Furman visit to El Sal

April 27, 2008

Beware the random photos.

Wow, it’s been a while. Crazy Peace Corps. It’s a good time though. You should try it, the fireflies are crazy. HA, no seriously though, they remind me of the Eiffel Tower. I know, I know, what a comparison, but at night they had the tower sparkling all over, and that’s what nighttime in the pitch black street looks like right now with these things, just at a slower rate. Although it was super hilarious the other night when there was a drunk guy staggering in front of me as I was heading my house from Don Raul’s, and he was like ( in a slurred voice), “HEY LOOK, THE LIGHTS ARE BLINKING” while laughing hysterically afterwards. Needless to say, I was right there with him.

This On Air sign before we walked in the TV Show Chivisimo

Chivisimo as we walked in

Apparently a 6.5 earthquake hit Guatemala a few days ago as well. It was kind of a cool feeling because we felt it for 10 seconds or so while playing cards on the patio. Francisco, just up and ran out yelling leave leave leave, but we stayed playing cards haha. It was very weak, but strong enough to feel what was like ripples in the ground. Nifty.

My neighbor Mauricio going crazy.

My cards partner again as we pound our opponents in what you would translate at "Dog" (Chucho...well slang)

HAH.... Milagro cleaning Franciscos hair

Oh yeah, a Furman foreign study group showed up in El Salvador about a week ago. They are traveling through Central America, and stopped in Morazán for a few days to check out all the Civil War stuff. They stayed with Peace Corps volunteers for a few days, and then later all came back together in Perquin where the war museum is. I met up with them there and they were nice enough to set us up with a room and food. Dr. Ching invited a war veteran who had a traveling band before, during, and after to tell his story. He fought for the guerilla, and is a huge supporter of the leftist group here. He told some really good stories, and had some interesting opinions. One of the guys playing club baseball was there as well, he is going into the Peace Corps and will be French speaking Africa somewhere.

Our state of the art truck of the municipality we used to take recycling.

A random truck that we loaded 14,000 oranges onto until midnight

The next day another volunteer and I headed to San Salvador to catch a fellow volunteer’s birthday party. We celebrated part by making our way into a TV studio for what would be their equivalent of TRL. The studio had decided to film an hour earlier this day though because of some show called Dancing for a Dream, but we met a bunch of “famous” Salvadorans from the CHIVISIMO show. So it was kind of cool.

The Lopez's cat eating the rat that I had caught in the house during the night. Yeah, she ate it whole, and really quickly..i was impressed.

Mario, the religious crazy guy, evangelizing the dog. I eat breakfast with him often, hes a funny guy.

Also, after getting back, apparently Celia, Don Raul and Dona Amalia’s daughter, had just got out of the hospital. They said her headaches had got to the point that they had incapacitated her and she had pretty much gone unresponsive. When she came too she was numb in some parts and pain in all the rest of her body. It sounded like the hospital gave her something for the pain and then sent her home with an appointment for a CAT Scan a few days later, haha. I went with her mom and her, the dad couldn’t go, and everything turned out ok, from what the doctor said when they had it read the next day at a different office. They put her on some kind of medicine without knowing what it was, and it seems to have knocked her out somewhat, she sleeps a lot. Today she seemed much better though. Crazy stuff.

An intense game going on our felt table.

Oh yeah, on a political note, I got preached to today in another canton by an older guy with a big red FRENTE hat on. That’s the “leftist” group that we have in the country. I put leftist in quotes, because some of the connotations that we normally associate with the left, does not apply as much here (religiously….yet). I think he had been drinking a little bit, but as soon as I sat down, he asked if I could speak Spanish and then started asking me what I thought about the government here, and the US government. Before I got answers out at all he was answering them for me. You know, George Bush is why we are poor here and then he moved on to something like that Americans are worth millions when they die and them worth houses? I’m not quite sure where that was going, but I eventually got out of there. The people all around got kind of embarrassed, crazy city-folk visitors. On that…. For those of you who haven’t heard, George W. Bush, will be speaking at Furman’s graduation this May. Wowzers.

Also on the political deal, has anyone seen where they are scientifically measuring the Colbert “bump” now? After Clinton’s win in Pennsylvania, I bet you he is all smiles. Actually I think they were basing their “science” on campaign donation trends, but whatever.

Now I start a few pics the military sent me. This was the commander of the batallion. Awesome guy, he loves to ball.

Me getting my but whooped by the chess teacher and sgt.

Let’s see what else. Oh I am a walking fool now. We are going to have the trainings for the Vision Campaign where I am bringing in an NGO named FUDEM to give free consults etc, for a week. They have numbers they have to meet though, so I am meeting with all of the ADESCOs of the cantones to get them organized etc etc. This is a bigger place than I thought. Tomorrow I go to the most remote part of the municipality, should be fun.

Living the good life.

Oh yeah, so continuing holding on the holding my tongue front after the US bashfest, a guy brought up evolution and religion right after I had finished the Origin of Species deal. There are these two guys that do work across the street in different parts of the year, and I had heard that they were “of another religion,” but the Lopez family always feeds them while they are here working, and they are really nice guys. Religious talk really never came up except for the last day they were here. It was more like a good convo and less of a confrontation. The guy brought up how he had a relative that went Jehovah Witness, and how that they aren’t really a religion, but more like Bible scholars….. :) Don Raul then piped up and told a story about a story brought to his attention by a lady in the community about a relative that had invited her to join a new church that had come in from without. She said they the church said that as long as you believed in Christ, that all the marrying as many people as you wanted (and other examples which I’ll generalize as “the moral law”) really don’t have any influence on your salvation. After a short convo, the guy was like, yeah well I think it’s the fault of the preachers in charge of those flocks, because ultimately that’s where this stuff germinates. It was an interesting conversation. It still amazes me how much bigger the 7^th Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses are than any other non-Catholic group.

The full bird colonel trying on the Salvadoran side arm. US wasn't allowed any weapons during the mission.

D'oh! I should have joined the military.

I had some quotes from the Origin of Species, but I already gave it away for the Spanish Literature master’s guy to read. I felt bad for him cause he’s been in the capital in therapy with a pinched nerve for a while. He’s going through books insanely fast.

So, I leave ya’ll with something much more hilarious!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=n4QFKS4LzS4

Guatemala

April 9, 2008

Esquipulas, Guatemala….what a dry place. Although it is the end of the dry season, so I can give it that, but still, it changes your idea of the tropics so see many parts that are very dry for large times in the year. Anyways, it was a fun trip. We headed out from La Comunidad around 330am, arriving in town (San Pedro Nonualco) around 4 or so, and then when the buses arrived, and after some initial confusion on how people were going to pay and board, we headed out at 5 am en punto. It was a full crowd on both buses, around 120 people in total at $10 a pop (Don Raul and Dona Amalia ran the excursion from La Comunidad, but invited the whole parish). So they made quite a bit of money for the festivals in August I think.

Crazy Peace Corps people...I wasn't there, but I was forwarded this pic and its hilarious

It was about a 4 hour bus ride to the border, then 45 mins to an hour at customs, then another 30 mins or so to Esquipulas in Guatemala. The border was fun, they had an army of money changers jump on the bus right as we stopped to get off so they could check the bus etc. They were changing every dollar into 7 quetzals. The exchange rate was about 7.55 to a dollar, so they were making half a quetzal on every dollar exchanged….that’s pretty good business, yet our people had no idea they were losing that. I didn’t bother to mention it with 120 people. I only changed 8 dollars at the border, originally I only changed 3 dollars, and then felt bad when I asked a guy for American change for my ten and didn’t change any money with him, so I changed five more dollars. It was a good thing I did, because things there in Esquipulas were more expensive than in El Salvador…..tourist trap. They actually were surprised that I made it through without them charging me because the gringos that passed before me on their trips had been taken aside to pay extra for entering Guatemala. Thank goodness for official government documents J I always carry my little green book with me for cases such as that.
Esquipulas is a quaint little city, surrounded by mountains as many are in Central America (valleys are preferred I think). It’s a big tourist draw because of its new renovated Cathedral which houses the Black Christ (its ok, you can smile at that, the black part just refers to the color of the entire thing now). It reminds me of the Black Virgin and Jesus up in Montserrat in Spain. Both are popular pilgrimage sites. The one in Esquipulas was carved back some 400 years ago (1595?) as gift to a bishop (?) and because of the miracles that were claimed by those who were praying to God before it, it became popular throughout the centuries to come and see and pray. But like in any material thing, one must be careful to never confuse the source of inspiration with the source of the miracle. I hope they realize that, after discussing with Don Raul, I think he does.

I think thats my kiss me face

Don Raul's kiss me face ahahaha... his brother is behind him

Dona Amalia asleep.... like everyone else
They also make many types of candies there, so everyone was buying candies and crosses and rosaries to bring back to El Sal. I bought some ice cream for myself and spent the rest of my 56 Quetzales on candies for the kids (apparently the quetzal is the name of the national bird in Guatemala). As I said earlier though, things are expensive there. A 3 liter coke there is 2.50, and in el Sal you can get the same thing in a Super for $.70…or a $1.20 in a local store. Eventually, after perusing a little bit, we left to wait at the bus at the appointed time, 3pm. However, there was a couple that didn’t get there til 4, so we waited for an hour in a steaming bus and I spent 5 quetzales trying to buy a phone call off of random people because our phones didn’t work there (after my call to you Cari my phone shut off too like theirs).

Eventually we made it back around 830 that night, after having a bus that blew a tire. I hung out with the fam in the Lopez house for a while, gave out the candy, and slept away. It was a good trip. Francisco and the runt asleep in the hammock

Monday was 1st birthday of the twins, we had a piñata and it was fun. A sister of Don Raul from California was visiting as well. They loved to throw in English in most conversations and talk about the US a lot. I kept trying to turn the convo back to El Sal and include everyone there, but they made it hard. I felt bad for those who didn’t speak English or who hadn’t visited the US. Anyways, the husband was a machinist for BOEING and has 40 years with them, so needless to say. They have money beyond anything anyone here in the Cantón could dream. I just found out, for example, that Margherita, makes less than a dollar a day at her work in the capital.
I SHAVED…. They say I look like a 17 yr old boy now. :) Me with whats left of the head of the pinata
As far as my workload goes here, its pretty heavy going. I think I’ve bit off more than I should have at the beginning, but I hope it pays off eventually. The first two weeks of this month there was only 1 day I had free and it was a day of cleaning and washing. It’s all good though, I’d rather be busy than bored. I’ve lost a lot reading time though, that is the sad part.

What else, ah yes. They are now running church missions out to the canton farthest away from the pueblo to evangelize those who often can’t come into the main part of the parish for certain events. Our canton is sending a group this week to participate, and soon I will be working out there as well in preparation for the eye campaign that is coming by FUDEM that I invited at the end of May. It’s about a 2 and a half hour walk from what I hear from the upper part of the pueblo, which is an hour walk from me. I’ll be ready for a short vacation come July :)
Also, I finally broke down and bought a $40 Canon printer and 6 ft. USB cable for $1.50. I don’t want to be draining the ink from the only computer and printer in the town and now I can help out a little more promoting events with it. I just hope the ink lasts. The cartridges are 20 bucks a pop. So far though, it doesn’t seem to be having a problem with Windows Vista, that’s a good thing.

William! and the pinata
No one be expecting calls from me this month from here on out, my budget will have to be tight the next few months due to some expenses for some of the work here so, sorry, but always remember that incoming calls for me are free.

Finally, I would just like to say that a book was placed in my Peace Corps box in the office in San Salvador that is now the newest addition to my fiction section part of my library here in my house…..the Book of Mormon!!!!....its now right beside the Koran and Sun-Tzu. It was left as a joke between me and another few guys, knowing that is was Mormonism’s ‘biggest supporter’ during training. A note was left inside for me.

“-Rhett
Thought you might like the true word of the Lord.
-Joseph Smith”

Let me throw a few quotes for thought in addition to this.

“Please tell me where in the Bible, the King James Version of the Bible which you believe in and Mormons believe in, is the word “Bible” used, and where has the canon of Scripture been closed?”

-Bill, a Mormon, and a call-in to the Allen Hunt Show

“the Bible is a fallible collection of infallible books”

-J.C. Sproul, Protestant Bible Scholar and author

“I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”

*NIV Study Bible note…. “the warning here relates specifically to the book of Revelation.”*

St. John the Apostle, the book of Revelation 22:18-19

“I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”

Joseph Smith on the Book of Mormon

If you were asked if the Table of Contents of the Bible was fixed, how would you respond? Would it be the same as the Mormon’s answer? The Jesus Seminar answer? Allen Hunt’s answer? The Bible’s answer?

http://www.allenhuntshow.com/Listen/Audio/MP3/2007_0429_01.mp3

(I personally think the best quote was the guy who made a point saying “well…if you put the Gospel of John in parentheses” HA!... Can we tell him that’s wrong though, eliminating a book from the Bible, if it doesn’t ‘speak’ to him?)

Club Titan

April 2, 2008

Well hello there people, I have finally gotten settled back into my site after a month of lots of traveling events. The last of which was my trip to Texistepeque, Santa Ana. A volunteer from a previous group held a big event to help raise funds for their computer program…..I’m actually working on that as well in my site…on a municipal level. The program we work with is Interconnection, and we can get full computers for about $100 dollars, for the baseline refurbished computer. No school can actually pay that here in country, but we are starting up fundraisers and stuff to help out. Anyways, I headed out to the capital the night after the big meeting we had in the Casa Comunal where the Health NGO turned over control of the Medical Dispensary to our ADESCO. This is a really big step for the community because now they will manage their own little “medical center.” I mean, we still don’t know how we are going to pay the 2 “nurses” that run it, because what they make from the sales of medicines really will just cover the sale of the medicines a little bit of what their salaries were from the NGO. I think that eventually the sales of the medicines will cover it all, but not for a year at least. SOOOO, we have to survive until we can solicit the mayor for funds in the next year’s budget. For the both of them that would be $200 for the next 8 months. If anyone has any good ideas on that one, I’m all ears. This was that pipe that burst a while ago that let all our community water drain away.

Me fillin in the holes for the pipes :)

Back to the trip, I went to the capital the night before and then headed out the next morning to the other side of the country, and actually hitched a free ride with 3 other volunteers and a friend they had made that teaches English in the capital. We got to Texistepeque a few hours before the game they had set up between us and Club Titan, a semiprofessional soccer team. Come to find out, the day before the national newspaper had a 2 page spread on them and how they have been number 1 the past few years in their division, yet are the lowest paid. Well wonderful! The girls team played before us, and got beat 6-0 or something. The Peace Corps male team, that’s us, had about 20 players show up, which they say is abnormal, so we rotated throughout the game. Club Titan wore red socks on their dominant legs so that the referee could call the goal back if they used it to score :) They still beat us 10-2. It’s a given that a bunch of our good players weren’t there, but they called back 4 goals they scored accidentally with the strong leg. Oh well. It was fun, they were sooooo much better than us, I think I’ll stick to basketball here, hah.



We came back through the capital, and took a day of luxury sitting by the pool in the hotel that the embassy uses. It’s really nice, apparently volunteers come into the capital a few times a week to use its gym and pool etc, but, personally I think that’s kind of a lame excuse to get out of your site. I mean I love to work out and all, I am only one bus ride from the capital, but becoming more successful in your community should trump your desire to stay in that kind of shape.

Stole this one off facebook, the army guy who posted it said I was doing an MRE commercial, ha

There’s my two cents. So yeah, the guitar that I brought back is doing nicely, it has my fingers nice and sore. I’m on Hey There Delilah right now…. I think I’ll be there for a while, although I need a capo for some other songs.

The same guy posted individual shots of all the PC people, this was mine ahahahahaha

Things have been really busy since I’ve gotten back. I’ve actually had to take a break on the whole reading thing for a while to get a handle on this stuff. I think I’ll end up skimming the rest of Charles Darwin and then move on. I sat down and diagrammed my projects going on right now on the little dry erase board that Aaron left me and actually surprised myself. Right now, it’s about 14 different “projects” that are sapping my life’s energy away haha. Some I am actively working on and other are in the development stages. For example today I have a meeting in the afternoon with Habitat for Humanity El Salvador. The Mayor, Don Mauricio (I hope), Don Raul, and I will be meeting to talk about what they can bring here. Tomorrow FUDEM, an NGO that does Eye Campaigns, is coming to meet with the mayor, my health promoter ladies, the parish clinic doctor, and me in the morning. So, there are opportunities opening up, I just hope we can take advantage of it. Not to mention we have cervical/uterine exams coming up in a week free of charge for all of our ladies :) hah.



Isabel, the health promoter, and I started the recycling campaign officially yesterday in the school here in the canton. We are going to go for a month and then see the final weights of the plastic and aluminum to see whether the morning or afternoon classes won….and then dish out prizes accordingly.



OHH yea, I had two neighbors dog die while I was away in Texistepeque. One in the twins house next door, and BUXY, the little girl dog at Don Raul’s died. I asked from what and they kept saying Dysentery, but that just didn’t sound right. They said another dog also seemed to be going the same way in the twin’s house, but recuperated eventually. Very sad, it was a cute pup. Apparently the younger grandkids at Don Raul’s took it hard.

This was Buxy's bed on top of a bag of corn.

Another random note, is that PC supplies free Newsweek Magazines at the office every month, and they are actually kind of good. They are short, simple articles of certain subjects by a varying number of authors. I am taking to them a little bit.



Finally, I am going to Esquipulas, Guatemala on a Parish trip this Saturday. Don Raul and Dona Amalia are in charge of the trip to raise money for the patron festivals of La Comunidad in August, so I’ve helped out here and there with what I could. It should be fun.



I close with a movie quote, wahoo. Actually, the soundtrack of this movie actually caught my eye this time watching it, it wasn’t too shabby.

Another random pic that I ripped from my cell phone, taken by the kiddies, if you couldn't tell, the pics of this post came from my phone and facebook

“If they ever tell my story, let them say, I walked with giants. Men rise and fall like the winter wheat, but these names will never die. Let them say I lived in the time of Hector, tamer of horses, let them say I lived in the time of Achilles.”



-the closing lines of the movie “Troy”