Training Round 2

Sorry for being such a slacker and not updating for such a long time.

My asamblea general went pretty well.  I had lots of people show up but I was a little disappointed that the people in my community I was most eager to hear about my project plans like the health promoter, mayor, and my host mom were all unable to attend.  I guess it's a good thing I see them often enough that it isn't a big deal they weren't there.

I've been back in San Vicente for my second round of training for the past week.  It's great to be back with my host family in San Esteban but I've hardly had any time with them because training has been so busy.  I like these training sessions sooo much better than the ones from PST1.  I'm actually learning stuff that I'll be able to use in my community like how to make pinatas, jewelry, recycled purses, how to start a water or latrine project, and how to write grants.  It's all extremely useful and I can't wait to get back to my community so I can get things going!

This next week we're heading to the capital to visit some museums and to a beautiful waterfall and gardens on the western side of the country.  Then I'm back in San Esteban for a few days of English classes, and then back to San Salvador for Thanksgiving at the Embassy and my swearing in party!!  SO much stuff going on but I love it.  I will admit I hate missing the annual Harvey & Mabe-White excursion to Ocean Isle Beach but glad I will still be able to celebrate with Americans (and hot showers!).

I almost forgot to mention I went hiking up a volcano the other week!!!  My friend, the dentist from the clinic, invited me to climb Volcano Izalco in Sonsonate.  I don't know why I was thinking it would be easy but it took us 4 hours to get to the top.  The hardest part wasn't even hiking up Izalco, but going down Cerro Verde (the point of view of this picture) and then back up it again to get to where we parked.  Although I was completely exhausted and aching for days after, it was totally worth the view of practically all of El Salvador and just the feeling of accomplishment after hiking up a volcano.  Not to mention, I was the first person from our group to make it to the top!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Due to persistent torrential downpours, I´ve been forbidden to leave my site since last Tuesday. I am on “standfast” which in Peace Corps lingo signifies, “stay put until we say otherwise.”  I am not allowed to travel because several roads have been washed out and many areas are at risk for landslides.   I have yet to run out of books to read on my Kindle, thanks to Nitisha, but I’m about to run out of programs to watch on my computer.  

Although most days I curse the scorching Salvadoran sun, I do miss it right now.  Without it, I haven’t been able to wash my clothes because there is no sun to dry them.  I have run out of clothes to wear and to make matters worse, I think I have bedbugs.  Bedbugs are hard to get rid of in the first place and it is impossible to eradicate them without being able to do my laundry.  I can’t walk around my site too much because it is really muddy here and since it is the rainy season, the roads are covered in algae, thus extremely slippery.   Plus, the path to my house has turned into a stream.  I also can’t visit many people in my community for the same reasons.  Yet another problem is bathing.  My bathing area is outdoors with only a screen surrounding it.  Although it’s not really cold here, the rain makes it quite unpleasant to bathe.  Thankfully, my host mom has been heating up my bathwater, which makes it bearable. 

I guess I am fortunate that nothing detrimental has happened in my area.  Some homes by the Lempa River have flooded, but that is the worst I have heard.  The president of El Salvador has declared a National Emergency  because of this “tropical depression.”  Many communities have been flooded or have experienced landslides, leaving thousands homeless and in shelters throughout the country, and some dead.  Unfortunately, since I am at the early stages of my time in site, it is difficult for me to organize some sort of community action to help support those in need.  I hope to work with the health clinic nearby, who has been caring for those whose homes have flooded.

In other news, my Asamblea General is next Friday.  This is my official meeting to introduce myself to the community.  I’m a little nervous about making a speech in Spanish but I am excited to introduce myself to everyone in the community whom I haven’t met yet and explain to them what I hope to accomplish and learn through while living and working with them during the next two years.

mi casita

I´m a natural

Papa scorpion (thankfully not the one that stung me)

my swollen thumb

Another interesting tidbit: I got stung by a scorpion last week.  That was fun.  I had just returned home from the All Volunteer Conference in La Palma, Chalatenango.  I set down my luggage and as I reached to close the door to my room, I felt this sharp pain on my thumb.  At first I thought it was a giant splinter but I saw the culprit when I looked at the frame for the missing chunk of wood that was likely embedded in my finger.  Thank goodness I was at home so I yelled, “me picó un alacrán!” and my host mom came running.  She put lime on it and smeared its poop all over the sting.  Apparently that’s supposed to help; it did make me laugh.  I also called my PCMO who instructed me to take an antihistamine and painkillers.  My thumb hurt like hell and swelled to twice its size in first few hours but after that, it just felt numb.  After telling several Salvadorans my story, I was surprised to find out that many of them have never been stung by a scorpion. Thus, I am proud to say I survived my first (and hopefully only!) scorpion sting.  It feels kind of like a rite of passage.

Alive in Palacios

I was recently informed that people are eager to hear how things are going in Palacios, Cabañas.  Sorry I haven´t updated recently, I can only check my email at my site and I only come to the cybercafe in Ilobasco, the closest pueblo, once a week. Things are going well at my site.  The people are really nice and I love the area.  It´s pretty hot but I don´t mind it too much and I´m right beside the beautiful Rio Lempa.  I´ve gone fishing and there´s plenty of hiking to do in Palacios. I caught six fish with a pole made from a branch and a piece of string.  Either American fish are really smart or American fishermen are really stupid for spending so much money on their fancy fishing poles I´ve visited the school several times and I´ve been making house to house visits to get to know everyone in my community.  The only trouble I´m having is with my living situation but I´m hoping to get that figured out soon.  Luckily, I do have my own room but there are some other issues I hope to get resolved.  My host family is great.  My mom, Aracely, her two daughters Estela (22) and Leydi (3), and her neice, Geisy (13).  I would love to write more about Palacios but I´m short on time so I will plan on giving a more in depth update later.  I just wanted everyone to know that I am surviving life in Palacios and I´m living the Peace Corps life for sure.

Bring It On

After weeks and weeks of eagerly awaiting my site placement, I was finally informed I will be heading to Cantón Palacios, Jutiapa, Cabañas, El Salvador.  It is on the banks of the Rio Lempa and is a big fishing and cattle-raising community.  My site has no running water and no direct transportation.  All in all, it's pretty friggin' rural. It's about a 2.5 hour drive from where I am now and equidistance to the capital.  Luckily, the closest city, Ilobasco, is just an hour away.  It is a cute artisan town with a SuperSelectos that sells American staples, and most importantly, peanut butter!  I'm also 2.5 hours from the closest person in my training group but there is another volunteer that's just an hour away.

My new home, Palacios!

I will admit that everything was not all sunshine and rainbows on Site Assignment Day and I was dealt the the first real obstacles of my PC experience.  After looking more carefully at my information packet, I read that I will be sharing a room with a girl in my host family.  It was especially hard to hear this after talking with peers who will be living in their own houses.  The one thing I tried to make very clear in my site interviews was that I needed my privacy.  I understand the new policy that we are required to live with a host family for our own safety but it is also Peace Corps policy that every volunteer should have their own room.  Apparently, my family was supposed to build a partition to split her bedroom from mine but it never happened.  Needless to say, I'm not so happy that I will have to share a room with someone for the first two months.     I don't want to come to my site with negative presumptions about my living situation but it's hard enough moving in with strangers in a new community where I don't know anyone, am not fluent in the language, and am the only "gringa" for hours, and to top it all off, NO space of my own.  I'm not a whiner or a quitter so I will deal.  We will see how these first months go and hopefully the situation is better than it sounds or I can move in with another family or build a room of my own.  Furthermore, I am replacing a volunteer who just ETed (early terminated) three weeks ago.  I hope she tactfully explained to the community her reasons for leaving so that I'm not stuck with that, too.

On a more positive note, I spoke with my "community guide" on Friday and she seemed super nice.  I will be meeting with her this Saturday for an orientation in San Salvador and riding back with her to Palacios.  It looks like I will be doing a lot of rural health and youth projects in my community.  I won't know the specifics about my projects until I get there and spend some time getting to know the people in my community and assessing their needs and desires.  I also spoke with the volunteer who is an hour away.  He had some positive things to say about my host family and the surrounding area and we're scheduled to meet up in Ilobasco sometime next week.  Aside from the no privacy thing, I'm pretty excited about moving to my community.  I can't wait to meet everybody and see what Palacios is like!

Jeez, I almost forgot to tell you about the awesome time we had at the Embassy!  Last Wednesday, my training group was invited to a tea with the Ambassador and the DCM, who is actually a friend of a friend of my Mom (small world!)  We had an informal Q & A session and then had REAL coffee and hors d'oeuvres, a refreshing break from instant coffee and tortillas, and chatted some more.  I learned some interesting and slightly scary stats about El Salvador, which are probably best unmentioned until I make it through service.  The ambassador's house is pretty sweet and she's got it all to herself.  Lucky lady!  But I guess she deserves it; being ambassador is a pretty tough job.

Wish me luck in my new site, sounds like I'll need it!  I'll let you all know my address as soon as I figure it out so you can send letters & care packages :)

Me, Jamie & Cory with our Caminanta group & homemade tie-dyed tees!

Still Loving It!

A lot has happened since my last blog.  Sorry for being such a slacker and not updating more often.

I just had the most awesome time tie-dying t-shirts with our group of jovenes!  I was really nervous how it was going to go because I'm definitely not an expert on tie-dying but it went really well and I think everyone had a great time.

Things are still going great in my training site.  As you can see, the group of kids we are working with are great.  Not all of them are in the photo above, there are about three times this many in total.  We're also working on a garden with them and we went with some of them yesterday to plant various seeds.

I still love my training site and host family. Jamie, another PCT in my training, and I even have an exercise group that goes running with us every morning!  It started out just being a couple girls but more and more people keep showing up.  I've even spotted a few guys running around the park, too.  Exercise isn't very common around here and usually if someone is running, everyone thinks they're running from something, not doing it for exercise.  It's really hard some mornings to get up at 5 am but I try to remember that people are expecting me to show and I´m supposed to be setting an example for them.  I also have a little group of neighborhood kids that does Zumba (Hottest Latin Dance Workout!) with me in the evenings.  It is a blast and anyone would crack up if they saw how ridiculous all of us look trying to get the moves right.  I think it's wonderful that I can being a positive and healthy influence just by getting my jog on to keep myself from getting what I call the "tortilla belly." This is pretty much the equivalent of a beer belly practically every Salvadoran woman has from eating un montón de tortillas with each meal.

A little over a week ago I went to San Salvador, the capital.  We visited the Peace Corps Headquarters and an archaeology museum and we ate at Pizza Hut for lunch which really made me miss my American food.  We didn't have much time to explore the city but I'm sure I'll be spending my fair share of time there during the next two years so I'll have time to see everything.

This past weekend was Immersion Weekend so all of us trainees went to various sites all over the country where volunteers have been living and working for at least a year.  I was a little disappointed with my placement because I only got to go an hour away from where I am right now but I had a great time.  I went to San Jacinto, which is a semi-rural canton in San Vicente.  The volunteer I visited was really nice and laid-back like me so we got along well.  The family I stayed with was great too.  I think they enjoyed messing with me a little because the lady I stayed with owns a tienda and one morning she comes up to me with several bottles of medicine with English labels and asks me if I can translate it to Spanish for her.  Two of them were prostate vitamins, so that was interesting trying to explain.  Then she says, "Ok, so my husband can use them, right?"  TMI for only having been there one night.  I also got to be a madrina in a carrera de cintas while I was there. That was so much fun!  A carrera de cintas is a competition where there are several rings with all the madrina's names lined up on a pole and the men try to stick a pencil through one of the rings while riding a horse.  If they succeed, that madrina gives them their sash and a little gift.  They can also give a kiss.  In my case, this 12 year old got my ring so I went in to gave him a hug and he kissed my neck (I think he was peer pressured because everyone was yelling, "give the gringa a kiss!")  It was cute though.

I taught an English class this morning.  My subject was "teaching English through music" so I played a bunch of Beatles songs because they're easy to understand but the kids' favorite was "Always" by Bon Jovi.  I have no idea but EVERYONE in El Salvador is in love with Bon Jovi's music, it's really funny.

This weekend is our "free weekend" although we only get one night off.  Almost everyone in my training group is going to the beach together.  I'm super excited to see the beach and relax a little.  We're also stopping at SuperSelectos (kind of like wal-mart) on the way there to stock up on American grub.

As you can see, I have A LOT going on.  And I'm loving every minute of it (minus the scary medical charlas about bugs that suck your face and carry diseases that can kill you.)

P.S. Don't forget there are way more pictures on my picasa website (the link is on the right.)

Who needs a hair dryer when you have a pica?

It has been one week since I moved in with my host family in San Esteban Catarina.  I absolutely love them!  My family consists of my abuelita, Graciela, her three daughters: Veronica, Lillian, and Daniella, and two grandsons, Joaquin and Ricardo.  I've learned so much and I feel like I'm really close to my family already.  Joaquin took a liking to me instantly and the other day Veronica taught me how to make papas rellenas.  I think by the end of my eight weeks here I won't want to leave.  It's also interesting because my family has wifi and television, but an outside shower and toilet that doesn't flush, and a latrine.  Apparently I'm being spoiled here and my permanent site won't be anywhere near this nice (definitely no wifi!)  It will also probably be in a much more rural area.

(Lillian, Veronica, and Graciela)

Right now I'm only a 15 minute pica ride to San Vicente, where the Peace Corps training site is located.  A pica is just a pick-up (hence the name pica, which I just put together today) with a tarp where everyone stands and holds on to get to town.  It's 30 cents to get to San Vicente from here and it's usually super crowded and I have to hold on for dear life.  The view is amazing though.  I live in the mountains and there's also a volcano close by called "Chicontepec."  Since it's the rainy season, everything is lusciously green.  I wish I could take a photo but I'm afraid my camera would get snatched so you'll just have to take my word for it.  Every single time I travel back and forth I am in awe and I think how lucky I am to be in such a beautiful place.

Today I tried pan dulce, or sweetbreads.  Cuerpo de Paz treated us since several of us had/have birthdays coming up.  I had the pineapple flavored and it was absolutely delicious.  Supposedly, the place where the make it is one of the best panaderias in all of El Salvador.

Spanish classes are pretty intense and sometimes last all day long but my Spanish is rapidly improving.  My family tells me my Spanish skills are great, but I think that's only because they've never had an "aspirante" that spoke the language upon arrival before.  I really enjoy learning and being able to practice with all of the kids in the neighborhood.  They're all so nice and curious, always asking me what certain things mean in English and telling me how to say things in Spanish.  One of my neighbors, a little girl named Nicole, even brought me elote (corn on the cob) that her family had prepared this evening.  This weekend we are traveling to another volunteer's site to do activities with a group of kids.  I'm excited to get to play outside with kids all day but I'm going to have to make sure I bring my sunblock!

My busted arm from traveling and vaccinations.  Everyone keeps asking me how I got such a big bruise and Veronica even asked me if it was from domestic violence!

Made it!

I finally made it to El Salvador!  We had a long trip here, starting with an afternoon of staging in DC.  We did a bunch of group activities to get to know each other and also got to meet the Regional Director and some other Peace Corps folks that work at headquarters.  Afterwards, we all went out for the "last supper" in America.  I had a cheeseburger, fries, and a Blue Moon.  We had to wake up at 2:30 am to head to the airport and finally arrived at the airport in La Paz, a city outside of San Salvador, around 4 pm El Salvador time.

Upon our arrival, a lime green school bus was here to take us to San Vicente where the Peace Corps training center is.  Walking into the open air was like hitting a wall.  the humidity was overwhelming; even worse than North Carolina!  There we were introduced to the Peace Corps training staff and signed some forms before heading to dinner.  After that, we were all so worn out from travel and not sleeping the night before that we crashed around 9pm.

This morning my roommates and I all woke up 2 hours early because I forgot to set my alarm to Salvadoran time.  I got up, started brushing my teeth, then looked at my watch and realized it was only 4 am.  Thankfully, my roommates weren't mad at me and thought it was funny and we all went back to sleep.  Breakfast consisted of a fried egg, salsa, beans, and plaintains with coffee.  During training we had more introductions and an overview of what we will be doing for the next 8 weeks, language interviews, and a "survival Spanish" lesson.  My interview was pretty rough but the survival Spanish was a breeze.  At least I know enough to get by for now and hopefully in the next 8 weeks it will get a lot better. The Safety & Security and Medical sessions were also little intimidating.  Everyone tells us, " It's not a matter of if you get sick, but when."   I'm not looking forward to that but it's good to know the Peace Corps is preparing us for everything.

Tonight for dinner we had pupusas, the national dish of El Salvador.  They are corn tortillas with beans, cheese, and other fillings topped with slaw, marinated vegetables, and salsa.  We learned all about the origin of their name, how they are prepared, and one of the host families came and prepared them in front of us.  I hope she's my madre because her pupusas were delicious!

I have been in El Salvador for a little over 24 hours and I love it so far.  The staff seems amazing and I like all of the other volunteers.  Tomorrow we move to the site where we will spend the rest of training, which probably won't have running water and other amenities I'm spoiled to, but I am eager to meet my host family and see what my pueblo is like.

Peace Corps Anticipation

To start out, I will fill you in on the basics. I am a 22 (almost 23!) year old from North Carolina.  I graduated from Wake Forest University in 2010 with a major in political science and minors in Spanish and Latin American studies. Since graduating, I have worked as the Field Director/Co-Campaign Manager of a state House race and then with a Local Management Entity in Durham, NC.

I applied for the Peace Corps over a year ago and was nominated in June 2010 to teach English. It wasn't until January 2011 that I received any further information about my invitation and I was told I was being considered for positions in the Eastern Europe region. Although I said I'd go anywhere, I asked my placement specialist to reconsider my region because of my educational background in Spanish and Latin American studies and my experience studying abroad in Spain.

My persistent attitude was rewarded and in February, I was notified that I had been invited to serve in El Salvador! I know I will encounter some dangers while being abroad but I have heard from several friends and acquaintances who have traveled or lived there that Salvadoran people are the most kind and welcoming people they have ever met. I am eager to start my service and share two years of my life with these wonderful people while growing and learning more about myself in the process.