Addition to the Family!

July 26, 2008


Not too much to report as of late, well, just a few things :) I’ve spent the past week helping out here and there with the scythes cleaning up all the undergrowth in the lands around here. Yep, my hand is nice and blistered. But, it’s been fun.

view from my hammock

I also played in two back to back soccer games this past Sunday on our clay field after it had rained alllllll day long. It was so nasty, and we got murdered in the second game. It got to the point to where this guy was dancing in front with the ball trying to fake me out or whatever, so I got bored of standing there waiting. I stuck both hands down in the slush and popped it up at him and when he dodged I took the ball :), mwhahahahahaha. The people got a kick out of it, but I don’t think he did.


That night I couldn’t sleep due to some……unnatural….pains, apparently I didn’t drink enough before or after and I have some kind of “bacteria”….somewhere from the kidney down. They weren’t too specific, but I got meds and it doesn’t hurt anymore. However, I’ve been prohibited from exercising til I finish the medicine and we were going to the coast this Sunday to play….. crud.


Oh yeahhhhh, a group of us got together to see the new Batman movie in the capital the day it came out. Very very good movie, it is a very different interpretation of the whole joker/batman deal. The joker is a straight psycho instead of the stable, suave, Joker of the Michael Keaton days. I don’t think you can really compare the two. It was well done though I thought.
Hmmm what else….ohhhhhh, yeah almost forgot. I want to send out an official THANK YOU to all those people who have donated to the church reconstruction and medical clinic cause, we have completed the sign-up sheet for both on the right side of the blog, and another family has matched each medical dispensary donations. I am gathering the final funds to send in to Project Salvador.

yes, thats a cucumber thats been dried out for seeds... and its still much, much bigger than my foot, which isn't the smallest thing in the world

On that note, for those of you interested, recently a case of a young man who is trying to pay his way through nursing school has come to my attention here through the parish. He is a 23 year old (altar boy) who has paid his way through part of school working and with the help of his mom and the parish priest, however, at the moment, the job has ended and his mom is no longer able to help, leaving the parish. He has applied for 5 or 6 jobs and has had a few interviews this past week. A group in Boston is spear-heading this fundraiser, and their goal is to fund the majority of the school costs up to graduation ($1500), and leave his job to cover the transport, food, etc. He is the “man” of the house, as he lives with his grandmother, mom, little sister, and cousin, and often relates to me the importance of this for him so that he can provide for them…..yeah, he’s 23. He has 3 cycles (at 6 months each) left before his certification, at which point El Salvador will have another nurse. It’s a good cause, and we hope to conquer it piece by piece. For more info, contact me at rhettbwilliams@yahoo.com or andoverheberts@gmail.com (Cathy, the recent Habitat for Humanity group leader from Boston that was down here is spearheading the fundraising and gathering what is raised to send to Project Salvador).


Finally, congrats to my brother and his wifey on their first child, Charles Thomas Williams, born around 11:30pm July 24 (exactly six months from my bday)!!!!! I can’t wait to smack him around a little bit in December. Also, a very happy 1st birthday to Jonah (July 26), my now second youngest nephew!

This is a video from Don Mauricio's little surprise party we through before the Medical Dispensary inventory that I wrote about last time. I think its hilarious, and realize that I have some issues. But, if there is one person that I know will laugh at this, it will be my mom. Enjoy.

So, that’s the news. I just finished helping with making the program for our patron festivals in La Comunidad, and we came across this Santo Domingo de Guzman quote that I liked and put on the last page.


“A man who governs his passions is master of his world. We must either command them or be enslaved by them. It is better to be a hammer than an anvil.”


-St. Dominic

4th of July!

July 15, 2008

We had the monthly audit and inventory about a week ago in the medical dispensary and everything went well again. No medicine or money missing J It had an extra twist as well because we had a surprise for Don Mauricio for his bday. Well, cake and coke and 4 people haha.

Me, Margoth (COSALCO Treasurer) and Don Mauricio (my counterpart and Presidente of the ADESCO)

The audit in action by key members of ADESCO and COSALCO (our Health Committe creation)

My important people and some of my Salvo fam

My promotoras!!! tear.

The big news though is the 4th of July events. I continued in the tradition set up here by Aaron in the cooking of hamburgers and hot dogs. I had Jose and Kevin and Oscar helping make the lettuce and tomatoes and all that stuff so that was pretty funny. It actually turned out ok. The only problem was that apparently they wrap their hotdogs here individually as well in plastic. Oops…..hahahaha. Jose (Don Raul’s youngest son) gave me the first two already unwrapped so I didn’t think anything about it, but then when I threw a bunch on to cook hurriedly to finish up, it took him coming over and noticing and saying something for me to be clued in. So that was fun cleaning up a bunch of burned up plastic off the hot dogs and griddle thing. They all turned out well in any case. I had Mauricio (Don Raul’s eldest son) and Rosa (his wife) come through the buffet line first putting on all the condiments, then the kids and I took everything over to Don Raul’s house to feed everyone there. Very tasty.

The kid's too cute. This is William, one of the neighbors twins.

You are witnessing part of the race between the twins on the day of exercise at my house. Our goal is to have them walking before the end of the year.

Jose helping me out with the cooking.

Yummy. I bough too little meat.

My neighbor Rosa, the mom of the twins, posing in my house with my yumminess.

Dona Amalia, my host mom, prepping the table for hamburgers and hot dogs.

The next day, July 5, was the American party in the capital. A lot of my group came in to play in the Peace Corps and American Society soccer tournament in front of the Sheraton Presidente in San Sal. They had 4 teams from Peace Corps, split up by the programs, then an American Society team. Everyone played everyone in 20 minute games and at the end, due to time, it came down to the three teams with the most points in penalty kicks: Youth Development, Rural Health and Sanitation, and Agroforestry/Environmental Education (us). We lost that part, but it was fun none the less, if nothing else enjoying the fact that there was grass on the field was something.

Watching the tourney.

GRASS!!!

Afterwards we grabbed showers in the Sheraton and snacked to avoid buying food until dinner time when we opted for appetizers instead of meals, hahahaha, oh volunteerism. That night was a peace corps bash at some discoteca/bar deal which was fun. Although, the place where we stay was booked up and I got one of the last beds in the hallway apparently, but when I got close to it I was told that the owner lady gave it to another girl from my group. So I slept on the couch, but wasn’t too happy about paying the full 6 dollars for a couch without a pillow or blanket haha. Then, apparently, I was told by other volunteers that she was mad that I left without paying, when I clearly paid the night before as usual so that I can leave early. Good times….I have to go by this week for some meetings in the capital so we’ll fight it out then :)
I was up early the next day to head back for my ADESCO meeting in my canton, missing apparently a group that went to the beach….jerks.

buggers.... they built a nest under my printer

The meeting of the ADESCO board.

Anyways, the last deal was yesterday, the first round of taking the people who needed more in depth exams of their eyes from the FUDEM eye consults we had in town, to the capital to get them checked out too see about surgeries and all. I was really scared about the whole process and who would come and not come and if the transportation would work out, but it actually all went more or less well. The mayor showed up and drove us himself, we fit most of the people inside the pickup, so only three of them were in the bed and got wet, and they all passed through the complete eye consultations and have a better idea of what is necessary. The only ‘bad’ part is that I’m realizing the amount of work that is going to be implied for me in this whole deal now. We are going to be going for every Monday for two months to get all 46 people that were referred through the process, and then we have to get the hospital in the capital to somehow not charge my people for all the preliminary exams for the surgeries, and then barter our way through the FUDEM system for my people who can’t pay for the surgeries (which is all of them). So the next few months should be interesting in that regard.
I was surprised though, FUDEM was packed with people the whole time we were there. They do reduced cost eye consultations, eye wear, medicines, and surgeries. From what I have seen so far, they do a lot of good work.

Finally, two announcements. First, I am looking or advice on how to transport a number of donated computers/laptops from the US to El Salvador without paying a billion dollars in taxes and customs. If you have an idea please feel free to email me with it at rhettbwilliams@yahoo.com. Or as usual, feel free to post it in a comment.

Second, this is a timely post in that it falls between two important dates. First off, Happy future Bday to my mom on July 18, she will be turning 35! Also, congrats to the sis and hubby for completing their first decade of marriage on July 11.

Padre Tino took me up to the top of the facade of the church reconstruction and I took a few pics

The top of the facade, I'm standing where the bells will go. Padre Tino has been joking in Mass about the people asking when the bells are going to go in because they are afraid they are going to die before they get put up. They have been down eight years, and plan to get put up at the end of August.

View of the city from the top

Chesterton the “Prohibition” Mentality: (after discussing Communism, the Prohibition, vegetarians, conscription and disarmament)

“And modern notions of the sort are not only negative but nihilist; they always demand the absolute annihilation or ‘total prohibition’ of something.

Now I am as adamant against Mr. Murry in this notion of mutilating our whole culture in a frenzy of moral renunciation. I admit that a saint may cut off his hand and enter heaven, and have a higher place there than the rest of us. But a plea for the amputation of the hands of all human beings, the vision of a Handless Humanity as the next evolutionary sage after that of the tailless ape, leaves me cold, however much it is commended as a splendid corporate self-sacrifice. These things are an allegory, in more ways than one. We may say indeed that the inhuman industrial era did really abolish the Hand, since it did abolish the Handicraft. I admit that monks have their own reasons for shaving their heads or nuns for cutting off their hair; but my advice to humanity outside such ecstasies would be to remain calm and keep its hair on. That a man should surrender his luxury is one thing; that mankind should surrender its liberty to deal with the problem of luxury is quite another. It is one thing to impoverish oneself; it is quite another responsibility to impoverish a whole cultural system of its culture. I might or might not be the better for giving up wine; I am absolutely certain that the world would not be better for giving up wine. Mr. Middleton may be moved by a noble impulse to give up private property, but I do not for one single moment believe that humanity would be happier for giving up private property….

Capitalism was actually founded by urging a new realism against an old romanticism. The answer is that it was not necessary for a whole society to give up beauty; and it is not necessary for a whole society to give up liberty. And if we look back at history, we shall see that these sweeping social renunciations have done nothing but harm. Over all America lies like an incubus the cold corpse of Puritanism, because on fervid generation thought that man must say farewell for ever to priests as well as play-actors, to sacraments as well as feasts. In short, men were asked to sacrifice everything for Calvinism as they are now asked to sacrifice everything for Communism. But though man may sacrifice everything, Everyman must not sacrifice everything. Individual men must sacrifice their own liberties, but only to restore liberty. And it is a grand irony that, while the cultured Communist (with all respect to him) is rending everybody else’s garments and scattering ashes on other people’s heads, away in many quiet places, on the hills of Lanark or deep in my own Buckingham beech-woods, priests and friars who have themselves renounced private property are rebuilding the farms and families of Distributism.”

G.K. Chesterton, The Ascetic at Large, from The Well and the Shallows, p. 94-95

Cerro de las Pavas and Amalpulapa (the lost post)

June 13, 2008

This was a post that actually got lost about a month ago, but I figured I would throw it in anyways.

I’d just like to start off by thanking those who have signed up so far to support the church reconstruction and the medical dispensary. There are still about two spots open, so keep it up when you talk to friends and family. I actually had my first encouragement from the communities here in the past few days on this subject. There have been quite a few leaders of COSALCO that have approached me or said in public that without the support of Peace Corps (Cuerpo de Paz they say), they would not have had the hope or drive to continue on to establish this medical source, the nurses seemed adamant on the issue. So, just know that you guys are sustaining a cause until December, that probably would not have made it otherwise. It’s good stuff.

I’ve also started communicating with another health committee in a neighboring community that got a hold of me to help reform this dispensary to model ours. So, after meeting with them, they are going to augment their prices according to base costs, start doing at least one activity each month, visiting houses to let them know that the project is still moving along and that their prices more affordable for all the families.

On that note, I guess I’ll express some frustration right now with some of these development NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and especially some of the medical ones. This ASPS, the medical NGO that was here from 2006-2008, did a wonderful thing in my community and my municipality. Using funds from the government of Valencia, Spain, they trained 2 nurses in each community over a period of 2 years, and built medical dispensaries where they weren’t already built. They also stocked these dispensaries with some furniture and basics, as well as with basic medicines. It is an awesome process, UNTIL the ending of the 2 year program. They stock the dispensary with more medicines at the end of the 2 years, but beyond that, the pull out all support. After a years worth of time, I haven’t heard of any medical dispensary that has survived normally after ASPS pulling out. Our municipality, with the exception of my community (and hopefully now another one), has fallen victim of the same situation. It's just hard for a culture that is less "fiscally ingrained" like ours, to cope with the scope of this kind of charge all of a sudden. For example, we are brought up to keep track of money, or just to know what income/expenditures and the idea of tracking it are, and this is something not seen as important here, and very rarely done.

Back to the point though, this NGO seems to be completely unaware of the problems it has with its closing days, or just not in the state to do something about it, and it amazes me actually haha. I don’t really see the point of spending all the money to set something up if you know that when you pull out support, that it will collapse. The problem is that the nurses are left without pay because they had been paid before by the NGO, upon leaving that becomes a very, very, very big problem. As well as the fact that a lot of the medicines expire within the year of them leaving and people in all cultures are leary of using medicines that say they are expired (even though most studies nowadays are destroying that mentality thanks to the military initiative to push back expiration dates and save money).

The climb up.

The people praying.

Jose and a cheeto thing.

In other news, we went to the Cerro de Las Pavas, I think that’s basically “hill of the birds,” but I’m not sure on the ‘pavas’ word, but I think it’s about right though, haha. It’s a type of pilgrimage site in the country that I had visited actually during training. We went with people from all over the municipality for the benefit of the patron festivals here in La Comunidad. I had the bus let me and Juan Jose (the youngest of Don Raul) off at the base of the hill/mountain. We climbed up it while they took the road, and got there while they had started the prayers. They continued them for another hour having hooked up with another group that had gotten there at the same time. It was pretty cool and it had some good vistas and a little zoo thing that was nifty. They had monkeys :)

The view of lake Ilopango from "Cerro de las Pavas"

Don Raul enjoying the water park

Me after it all and before my haircut.

Afterwards, we left and went to Amalpulapa, a water park that is out near San Vicente. That was pretty interesting, they did have one small slide though, but it was closed for all but an hour that day. It was pretty cool though and only $0.80 cents to get in. Check out the pics.



“It had been my mother’s [Monica, the mother of Augustine] custom in Africa to take meal-cakes and bread and wine to the shrines of the saints on their memorial days….Instead of her basket full of the fruits of the earth she learned to bring to the shrines of the martyrs a heart full of prayers far purer than any of these gifts. In this way she was able to give what she could to the poor and the Communion of the Lord’s Body was celebrated at the shrines of the saints, who had given their lives and earned the crown of martyrdom by following the example of his passion.”



Confessions, Augustine p. 112-3



This is the referring to Christian activities in the 300s AD.

Habitat for Humanity and Basketball Tourney

July 1, 2008

I am finally back in site after visiting Corinto, Morazán (northeast part of the country near Honduras) for a little while, but more on that later. The patron festivals have come to an end, although I wasn’t here for the final Mass and festivities due to the Corinto basketball tourney, but I was here for the rest of the stuff during the week. Thursday night they had Cocolito come by and do a comedy routine as part of the festivities. It was good, but when the rain came everyone in front opened their umbrellas and no one could see, so things got a little interesting.
Everything seemed to fall all on this week of festivals. During the day I was working near the coast with Habitat for Humanity translating and a few times I had to leave early for other meetings, and at night I passed through the town for the festivals. They have the ferris wheel and French fries and cookies and masses and people, and lots of other little things.

The luncheon we had for COSALCO, the health committee.

Anyways, in other news, Tony Gasbarro, one of the guys who helps us out a lot as far as scholarships go from Alaska, was in country this week and I got to meet up with him and chat about a few things. He has opened a few doors for us as far as the medical dispensary and scholarships and other things so I hope we can take advantage of them as a community.
Also on another day I came back for the three year anniversary of the Health Committee for La Comunidad (now COSALCO) to have a lunch and some fun activities with them. It went very well, it was good because they work hard.

The first day on the job.

We are a little further.

A little further.

That's the level we finished up at. The masons will take it from there because the work week has expired for the building brigade. This was the group I worked with all week, they were great people.

The final lunch and thanks with all three groups.

As far as Habitat for Humanity goes, it was actually a really good learning experience. I was contacted by some of the people I had met in the embassy back a few months ago and had already visited with here in San Pedro a few times about getting some Peace Corps translators in La Paz for some groups coming down to build. Apparently, online Habitat has different dates for different places around the world where there are opportunities to go and build houses. The people pay their own way down, as well as pay for their portion of the house. So it is actually a pretty big commitment monetarily, and a week’s worth of time as well. However, they had close to 50 people come down to build three houses. They split up into three groups with a translator in each site as the go between for the masons and US groups. The US groups were from Oregon and Boston mainly with some other people from Utah, Illinois, California, and some other states. They were all really nice and all with interesting stories and conversations. I also made friends with some of the Habitat staff that I hadn’t known before, the driver guy Don Luis was pretty funny and always offering me rides….great hombre.

Gabriel checking Chesterton's The Well and the Shallows

You are seeing the main town of Corinto, Morazan

Friday, the last day on site with Habitat and the US groups, I hitched a ride with Habitat to the capital where I arrived in time to catch dinner with JB (a volunteer in my group that’s in Sonsonante) and a girl that was passing through with FINCA, an assessor of the levels of poverty in different countries. She was an ex-Honduras volunteer who is now getting her Master’s at Harvard and working with this company in the summer. Nice girl. She told an interesting story of one of the three girls that they were with who left El Salvador a few days ago because she “just didn’t feel safe.” I feel bad for the other two girls because they have a lot of work to do just between the two of them. I left them after dinner to go check out the new Incredible Hulk movie…. I SAW A MOVIE!!!! I was excited a few weeks ago to go see one when I had to pass through the capital, but it didn’t work out….it didn’t escape me this time though. I haven’t seen an English movie in a while though, my luck has been all the movie in Spanish.

A view of the new central park in Corinto with the church in the background

A game in progress in the tourney.

The next morning I headed out to Corinto, Morazán in the northeast corner of the country for a basketball tournament at another volunteer’s site. I left at 8 and got there at 1, everything worked out perfectly for that to happen, which was good because we started at 2. I met Gabriel (another volunteer from my group) and we got lunch and then we headed straight for the courts….I was missing me some basketball!!! There were only four of us because our 5th was playing with his own site’s team that had come, so we picked up a random Salvadoran. We had a bye the first round, won the our first game to get to the championship (with another bye) and then won in the final against the older Corinto team. It was really fun, and the mayor gave us a trophy and all, so that was cool. I think they are going to put it up in the Peace Corps office (its small no worries haha). I was glad for the volunteers of the site though, it was a good turnout.
I hung out with Chris and Samantha who were volunteers in the main town of Corinto and Gabriel who is in a cantón outside of the town for the rest of the evening and the next day Samantha made us all French toast which was awesome, and then Gabriel and I went out to his site in the country to check it out. We passed by some ancient petro glyphs that have been discovered as of late and are said to be some of the oldest in all of Latin America. His cantón was spiffy and he just moved into a new little house that is stellar and pretty centrally located. We took a shortcut on the way back, but got caught in a nice storm, so we ended up being wet for the next little bit. We visited their fiestas in the evening, where I proved to them that I could make pupusas, fun stuff haha.

Team Gringo, haha. We had to turn the shirts inside out because they had some political stuff on the other side.

Champs. Our other two guys had already left.

I headed back the next day at 8 and got back to San Pedro at 4 and eventually got to crash in bed instead of a hammock. But, I must say, I almost enjoyed my two days sleeping in a hammock in Corinto more than my bed (they were nice though). Oh well, definitely going to get me one when I get back to the US.

The sign coming up on the petro glyph site

The little alien guy, haha

A few red paintings.

Chris and Samantha. He has a master's in Geography and her in Cultural Anthropology.

Take it away Chesterton:


“Now the great danger of the moment is that young men will go on being content with these revolts against revolt, these reactions against reactions; so that we have nothing but an everlasting seesaw of the Old Young and the New Young; the last always content with its fleeting triumph over the last but one. And the only way to avoid that result is to teach men to stretch their minds and inhabit a larger period of time. It is to insist, not that we now feel inclined to stress this or stress that, in mere fashion or mere fatigue, but that there really does exist somewhere a reasonable plan of the proportions of things, which, at least in its general outline, is true all the time.”


p. 102, The Last Turn, in The Well and the Shallows, G.K. Chesterton