Security Conference and Project Development..and worms

August 26, 2008

Well, for now all of the deaths and random crazy acts have slowed down a bit, which is good news for all here haha. The novena, nine days of prayer, that follows a Catholic’s death here started, but I had to leave that Tuesday to go to San Vicente. Outside of the city there I gave a talk and demonstration on vermiculture….WORMS!!!! One of my peace corps buddies has a school garden going there and they could use some cheap fertilizer deals. Anyways, after that on Wednesday, I took off with Bobby, the PCV, to get some work done, and him med stuff, in San Sal before our security conference the next day en Chalatenango, the department up north in towards the mountains. I put my usual food plan while in the capital in to action until we got to the conference….don’t eat unless you have to, haha.

A random pic of Kevin (grandson of Don Raul) in his bed early.

Don Daniel, Don Efrain, and Isabel after finishing putting up the first set of flowers that the neighbors had brought for the altar the last day of the novena

The final night of prayers in the rain. It was a rosary mixed with a song sung in between each decade and at the end a Bible reflection by Don Raul and another. The mayor sang the songs, he actually has a really good voice, I had no idea.

A group of us that were left at the end. They made be operate a video camera of one of Isabel's relatives.

The altar midday.

The next day I had a meeting earlier in the office arranging some scholarship stuff, and then we headed up north to the conference. It was a nice place, it had a shower too, but no hot water. They are still in the process of building it, but anyways, the security conference was actually a nice break. We had good food, and they updated us a lot on the security deal here in country as well as any peace corps policy updating that was necessary. We also mapped out all the parts in our east-central zone that were possibly dangerous for us to travel, etc etc. It was a good time. There were some interesting statistics that came out of it…well at least I thought, ask if you are interested haha.

After all that came to a close, I headed back through the cap where that next morning I caught the US/SPAIN basketball preliminary, wow we dominated them. I think we won by like 37 points or something, crazy. Also around that time I caught Michael Phelps 8th gold medal, although it wasn’t the 7th which I heard was much more fun, it was still cool to watch….seeing as it was one of the few I got to see. We, we being some peace corps volunteers, had some good talks….go figure….about politics, with a philosophical twist, while waiting for some of the Olympic doodads to come on (commentary by the way of the Olympics is so much better in the states, and coverage). One of the main ideas that was discussed that crossed my radar was a discussion of the process of getting to the point to be candidate for the Presidency of the US, and how in the recent decades, the candidates that have been given as options have been, well, an interesting mix. From there the discussion branched everywhere from right-left interpretations of why, to the comparison of the development of our culture with that of the late Roman Republic (yes yes, I know, that part was awesome you are thinking, haha). The people involved in the discussion were seasoned travelers and well read and educated people, so I just got to sit back and soak up as much as I could, it was good stuff to make you think about it all in a big picture.

So let’s see, I got to come back to the community for a few days, during which I caught three things… snake, a scorpion, and a cold. I woke up one morning to the rucus of a bunch of birds messing around in the space between my roof and walls (which isn’t unusual), but this was something totally different. So I got out of bed to see what the deal was, when I see curled up in one of the metal rafters a nice pet snake, haha. He was about 5 feet long and an inch thick in some parts, and had just eaten something a few hours before. I got my machete out a stick I had handy to get rid of the birds, and then I saw to ladies walking down the street that I knew, so I figured it would be more fun to jump into the street and scare them with my machete in hand first…. So I did that, then we all came in to check out the snake. I called Don Raul and he came over and pushed it out with a stick and I accidentally came in with a little overkill and separated its head from its body for the most part. I kind of felt bad after I found out it wasn’t poisonous…..then I got over it :) From a distance.

The little guy up close.

on the ground by my porch.

Don Raul laughing at my prey.... haha.

Then later I pulled back the little curtain that covers where I bath and a scorpion was chillin there. I got him with the barbecue grabber things that Aaron left….mwhahahaha. He wasn’t very big though.

Then I caught a cold.

A few days later, I took 4 community leaders from around the municipality to San Vicente for a Project Design and Management Workshop put on by the Peace Corps training staff. We were there for a half day, full day, half day. It was pretty neat, there were 5 volunteers and their people in total and everyone by the end was friends with the rest it was all peace and love haha. The guys seemed to get a lot out of it, and I hope that in the end they used what they learned.
Oh yeah, haha, this story cracked me up. So the people here like to eat armadillos, normally you have to hunt them. However, the other night Don Raul was coming back to the house by flashlight after leaving his cow for the night, when he said that he saw something running towards him in the path. The thing, he said, didn’t even notice him, and then he realized it was an armadillo. So with a smile on his face he pulled out his machete, and when it got close enough he chopped it in the face and shazaam, bfast. No wonder he came back with a big smile on his face. The next day, Mauricio came out with one. He said his dog had trapped it, haha.
Finally, I made lunch the other day for Don Mauricio, Mario, and Don Raul in order to get them together to start a grant proposal to USAID for a trip to the National school of Agriculture here. The only thing is that while watching US Basketball team in the gold game, I knocked over the entire bottle of marsala cooking wine that I had found, watching it shatter all over my floor. So I ended up making pasta with fried chicken and a tomato sauce on top instead of chicken marsala. It turned out ok, but what a waste. Very sad.

The armadillo that was molesting Don Raul.

That’s all I got for now, adieu.

“Wow, so ants like green boogers.”

-Peace Corps El Salvador Volunteer

Also, check out the latest Anglican fun. Damian Thompson is a journalist that covers many a interesting stories in England and abroad.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2008/07/08/c_of_e_bishop_will_lead_anglicans_to_rome
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2008/07/13/wales_tells_canterbury_to_get_lost
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2008/07/16/exanglican_communities_to_become_catholic_rome_confirms
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2008/08/13/american_anglican_diocese_in_conversion_talks_with_roman_catholic_church