just say hey

i'm getting ready to come home again. i can't say that i'm super excited about the trip but it's required because i'm extending for a third year. i mean, it will be great to be home for christmas and it will be great to see my family again. it does seem like i just got back from my trip in august though.

i think more than anything, i'm sad to be leaving el salvador for a whole month. this second year in el salvador has only deepened my relationships with people here - most notably in san jorge. the thing is, with every day that i spend growing closer to people here, the further i feel from my friends back in the states. part of it's just simple logistics. but i feel like a lot of it has to do with communication and, oh, what's the word.....accessibility? i´m not sure that´s the right word.

see, the first year of peace corps, i received so much support from people back home. not so much "we're proud of you," "you're doing a great job" - not that kind of support - but just general keeping-in-touch kind of support. i got letters and cards from EVERYONE just saying "hey, what's up? how's el salvador? how's peace corps?" stuff like that. not to mention, letters and cards telling me how things are going up THERE, with their lives (you all forget that it´s easy to keep up on what i´m doing because of the blog, but i have nothing to let me know how things are going with you). going into the second year of peace corps, the letters faded and morphed into more and more e-mails. then, periodically…meaning every four or five months or so….i started getting the standard e-mails that start off with "hey, sorry i haven't written in a while, but i've been soooo busy." hey, i know people get busy....i've written some of those "i'm so busy" e-mails myself. but then the e-mails get even fewer and farther between and suddenly it seems like every single e-mail i get from every single person starts off with "don´t have time to write. i've been soooo busy." my interpretation of these e-mails is this: i've had a lot going on and saying "hey, how ya doin'?" to you has absolutely no importance at all.

that's a very dramatic and selfish interpretation, isn't it? i know it is. and on my sad and depressed days, i feel like every single person back home has forgotten that i exist. thank god those days (like the correspondence i get from up north) are few and far between. this seems to be the relative consensus of most peace corps volunteers - communication from back home drops considerably in the second year of service. i had one friend who's dad sent her a package every month just so that she'd get SOME mail on a regular basis.

my non-selfish, rational interpretation of this is that peace corps, to those of you stateside, becomes less interesting after our first year of service. in my case, it's become especially non-interesting because i have the blog and keep you updated on the important (and all-to-often non-important) things that are happening. i know that more of my entries have been critical and devoid of the "everything smells like roses" attitude i had for most of my first year here. that's only natural. the longer i'm here, the more "real salvadoran life" i see - like peeling away layers of an onion, revealing everybody's true self. this is virtually impossible to accomplish the first year of service, especially if you are still learning the language. anyway, things become more "real" during the second year of service....all the novelties wear off, you realize what obstacles not only you are up against, but those that your community and the entire population are up against as well. reading about these trials and tribulations is probably difficult, if not boring altogether. who wants to read about problems where there are seemingly no solutions?

thing is, i think there are solutions. that's why i write about these things...not just to put the story out there of what it's like here on an everyday basis, but to get feedback. who knows, maybe there is somebody out there reading the blog who has something really valuable to add - about my work, or the situation in el salvador, or whatever. maybe somebody knows an NGO who can help with getting resources to my community, or some other community in el salvador. you don't even have to have resources....just feedback - what's your opinion of what i write about? am i full of shit? am i being too optimistic? too pessimistic? feedback, believe it or not, helps with where i see myself going with projects. it's not that i need people to help me along - it's more like i want to know how other people interpret these situations. i've got a thing for education and sometimes i feel like i'm beating a dead horse. i'm always trying to figure out why education isn't of utmost importance in my town, even though i've tried to see things through the eyes of the people here. maybe i'm missing something? not trying hard enough? but without anything at all from anybody else, all i have are my own thoughts and assessments. of course, this was how it was for volunteers back in the 70's and 80's - but now, with all this technology and what-not, shouldn't it NOT be how it is for me in 2007?

i came home in august and i think that after i saw everyone and everyone saw me and saw that i was actually ok, that i hadn't picked up a bunch of mosquito-borne diseases or wasted away from worms in my stomach or been taken hostage by some crazy gang or whatever, that there was no need to keep in touch with me anymore. for everyone at home it was back to 9-5 days, prime-time television, HBO, halo 3, people magazine, tap dancing lessons, or whatever else fills everyone's day. no need to worry about l.v. thing is, there IS no need to worry....i just need somebody to say hey.

this is what i love about salvadorans. they never, ever are too busy to say hey. never. to me, to their neighbor, to anyone. i can walk through san jorge and stop at any number of houses and every single person will stop whatever it is they're doing and talk about whatever it is you want to talk about. i could stop at the same houses every single day for a month straight, and people would still stop and talk to me. they'd invite me in for café or lunch or dinner or just to "descansar." salvadoran kids never get bored of hanging out with me. whether it's playing old maid, uno or just running around like idiots - they never get bored. they'd never refuse a chance to play or read or just hang out. and i compare this reception to the one i've gotten back home and it makes me sad that i have to leave this comfort zone for 30 days.

it really is reverse culture shock. back in september 2005 it was sad to be leaving the comfort zone of the states for unknown and what i thought would be unreceptive (at least at first) el salvador. but i have to admit, with the exception of my site visit back in november of 2005, i've never felt alienated or unwanted or forgotten here in el salvador. people DO care about you here, they worry about you, they wonder where you've been if you've not been around in a couple days. they start asking around, and then when you do show up again, they say "hey, i thought you left! thank god you didn't! que bonita you're still here." it warms your heart to the very core, i swear.

back when i was a youngin', i used to think that i could only be best, best friends (forever...hee hee) with people that i shared a lot of things in common with. as the years went by, i gradually relaxed my thoughts on this. but coming to el salvador has made me completely throw this ridiculous assessment out the window. two of my very best friends in the whole world are salvadorans: one is niña domy - a 56-year old, extremely religious catholic grandmother. i would have never thought that. the other is antonio. even more than with niña domy, i would have never thought i'd be so close to him. even members of my committee - i have gotten used to seeing them for our meetings - they are all such good friends to me now. there is this old man that i pass every day when i walk through san jorge and every day he's outside his house fixing something or playing his guitar while his dog lays on the ground in the sun. he's a religious nut - no matter what it is i comment on he'll respond with "and do you know why it's such a sunny day/why you're doing well today/why you have food to go eat at niña domy's house/etc.?" and his answer - always - is "because god´s up there" and he points to the sky. now i know to say "por dios" instead of "no, why?" when he asks me these things. sometimes his wife comes out and she takes my hands in hers and tells me it's good to see me. i've come to love having that little exchange.

there is also this other old man named francisco that i pass every day when i walk to the bus stop in apaneca. he's so friendly. he's always sitting outside his house and when i walk by he grins his toothless grin and tells me to have a great day and he'll see me tomorrow.

seriously, where did everyone up north go? i got a phone call from antonio the other day telling me that the guard at the post office told him that i had a card waiting to be picked up there (this is how it works here....random people i don't even know that well will sometimes stop me on the street and tell me i have mail at the post office waiting). anyway, i was all excited thinking "finally, i'm getting something from someone in the states!" and when i went to pick up the letter, it was a card from courtney. but i was happy as ever because at least someone is writing to me!

maybe this is what happens though. they talk about peace corps being a "sacrifice" and all that, and i've never really seen myself as sacrificing anything. sure, i'd love to take a hot shower and i'd have loved to have been at home for thanksgiving dinner, but i've never thought of what i'm doing as some huge sacrifice. i'm happy, i've got all the things i need. but now i'm looking at it differently. it seems to me that by joining the peace corps, and deciding to stay another year, i've sacrificed my friendships and my relationships with my family. it's like i've inadvertently lost them, without even knowing i was losing them. i never thought my being gone would be that big of a deal. but now i understand that meaning of "out of sight, out of mind." it's more like out of sight, out of existence. but i suppose that's how our culture is. unless you're in someone's face 24-7 or bi-weekly or whatever, you lose your place on the totem pole. there is so much going on in our lives in the states, that remembering a friend who left over two years ago, is bound to get put on the back burner, behind the christmas shopping, presidential primaries and football playoffs.

the people of san jorge, and apaneca - to a lesser extent - make me feel like i'm still here, like i still exist. i'll miss that while i'm gone.

i'm only going for 30 days. it's only gonna be worse when i leave forever.

great news!

first of all, i have to report that despite last year's dismal numbers of graduating 6th graders going on to 7th grade (two boys, one girl), this year 6th graders are all moving on to 7th grade! that's such great news to me. i'm so happy that they're all going to get a chance to continue their educations. i'm particular proud of the girls. they're going to give it a shot and i know they're gonna do great if they keep with it. here are some photos of graduation day for the kindergarteners and 6th graders!

kindergartners ready to take their seats

brenda and her escort

leydi and her escort, abel

marlon and his escort

6th grader jonathan and his escort

6th grader omar with his escort, 4th grader selena

leydi walking to get her diploma

brenda with her diploma

luis with his diploma

4th grader ruth de los angeles with her brother, 6th grader francisco

4th grader jose with his grade card

3rd grader alba with her grade card, and her little brother with his diploma

all the teachers and i (javier, on my right and his brother, on the far left, both teach computers)


secondly, it looks like my school library project is going to be realized. i went to a library workshop the other day and decided to take mirna. i've decided that she's the most capable of the three teachers to maintain the library and care for the books. the workshop was put on by the u.s. embassy and another volunteer organized everything for us out in the western part of the country. i'm really proud of mirna. she showed such enthusiasm for the project during the workshop and kept telling me about all these cool things we should do with the library - along with a reading program for the first graders, building on what i started last year. basically the workshop entailed teaching the "future librarians" how to organize and maintain the library - no matter how big or small. i think most of the salvadoran teachers in attendance had never heard of the dewey decimal system, or been exposed to any kind of organized library like what the people putting on the workshop talked about. for some reason, though, during the workshop they stopped talking about books and numbers and spent a great deal of time talking about the dimensions of bookends. some of the workshop attendees took a ruler to every possible measurable piece of a metal bookend, and i kept thinking "why are they going on about this?" but then i heard somebody mention something about soldering - and i realized that some teachers were going to solicit a metal workshop to make the bookends. in my mind i was thinking "ok, we'll go and pick up some bookends from office depot in san salvador" - i never considered having them made! see how perceptions can be so different, even on something as small as this, when you have two minds from different cultures assessing the same situation?

anyway, i'm so excited about the library! i wish my dad lived down in el salvador so he could build us some bookshelves. he'd totally do it. i mentioned the project to a carpenter in san jorge, don pedro, who makes really nice furniture and he said if we could just get the materials, he'd build what we needed for free. that'll have to wait until next year - after i get back from the states. i wish i wasn't going home so i could start on the project in december when i'd have more spare time on my hands. the embassy is going to donate books to us to supplement the library and hopefully i'll get some more donations from the states. the kids are gonna be so excited!

well, happy thanksgiving everyone (they call it `día de acción de gracias´ in spanish, in case you were wondering). i will admit, I was jealous thinking of everyone eating turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing….oh, the stuffing….yesterday. i had plátanos, frijoles fritos and crema for dinner….a candlelight dinner - as the electricity was out. no, it wasn´t what i wanted to be eating yesterday, but it was still mighty tasty.

finally, here is a picture of me, brenda and her little sister, carlita. they are so great!




anyway, happy turkey day and cuidése!

humiliation at its finest

so today i locked myself in a latrine. yeah, i know.....what kind of idiot would do that? for the past couple of weeks i've been painting a big sign for mirna's family finca which is in ahuachapán. i was telling antonio's mom about the project and how i was going to take the sign to my house and paint it because at the time that i started, school was still in session and i couldn't paint it at the school because the kids would've been all over it. so antonio's mom suggested i just bring the sign on down to their house and paint it there instead of haul it on the bus to apaneca and back when i was finished. so i took her up on the offer and for two weeks spent the afternoon painting, despite feeling terrible about the strong paint fumes overwhelming their kitchen (not to mention my troubled thoughts that i was going to set their house afire when antonio's mom decided to start up the gas stove to make café every afternoon while i was there.....i think somewhere on paint cans it says 'keep away from flames' or even, 'don't bring this paint can anywhere within 100 yards of open flames, ever').

anyway, so today i finished painting, and antonio's mom gave me the customary pan dulce and café and i sat in the kitchen chatting with her. antonio's dad came in later and joined the conversation, as did antonio when he got home from work. at one point i excused myself to go to the bathroom (i don't know why i even use this phrase here, everyone i know in san jorge has a latrine which is a far, far cry from a ¨bathroom¨....maybe that's why some people give me a funny look when i tell them "voy a usar el baño." but i find this more appropriate than saying "prestéme su servicio" - which is what everybody else says and which literally translates to "lend me your toilet.") anyway, so i went to the latrine, which like every other latrine, is about a foot shorter than i am. so i hunch over and shut the door behind me. i actually don't mind antonio's latrine. it's clean (as latrines go...no cockroaches, at least not during the day!) and it has a door. most, if not all of the other latrines i've had the pleasure of crawling into don't have a door, but have one of the following: 1) a big sheet of plastic that doesn't quite cover the width and breadth of the doorway, so you're constantly looking out the doorway in anticipation of someone seeing you; 2) a shower curtain....this isn't a bad option, unless it's windy, in which case you'll find yourself fearing the same "who's coming 'round the corner" surprise; and 3) nothing at all - clearly not the best option, but they do exist.

so i shut the latrine door behind me and i heard a click and realized that the wooden slat on the outside that keeps the door from coming open when nobody's in there had come down. i'm still hunched over, mind you, and wondering what the hell i'm gonna do now. using the latrine for it's intended purpose was the last thing on my mind at this point. the latrine's made out of wood, so there are openings in-between the wooden slats, so i searched around on the floor for something that would maybe fit in-between where i could push the slat that was locking me in back up. i found a couple of sticks, but they were too fat. then i saw this piece of wire sticking through the slats where the roof and wall met. so i pulled on it and i got a pretty long piece of it through, but then it wouldn't budge. i kept yanking at it for a minute, then heard someone come out of the kitchen, presumably to see what all the racket was. i stood motionless in the latrine waiting for them to leave.

i mean, what was i gonna do? yell "hey, somebody help me! i'm stuck in the latrine!" which in spanish would translate, loosely, to "ayudéme! ayudéme!" how embarrassing. i must have been in there 10 minutes or longer. finally i decided to strip one of the sticks i had found earlier and lucky me, it became skinnier and skinnier and finally i was able to stick it through and maneuver the latch to an upright position. and i was free! i looked outside the latrine to where the wire had been sticking through and i saw that it was holding some branches to one of their lime trees up. well, not anymore it wasn't - as i'd yanked it so the branch was drooping almost to the ground. i decided to just leave it - antonio's dad will realize it "accidentally fell down" or the ¨wind knocked it down¨ ** and rig it back up. i re-entered the kitchen and sat down to drink the rest of my coffee and realized that i had forgotten to actually use the latrine....and now i was really needing to use it. i decided to gulp down the last of the coffee and tell antonio's family that i was off to apaneca to finish some work that was due the next day on my computer. they would've thought i had a serious gastro-intestinal problem if i'd have gotten up and told them i was using the latrine again after being in there for 10+ minutes. now that's embarrassing.

it could've been worse. it could have been a super smelly latrine. or i could have been locked in a walk-in freezer or something. but i did dodge a bullet i suppose. i mean, if it would've come down to it, i probably would've had to yell "ayudéme!" and then antonio's family would've reminisced for years and years to come about the time i got stuck in the latrine. i think i've already made an ass out of myself enough here in el salvador. no use in adding to the list!

i have to say though, i don´t know why so many people complain about latrines (including me when i first got here). from an environmental standpoint, i actually don´t mind latrines all that much (just give me a door). they save on water and if they are built right, they don´t harm the water tables. they´re hassle free (no clogged toilet to fix) and if you can get past the late-night cockroaches in some of them, they´re actually not that bad. however, in a situation where i´m sick or it´s 10-below zero outside, i wouldn´t give up my inside bathroom for anything in the world. all other times though, the only concern is making sure i´m on the lookout for kids making strange ghost noises.

hopefully next week i´ll be able to post about my trip to el pital (the highest point in el salvador!) and our fabulous fiesta de patronales. i´m so looking forward to the fiestas this year...don´t know why, but i´m just super excited about them this year. PLUS, los hermanos flores, one of the great, great salvadoran cumbia bands, is playing for the final night of the fiestas. yay!!!! here they are again.... if you would have told me 5 years ago that i would be excited to dance, i´d have probably punched you right in the nose. but here i am, geeked that i´m gonna get to dance to cumbia all night!

saludos y felices fiestas!

** this seems to be a pattern with me. i'll re-tell a story here about how i had a cabinet "accidentally fall down" at my ex-boyfriend's house a long time ago. i'll only tell it because it's super ridiculous (and kind of funny) and i'm certain he doesn't read this blog, and even if he does, who cares. i'm not dating him anymore, right? so i went with my ex to his mom's house one day because he was going to help her move some furniture from his grandmother's house. when we got there, his uncle was there too and there was no room for me in the truck so i stayed at his mom's house. his mom was being super hospitable and showed me the cabinet where some snacks were if i got hungry while they made the trip to grandma's and back. so they all left and i started to watch television and realized about a ½ hour later that i could use one of those snacks. so i went into the kitchen and opened the cabinet where the snacks were and the whole cabinet falls off the wall. i'm not even kidding. it just came right off the wall and i was trying to hold it up and finally i had to ease it to the counter, where it came to rest on top of a bunch of tupperware containers. i stood there for a minute saying out loud "what the fuuuuuuck?????"

i shit you not, as i'm trying to figure out how in the hell that happened, i hear the truck with my ex, his mom and the uncle pulling into the driveway. seriously, how was i going to explain that? i panicked and ran back into the living room and sat in front of the television and acted like i hadn't left the couch since they all had left. my ex's mom came in and was like "we weren't too long were we?" and i say "oh, no, it wasn't long at all!" or some other fake response because inside i was thinking "she's gonna see that cabinet, (which was hanging perfectly on the wall when she showed me the friggin' snacks), and think i was using her kitchen as a jungle gym, swinging from the cabinet doors or something." i had no way out of the situation. his mom came in and eventually so did the uncle, but they were out on the porch bringing in the furniture. then i had an idea. i sat there for a few more minutes and waited until they were making a bit of noise and then shouted out to them, "did you hear that!!!" my ex's mom shouts back in from the porch, "no, what?" i then said that i had heard a loud crash in the kitchen (not my finest acting job, i'll admit). but it worked, because my ex's mom then says "oh, the cat must have gotten into something." so my ex goes in the kitchen to check it out and discovers the fallen cabinet and bingo, i am off the hook. just like that. even though, in my opinion, i was never ON the hook. i just happened to be the unlucky person to open that cabinet door when it was ready to fall off the wall.....right???

anyway, while i don't have much luck with anything that would be considered "lucky" (winning raffle tickets, finding a hidden van gogh behind an old paint-by-numbers painting in the attic, winning blackjack hands, etc.), i have tons of luck with things that are considered "unlucky" (canyon toe, falling down in the middle of the street or on buses, walking into the men's restroom by accident, etc.). that pretty much sums up my life to this point. i'm an expert at unlucky situations that eventually lead to humiliation. if there were only a way to make that a career...a moneymaking career...i'd be set for life!

stressed out

back when i was living in the united states, let's say back in fall of 2004, i was working for a law firm full-time, going to school full-time and volunteering at the museum of natural history. i'd get to work around 8:00 (always a struggle for me, i'd say it was always something like 8:22 or 8:17 that i'd actually clock in) and work until lunchtime. then, three days a week, instead of actually going to lunch, i'd trek on over to cleveland state university and i'd go to class for an hour. then i'd come on back and resume working until 4:30. then i'd trek on back to cleveland state for a two hour class that began at 5:00 or 6:00 or whenever it actually started. i'd get home at around 8:30 or so, fix dinner, try to do some studying and somewhere around 11:00 i'd make it to bed. that was if i didn't have any problems whatsoever with my car or if i didn't have to go to the grocery store or if i had no other errands to run. then on saturdays i'd go to the museum of natural history and work for a couple hours, working in the discovery center - a job that i really enjoyed.

this was pretty much how my schedule was from 2001 to 2004 (four plus years!!!), until i quit my job at the the law firm at the beginning of the year in 2005 and finished my last semester in relative tranquility. the only job i saddled myself with was tutoring kids for 6 hours a week for the america reads program at some libraries in the cleveland area. this left me with hardly any money, but i managed and was able to graduate in spring of 2005 and prepare myself for my peace corps journey.

so here i sit....it's november of 2007, and i have no job "schedule" at all. i set my own pace, i set my own hours, i read for fun (not because i have to), i don't have required meetings to go to, papers to write or a car that i have to maintain and fill with gas every other day. i get to work with kids (the easiest type of people to work with, in my opinion) and i get to paint, plant gardens, read and do cool activities with them. i am able to hike up to beautiful forested mountaintops, gaze at volcanoes in the distance, hang out on the beach drinking ice-cold pilseners and see cool archaeological sites all in the blink of an eye.

so why in the world would i have any reason to feel stressed out? stress was what i experienced back when i was working and going to school and breaking up with boyfriends all at the same time. my life as i know it right now should not be filled with stress, right? i ask myself this question almost every day and thinking about it makes me even more stressed out, so i try and ignore it. the fact of the matter is, it IS stressful to be here. while most of the time i am operating on "island time" - because that's how everybody here operates - i've come to realize that stress as i've come to know it in the states takes on a completely different form down here.

right now, i'm filled with sadness and anger. i went to niña domy's the other day for lunch after our school's graduation and was surprised to see gustavo, her grandson there. he lives with niña domy during the school year, mostly because niña domy is all alone because her husband goes to san salvador and works during the week. so niña domy's daughter - who lives in santa ana (another department) - lets gustavo live with his grandma so she won't be all alone. after the school year he goes and lives with his parents in santa ana for the month of vacation, and when school starts up again, he comes back to san jorge to live with niña domy. he goes to school in ataco and loves it, he likes hanging out with his friends and even more importantly, he likes to learn. he always shows me his notebooks on whatever subjects and what grades he's gotten, and he loves math. he just completed 4th grade this year, and so when i came to the house, he was proudly showing me his grade card that said he passed 4th grade and can move on to 5th grade. i congratulated him, but he didn't look to happy about it. he looked tired and sad and i asked him if he was tired from his trip from santa ana to ataco for the graduation ceremony and he kind of nodded like "yeah, i suppose." i told him - as i'd told him before - that i'd get him his school supplies for next year when i go to the states (because they're way cheaper in the states than they are down here in el sal) and he kind of nodded again. he was just acting so weird.

some other guy was at niña domy's house - i didn't recognize him - but that's nothing new because there's always random people stopping by that i don't know (like niña concha). he sat in a chair by the doorway and was reading a newspaper while gustavo fiddled around with some stuff and niña domy made tortillas. then niña domy starts talking really angrily to gustavo - about how his parents need to come to her house and talk with her about the situation - and gustavo just mumbles "sí" and finally gets his stuff together and leaves the house. the guy who was sitting in the chair gets up and starts saying "sorry" to niña domy and niña domy says "it's not your fault." so he says sorry again and then leaves with gustavo.

the minute they leave, niña domy resumes making tortillas and then starts crying and tells me that gustavo's parents have decided that gustavo can't go to school next year. they want him to stay home next year at their house because they have a new baby and the mom needs help at home taking care of it. so they told gustavo that he can't go to 5th grade because he has to work at home. his parents sent his uncle (the mysterious guy reading the newspaper) with him to graduation and then instructed him to go to niña domy's house and get all of gustavo's stuff - his clothes and school stuff - and bring him back to santa ana. i was like "are you kidding?" niña domy was just so upset and it was like i didn't know what to say to her. what do you say to that? to me, someone from the united states, it's unthinkable to make a kid miss out on his education because he is needed at home to take care of a baby his mom can't take care of. it's not like she's sick or disabled and she can't physically take care of the baby. it's not that at all. it's that she has to wash and iron the clothes, cook the food, clean the house - all that "womanly" stuff that machista men require "their women" to do (and that the women happily do for "their men".....while their men are out screwing other women)....and taking care of a newborn baby on top of that is too hard - for her at least.

so who loses in this whole debacle? gustavo. poor gustavo, who can't make any decisions for himself because his parents are supposed to be making the responsible decisions for him, but who are, instead, only thinking of themselves. gustavo - who WANTS to go to school and LIKES to go to school. sure, niña domy is going to be all alone again, and that's sad too, but not half as sad as gustavo not being able to go to school. even niña domy agrees with me on that. she's always been really demanding of gustavo to study and do his homework, and even with her own kids when they were growing up, she tried to instill the value of education in her kids (even though she is uneducated herself). apparently gustavo´s mother didn´t inherit the same values.

i've been thinking about this situation constantly for the past couple of days and it just makes me so mad. moreso than ever because i'm close to gustavo and niña domy and for this to be happening is just the worst possible thing. but this is how the culture is down here. this happens in probably 1 out of every 10 families or something (well, i'm not a statistician, so i'm not sure about that), but at least where i live, this is completely normal. towards the end of the school year, we had a mom come in and ask for "permiso" for her daughter (who was in 3rd grade) to miss school for the day because the mom had to go to the hospital in ahuachapán and didn't have anybody to stay at home with her younger daughter (in kindergarten). so she wanted her 3rd grade-aged daughter to stay home with her kindergarten-aged daughter. alone. elba at least had the sense to suggest that the third grader should just bring her sister along with her to school and the younger girl could play at the school, rather than have the older one miss class, and worse yet, having them be home alone. there was another little girl who was in second grade last year. her parents left her at home alone with her little brother and wouldn't you know it but three mañosos (robbers) came in with guns and stole everything of value from their house. can you imagine?

then there's the "working in the coffee fields" syndrome. i have a couple friends back in the states who have 3 year old and 4 year old kids. know what? they're old enough to cut coffee in el salvador. from what i've gathered from talking to people who go out and cut coffee (which is nearly everyone, at least in san jorge) during coffee season (december-march) they get roughly $.75 – $1.00 for every arroba of coffee they pick. an ¨arroba¨ is equal to 25 pounds of coffee beans. they go out from early in the morning until the afternoon and just pick coffee all day. and most people end up earning between $3 and $5 a day doing that. if you´re a strapping young lad or a super strong woman who can pick coffee with agility and ease, there is potential to pick up to $10-$15 worth…but that is only if you are the most superb of coffee pickers. most people bring their kids out to help because more coffee picked is more money, right? not only do the kids not get paid directly, but they are also missing school to go out and pick coffee.

so what the fuck? who is to blame in this situation? should the parents be blamed - because on one hand, they are trying to make more money for their family...the old phrase "to put food on the table," but on the other hand, they are being completely irresponsible in 1) having their kids out there working, and 2) having their kids miss school in order to work. should the owners of the coffee fincas be blamed for paying their workers next to nothing to do this work? should people in the united states be blamed because we suck down mocha lattes and pay the $5 that the rich coffee companies charge, even when $5 for that cup of coffee is more than an average coffee picker makes in a whole day? most of the coffee fincas that exist now in my area were developed by the salvadoran elite (the ¨14 families¨) on land they stole from displaced indians back in the 1800´s. this trend continued throughout the years, and even antonio´s grandmother had land stolen from her in the mid-1900´s. the descendants of these first land thieves make a grotesque amount of money in comparison to what they pay their workers. fair trade? i think not. they pay their workers the "going rate" here, and for some reason this is called "fair trade." work is work. whether you are living in the united states and are picking almonds or oranges from trees, or down here picking coffee - it's the same amount of work. it sucks. it's back-breaking, it's boring, it's hot....and regardless of what country you're in - an honest day's work is an honest day's work. but they justify paying their workers $5 a day because it's el salvador. and it´s not even $5 a day…it´s ¨the more coffee you cut, the more money you make.¨ so what that does is increase the rate of child labor. how is that fair trade? as i've mentioned above, coffee season is only about 4 months out of the year. it's the only steady job to be encountered for most poor people here, but it only lasts 4 months. $5 a day for 4 months doesn't match the requirements needed for a 12-month year even in el salvador. but it's the going rate, and therefore, it's fair trade. fair bullshit is what it is.

is the government to blame because there are no other job alternatives here? no competition for jobs so that the coffee finca owners have to pay more? i read an article last year how dell, the computer company, was opening a IT center here. The title of the article makes me so mad (¨u.s. workers need work? go to el salvador.¨). the biggest complaint of salvadorans in el salvador are that there are no jobs here. so what does dell do? instead of offering jobs to salvadorans living in el salvador, and then training them, they were selecting salvadorans that are living in the united states because they can speak english. they were offering them short-term jobs, like a year long or so, to come down to san salvador and work in their IT center there. ?????? why´d they move the IT center to a non-english speaking county if they´d just end up having to bring in english speakers? i don't even understand that at all. do you? so basically dell moved their center to a country that they didn´t plan on helping out economically by offering jobs to locals. what is the salvadoran government´s problem? why did they allow this to happen? so maybe the government and dell are both to blame.....ok, that's a bit of a stretch, but you know what i mean.

but we arrive back at the parents.....they are the ones that decide to have children...children that they may or may not be able to feed and clothe and send to school. but they continue to have them. i saw a t-shirt in a souvenir shop here that basically re-iterated this as part of the cultural identity here. it said something to the effect of "the life of a salvadoran.....we're born, we have kids, we have more kids, and more kids, and more kids.....yay for el salvador." so i guess apparently overpopulation is all a big joke? well it's a joke i don't get.

so basically, the victims in this whole cycle are the kids....they do what their parents say because that's how it works. parents are supposed to be responsible, at least that's what i've learned throughout my life, and a lot of them here just aren't. it's not just here though - it's everywhere, including the united states. it's sad and it's stressful when you see it up close though. living in and amongst this cultural norm is just soooo difficult.

and these ARE cultural norms here. leaving your kids home alone, making your kids work - whether it's making them pick coffee or wash all the clothes or iron or entertain the baby while the mom does these things, not sending your kids to school, having 10 kids. how do i make sense of it? i can't. it doesn't make one bit of sense to me. these are the things that stress me out....these aren't little inconveniences like roosters crowing in the morning or having everyone show up an hour after a meeting is supposed to start. these are matters of survival, in a sense.

before coming here, i'd never really experienced what it's like to only live for the next day. our cultural norm is to save for the future....save for our kids' college days, save for that awesome vacation in hawaii, emergency funds, retirement. here, i've come to realize, most people are working (wherever it may be...the united states, san salvador, apaneca) so they and their families don't go hungry, or worse yet, die. they make just enough money to ensure that they don't die and that's how they live their entire lives. day in and day out, they have just enough money to feed themselves for that week, or the next day. and they continue this pattern for years and years and years. i want them to realize that sending their kids to school will give them more of a chance to get out of this rut....hopefully their kids can go to high school, then possibly some sort of college. with that education they can make more money and not worry so much about every single day. but when you have to eat, you have to eat, you know? hunger doesn't wait for 12 years of education, does it? there are a couple of kids in san jorge that some days, all their grandmother feeds them are tortillas. that's it. tortillas have absolutely no nutritional value, and do nothing except for fill your stomach. these people don't have anything.

not everyone here lives like this. there are the family members that go to the united states and send back money to their families who go and spend that money on stereos and televisions and stuff like that. there are some people who've managed to get better paying jobs in san salvador, or even in this area, so they are able to send their kids to school and feed everyone with relative ease. but there are so many people at the other end of the spectrum that have literally nothing except their faith in god and their wooden shacks. and it's not that, so much, that stresses me out, but this whole entire cycle. there is poverty everywhere, including the united states, with the same type of cyclical problems. but living in and amongst it can become very difficult and very stressful. knowing that i have no ability at all to solve these problems is probably the worst part of all.

san jorge receives it´s first official visitor

are you still reading? or has the blog become tedious and boring? i ask because i called my mom the other day to tell her of something big that occurred at my site and she said "well now you'll have something to write about in your blog." ???? like i've been stumped for writing material these past two years? i mean, i'll admit, lots of stuff probably isn't of the utmost importance to you all up in the states, but if i didn't find it at least a little bit interesting i wouldn't write about it at all. believe me, there are sooooo many things that i DON'T write about. should i cut back? quit the blog altogether? maybe two years of peace corps el salvador stories is enough? maybe that's why it's a two year service, not three....because after two years things are repetitive and boring. i guess i won't know that until i officially enter my third year. plus i never hear from ANYBODY in the states....family or friends! what gives? too busy? have i disappeared into the great el salvador abyss of buses filled with reggaeton and been forgotten? i write letters (which yes, i know is an ancient practice at this point), and i have no idea if any of you have gotten my letters or not. nobody ever tells me one way or the other! well, i hope i haven´t been forgotten, but you never know. it´s highly possible.

anyway, so the other day i got a call from rolando at like 7:30 a.m. asking me if i was in my site and i said yes. he then informed me that the u.s. ambassador to el salvador (charles glazer) wanted to come and visit my site that day. ?????? i acted as if it was no big deal, but hold up....the ambassador? visiting me? in san jorge? what???? that's like the president coming to visit!!! i called antonio and text messaged courtney and frantically told them i was super nervous and then kept getting more phone calls from rolando to coordinate the arrival time and work out the details with all the security guys. after coordinating everything, rolando and i waited outside niña domy's house for what seemed like forever. finally he arrived and rolando and i greeted him and his wife, as well as his compañeros and their wives, and their various bodyguards and other security men. it was quite overwhelming and i found myself struggling with what to say about my school and my work. i mean, i have tons to say about it. just have a look at this blog! they all hadn't visited this area of the country yet (well, ambassador glazer had, but the rest of them hadn't yet) and had loads of questions about the coffee fincas and mountains and the weather (it was super windy that day). i explained about the map project we did, as it's hard to miss because it's the first thing you see when you walk into the school area. they all loved that and got a kick out of being able to see exactly where we were by me pointing it out on the map. we took a bunch of photos and then visited each of the classrooms, while i tried to fill them in on just what it is we do as peace corps volunteers (and then more specifically, what i've done and am doing as a peace corps volunteer) and why we are needed. the kids were so great! they all greeted the group with "good morning!" and we had some photos taken with the kids and some more with the teachers.

have you ever seen that movie bridget jones's diary where she is introducing "mr. fitzherbert" to the crowd at an event that her publisher is putting on. and she keeps thinking that she wants to call him "mr. fitzpervert" because he's a pervert and so before she introduces him she's so afraid she's going to say "mr. fitzpervert" and keeps reciting it over in her head, but ultimately says the right thing? anyway....the ambassador's name is charles glazer, and but i kept wanting to say "charles barclay" because "barclay" is the last name of the former ambassador to el salvador and those two names also fit together well because of the basketball player with that name. and i was so determined not to say charles barclay, because, let's face it, that would be embarrassing and everyone would turn around to see where the six foot ten basketball player was. so i was introducing him and i drew a blank for a minute, and then mumbled his name....correctly. ugh. i'm not good in these pressure situations, let me tell you.

but in any event, the visit went well, and of course, everyone in san jorge is talking about it. nobody like this has ever visited little san jorge and probably won't for some time. but it was nice of the ambassador to stop by and see my site. his wife and the rest of the officials and their wives were all soooo nice and kept commenting on what a nice school we have.....and we do (despite all the problems i've mentioned before). so hopefully they all had good things to say about my site and my work and i educated them a little bit about what peace corps is all about.



the teachers, the ambassador and i

elba talking about the school

with the kindergarteners


second graders (and a few other students that were called into action at the last minute)

rolando, the ambassador and i

goodbye mold!

thank god! it wasn´t as bad as last year, but i´ve still got moldy pillows, passport, crayons, blankets and clothes (but only the ones that i had in a bag). so out with the rain, in with the sun and wind. time to get out the moldy scarf and hat and brace myself for the windy days and nights. with the wind comes the dust in the house. it´s always something, huh!? but at least my clothes will get dry when i wash them.

well, you'll all be happy that i don't have a lot of time to write any long diatribes today. it's been a hectic couple of weeks. let's see, i went to up to courtney's pueblo a couple of weekends ago.....i needed to get out of apaneca for a couple of days. i'm sure you could tell that i was getting a bit down on everything what with the teachers and the school and all that. courtney's environmental committee was having a dinner to raise money, so we chilled at that. they served these huge plates of meat, chirmol, rice and tortillas and it was sooooo good! they also made these drinks and served them in bamboo stalks. it was like atole de maiz and then they put a bit of guaro in it....for only 50 cents! courtney and i were saying how in the states, or on some resort somewhere else, if they served that drink, it'd probably be like $9 or something because it'd be considered an "exotic drink" or something. and there we were sitting in the middle of the casa comunal in her pueblo drinking them for 50 cents.

this is what it´s like to live in el salvador...you go to the tienda to get a green pepper and they put it in an old candy bag for you to carry home.

i came back for the week, which was interesting, despite there not being much to do at the school. it's the end of the year, so the kids are taking exams and not having real classes or anything. the teachers are pretty much phoning it in, so i just basically packed up all my stuff that was at the school and each day took a load of it home. i spent a lot of time hanging with niña domy who had the most interesting visitor at her house for the week. this old, old woman showed up on monday and niña domy told me her name was niña concha. she just kind of hung around and niña domy told me that niña concha's nuera (daughter-in-law) doesn't want her around. her daughter-in-law is the mother of three kids in our school....another one of these situations where before meeting this old lady, i liked her daughter-in-law. now i don't know what to think. apparently the daughter-in-law doesn't want niña concha around because she can't "do anything around the house" because she fell a couple of years ago and broke her arm and it never healed properly. niña concha lives in chalchuapa, but comes to san jorge to visit her son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren, but mostly she hangs out an niña domy's house (?????) because of the aforementioned dissing by her daughter-in-law. anyway, so i was having the most interesting time talking with her. she looked super old, but i figured since her son is the father of the kids in our school, i figured she couldn't be that old. so i asked her. she told me she was born in 1903!!!! she's 104 years old!!!! niña domy was even shocked, and then said that it's probably right because her son is probably in his 60's, even though he's the father of the kids in the school (there are lots of fathers here who are in their 60's (or more!) but have young kids). anyway, niña concha told me about how she used to walk to sonsonate and other places from apaneca, back before there were cars.......or roads. she was sooo funny too. she'd be real serious about something, but then would just bust out laughing. we were talking about how it was so cold at night and i said that my fingers, toes and nose are always cold and she thought it was the most hysterical thing that my nose would get cold. she'd like be in hysterics. it was sooo funny. anyway, i felt bad for her because i asked her how many kids she had and she said that she had 11 but 7 of them have died. her husband died 14 years ago. and part of the family that she does have here in san jorge just kind of brushes her aside. i think that's sad. but at least she has niña domy to come and hang out with.

niña concha

remember me telling you how the first graders love to read? here are two of them(mariela and jonathan) happy as can be.

anyway, this past saturday i was off again to molineros for sindy's 4th birthday fiesta. her mom went all out because sindy had never had a for-real fiesta for her birthday yet. antonio and i brought a hello kitty piñata (yes, we carried it all the way from apaneca on about four buses....well, i actually didn't carry it, i made antonio do that!) anyway, that was quite a party. i helped made sandwiches....which in el salvador, there is only one type of "sandwich" - it's a mixture of cooked cabbage, mayonnaise, chicken, carrots, green beans and a few other things - then you put that between two slices of bread and wrap it up in a napkin. they serve these at EVERY single birthday party. i've never NOT been served a "sandwich" at a birthday party. it's always served the same way too, wrapped up in a napkin. anyway, i must of sat there for two hours wrapping up these sandwiches in napkins with ana's friends, listening to them chambre. and i know that mixture of stuff that makes up the sandwich sounds gross, but ooooohhhh, it's soooo good! after we were done, ana gave me a huge plate of just the mixture and some tortillas and i was in heaven!

the sandwich filling

dayana helping put up decorations

before the party started....sindy in her cinderella getup with me, dayana and some grumpy girl

anyway, for the fiesta, i think ana invited all of molineros, as well as a couple of clowns. at one point i was standing there taking pictures of the kids getting ready to bust the piñatas and one of the clowns had to climb this ladder to put the rope up to hang the piñata from and he had on those big giant clown shoes and was struggling to get his feet to fit on the ladder's rungs and for like a minute i was like "seriously, where am i?" it's so weird how those feelings come for split seconds and you are apart from everything that is going on around you and then just like that, you're back in the midst of it. like sitting there making those sandwiches, it's hard not to think that that is not something that a 35 year old american would typically be doing, or something that i saw myself doing at the age of 35. but there i was, and it was completely normal.....for here anyways.

one of the clowns trying to climb the ladder

all the girls with their piñata

ok, so the girls were having trouble breaking the piñata so finally one of the clowns came and dragged me to break it. embarassing!

the boys´piñata....antonio finally had to break it. that other girl on the left is one of the volunteers currently living in molineros from the new group.....she was highly embarassed when i told the clowns to grab her to help break one of the piñatas.

sindy and her $80 cake.....her mom went all this party....it was almost like a quinceañera!

so antonio and i stayed for the party and then later that night just the kids from ana's family (all the cousins) broke the hello kitty piñata. it was actually a really fun time, despite the fact that i was dead tired by the end of the night. right before i went to bed, ana was putting tomatoes in this crate and setting them on top of a few other crates in the middle of the t.v. room area. i asked her why and she told me she had to because the rats will get into the tomatoes if she doesn't. she then said that the week before she killed seven giant rats with tails about a foot long. so i had that to think about as i laid there in the pitch black trying to fall asleep. that and the bats flying around.

sindy and her cousins with our hello kitty piñata

back to apaneca on sunday and then on monday, i made my way up to metapán, santa ana, for the last full moon hike at bart's site up in the campo. we started off by heading over to a little waterfall/swimming hole near this big old haciena built back in the old spanish colonial days. apparently there was an old mill there in those days and there are still remnants of the structure, but nobody seems to be able to tell bart what exactly it was that they made there. anyway, the hacienda was really cool. it´s run down and some woman lives in it alone now.

the corredor in the back of the hacienda

so there´s all this beautiful old spanish architecture and then on one of the doors outside, there´s these pasted on the door...hee hee

the hike itself, later that night, was soooooo steep!! but it wasn't impossible or anything. it took us about 2 ½ hours or so to get to the top, where there was a house with bunks, a kitchen and a beautiful view waiting for us. we just hung out listening to bluegrass and drinking and eating chorizos and whatever other food we all brought and the next day enjoyed the view. courtney and i hiked down alone the next day because she was trying to make it back to her site that same day. it was quite peligroso trying to go down the steep road, and we both fell a lot, but nothing too serious. these full moon hikes really bring out the best of el salvador. there are always these amazing views where you're above all the noise and parts of el salvador that are ugly (markets filled with litter, buses emitting thick, black smoke, teachers who don't teach, etc.). whether on the beach or way up in the mountains it's hard to remember that we're in one of the most deforested and naturally-devastated countries in the world. (naturally-devastated? is that right? the right way to say it escapes me...i'm trying to say that the naturaleza is devastated.) anyway, el salvador really is just such a beautiful country.

the house we hiked up to and stayed in

orchids in bloom

view of lago güija, which borders guatemala

old man getting ready to haul his corn to another house

people often ask me what kinds of houses people live in out in the campo.....this is a fairly typical style of house. lots don´t even have the cement blocks...just lamina and plastic.

like this one....adobe and plastic sheeting

so now i'm back in apaneca. we're having a bit of a food crisis here right now....not so much that there's no food, but it's expensive. beans have gone up by 40 cents, corn's really expensive...last i heard it was $50 for a sack of corn. even pan dulce is more expensive. last night i went looking for tomatoes in the pueblo and i could only find one tomato in all of apaneca! i guess it's just too expensive to buy the vegetables. there is this one woman who has a tienda really close to my house, and i asked if she could get skim milk for me, so she does and the price is already higher than buying it in the supermarket - it's $1.10 in the super and she charges me $1.20, but it's worth it because i don't have to carry it all the way from ahuachapan. well, i bought some the other day and it was $1.25. i still bought it, but still. on monday, there is supposed to be a bus/microbus strike because diesel prices are sky high. the owners of the buses want to charge more for pasaje to make up for the extra money they have to pay for diesel, but the government is saying that they are not allowed to. every little cent here counts, and it adds up when everything goes up in price. people know how much eggs are supposed to cost, and if they're even one cent higher, they go looking for another place to buy eggs. eggs are supposed to be 12 cents each, but they are now 15 cents each. it's so weird how in the states we probably wouldn't even notice if something rose in price by 3 cents, but here it's news.

tomorrow's all soul's day. i'm headed for honduras on saturday, just for two days. then i'll be back here again for the final week of school, graduation the week after and then before i know it, the fiesta de patronales in apaneca. this year has absolutely flown by! i cannot believe that it is almost december already. i'll be home in december for my required 30-day leave, so it'll be nice to spend christmas stateside. my first since 2004!

that's all for now.....see ya when i get back from honduras! (oh no! not the lempira again!)