Lago Coatepeque and a Trainee Visit

October 14, 2008

So the highlight of this post will be the visit to Lago Coatepeque, a volcano that blew its top countless years ago, then caved in on itself leaving (eventually) a super sweet lake in the “crater.” Fortunately for me, I forgot my camera, I’ll go back though eventually.


Before getting there though, I went up to my neighboring municipality, Santa Maria Ostuma, to visit a different stove project going on up there in a canton. I got there a few hours earlier and hung out with the volunteer and her fams. Their farms are super nice up there, they have tons and tons of 3 different kinds of pineapples. They picked one in front of us and chopped it up right there…. So tasty. They were building this stove with a teen church group for the canton’s church, so I kind of stayed back and watched as they did it. They call it a “rocket” or “turbo” stove because it’s small and portable, but super efficient. It’s the same idea for the ones that we are building in our municipality, but just on a smaller scale :) The fun part of this story is that I got trapped in the church while a super storm came up really quick. So I missed the last bus back to San Pedro and ended up calling a friend with a car to meet me in the main town to give me a lift. The Suzanne drew me a map to get back to the main town, and after getting back soaked, I took refuge in the main church until my ride got there. It was a fun time.

Aerial view of Lago Coatepeque

Eventually I got back to my house and was up at 430 the next morning to go out West to El Congo where another pair of volunteers were waiting to go shopping for food for our year anniversary at the lake Coatepeque. We had about 20 people from our Peace Corps group confirmed for a lake house we had gotten for 3.50 a night per person. Not too shabby for a decent place on a volcanic lake. I mean this thing makes our lakes in SC look like ugly stepsisters haha. Anyways, we had decided for a few of us to get there a day early to buy all the food for three days. We had posted meals for each time of day and a different chef for each one to take charge….I know right, welcome to the Peace Corps mentality. At the end of the day, it actually all worked out really well for the 2 full days that we were there. All the meals were delicious, (I was chef for the barbecue of hamburgers and hot dogs, day 2) I ate 3 ½ hamburgers (one was a double) and 4 hot dogs….it had been a while since I had eaten that stuff ok! The last night we threw an early halloween party and everyone was in costume for the evening... you'll notice everything from dancers, joe biden/sarah palin, to the joker. On a different note though, I was surprised though that the places there that are supposed to be like tourist spots that we passed by, didn’t even have change for a five. Classic….if you travel to El Salvador sometime in your life, only bring 1 dollar bills.

In costume. Crazy group of volunteers. Joe Biden is hilarious.

It was a nice break, although I left my umbrella out there, but luckily the rains are starting to subside.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I passed through San Sal on the way out to Santa Ana for that shebang and had from 10-12pm free so I caught a 2.75 matinee, Babylon A.D. The movie, ehh, but the plot was something really weird. Vin Diesel was a mercenary hired to take a girl who turned out miraculously pregnant by a supercomputer to New York where a high priestess of a world-wide Cult waiting to become official religion by harnessing this girl’s “virgin-birth” awaited them. Heh, sorry, I’m smiling reading over what I just wrote.


Lastly, a Peace Corps trainee from San Vicente has spent the past few days here with me in La Comunidad as part of his Immersion Days. Peace Corps sends out each trainee during their training time to different communities where they are supposed to be immersed in the culture a day and then stay with the volunteer a few days to ask questions, learn about life, etc. My guy is a biology major here in the agfor program and is a nice guy. The first day he stayed with another family, then after bfast the next day my health ladies dropped by to pick up him and we met supposedly to shadow them through the community on their house visits. However, due to the mayor’s truck breaking down, that was going to be our ride in the afternoon to San Sal to buy new medicines, and meet with a prospective donor NGO, we had to walk to the main town and take the bus. From that moment on, it was pretty funny because we were rushing all around the capital city trying to get our stuff done before the last bus headed back to San Pedro Nonualco. We managed to buy the medicines we needed, but one of the NGOs didn’t have the check ready for putting in electricity in two of the medical dispensaries here in cantones of SPN. At the end of the day though, we had to split up and I went to our meeting with the beautiful Dr. Hurtado at FUSAL who accepted our petitions for medicine and is helping out tremendously.
We made it back to San Pedro but with a large box of medicine and no ride to La Comunidad haha. The hung out in the parish house waiting on the Padre to get back from periphoning for a worship event the next day for a ride, but luckily the mayor came by and helped us out.

The next day was even better for the trainee because we picked oranges all morning with Juan and Francisco, Don Raul’s sons, and then Francisco left and came back about 10 minutes later looking for me because he had slashed wide open from his wrist to the middle of his hand on a fence while carrying firewood for some friends. There was 0, I repeat that, 0, trucks in the canton at the moment, and Isabel, the health promoter was in the main town as it was a Saturday, so with the help of my trainee (who is first aid certified, nice coincidence), we decided it hadn’t hit the radial artery, we took off the rope they had tied over a tourniquet that had cut off circulation and then loosened the tourniquet they had tied around the actual wrist and had Francisco put pressure on the actual wound. At this point, after calling his dad who was at a church event in the main town, we starting walking toward the main town (40mins). It being a Saturday, the government med clinic is closed, so the only option was the parish medical clinic, that was opened on the weekends for just this scenario, because sutures were going to be necessary. I called the doctor at the parish clinic though, and he said that he could do it if he had the tools and thread and all, but that they didn’t have any. Hah, sweet. So eventually Don Raul found someone to send from the main town and Will and I went with Don Raul and Don Amalia with Francisco to the Hospital in the capital of the department, Zacatecoluca (another 35-40 mins). Getting to Zacate, I was reminded that the hospital there was destroyed by the earthquakes in 2001, and still haven’t been rebuilt, so they are operating in a temporary, barracks style deal. This is the same place we took Isabel’s father when he died a month and some ago.

In the end, everything worked out and he got 8 stitches and aTetanus shot to boot. He can still play cards too, so that’s good for me. We got back to the canton in time to make the ADESCO meeting for 2 hours, and then getting back to my house where the people were gathering outside my house for the final prayers at the end of the novena of my neighbor’s daughter.

I detail all of this for two reasons; First, I thought it was hilarious that Will, my trainee friend, was getting a lot of exposure to things here. He asked at the end of the night kind of bewildered, “Are all your days like the last two we’ve had?” Haha, no, not usually, only about once a month. Secondly, the whole Francisco deal has reawaked me to the fact that I need to get back on the ball to get the parish clinic the tools (well contacts) they need to capitalize on the training that these young doctors who are donating their time and money have. Also, once again the need for a municipal ambulance is put in front of me, many, many people have asked about NGOs that could possibly donate one here because it’s a huge need. I think it’s workable too because if the municipality retains it as an asset of theirs, the government pays for maintenance and gas. They have parish volunteers who are nurses for the expertise and drivers from the mayor’s office. What are lacking are the resources to buy a used ambulance, but we’ll get there. If there are any ideas on one that could possibly be donated, don’t worry about transport etc etc, that stuff can be worked out.

Whew, I’ve really been slacking on the picture side of this post, I pretty much didn’t have my camera for any of it. Next time.

In the former Cardinal Ratzinger’s book Introduction to Christianity which he wrote for and through his students back in the late 60s, the first section is about Doubt and Belief and he brings up lots of anecdotes and neat little points that I can’t include, but here is a small excerpt.

“Just as the believer knows himself to be constantly threatened by the question of unbelief, which he must experience as a continual temptation, so for the unbeliever faith remains a temptation and a threat to his apparently permanently close world. In short, there is no escape from the dilemma of being a man. Anyone who makes up his mind to evade the uncertainty of belief will have to experience the uncertainty of unbelief, which can never finally eliminate for certain the possibility that belief may after all be the truth. It is not until belief is rejected that its unrejectability becomes evident.”

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, 1968…..Page 45