THANKSGIVING!!!

I ate myself into a coma last night and this morning. I wont eat until tomorrow at lunch. Me and two other volunteers had super awesome hosts for a day and night by a foreign civil service family and it was one of the highlights of my year. Wahoo.

Whew.

I had a hot shower.

Helping Hands and First Year Medical Exams

November 22, 2008

Someone just sent this to me from our July 4th Soccer tourney.

First off, I want to send a happy birthday to Hagar from the 14th, if I’m not mistaken. Starting from where I left off last, the election went well in San Salvador. We were there at a TGIF in the capital and had the entire second floor to ourselves. They were ringing bells for every state that Obama won and booing for everything came out red. It was pretty funny. At the end of the night after both McCain and Obama’s speeches, I would say half of the people in that upper room were crying….sissies, hahahahaha. I will have to say though, it was quite impressive the celebrations that went on across the world after the news came out….I kind of don’t want to imagine what would have happened if McCain would have won. There seems to be a new promise of hope for the economy and foreign relations and the American image, but interestingly enough, what is hope for one, is often despair for others.

The two scholars, two of Don Raul's grandkids...graduating Kinder

The Kinder grads.

The Kinder dance.

I’ll explain, recently there has been a very interesting metaphor that has been cropping up here, from the Catholic Church of all places. Most recent was a preacher from New York from the Jesus Missionaries of New York who held a vigil in a stadium here in Zacatecoluca and talked about how that the latinos in the States had sold the economy of the Church for the economy of the country. By electing someone in the hopes of bettering the image of the country and its economy, they sold, he says, the soul of the country. It was an interesting take on things that now is showing up here and there as the same idea is popping up in the conference of US Bishops, as well as in some suburban locals… cough cough… Greenville, SC :)


The twins first steps!!!

Racing.

Anyways, for the most part, I’d say that Salvadorans are more or less excited about the Obama change and about him being a minority, but beyond that they don’t know much more. It has had the interesting effect of bolstering the Left here as well…the Salvadoran elections are in January and March of 2009. Both sides are using quotes from Obama and the detractors of the left here are using statements from Obama’s Latin America advisor against Hugo Chavez (whom they accuse of supporting the leftist party) against the candidates here. It’s in interesting politic. Fun times.

The goat, named Ash, that has replaced the cow Mauricio had.

In other news, my English classes continue to go well. I teach one in the morning to a women’s center for formation (can’t remember if I mentioned that previously) and one in the evening the Parish Hall that is open to everyone. Right now it’s about 10 in the morning and 20 in the evening. I am focusing on the pronunciation because it’s something that they lack here. Most schools outside the capital only have English class once a week and there is no way you learn enough material once a week to get where they want to go. I expect the classes to shrink the more they learn that learning a second language isn’t as easy as it seems.

Also, there was a little hoorah here for Juan, Don Raul’s youngest, for his First Communion. I actually had to leave right after it to go to run some important errands, but it was cool to see how all that stuff happens here….not too different. Except for in numbers, 168 kids had their first communion.

They are also having the 40 hours of devotion right now so the altar is all spiffy.

The baller himself.

A group of the kids.

Yumminess afterwards.

Also, there was another group that just swore-in as volunteers recently. The food was awesome in the embassy, we also planned a fun after-party.

The Swearing-In ceremony in the embassy of the most recent Peace Corps group.

Me with two of my bosses at the after party :)

I also took our high school scholarship students to Termos Del Rio (a water park on the other side of the country) out in Santa Ana, as well as a Mayan Ruins site San Andres on the way there. It all worked out well, and the water park was pretty nice too. I got stuck watching bags the majority of the time though because I was the only one that ended up going besides the students.

The water park.

About a week ago as well the yearly visit of the medical staff of Helping Hands, a Catholic medical missions group, came in and did consultations/medicines/surgeries etc for 2 days for 5 municipalities. I translated there for 2 days and got to meet a lot of interesting people. There was also a big group of Salvadoran medical students translating, there were about 15 of us in total. People were really interested in the Peace Corps after they realized that’s what I was. It’s funny to see people’s faces when they run into Americans in remote places. Although this time there were a few people that were more blunt, “why are you here?”….haha, with the implication of, why would you choose to do something like this for 2 years? Haha. There was also a group of young people who were in college and high school that were interested in Peace Corps and the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and had lots of questions.

The priest that came with Helping Hands playing soccer with the kids the whole time

All the docs and med volunteers

Nurse's station where I was translating

The doctor of the parish clinic here waiting for the other docs to arrive

The doors of the each doc station.

Hmmmm…..Also, I had my one year mid service medical exams for Peace Corps in the capital a few days ago. Apparently they say I’m healthy :)

So… more or less things are running smoothly, besides a few bumps that I’ve hit in my stove project, but hopefully that will all work out soon enough. For Thanksgiving we are going to be visiting with different embassy families to eat and all, so that should be fun.

"Wisdom is not just a gift, it is a habit formed by the will."

Anonymous

Trip to the National School of Agriculture

November 4, 2008

I’m going into the capital tonight after my first English classes to check out the election with some volunteers. Should be interesting now that a cold showed up for me this morning in time for it all, oh well. Everyone has been asking about here for the past few weeks. Every comment is like, "So that Obama eh? I hope he wins, definitely looks like it." I laugh sometimes though, especially in the case of central america which is slowly moving to the left, they equate our left as similar, when they have many differences. And the fact that Obama is anti-CAFTA, which many people down here don't know, there could me more consequences south of the border than they realize. Anyways, its cool because everyone down here seems just as excited as those voting up north.

Kids from the CBI, daycare basically from La Comunidad

There haven’t been a ton of things to write about in the past two weeks, but let’s talk about it anyways. Right after the last time I made an entry we had Don Raul’s birthday hoorah, so that was fun, all the fam was in town. We played lots of cards, enjoy the pics. OH, yeah, I also created a bracket for a spades (well their version of it) tournament. Everyone really got a kick out of it, even though my team got knocked out in the first elimination round. Don Raul and little Brian won. I’m thinking there will be another in New Year’s Eve day. A week later was Juan’s bday, Don Raul’s youngest son, wahoo.

Guys playing cards on my porch.

Don Raul checking out the polo shirt they gave him for his bday.

I think it fits.

Fun someone who fell asleep in the hammock early.

The past week for me has been a double doosy. We had the fumigation planning coming to a head for the whole canton in conjunction with the main town medical center, as well as my trip that I had planned for 25 people in the canton to the National School of Agriculture. The fumigation was a mess in the beginning due to scheduling conflicts with the main med people, but once we finally got started, our two volunteer groups and the ADESCO knocked out all 170 houses in two days. I actually was pretty satisfied the first day because finally all the mosquitos in the outhouse were killed, but from what they tell me they have returned with the wind, wonderful. Also, my house was basically a cemetery when I got back with all the dead bugs and cucarachas on the ground. Then I found a really big scorpion in the middle of the floor thinking it was dead, no… it was definitely alive, emphasis on the ‘was.’ At the end of the day it seemed to go over well, and wasn’t a huge cost for the ADESCO since the mayor’s office kicked in the gas and diesel and the medical clinic the chemicals.

"Rocking" the space between the community house and the road one Saturday

Only about 2 more days of volunteer work are lacking

What really has worn me out this week was our trip to the National School of Agriculture. This was a trip that had been in the making for months. We had been granted about $250 by a fund to take a group of people here from the canton to learn about how to graft trees (explicitly fruit trees), another group at the same time was learning how to make marmalades and syrups (fruit as well) and after lunch, we did a lesson on home gardens and vegetable cultivations. It all worked out well and in the evening we had a cute little 3rd year university girl showing us around and answering all the guys questions so that was fun to watch. I had to go back and forth between the capital a few days before trying to get all the supplies for the marmalades in time to make it out of the city in time for the Peace Corps Prohibition to kick in. There is an international conference going on of all the Latin American countries right now (as well as Spain and Portugal) and we aren’t allowed in the city while its going on to keep us out of possible political involvement, wahoo. In the end though, the trainings all turned out well, with the exception of one older guy getting lost on the campus, and we brought back 24 16 ounces glass bottles of Pineapple Marmalade and 24 smaller 8 ounce bottles of an orange-based syrup.
I have to finish paperwork for this fund now, and now that my English classes start in the main town on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it should get more interesting around here. In the mornings I will be teaching at a Center for Women’s Development and in the evening an open class in the parish hall. Computer classes in my own canton are planned to start in January. Also I have completed almost all my preparations for our municipal fuel efficient stove drive with the other cantons. I had to visit a new canton this week and then return to a previous one to clear up some money issues, but now we are ready for the six models to be built. We are rapidly approaching 200 stoves on order, I hope it doesn’t get out of control….lots of planning will be needed for that.

Such is life at the moment. I have sent off my absentee ballot through email (go SC), and will be
in the capital Tuesday night with a group of volunteers to see a new, interesting era begin in American and international politics. I hope it turns out to be for the better and not for the worst.
Oh yeah, the rains have stopped here, and now the temps have dropped 10 degrees or so and its super windy….already messed up my roof again, doh! Anyways, its super tough to bath for me in the cold wind, but oh well. This is the last day of the month, so the prayers at 4 in the morning will stop (as will the loud bells), it has gotten super hard to get out of bed to do meet them lately in the cold. I just realized the last day of the month in October is Halloween, haha…wow.


I’ve really dropped the ball on the camera lately, I even forgot it in our trip to the National School, but they are going to put some article in some magazine or something, so they were there taking pics. I am going to ask them for some.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. Nov. 1 was All Saints Day and Nov. 2 Day of the Dead/Deceased, depending on the translation. I had some nice conversations with different people as to why our culture puts more emphasis on Halloween and not Day of the Dead. It was fun to elaborate the differences in our culture, which was dominated in the past by Protestant culture, and the Catholic culture's differing interpretations of what is meant by the "Communion of Saints." On this day in hispanic culture everyone goes to the cementeries to clean up the burial sites of loved ones and attend Masses praying/remembering the pilgrim souls of those who had come before us.

Day of the Dead/Deceased, Nov. 2 of every year

An interesting idea or two that are taken somewhat out of context by just quoting this part, but it’s a decent representation of certain ideas:

“Belief appears no longer as the bold but challenging leap out of the apparent all of our visible world and into the apparent void of the invisible and intangible, it looks much more like a demand to bind oneself to yesterday and to affirm it as eternally valid. And who wants to do that in an age when the idea of “tradition” has been replaced by the idea of “progress”?

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, pg. 52-3