2009!

January 20, 2009

No time to post pics, of which there are a lot, right now, but in the next week they will be up here.

So yeah, loootttssss of things to chat about since I haven’t updated this thing in a while. I guess the brief overview of everything will probably be the best approach :)

Our current road project has reached in front of my house.

The twins in their Christmas attire

In the days before going home, I had a few events that were pretty interesting go on around here. First, while I was at the AIDS conference in San Miguel, a lady from Alaska that was there teaching the teachers here how to teach English asked to come visit my site. Apparently her group was going up to Perquin, Morazan, where the civil war museum is, and she had already been there a few times so she wanted to go check out a different place. Some of the other Alaskan friends that we have in common mentioned San Pedro Nonualco, and there ya go. She ended up making the trip one Saturday, and after I got back from a basketball game I met up with her at some of Rolando’s family’s house and took her to the canton for a day. I think she found it all interesting. She bought a pair of shoes the next day in the market to take back as a souvenir, haha.

Cooking lots of meat on the wood saving stove for our ADESCO Christmas Dinner

Dona Amalia in my santa hat before Christmas dinner

Umm... yeah haha.

The ADESCO Christmas dinner

After that Mauricio, the neighbor, and some other members of the community took off to La Herradura, close to the beach, for a day full of fishing and crabbing. We did this in a river, and at its deepest it was about knee deep (for me). …but this was at low tide, I think. Anyways, I ended up borrowing a casting net to catch little fishies and shrimp, and in the second part of the day it was off with a hoe to try dig up the hole where the crabs were hiding and stick your hand far enough down in the hole to grab them, pull them out, and stick them in a bag. It was definitely a new experience based on what I was used to doing in Charleston for these kinds of things.

Youth Group Christmas Play

Part 2
From there I went out to La Hachadura, in the department of Auachapan, right on the border with Guatemala, to the site of a couple from my group. They had soccer games set up between Peace Corps and teams from his site, so I went out to play and support. We ended up losing 5-3, which isn’t bad for us, but we played FOREVER. The referee decided to let us play to dark for the heck of it without telling us, so we played for an extra 40 minutes or so. All the gringos paid for that the next day in the lack of function of their bodies, haha. After the games, all 20 of us staying there, showered, that’s right, showered (they have a really nice place there), and then went to this little place that made different kinds of pupusas and smoothies. It was probably some of the best pupusas that I have had in the country. Later on they put on a dance just for us, but it was hard to get it started because of lots of shy Salvadorans, but eventually it got up and going once we got there. We actually left early, and apparently at time because some gang members or something showed up and started fighting. I wasn’t really clear on it all, but we were already back at the house hanging out. The next day we passed through part of Parque El Imposible, that is one of the biggest natural reserves left in the country. We hiked up to a waterfall and jumped off that guy. It was a nice place.

When I got back to my site, I had a visit from a volunteer friend that was waiting to pick up his family from the airport the next day. The community was happy to see another “Cuerpo de Paz/Peace Corps”, which oddly enough tends to become a proper noun here, so he got to meets my fams and see San Pedro Nonualco, and climb the façade of the church reconstruction project. It was a good time.

With only a few days left before heading back to the US, I had a basketball and soccer game. Man, I played terrible in both, and we got bashed in both of them. So I was very ready to get away for a while, haha.

US VISIT
The fam.
Before talking actually about the US, a funny story comes to mind of that morning before flying out. I was sitting on the side of a street corner at 5 in the morning in San Pedro Nonualco, and sitting there I realized that it wasn’t too quiet at all. The roosters were all screaming away and I hadn’t even noticed it. When I first got here, they were SOOOO annoying, and I sat there almost all morning and didn’t even notice them. ANYWAYS, I got a ride from a friend in SPN to the airport, and with my borrowed suitcase from the neighbor I got on one of the nicest planes I’ve been on. The ticket was bought through Delta, but I flew continental in my first connecting flight. It was a new plane, with new seats, and a tv screen in every seat, and outlets in every seat to plug in devices. I picked from a list of 18 movies, and then played Battleship the rest of the time, haha.

There were some delays but eventually I made it to Houston/Atlanta/Charleston, where the fam was there to meet me. It was really good to see everyone, and also this arrival started the many hot showers of which I took advantage. The food was also really good to diversify a little bit and eat lots of different foods. Although, we all got a kick out of the fact that getting back late to the house the first day, all there was luckily was leftover beans and rice. Classic.

I spent lots of time at the house with the nephews and fam and even had an hour or two to chat with Joe and Joey, and in Greenville with Jerome. I wanted to meet up with some others, but it didn't work out.

The Christmas Mass at the Cathedral was also very nice, it’s a very beautiful building. The next day we went up to Greenville for the birthday party for Elija and the baptism of Charlie. The party was fun and good seeing Joe and Susan and everyone else, and then the Baptism was the beginning of a fun road of godparenthood for me, mwhahahaha. Poor Charlie and the cold water, marble does that.

The little guy.

Bath time.

The fam at St. Mary's

The beginning of my (god)parenthood, mwhaha
Eventually, I went back to Charleston to prepare for my return, and gather some gifts that I wanted to take back for some family and friends. The trip was fairly non-eventful until the end when they lost both of the suitcases (I came with one basically empty one, and returned with two full ones, haha). A week later they came in. New Years, came around a day or two later, and that was fun with lots of sub-like sandwiches and a Salvadoran Spades, double-elimination tournament, that I put on. Very fun.

Salvadoran Spades Tourney

Leaving for the procession from the neighbors house celebrating Epiphany

Processing in the street

Manger Scene

Final Prayers
After all that, everything settled down and work started up again. I finished up my English classes, while classes were going to start up again at school. I also began prepping for the coming week of wood-saving stoves building. A technician from Santa Ana came in this past week and we built 7 stoves in 5 days all over the municipality as models for what should prove to be my biggest project this year. We did a lot of walking, haha. But now things are in motion for getting the whole project started.

Different pics of wood saving stoves that we built during the week all over the municipality

Notice the old stoves.

Oh yeah, I went to Esquipulas, Guatemala again with my parish a week ago. I went on the same trip last year in their efforts to raise money for the patron festivals in August. It was fun, and two gringo friends came along. They continued their travels from there in their vacation time, and I was very jealous, haha.

The cultural dancer guys.

Prayers of the faithful.

These old guys are very good.

Very long line.
Finally, the elections for what would be Congressmen and Mayors was yesterday, so that was interesting to see the whole deal of how it works here in a young democracy. The mayor will change here in San Pedro in May, so I will begin working with a different group of people as far as the mayor’s office goes. Things never stay the same here for too long.

“I might not be smart, but I am educated.”

ME, this past week