. not because i care who is on the ADESCO or anything, it's just a fact that i've never heard of them doing anything except coordinating with the mayor's office to have two streets repaired....streets that happen to have the houses of three members of the ADESCO (yes, the president's is one of them) on them. well, whatever. don rodolfo can kiss my ass if that's truly what he did and if he's truly against our group.

so we met again the following wednesday and drew up another letter to the mayor of apaneca (our second grade educated mayor!) to ask for his support and collaboration in our effort to clean up san jorge. this meeting lasted forever.....mostly because, of course, it started an hour later than it was supposed to. they keep scheduling these meetings for 5:00 p.m., which is fine for everyone but me since i live in apaneca. the last bus to apaneca is around 7:00 p.m. so i either have to leave or stay and hope i can find a ride or there'll be a straggling microbus that passes later than 7:00 p.m. i would just leave, but with everyone arriving between 6:00 and 6:30, things start to get really interesting and what-not around 7:00 and i never want to leave. anyway, we didn't get out of this meeting until like 9:00 p.m.! i walked with antonio, geovany, diego and don chepe up through san jorge and i stopped by niña domy's and she was like "what are you doing in san jorge this late!?" i told her about the meeting and i said i was headed down to antonio's family's house and if they didn't have a place for me to sleep, i'd hit her up for a space somewhere in her house. so i went with antonio down to his house and his mom and sister were all ready for bed and i felt like an ass! i just wanted to go back up to niña domy's, but they were like "no, no.....stay here!" but it was like – where?? finally, a solution was found in that they dragged one of their beds into the kitchen.....i'm totally serious. i spent that night sleeping on a bed in the kitchen of antonio's house. hee hee. i felt like such an idiot when his dad and brother were hauling the bed into the kitchen....and then i shut the wooden door after his mom gave me sheets and a towel and all that and was like "buenas noches." i was officially locked in the kitchen. good times!

we went to the mayor's office in apaneca on thursday morning. it was kind of the same drill, wait outside the mayor's office until he came in. he greeted us as he was coming into the office and was really very nice and met with us first thing. so the mayor of apaneca's name is osmín guzmán, and i've written about him before. i can't remember if i told you that his nickname is "el tigre." he always wears a cowboy hat and vest and looks like some famous ranchero singer – francisco – or fernando - vicente. everybody always talks about el tigre and his likeness to francisco/fernando vicente. anyway, so we go into his office and he's got all these fake tigers all over the place – stuffed tigers, keychains, etc. then he's got this big tiger statue – like something that would be on a merry-go-round or something. like not with a seat or anything, but like this life-sized orange tiger. so he offers us seats and we sit down and he goes behind his desk and goes to sit down in his chair behind the desk, then stops and goes "i think i'll sit on the tiger." so he proceeds to sit down on this tiger and is like "ok, what's up...." and antonio goes about explaining our whole project, and the whole while don osmín is sitting there on that tiger with his cowboy hat. i'm thinking "where am i???" i felt like i was on candid camera or something. can you imagine?

i have to tell you though, el tigre was much more receptive to us than el capitán was. he listened to us and even admitted that it is partly his fault that san jorge is so dirty because he hasn't really tried to emphasize the need for trash pickup there. so he said what we were doing was great and we gave him our letter. he said we could use apaneca's botadero but then said that he'd really like to have the trash truck from the pueblo pass through san jorge (meaning the community would have to pay a tax to the mayor). specifically because apparently he and some other mayors in the northern part of ahuachapán are going to buy some land near the border with guatemala for a botadero that will serve this whole northern area and they'll close the one in apaneca (as well as in ataco). and when that happens, obviously, we won't be able to use that botadero anymore and if we want trash pickup it'll have to come from the mayor's office and a tax will then be charged. he gave us a list of how much each person would have to pay if a tax were implemented – and let me tell you folks, it's not that much. something like 35 cents a week. thing is...everybody would have to pay it, not just the people who want to....

but anyway, that's further down the road. right now, we just wanted to find out if we could use the botadero and he said yes, by all means. then we invited him to another meeting in san jorge on saturday and he said he'd try to make it. so that was that....a humungous success.

i couldn't make it to the meeting on saturday because i had already planned to go visit my host family in molineros (it had been 6 months since i'd last seen them!). but el tigre did show up and told our committee that he'd donate 5 barrels for trash (like for around the football cancha and near the main tienda, etc.) to the community. antonio told me at the beginning of the meeting that don wilfredo (who's not ARENA) told el tigre (who is ARENA) that for 15-20 years, he's never done anything about the trash in san jorge, or helped the community get cleaned up. antonio said that he said "don toñito of the ministerio de salud and la señorita laura of cuerpo de paz are the ones that are working to help us." i was like "no way did he say that!" but i guess don wilfredo was just like "come on, we need some help here...." and the mayor agreed and said that we should work with the ADESCO and antonio told the mayor that we've invited the ADESCO to the meetings (the first two we had) and only a couple members came. anyway, that meeting was a huge success as well.

then on sunday morning the members of the committee went door to door and collected money from people who were willing to pay for trash pickup. we are now in the process of making a list of who will pay for it – they are asking for $1 a month right now. yes, there are people who refuse to pay it....but that's life i suppose. the main thing is, this committee is taking things seriously and taking action....not just sitting around talking about the problem and waiting for someone else to fix it. dudes, i'm sooooo proud of them. seriously, i'll be sitting in one of these meetings and i'll start looking around the room at them and my heart just swells up. most of them have next to nothing, but they're hosting the meeting at their house, providing pan dulce and coffee for everyone there, and working hard to find a solution. i just feel like in this huge environmental crisis we have in the world right now, what could possibly be better than having an entire community clean up it's trash? you know – getting them to make abono orgánico with their green trash, and getting the other stuff off the ground and the streets and into its place (well, the best place it can be until a better solution comes along).

but nothing's official in el salvador without a rubber stamp. i'm totally serious.....just another one of those quirky salvadoran things. they are big on appearances, i've already written ad nauseum on this matter. so on sunday antonio are going to pick up the specially-ordered rubber stamp. and let me tell you this, i'm gonna stamp everything i can with that thing....that's how proud i am of these people.