My World in El Salvador

3 Years in 30 Minutes

2010-12-27T17:36:00.000-08:00

My time is officially up, and I have closed out my Peace Corps service in El Salvador. It was a really hectic and long process. Moreso for me because I had the Regional Lead stuff to wrap up as well as a few last projects that had crept up in the end. But finally, I completely it all and flew out of El Salvador on Dec 22. It was a sad time in my community, with many goodbyes and quite a few who shed tears. On the last day, we made a small trip to the beach in the morning and then they accompanied me to the airport for my 2pm flight.

So, how can I sum up 3 years in one entry?.... BULLET POINTS haha. Lets run through what, with the help of MANY people, I have been able to accomplish.

In-Site Projects

Live barrier and contour ditch formation with farmers
Grafting, Marmalade, Home Garden training through a $250 SPA grant at the National School of Agriculture for 20 farmers.
Through a Partnership grant of $2300, we replaced the roof of half of the community house and the storage area. The electrical system was revamped and bulbs bought for the new sockets. The inside and outside were painted, along with doors, and security bars. A door was installed in the outhouse, and a security screen put on the window of the pharmacy of the adjoining medical dispensary. In addition, 25 new metal chairs, 5 foldable metal tables, and large dry-erase board on pedestals were purchased.

Art classes for kids and a Mural/Community Map project. With the collaboration of local businesses, Kids to Kids grant, and private donations, the classes were given, murals painted in the community house and a community map build and painted at the entrance of the community. About an $1800 project

The natural spring in our community benefited form a project $1750 to renovate its sources after landslides in the last hurricane. A filter system was also installed, new pipes installed, the place painted, faucets installed, etc etc.

Numerous trainings with the Development Committee on project design and management
Health projects with the newly reformed Health Committee (medical brigades, fumigations, recycling campaigns, donations of medicines, AIDS trainings and workshops, fundraising techniques)

Construction of iron protections of roof of medical dispensary through a VAST grant ($1500)

Construction of bathrooms in the local hermittage as well as megaphone system for community announcements ($1300)

Youth group work in trainings and events, soccer team equipment through Kids to Kids grant

Road retention walls and bench construction for bus stops

Municipal Projects

FUDEM eye campaigns in three rural locations. Close to 500 people as beneficiaries with half of them receiving some type of glasses after the consultations. Later, 12 surgeries were obtained through collaboration with FUDEM and transport from the Mayor's office. Cataract and Pterigion surgeries were done at symbolic costs (one even at 15 dollars).
Fuel-Efficient Stove project..... we built 93 stoves for families all across the municipality in collaboration with the NGO.... Water, Trees, People.

Potable Water system for my community and the neighboring one. This project is probably the biggest. We spent a year and half gathering information and soliciting different groups. Success wasn't had until we teamed up with an NGO called Madre Cria and the Mayor's office. Together soliciting the Japanese embassy, it seems that a project of more $100k could be less than months away.
Project design and management courses with 3 different development committees
Scholarship committee work for over 30 high school students and 5 university level students

Bathroom and potable water system construction in the parish medical clinic ($2500)

Translator for Army Medical Brigades and Habitat for Humanity builds
English classes to Women's group in main town, and vacation english classes to all in pueblo
Obtaining of library with Rotary Club of San Miguel for a local school
Elaboration of Electrical system and flooring in empty room in local school so as to install a computer classroom

MISC

Member of Volunteer Advisory Council (VAC)....
Regional Leader Position in Year 3

Creation of Regional Handbook for new volunteeres
Creation of National/International group reference guide for current volunteers
Executor of Regional Conventions to bring the volunteers of a region together to collaborate more on common goals and projects
Carrying out of site visits and administrative responsibilities delegated by San Salvador Staff when necessary

WHEW.... so there ya go, thats the majority of it. My life's work for the past 3 years. Many thanks to all who supported me over the years, and a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

At the airport.

"I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end."

Abraham Lincoln

Time's a Closing In

2010-11-19T05:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I officially have a little over a month left in my Peace Corps service. My last day as a volunteer will be December 17, 2010 and it looks like I'll be flying back to the states on the 22nd. The month is beginning to fill up and I am having to decide which things I am going to attend and which ones I won't. The last few weeks, I'll be reserving for my community, hopefully. Any who.... lets recap lots of stuff thats happened the past while.

First off, my scholarship nursing student finally graduated!! I accompanied him and his mom to the graduation ceremony in San Salvador, and then I treated them to lunch at Chilis in celebration. He has persevered and I'm glad its all over. A thank you to all those who helped out here and there throughout the years with his education.

David's Mom, David, and me just before the graduation

A nurse!

Next, here are the final pictures from the mural project inside the Community House. All is finished and that project is wrapped up now, although I would like to patch up some spots outside that haved scratched and put some better letters on the entrance, but for all intensive purposes, this project is done. Thank you to Kids to Kids and the Caja de Credito and some private donors for helping these murals and the art classes for the kids come to fruition.

Next, are a few photos of an ongoing project that we've been pushing the past few years. We have been gathering information and applying for grants for almost two years now for our potable water system here in our community. You might remember that we barely lost a grant proposal to Spain back a year ago, but now we've partnered with an NGO called Madre Cria who is now working with the Municipality to get a grant from the embassy of Japan. It is a super difficult project because our water system is located in three different communities and 2 different municipalities. Each community wants certain things, but the money is not enough to go around. My hope is if we win this opportunity to better the system, that it will open the door with Japan to continue working in the future. Another huge problem that we have had is that when the communities first started the potable water system, certain landowners donated pieces of land to make the system a reality. They did not, however, make written legal documents marking the transfer of ownership. Fastfoward to 25 years later, land has been sold, or inherited, and even though there are numerous witnesses to the donations, everything is trying to get money in return for officially signing over their (already donated) terrain. Projects all over the municipality have fallen through due to this, and our almost caved as well, because FIRST, international organizations refuse to work on private land, and SECOND, nobody has money to go around buying (or rebuying) pieces of land for every circumstance. At the end of the day though, it looks like we will fulfill all of Japan's pre-requisites in time to win the project, and that our years of work will have paid off. They have come and looked at everything and have given it the OK to proceed to the next step. The project will be well over 100k.

Here are some pics from our lawyers visit to mark of the land and search for it in the National registry.

Inside of these "tanks" on the hillside, are where the water is gobbled up and sent to our communities.

The pipes coming in are from the captation tanks from the pic above and the water you see is the overflow that our system can't handle

The 21 years old US Motors vertical water pump

I also got a chance to burn some of my vacation days that Peace corps has given me over the years. I actually have had quite a few, but have been unable to really take advantage of them for moneysake! We can't travel in the last three months of service, so I ended up losing about 20 days of vacation!!!!! Craziness. Anyways, I got a chance to go to Honduras for a few days in bus and we checked out the Mayan Ruins at Copan, and then shot up to the coast at Tela where we saw the 2nd largest Botanical Garden in the world. It was left behind by the United Fruit Company (remember the Banana Republic like places where all the naners used to come from?). The last day we passed through San Pedro Sula, which was just another big city. The ruins were my favorite part.

Large bamboo....not native (this kind)

I didn't know cork was from a tree!

My first time seeing a coca plant

The place we stayed at Tela, Honduras at the beach

Irma is our registered nurse at Peace Corps that takes care of us vols

Underneath Copan Ruins

The 16 kings of Copan

Dunno who he is.

Looking down on the plaza...specifically the ball court

In other big news... I had my first visitors here to El Salvador!!! My parents came down for a few days to check out my situation, and they did VERY well for not speaking the language. We basically just hung out in my community, and by the last dinner, they were telling jokes (through me of course) to the rest of my neighbor's family.

Welcome!...my moms and me haha

Checking out my lemon tree

My archnemesis

On top of the church by the bells

The parish house ladies! They are so nice!

Dinner with the fam... Mother telling her super pickle joke.

I pretty much have to walk like that in most houses haha.

A random guy showing up on my porch selling armadillos and crabs.

Me and the "maestro" Alex

Finally, I've been in the capital the past few days in my final Med Checkups for Peace Corps to let me out of El Salvador. I finished today with a clean bill of health. Now all the paperwork will begin with my final reports and investigating more on grad schools. Also, I have my regional convention coming up to plan, so that will be a lot of work as well.

In the next post, I'll sum up two more projects that we are finishing up as we speak.... The system of metal bars for security in our Medical dispensary and the revamping of our natural spring that was affected by some landslides.

Ciao.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Matthew 6:34

The Pneumonia didn't kill me!

2010-09-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

No, it didn't get the best of me, I just have been a slacker. I was only in the hospital 2 days and then I was kept for shots 4 days in the capital, and then they let me go! But man, do I have a TON of pictures to get around, and they are almost all from other people! I really havent carried my camera around much lately. These rechargeable batteries have really lost their usefulness and I've yet to buy new ones.

Man, where to start... get ready for a random succession of picture stories. Starting with SOFTBALL. Enough said. We went out to a friends community on the West side of the country to play in a tourney with some of the National team players, not too shabby!

Looks whos catching.

oops.

Yep, next is the trip to Nicaragua that I went on with two fellow volunteers. It was my first time in Nicaragua... we left here at 530am and got to Managua at 4pm. From there we grabbed a micro down to Granada and stayed the night. Granada was cool, lots of history and people bouncing around. It is one of the oldest cities in Central America and boasts one of the oldest Christian churches in America as well. I didn't know that America was so intertwined in Nica's history. Apparently some rogue military guys even took it over for a while (William Walker... google him sometime). From there we went to check out San Juan del Sur. Its a coastal surfer town thats got a nice little nightlife as well. We met some pretty cool Salvadorans there, go figure, and hung out with them. The worst part about it was that it was pretty bad rain the whole time we were there so we couldn't get out much after Granada. Overall, we were there 4 days, and it was a good time.

San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.... its a cool little town

smelling the tobacco in Granada, Nicaragua

This cracked me up because its a grinding stone that they have in the museum in Granada. Yet, we still use it in the countryside here!

My travel mates....in front of one of the oldest churches in America.

The third travel companion.

Welcome.

Our bus!

Next, we had our Fruit Festival here in our main town not too long ago. Each year they name it after somebody and invite that person to speak, and this year it was named after Mr. Robert Blau, the Deputy Chief of Mission and right now Charge d' affair of the US Embassy. So, he came out to San Pedro and we met with him, and he passed through the special fruit market that comes out that day, and then there was a ceremony in the main "square". It was actually kind of nice because it was basically him and our mayor talking about the accomplishments of Peace Corps in the municipality in the past 10 years. Good stuff.

There's actually lots of people in this photo. Me, 3 other volunteers, my boss, my mayor, my kind of ambassador, and the guy that is awesome with his little wooden flute.

The "Charge" rocking his awesome US National Soccer Team jersey for the Fruit Festival in San Pedro.

The customary fight between the Christian and Moorish kings.... :)

The festival sign.

The table of honor.

Folkdance!

These guys were really great, honestly. It was a great surprise.

Next were our Patron Festivals in my community that we celebrated in August. Matt and Helen, the neighboring volunteers, came by and stayed for the few days to see what it was all about. It wasn't as big as the past few years, but it was good fun.

Bicycle contests!!! Thats my neighbor there reffin'

The youngins after catching the greased pig. If you can catch it, you can keep it!

The twins next door are getting so big!

A lovely dame I found on the street.

And then she found Matt.

And then we laughed about it.

Looks whos on bottom. I'm pretty sure my back has been thrown out of wack permanently from that day.

Thats not a booger.

We definitely never made it to the top, some kid had to climb to the top of the greased pole with a lasso to grab the prize. It was too tall this year!

Hug anyone?

At the end of the festivals, I put on a pupusa eating contest in the Community House, check out the youtube video below and more pictures at http://sanpedrononualco.blogspot.com/2010/08/concluyeron-fiestas-en-la-comunidad.html.

Next we have some pics from a birthday part that we had for a fellow volunteer. Her parents came in town and rented a really awesome beach house place and she declared the entry fee a costume that began with the letter "R." I was Raiden :)

I hadn't slept in 48 hours.

Me shooting electricity through the Riddler.

Flawless Victory.

Hiyah!

Needless to say, I didn't win ANY of the prizes that the volunteer's parents gave out, but I blame that on the fact that they had never heard of Raiden :)

What else What else.....hmmmm. Well we did finish the murals and I have them saved here. But I'll save that for another post so as not to make this one too long. But before I finish, here is an onslaught of random pictures.

I definitely don't fit on these covered trucks. The wee one there is Liliana, and she's on the equivalent of Dancing with the Stars here in El Salvador right now.

Me fat.

I invited Matt and Helen over to give a talk on how to take soil samples.

Playing soccer on the steepest ridge ever.

Thank you Wendy's.

AWESOMEST picture EVER.... this was the antwar on my window. These large leaf cutter ants chased the smaller ants all over the house until they caught them here on the window. It got ugly.

I take it back, this is the best picture. This is one of the cutest babies I've seen around. Don Raul's newest grandchild Mayra.

Me giving a report to the Development Committee on all my projects. This was during the final report of the outgoing Board and before the election of the incoming Board Members. Check out more pics at http://www.sanpedrononualco.org/vrgalrias.php?ig=eleccadesco_22_08_10

Random pic of us dancing it up somewhere. That was definitely a borrowed shirt.

My program at the July 4th soccer tournament.

I was hungry....but too cheap to buy something else at Wendy's.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

So thats the short story. This week we have the new group of volunteers swearing in so I will going out to support them. Also, this Saturday is my 3 year mark in this country!!! Wahoo. The next post I'll put up pics of the finished murals and fill yall in some on the current craziness in country right now with the gangs.

"Be not afraid"

First message as Pope......John Paul II

Bad news first

2010-06-25T21:46:00.000-07:00

So, lets just start with the bad news. I caught a cold. I was almost over the cold, when I got stuck in the back of a truck one night coming back from a soccer game. One day later = Pneumonia.

Basically, Monday night I had one of the worst nights ever of extreme fever, body pains, especially chest pains, nausea, vomiting, a lot of coughing. It started at 8pm and I finally got a tylenol down after hours of wet towels on my forehead and later the second tylenol which broke my fever a bit by like 5am. When I felt the queasiness and fever start to set back in around 10am I started the 3 bus 3 hr at least trip to the capital. For a while on the trip I was kind of laughing and texting some friends that I might have to projectile vomit on the old man beside me. I didn't in the end :)

I got to San Sal, got a taxi to the doctor's office they told me to go to, then he examined me and sent me to get chest xrays and draw blood. Then I came back and waited in his office with a 103 fever (which didn't feel near as bad as the night before) until he got the xrays. The first words out of his mouth when he saw it were "Well, your F.......d, my friend, I'm admitting you to the hospital." And there I was til today when they let me out to my great disappointment. I had free wifi, cable, and food there. I feel much better now, I just have the cough to kick and 4 more days of medicines.

I have to say, once you get into San Sal, the PC medical is pretty stellar.

In other news, GO USA. What a barn-burner that last classifying game was! Now we have the first elimination round game tomorrow at 230pm ET against Ghana. Hope we play well, there will be no more tying from here on out. Also, after that games over, check out CLEMSON vs. CAROLINA in the semifinals of the College World Series of Baseball at 7pm ET on ESPN. SC baseball at its best.

Check out video of the reactions of the US game ending gol from around the world.

Here's to Hope

2010-06-09T20:44:00.001-07:00

Mexico vs. South Africa start it off today at 10AM ET, with a 2 hour pregame hoorah with lots of dancers and singers and stuff. Then its Uruguay vs. France starting at 230PM ET.

AND THEN..... its USA vs England tomorrow hahahaha. Here's to hoping we don't get embarrassed.

The two below are pretty funny.

World Cup Pepsi Commercials are now out

2010-06-09T20:28:00.001-07:00

Well it is confirmed, that a large quantity of the volunteers in country will be in the capital together watching the US vs. England game this Saturday. We are getting together with an American Society that tries to promote and celebrate our culture in other countries. The bad news is that I was reading online and apparently 86% of people think that we are going to lose. Hope not, but even if... we still advance if we maintain the number two spot in the group.

Check out the Pepsi commercials that are out now.

USA wins last warmup!

2010-06-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

We win against Australia, mwhahaha. Sorry, couldn't get this thing to fit all the way.

Check out one of the best ads.

Another World Cup Ad

2010-06-05T15:29:00.001-07:00

Enjoy.

Official World Cup 2010 Song

2010-05-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are familiar with the World Cup, I am pasting a quick overview of it from Wikipedia....

The FIFA World Cup, occasionally called the Football World Cup or Soccer World Cup, but usually referred to simply as the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not contested because of World War II.
The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month – this phase is often called the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s).

During the 18 tournaments that have been held, seven nations have won the title. Brazil have won the World Cup a record five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. Italy, the current champions, have won four titles, and Germany are next with three titles. The other former champions are Uruguay, winners of the inaugural tournament, and Argentina, with two titles each, and England and France, with one title each.

The World Cup is the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world, where an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.^[1] The next World Cup will be held in South Africa, between 11 June and 11 July 2010, and the 2014 World Cup will be held in Brazil.

So the World Cup kicks off June 11 with Mexico vs. South Africa, and then its USA vs. England in their opening round on June 12 at 2:30pm ET. England is one of the favorites so, hopefully we put up a good fight. We just beat Turkey (for the first time ever) 2-1 in a World Cup warm-up game in Philly and have one more game on June 5th 8AM ET in South Africa against Australia.

I´m going to start putting up a new World Cup commercial (Sony, Pepsi, Nike, etc) every once in a while til it starts in its honor haha. But first, the official song:

Farewell to the old volunteers!

2010-05-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

So the past few weeks have been sad because some of the last volunteers of my group have begun leaving. An embassy family threw them a going away party which was very nice, and in a safe, nice part of San Salvador. The next day we took them out and splurged on paintballing out West which was also pretty fun. I picked up a nifty little scar during paintball on my arm, ask me to show it to you sometime haha.

Part of the group.

Yes I'm wearing baseball socks and a white button down shirt at paintball.... and? I literally had no other clothes.

Ballin!!!!

Bobby at lunch afterwards in his moment of zen

Also, I had my regional convention with all the volunteers around, and it went more or less well. One of the NGOs didn't show up and didn't even call, which was sad because they could have been a great contact for the volunteers here. Oh well.

My peeps.

Also, right before Semana Santa, way back in the day, my community went to the beach, here's a nifty little pic from that. We didn't lose anyone, which was a good thing. You think I'm kidding!!! The rip tides are really strong here.... 5 Americans have supposedly drowned in the past year and a week before we went as a community, a neighboring community lost a 20 year old not too far away. Its unfortunately a common occurence here.

Hanging out.

Speaking of Semana Santa, the young peeps got together during Holy Week and did a reenactment of all the Stations of the Cross down our "main street." It was actually pretty cool. Bad news being that my camera died (batteries) shortly after it started. So there are only a few pictures. ......

Jesus and his posse.

Barrabas!! aka my neighbor mauricio

the women

the men

What else... ah yes,.... together with the other volunteers in the neighboring community of San Ramon, we put on a 4team basketball tourney in the main town. 2 neighboring municipalities came, San Pedro made a team, and we put together a Peace Corps team. One of the teams had to leave early, so we ended up replaying the team that had beat us by 3 in the first game for the championship and won by 1. I was such a cheat, I got the ball in the last few seconds as we were inbounding it and threw it as high as I could in the air so that the last few seconds would run out hahaha.

The gringos hanging out beforehand.

Onlooker.

What are you doing?!?

Bring it.

More fun than Bobby getting stuffed.... check out the name on my blue jersey.

no look pass....oops!

Look whos reffing!!!

The tipoff of San Pedro vs. PC

Matt and his wife Helen, who is taking the pictures, live in a neighboring community now

The teams afterwards

Also our art classes in the revamped community house have started and are actually now coming to a close. Here are some pictures from the beginning classes, it has grown since then and hopefully I'll be able to put pictures of the closing up later as well as the latest murales (still open to those interested in helping!!)

The first art classes

A recent High School graduate who is the art teacher. He is taking classes in the capital now. Good potential.

The public bathrooms in the local hermita and the paving around them are coming to a close this coming Friday, so that is AWESOME. Thanks to Bonnie and her family out West for donating part to have those done.

Doors!!! Although, they had to take them back down later to cement the floors.

After

before

no more mud!!

Benches are going to go in that space this friday.

As far as upcoming projects go, we are trying to build some sort of primitive grey water filtration system at the new renovated Guanabo spring (revamped by the previous volunteer), as well as install new piping from the spring source in order to increase the quality drinking water that those local families deal with. We have a few grant applications in and are working with an NGO called Madre Cria on the filtration system. It will be somewhere in the area of a large hole where the water will pass through a series of decreasing smaller rocks before it filters into the ground instead of straight into the creek. The other main thing that I really want to get done are the concrete benches at some 7 different spots in the community where people wait for the bus/pickups. That would be huge, especially in the rainy season. We are looking for places to solicit at the moment for concrete, sand, gravel etc right now.

Health Promoter giving his shpeel to the peoples at a CARITAS event

CARITAS donating some clean up supplies.

Local leaders looking at the water situation in el Guanabo Spring

An old broken pipe.

The water that now runs into the water basins.

My other responsibilities right now as Regional Leader (or as we like to put it when we introduce ourselves in Spanish....Regional Coordinators :) are also becoming a bit more taxing, but at the same time more routine. I am having to travel a lot between certain places in the East. I am up to three toiletry kits in different spots so that I dont have to be carrying around stuff so much. I've also split my clothing up so as to further decrease the size of the bookbag that I have to lug around. I finished my 45 page Regional Handbook for newly sweared-in and current volunteers, which is AWESOME I might humbly add. It has information on everything from bus schedules and prices in each department including San Sal, to dangerous areas, contact info for everything imagineable, and tips and tricks volunteers have picked up over the years for all kinds of stuff. My big challenge right now though is creating an NGO/GO guide to the region. By making contact with all current organizations working in the area and cataloging what they are working in, how to contact them, etc and leaving that in an updated and organized form for the volunteers, it should be a TREMENDOUS help and asset to our future success. Material success of course, projects, trainings, etc. It's a lot of work though, I'm about a 1/3 of the way through right now.

Life plans? Still stuck. I was going to take the Foreign Service Officer test in June here at the embassy, but after reading the process were I to get selected, I might never get a master's degree. So I think the best thing to do is to go ahead and bit the debt....I mean bullet, and get it. I've still yet to decide in history/international relations/studies. I've been looking into the Peace Corps Fellows programs at Denver, Marquette, Duke, and even Yale (although the last one would be a long shot).

"Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it."

Lao Tzu 550 BC

March Madness

2010-03-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

There have been quite a few things going on as of late here in my world here in El Salvador. First things first, we have been continously working on this new program in El Salvador called the Regional Leader system. Its a new way to bring more organized and ground level support to the Peace Corps volunteers, both technical as well as peer support from those who have more experience in the region. The other advantages are those in which we can take the load of the program bosses in many cases since we are already in the region and on the ground. There are six of us working around the country and we are trying to start regional meetings, meet with the local NGOs around, visit personally the local volunteer sites, and create the Regional Handbook for those who are soon to swear in. This is the program that we will be trying to get set up this year, so that when the new group of Regional Leaders starts this coming year, they can hit the ground running.

Closer to home, my community has been busy :) They had a fundraising event a few weeks ago here in the Community House that we renovated. The youth organized the event pro-Health Committee and did clown stuff and dramas and stuff like that. We actually had a packed house. We sold all types of food outside, and my stand outside was hotdogs, hahahaha.

People outside buying food

Me and my chef had while stuff is going on inside, haha.

The leader of the group doing his act.

Clown 1

Clowns 2/3

The other projects here are the stoves that we are still ALMOST done with, because the people who are trained to build them say they are too busy to do so, so I have to keep bringing in the builder from across the country, and now he says he sick. So that has made it harder and harder. There are 2 left in my community and 6 in the community where the new volunteers are. Also check out the pictures of the new bathrooms that we are finishing here in the community, we just have a few things to finish with them.

Preparing the base

Playing cards on the new table before building the stove on it

No more cards, very sad, but there is the final product.

Another before

Another after.

Starting to dig the latrines... a 4.5 meter double hole

prepping the walls

halfway there!

both projects I've done at that spot in the same picture, the announcement system and the bathrooms

Almost done!

The murals in the Community House are coming along. The local artist has finished outside and one of the murals inside, and is starting the second one. We are STILL short a few sponsors for murals, so if anyone thinks they want to sponsor one, feel free to CONTACT me as usual (or donate on the sidebar). We also have a series of art classes going on at the moment with the local artist as well. He is giving classes in the morning and evening, twice a week, for 3 months in the Community House. This project is sponsored by a Kids to Kids grant. We shall see how that turns out as well.

Well since we have finished outside, we have started inside the community house.

A little closer.

Close up.... there are a few things left to paint. The rope line where the rings are hanging. Aaron's family on the right and the sales people on the left.

Lets see, also there was a birthday here last week and since we didn't have cake, I made a pound cake that actually didn't turn out too shabby. I was surprised, haha.

Improvised POUND CAKE, yummy. I didn't have sour cream, but oh well.

Also, these past few days, the new volunteers in the municipality, visited my community. We were going to go on the yearly trip to Esquipulas, Guatemala with my community, but we couldn't at the last minute, there was some trouble with new Peace Corps protocol, yadda yadda yadda. So we hung out and we cut some oranges and bananas and stuff with Don Raul. It was a good time.

We had to carry that about a mile and a half by the way.

This was me welcoming Matt to my orange community hahahaha.

Oh yeah, I also took the GRE last month. It wasn't that great of an experience here. It was paper based, and they setting was in San Salvador in an English school where the moderator cranked up the AC to 5 below and then kept leaving the room and leaving the door open so that a billion running screaming kids could come watch and chill etc etc. Not to mention the forgot some protocols that were normally obvious, like the short break between sections. ANYWAYS, still havent got the results back, but not expecting much.

Anyways, gotta run. Hope all are enjoying/not enjoying Lent.

A Lenten Reflection

Give up complaining——focus on gratitude.
Give up pessimism——become an optimist.
Give up harsh judgments——think kindly thoughts.
Give up worry——trust Divine Providence.
Give up discouragement——be full of hope.
Give up bitterness——turn to forgiveness.
Give up hatred——return good for evil.
Give up negativism——be positive.
Give up anger——be more patient.
Give up pettiness——become mature.
Give up gloom——enjoy the beauty that is all around you.
Give up jealousy——pray for trust.
Give up gossiping——control your tongue.
Give up sin——turn to virtue.
Give up giving up——hang in there!

Back in Action

2010-01-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, so lets get started. Things have gotten back to normal pretty quick. Most important things first, I got back in time to have our second annual New Years Card Tournament.... a game they call "chucho" (dog), but its somewhat like what we know as spades, but without the trump suit. The points work in a way that every group of 3 face cards is a point, and the ace is worth a full point by itself. Anyways, there are some pics below of that awesomeness as well as a video, although my team got put out in the first round, I had fun. The prize for the winning team was a makeshift gift card to the other neighbors store.

Our Double Elimination bracket....I'm team 3, haha.

My partner focused on the game

The Final Table

A quick view of the competitors

Also, we had the community development association (ADESCO) Christmas Dinner, and it went well and there are a few pics of that too. We had beef, rice, salad, coke, and music..... well, after they gave their yearly report. It was a good time.

Christmas Dinner

Look at all those tortillas!!

Oh yeah, and before I forget, when I got back a month later, they were still clearing the roads up the mountain from the last bit of rains that came in November. The main roads are now clear, but the rural roads are still being worked on. The problem now though is that trying to clear the roads creates so much dust now that we are in the dry season, that it becomes a health hazard. So they have decided to wait and finish just before the rains start up again in May.

Before I start in the project that I am currently working on, I just want to thank those benevolent souls that responded in donating at the end of the year. I was able to attend the New Year's tournament and present each soccer team that had petitioned me a Mikasa soccer ball and net. It wasn't much, but it was something. They took some pictures, but I haven't gotten my hands on them yet, oops.

Many of you remember me talking about the bathrooms that we were building in the medical clinic here in the main town ("Picture Time", October 19, 2009). Well, all of the building process has been done for 2 months, yet we still don't have use of them. We have been waiting on the government water agency to do their part, but they are really slow. We still have a few options, and I am investigating some ways to expedite the process. We'll see.

Right now, I am deep into the Mural and Community Map project. We got some grants to support a local artist who has just graduated from high school do a series of art classes for the kids, to build a wall near the entrance of the community with a huge map on it, and to paint murals on the face, and inside of the Community House that we just renovated (you might remember that project too, from the post previously mentioned above). We just finished the map, and now I am trying to find the company that sells those metal park benches to see if we can clean up around the map and put a bench on either side. Also, we are seeing if we can get some locals to put a small roof on the map with some leftover metal that we have. The biggest hole that we have right now is labor costs for each mural. There are 8 squares inside of the Community House that we have prepared (about 5ft x 5ft each square), and each one will cost us $75 to paint. The young artist is doing us a huge favor in these prices, because as you all know, even in developing countries, these kinds of things go at a much higher rate. We have the actual paint, but now we are looking for sponsors for each mural. Right now, we have 3 sponsors and NEED 5 MORE brave souls :) I hope that we can find support in this, one of my last big projects. The advantage of this project is two fold. In that, I used the Community House renovation project as a teaching ground for the ADESCO of how manage funds and projects, and now they are in charge of everything, in colaboration with me, and then after each step we revise all expenditures and procedures. So far, so good. The second part is that the municipality has our community in mind to start developing Eco-Tourism, and so these are ways to make everything more attractive and people proud of their community. So if anyone is interested, we are looking for 5 sponsors!!! Please contact me at one of my email addresses if you are interested, or just donate at the paypal icon on the right with a note as to its destination. Thanks to all involved!!!

The front of the Community House (which actually still isn't finished.. the letters over the door and the white space to the right can be noted)

He's got some talent :)
The first stages in drawing the map

Side view of the almost finished product

Almost
Finished Product

The top corners are for the logos of the ADESCO and that of the institution that donated the paint. You can imagine it with a little rooflife tophat and a bench on either side, thats the goal.

Finally, phase two of that announcement system project that we had going on in the center of the community will begin (Picture Time, October 19, 2009). Some families from the Western US have donated specifically to build two latrines beside the local hermittage. This is the center point of the community where daily events go on, yet they still dont' have bathrooms. It is always necessary to look for the nearest neighbor's house down the street, and as well all know, that can be frustrating haha. We must keep in mind that the reconstruction after the earthquakes in 2001 have been slow here, and bit by bit the communities rebuild themselves, and now its time to help with public bathrooms. As far a manual labor goes, I am going to see if I can work out a deal with our scholarship students to work a few days for their service hours that we ask of them :)

Speaking of scholarship students, not to bore, people, but we had the honor of hosting some of our supporters of the San Pedro Nonualco Scholarship Committee from Louisiana this past weekend. They seemed to have a good time and even had a surprise waiting for them (and me) in the Mass on Saturday night. Apparently, someone had told Padre Tino that they were here visiting, so before ending the Mass, he was like, "William, William, where is William? Come up here" Of course I was sitting in the back, and so I had to go all the way up front, and then call them up front and say a few words about them and where they are from, and then the overfilled church gave them a huge round of applause for their work. They have helped the scholarship committee with 50 high school and now with what will be 8 university students this year. Good stuff. Sadly, I don't have pictures of that either, Dr. T if you are reading this, tell Mark that he will have to send me some pics, or if you have any send them to me and I'll post them.

Me and the other new volunteers hanging out with the visitors at Rolandos house

Rolando and Dr. T negotiating with the volcanoes behind watching

The university scholars with Dr. T on a hike to the top of the little volcano

All of the current scholarship students

The stove project is reaching its closing stages, and I am still in the searching stage for the big water project. And with that.... I close the project updates.

For those interested in helping out with part, or in some way, REMEMBER 5 SPONSORS, of course feel free to email me at rhettbwilliams@yahoo.com, which also appears in the profile above, or donate at the DONATE tab to the right with a description of where you would like to direct the donation, if you so desire. I'm usually pretty good about sending out pictures and info to the donors directly, or posting it here for everyone to see. Or, if you just have any great ideas, feel free to comment here or send it to me in email. The majority of comments people send straight to my email for some reason, but whatever floats your boat.

My new job as Regional Leader is also beginning to become more and more involved, I've been able to travel to one island here in La Paz, where they are asking Peace Corps for a volunteer, and I got to visit another island in Usulutan, with a spectacular bay view of three volcanos. I will probably have to move in February, which Im not too excited about, but I think it will all work out in the end. I know that its going to be a hassle with people to not try and overcharge me rent as a gringo, but oh well, we'll see how it goes.

I am taking the GRE the beginning of February as well so that will be fun, I have started looking over some vocab words, hahaha. I am also contemplating the FSO Test in June because its free, but that is still to be seen.

So, thats my life up until now, nothing too crazy :)

Here comes G.K.

"Being educated means reading the newspapers. Being properly educated means not believing the newspapers after you have read them."

G.K. Chesterton

Back in "The Savior"

2010-01-10T08:50:00.000-08:00

So, just to let those sending me hate mail about not posting, hahahahaha much love, not too worry too much, its just that I have just returned to El Salvador (affectionately known as "the savior" in PC), and am getting everything together for the next post.....as well as getting my life in order.

There are lots of exciting things to show pics and tell about :) It should be up in the next few days.

Cuidense,

Rhett

SC visit

2009-12-04T07:22:00.000-08:00

HOT WATER!!! haha. I have made it here to Charleston for my month long homeleave. Things have gone well and its nice to be around family and friends.

There are lots of errands to be done while Im here though, so bit by bit I am working on getting things in order there.

Oh yeah, by the way, some of the outlying communities brought me some petitions before I left for soccer balls and cleats for their teams. The teams are about to start the yearlong tournament. So if anyone is interested in helping out there for a Christmas gift for a bunch of youth and other team members, I am looking for about 6 soccer balls (2 for each team). They run about 25 dollars each in El Salvador, but I havent checked here yet.

Always remember to help out in the frequent needs that pop up here and there in my rural communities that you can help out with the PayPal DONATE button on the right side of the blog. I always keep people informed on where and how it is used, photos and all... Or you can email me if you are interested in helping out in some other way.

"100% of the shots you don't take don't go in"

Wayne Gretsky

Pictures of Recent Events

2009-11-21T19:31:00.000-08:00

November 22, 2009

So I put up some pictures last time of whats going on here in my municipality, but I had a chance to visit with my community in the past week some of the more affected areas in the rains during Hurricane Ida. Its a different kind of disaster zone from what I have seen before. I have vague memories of Hurricane Hugo and the craziness that caused, and random flash flood areas. But land and rock slides..... these are my firsts. What happened was that large chunks of the highest parts of the volcano gave way and carved out new ravines on their ways down to these two main towns... Verapaz and Guadalupe in the Department of San Vicente, El Salvador. It brought not only mud and trash to fill the towns, but thousands of large boulders in the currents of water. Needless to say, now there are dry river beds, where originally there were sugar cane fields and neighborhoods.

In some other pics, I am helping concrete a floor at the neighbors house, and got to play in the first game of San Pedros Basketball tourney (I wont be there for the next 5 games).

Back in SC on Friday. Very exciting. Check out the pics.

"If you are not living life on the edge, you are taking up too much space."

Some of the guys working to take the mud out of the different houses... I bought them some sodas and we hung out

About to start the tournament

we still need to work on our picks

the base being finished on the neighbors floor

still getting there

a blocked road in one of the outlying communities

more blockedness

the shelter for the town of Verapaz

My community has made over 5 trips that I know of to leave certain goods to the needier communities... this is them handing out tamales to the people of the shelter

the shelter in the school

my community handing out stuff in a different school

more handing out

and more

DISASTER. dum dum dum duuummmmm

2009-11-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so, this post is basically a short one about what is going on here right now. For those who don´t know, Hurricane Ida passed through here a week ago and dropped ALOT of water. People are wondering why it was so bad and it passed over in a matter of less than 2 days. Well, the Category 5 storm, Hurricane Mitch in 1998 hung around here for 5 days and dropped 400mL of water. Hurricane Ida in its best moment was a category 1 storm that dropped 355 mL on my volcano in 5 HOURS. What makes it worse, is that it had already rained here every day for 2 weeks on and off, so the ground was already pretty saturated. The mix of steep terrain and super steroided torrential rains, created the perfect conditions for disaster in my area.

So as far as results go....My community had quite a few landslides that blocked the road up to the main town. We got lucky though because the mayors office sent a machine deal in addition to a bunch of shovels to clear out the biggest one off the road. At that point they ran out of gas, and found out that the only exits down the volcano were blocked by a bunch of different landslides. So with no gas for anyone, the town hung out for a nother day of on and off rain with no power or water or exit. Eventually, in the next few days, they cleared out enough room to get a truck by and down the mountain, but the buses still couldnt run because there were huge boulders in the way. It took dynamite to blow them into small enough pieces to move off the road hahaha.

Today, on the 19th day without water in the main town and 9th in my community, both are now getting power and water back. The infrastructure damage though has been pretty bad. There are 24 bridges damages with 8 being wiped out. Just in my municipality we have 3 community that are still out of contact as afar as vehicles go. A few dont have water or power still (although some never did:) It will take a while to get things back in order, Id say a year for the whole region to get going. We should be back up in running in a few months though.

Our municipality had no deaths reported, although in a nearby river a 9 yr old girl was found. Most of the death were further down the mountain where basically two super large mudslides put a hurting on towns called Guadalupe and Verapaz at the base of the volcano as well as San Vicente. Also a nearby lake overflowed and wreaked havoc on the towns around it. There are even some neighborhoods that were completely erased. The death toll is up to 184 with 60 missing still.

In the good news, my home leave is now booked and I will be back Nov 27 to Dec 28.

Here are some of the few pics that Ive been able to get my hands on.

Washing out of roads was common.

This was the entrance to the community where the new volunteers had been placed.

Since there isnt water, the river is busy busy.

Some of the help that came in for the needy

Organizing the help.

Up the mountain towards San Pedro Nonualco

A small obstacle

Houses at risk in the outlying communities of San Pedro

A large boulder blocking the way down the mountain

More of the road to where the volunteers used to be... totally blocked off.

Trying to head down the mountain. Govt workers trying to clear the way.

One of the hundreds of landslides in the area covering roads.

Another.

in the way.

The road washed out at the only entrance to Santa Maria Ostuma

People climbing the valleys to find ways to accesible roads and work

What used to be the piping to our community, the reason we dont have water. They hadnt fixed it though because it is right below where they were going to dynamite the boulders, haha.

People walking down the volcano to work in San Sal.

Clearing the way down the mountain.

More love.

More wash outs.

Picture Time!!!

2009-10-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

October 19, 2009

Ok, so as I had said, with the death of the computer, things have become more difficult on the communication end, but no worries.... lots of photos to come. Also, I lost pretty much my whole documented lifes work the other day when my reserve external harddrive died. Now all I have, lucky for you guys, are my pictures that I had stored up on the camera. I feel like the harddrive dying was worse that the computer dying, because all my pictures since... well forever, all my college and other types of papers, all the information on my Peace Corps projects, everything I had accrued in life is gone unless I can recover info off it. Sigh, such is life....at least I dont have to worry about protecting anything now like I was doing with that external drive since the computer went downhill, haha. FREEDOM :(

Also before starting the projects, I got a chance to go camping up on the Santa Ana Volcano over looking the another crater lake Coatepeque with a group of volunteers. Our volcanologist volunteer had to spend 24 hours watching a portable GPS seismometer (which is in some of the pictures), so we accompanied :)......Super View.... here are some pics.

Group on the volcano

breakfast the next morning

early morning over looking the crater lake

hahahaha.

the seismometer and a nice view in the clouds

Now the fun stuff. Since the last post there have been lots of photo opportunities-projects etc. We have been working with the development committee (ADESCO) to repair a few parts of the street that were washing away. Well, actually we just prevented them from washing away until the rains go away and they can actually be fixed.

fun in the sun

Also, all of the different active committees and group off my community got together with me and we put into action a plan to build a communication system for the canton. In the middle of the community is a hermitage deal and the best place to put a PA system type deal. I used some donated funds on my end to cover half, we borrowed the other half, and got a 10% discount from the company for the materials and put it all into action. Also, we are going to be putting up some Event boards as well to help everyone keep track of the events. Check out the pics.

the finished product

puttin her in place

too many people?

hoisting her up

hanging out

getting ready

Oh yeah, so remember the community house that we were trying to put a roof on and all? Well we got all of that hammered out and started that project. At the moment, we have put the new roof on, painted it, put in the new lights, and bought the new chairs and tables and a dry erase board. In the next few weeks we will be finishing that up by fixing up the latrines and reinforcing some windows that in the medical dispensary that weve had some problems with. SO, the corollary to this project is also the "cultural beautification" hahaha, my terms, of the community. We are one of the communitys in which the area is pushing to develop an ecological tourism presence. So when we painted the Community House, we painted the base coat for a young artist in from La Comunidad to paint different local scenery of cultural heritage ideas on several different walls inside and out. Including a Community Map at the entrance of our Canton. Right now Im negotiating with various groups to see if by some miracle we get the other $700 needed to finish this "dream project".

the new roof

the neighbor mauricio sweeping the beams

the new boards

tearing down the old

The president of the development committee by the new board and with the walls prepped in the background for the murals that we are trying to get funds for

Another project is the potable water and bathroom project that we have started by winning two grants, one from the East Coast and one from the West Coast. We are finishing up this week putting a mens and womens bathroom, a drain and two sinks, and a 1,100 liter water tank in the parish medical clinic in the main town. More pics:

the sand and gravel awaiting the work to commence

pre work

Jorge starting the bathrooms

laying the groundwork

getting there

putting in the lights

making a mess of everything

the main black waters junction

Me and the engineer checking over things

I just barely fit.

more revisions

Preparing to plan out the water tank

This past week, the Development Committee ADESCO and I had a small ceremony before the board meeting to two local soccer teams who are entering into their respective tournaments this month. We won a Kids to Kids grant for balls, nets, and cleats among other things. Also this past week we turned in the final materials for the stove project in the last two communities... FINALLY. Now we just have to build the last 15.

the fun part.... this are representatives of the school of football

my soccer team representatives

the school of soccer from the main town

The biggest project, and to date only, that has remained out of reach for me is the fixing of the Potable Water System in my home community. You might remember that this was the project that we were soliciting from certain groups in Spain, but was close, but didnt work out. So, the mayors office is supposedly offering support for part of the project, but not all of it. I sent out an email to part of you guys asking for Rotary contacts, that is my next group to contact.

That brings me to talking about my future, because for those who keep track of time, you know that my time here will be up the end of November of this year. Well the Development committee, as I mentioned in the last post, solicited six more months for me here and in September I went to my COS (close of service) Conference to see how it was all going to work out. There I realized that the earlier time I could take the GRE would be in February, meaning that if I were to want to continue studying January 2011 would be the earliest time to do so. LEAVING all of 2010 open (not just the six months requested by my counterpart agency). Also, Peace Corps El Salvador opened up six slots for Regional Leaders around the country, each one with a different section of the country. So I applied and ended up getting the South region (go figure haha) which is actually pretty big.... it includes La Paz, Usulutan, and San Miguel (http://www.mapsofworld.com/el-salvador/maps/el-salvador-map.jpg). At the end of the day, Peace Corps extended my time here until Dec of 2010 as Regional Leader. The job entails basically helping the volunteers in my zone to better contact different governmental and non governmental agencies, execute projects, and have better communication with Peace Corps. Also we will be helping develop new sites for future volunteers among other things.

The only down side to this, is that I might have to relocate to a town more central to my zone, which means I will be in my community much less than I am now. However, I will be in and out a lot and will hopefully make more contacts to try and get the water project on the move.

So there ya have it, thats a small portion of whats going on in my life right now, enjoy the pics.

The TEFL (teaching english as a foreign language).... different volunteers from all over the country brought their english teachers to a Peace Corps hosted TEFL workshop

TEFL in action

The oiled up pig that everyone was trying to grab during the festivals here. If you can grab it... its yours.... they were chasing it all over for half and hour.

The judges at the costume deal

me in a fuzzy pic

The front of the procession with a mini Saint Dominic

ahahahahahaha

"...a true development is that which is conservative of its original, and a corruption is that which tends to its destruction."

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
p. 419

September!

2009-09-09T11:31:00.000-07:00

September 9, 2009

I have found a nice slot of time to write down some stuff, so here goes.

Mid August I got to go on a little vacation with the parents to see parts of Panama and Costa Rica. It was a super fun experience and it was good seeing them. Although sad at the same time because they couldnt come to my community to check out my pad for various reasons. I still dont have a way to put pics on the computer because my camera doesnt have a cable, but Im working on that. The pictures on my camera are normally how I remind myself of what to write about on here, haha.

Also at the beginning of August we had the Patron Festivals of Santo Domingo of Guzman here in La Comunidad. Everything was lively with lots of events. I participated in the costume parade with a cowboy costume from college that worked out kind of nice. Our group even supposedly got invited to another towns patron festivals to participate because they thought it turned out pretty well. Oh yeah, and some kid stole my water gun at the very end and never gave it back.

Lets see, also we are slowly closing in on the end of the stove project in the rural areas of the municipality. I am about 3 months behind at the moment because the trash truck that I was using to take materials everywhere is almost consistently broke, but I think in the next two months that I will have it done, hopefully.

Oh yeah, also, remember that ambulance that I had been writing grants for back a while ago? Well, I was beaten by another institution, the European Union donated a new ambulance to each of the 100 poorest municipalities in the country, and we fell under that category. So, wahoo, strike it off the list.

We have won two water grants that almost cover putting water in the parish medical clinic here. Next week we should be ready to go buy enough materials to start and finish 75% of the project. Also, we have the support of the mayors office to start work on the Community House. The next few weeks should be exciting in that we will start to see concrete work on what has been a year of soliciting and organization.

Speaking of those, and the need of a continuing support in a few last projects here, I wanted to show yall the breakdown of funds of a donation that was given about a year ago through the PAYPAL here on the webiste. It was a donation of 200.00 and was spent in the following manner:

$64.00 went into the wood saving stove project....split between transport of materials and helping covering families that couldn´t cover costs. (right now weve built 67 stoves in my municipality)

$20.00 went into refurbishing two donated laptops, one which went to a school and another which went to the Parish Medical Clinic.

$54.00 went into two printers, one for the school just mentioned and the Parish Medical Clinic

$5.00 went to cover an Ultrasound of an elderly lady´s eye in my community during our eye campaign

$10.00 covered a pair of glasses for a mom of 10 children and leader in the Parish community

$40.00 went into the first phase of a project by my own community to put a speakerphone in the middle of the community to announce events, deaths, etc along the 3 mile ridge. We are still short on the second phase, but this $40.00 went together with the last of another donation to pay for the parts.

$7.00 was the amount that PayPal took out of the original $200.00 in fees.

The donation went a long way and Im sure had an affect on a much larger number of people than was expected by the donors when they donated. Well done by that fam.

I have been collaborating with another community on the other side of the municipality as well, and in the past year we have been petitioning for them their own volunteers and now they have arrived. They are a couple that will be working with the school and development committee for two years. The community is ooober excited about it all and happy that they are being remembered in the course of things in the world, haha. Speaking of this subject, my actual time here is winding down and technically ends Nov. 28, but my ADESCO is soliciting to have me stay another 6 months to finish up and get started some other projs. Im fine with that. There will be various volunteers doing that though, so I should know by the end of September if we are approved by Peace Corps or not.

For now this is life. And its good, I ate some tasty chicken wings and it passed through my mind that I could die now a happy person, but hopefully that will hold out until I finish my work here with the communities :). Ive begun to think about what my time here in Peace Corps has taught me and where I should begin pointing my life after its over. But more on that after I finish my closing conference COS here Sept. 16-18 and PC gives us more info on that stuff.

Keep fighting the good fight.

With all the doctrinal hooplah in the news in the Anglican-Episcopal-Lutheran realm lately, I found this quote from an at the time Anglican interesting:

"....In barbarous times the will is reached through the senses; but in an age in which reason, as it is called, is the standard of truth and right, it is abundantly evident to anyone, who mixes ever so little with the world, that, if things are left to themselves, every individual will have his own view of them, and take his own course; that two or three will agree to-day to part company to-morrow; that Scripture will be read in contrary ways, and history, according to the apologue, will have to different comers its silver shield and its golden; that philosophy, taste, prejudice, passion, party, caprice, will find no common measure, unless there be some supreme power to control the mind and to compel agreement.

There can be no combination on the basis of truth without an organ of truth. As cultivation brings out the colours of flowers, and domestication changes the character of animals, so does education of necessity develope differences of opinion; and while it is impossible to lay down first principles in which all will unite, it is utterly unreasonable to expect that this man should yield to that, or all to one. I do not say there are no eternal truths, such as the poet proclaims, 6 which all acknowledge in private, but that there are none sufficiently commanding to be the basis of public union and action. The only general persuasive in matters of conduct is authority; that is, (when truth is in question,) a judgement which we feel to be superior to our own. If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties, between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You may be tolerant or intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have. By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an infallible chair; and by the sects of England, an interminable division. Germany and Geneva began with persecution, and have ended in scepticism. The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the object, while it gives definiteness and force to the matter, of the Revelation."

pp. 89-91
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
John Henry Newman (later Cardinal Newman)
1834

Burial of the Computer

2009-08-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

The computer officially is resting in peace until a new video card can be found and installed. This will create some problems on posting pictures on the site until it gets fixed, but hopefully Ill get one up in the next few weeks with updates on all the projects. In the meantime, I leave you with this site to check out in honor of the USA vs. Mexico World Cup eliminatory soccer game tomorrow (its going to be good... hopefully).

http://www.nike.com/nikesoccer/dtom/

Computer Problems

2009-07-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

So, my laptop has taken a turn for the worse here in "The Savior", so its been hard to update the blog with the pics as normal. I have all the fotos saved on my external harddrive, but its hard to keep taking it to the main town to send everything off, or updates and all that jazz. I hope that its just a software problem (doubtful), because if its not my video card is slowly dying what seems to be a more and more painful death (for me). But in the end, Im sure it will make me a better person because working without a computer is hard!!! Living without a computer, not too shabby, but working without one, makes things interesting. The disks to try and reinstall everything should hopefully come in soon, so we´ll see how bad it is soon.

If I get a chance sometime in the near future I will try and upload some of the pics to the previous post with the external.

In other news, it is official, we finished the Peace Corps Partnership grant and supposedly the money is on the way. THANK YOU to all who participated, and I hope that you continue to help out with some of the last projects that I mentioned in the previous post.

If anyone ever has any questions... look me up on skype at rhett.williams.

This quote is from the Patron Festivals program that we just finished making for our community festivals of Santo Domingo de Guzman, coming up Aug 1-8.

"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, 12-13 Centuries

July 4 and June Recap

2009-07-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

July 11, 2009

I think today is my sister’s anniversary, Happy Anniversary!

Hmmm…. Well in the last month, we have completed our 10th eye surgery with in which between the 10 we have gotten the prices reduced by close to $3,000. Good stuff.
My stove project has come to a crawl right now because the only truck of the mayor’s office broke down, as well as the trash truck. So my transport for the materials is based on these two, so that has made things hard (impossible, without doubling prices). I only have three communities left to finish off, so I hope I get there in the next few months, I am ready to finish this project, it’s very time consuming.

Oh yeah, so we are trying to apply in our community to make our water system better so that everyone can have water. A fund came open in Spain, but we only had a week to get all our ducks in a row after it came open, but we made the deadline, although maybe with not as much quality as possible. We find out in the beginning of August, very exciting. Its over a 35k project and will affect over 2,750 people. We are also trying to collaborate con WaterCharity (watercharity.org) to put water in the parish medical clinic in the main town that provides two days a week and weekend service with free medicine for not only our municipality, but the surrounding one’s as well (Some 30,000 people). They average 35-40 consultations a day, charge 3 dollars a consult, and the prescribed medicine comes free (general medicine and dentistry…the doctors are really good guys).

Let’s see, we are trying to raise another $200 to reach the goal of $400 dollars to buy a megaphone to post at the top of a building in the middle of our canton(village). It is a really long (4-5km) town going down a ridge, so it’s hard to get announcements out for whatever reason, so we’ve decided that’s the best way to go. They are going to put in all the manual labor, and I have some leftover donation money, but that still leaves us 200 short (amplifier). This will be in coordination with the community event boards that are contemplated in the Community House fund on the website below.

Also, we are soliciting help supply paint and stuff for some local painters to do a map of the village at the entrance and to spiffy up the Community House with murals of cultural stuff, after we finish with the Peace Corps Partnership grant and repaint the thing!!! As far as the donations go to the partnership, HOLD ANYTHING you were going to donate! Supposedly as of today we have filled the cuota, but I can't verify til Monday. VERY EXCITING, if you were going to donate and haven't got around to it, wait a few weeks, we have a few things that will be coming up.

In other news, our Patron Festivals of Santo Domingo (Saint Dominic of Guzman) for my community are coming up in the first week of August. Preparations are ongoing…very exciting.
On a darker note, we had some deaths in the community, back to back actually. One was my counterpart’s mom and one was my neighbor’s grandson. Very sad. The photo will be my last words on that.

On a closing note, I have been coordinating with the scholarship committee to give the high school students tests on deciphering their career path/vocations. The exams took FOREVER to grade and put in order, but then we gave the results and now we are going to invite a group of professionals for a type of career day to talk with them all so that they can make educated decisions and all that jazz for careers. I hope it all pays off.

July 4 went well and we had our Peace Corps soccer tournament where my program had a very strong showing. The little house where we stay when we are in the capital, not for Peace Corps, then threw us a very nice little hamburger hot dog party that was SUPER tasty.
So yeah, that’s what I got right now, kind of here and there, but a little bit of info on everything.

“I have said it already, I am convinced that the way to build a new and better world is not capitalism. Capitalism leads us straight to hell.”

Hugo Chavez

Making the new entrance to the store next door

The other part of the entrance

The Mass where all of the Diocese came to San Pedro to celebrate the end of the Year of St. Paul

People in the street

Our doctor at the Parish Clinic

A patient of the dentist at the parish clinic, haha

Our pharmacy

People waiting.

We had an awards ceremony for the important donors and contributors to our scholarship program here.... This is Aaron´s, the previous PC Volunteer, parents receiving a painting by one of our scholarship students

Aaron receiving a plaque from of our scholars

The honorees left to right, Linda Redman, Aaron Redman, Charles Redman, Tony Gasbarro (Project Salvador), Sergio Orellana (Mayor), Padre Tino, Mirna de Barillas (board member).

Honduras, Coup or Justice?

2009-07-08T16:10:00.000-07:00

July 6, 2009

Lots of crazy things to talk about, so let’s just start one at a time. About a month ago, Mauricio Funes, the first “leftist” elected to the presidency of El Salvador, became President. Everyone is very interested to see how it all works out, and how different of a government he will run from all the previous governments.

Also, in other political news, the whole Honduras “coup” is and has been ALL over the news here since it happened. It has really hit home here, because in a military that is traditionally conservative and a leader elected who is liberal, there is a latent fear of something similar here. To me, this has all been VERY interesting to see how the media plays it, as well as the US. For those of you who haven’t stayed upon it, here is a quick recap. Now former President of Honduras, Miguel Zelaya, will end his term in office this January. The Honduran Constitution, as do many Latin American Constitutions, limits the terms that a President can be reelected due to the recent history these countries have with military dictatorships; one person who slowly acquires all/majority power in a country, as Chavez is doing at the moment. Former President Zelaya decided that he wanted to change the Constitution, so he asked the Honduran Congress support him in a ballot to call a Constitutional Assembly, to rewrite the Constitution so that a president could be reelected (ring any bells there, Chavez). He then wanted to hold the referendum himself with the military, but the Supreme Court ruled it illegal according to the Constitution. Both said it was illegal, even his own party who later called for an investigation into his mental fitness, so he turned to the military to get help in the referendum to put on himself. The head of the military said no as well, so….he fired him. In the end the Supreme Court ordered the General’s reinstatement and the Attorney General ordered the confiscation of the ballots sent from, you guessed it, Venezuela. The Attorney General also said that he would issue an arrest warrant for anyone who continued the illegal ballot. Zelaya then supposedly organized the break in of the air force base where the Venezuelan ballots were housed of the said referendum. End of the story, the Attorney General eventually issued the warrant for the arrest of Presidente Zelaya and it was signed by the Supreme Court. The Court sent the military to remove him from office, and then sent him to Costa Rica. None were hurt in the process. The arrest warrant was based on “acting against the government, treason, abuse of authority, and usurpation of power.”

http://www.libertaddigital.com/documentos/orden-de-captura-de-la-fiscalia-17057381.html

There are articles roaming around as well that the Honduran confiscated from him were modified to the point that it would have allowed him to stay in power with the making of the new Constitution all at once. They say that this was why the government acted so quickly to arrest him. But once again, nothing concrete as of yet on that account.

The Congress then appointed the next in line, President of Congress (the Vice had already resigned in 2008), member of the same liberal party as the ex-president, as President.
Here comes my personal opinion in a few words, what a TRAGEDY, for the Latin American people. Honduras had a primetime chance to legally remove a President from power who wanted to defy the Constitution and remain in power without the assent of the rest of the ELECTED/CONSTITUTIONAL government. And, Congress and the Court blew it. They were so concerned with keeping the peace after his arrest, that they sent him to Costa Rica, and that’s when the arrest basically turned into to a coup/kidnapping in the eyes of the international community. The government says they did it to keep down the bloodshed, but they didn’t think out the consequences fully of sending a citizen out of the country. For this reason this is a tragedy, the Congress should have removed him in due time and due process, however difficult because of his actions, and proved to the world that Democracy can work in the face of Presidents who don’t want to heed the law they are sworn to protect. The tragedy is that they had correct motive and faulty procedure. Reading en El Heraldo, one of Honduras’ newspapers, and listening to many commentaries in El Salvador, public sentiment seems to be pretty much in line with what I just described….ok maybe they didn’t use the word tragedy, but seeing it basically like I said.

That being said, was this a coup as many “leftist” Latin American Presidents are calling it? Here is the supremely erudite definition of coup d'état from Dictionary.com:

“The sudden overthrow of a government by a usually small group of persons in or previously in positions of authority.”

In reading the actual definitions, in the basic, generalized sense, I think it has to be admitted that it there was a forced change of EXECUTIVE, but not of STATE, and up until the final sending to Costa Rica, it complied with Honduran law. So, the branch of the government with the power to remove the president, stayed intact, as well as the Supreme Court. Was the change affected by a small group? Nope, everyone but the president and his guards participated. Was it performed by a group by a group that previously held power? Nope. Was it sudden? Well this whole controversy started months ago with the Congress and the Supreme Court ruling against it, so I’d say no. Was the political catalyst a force already in a position of less power? Here is a Yes, but they were ELECTED, so we are now talking IMPEACHMENT and not a COUP….Bill Clinton anyone?

I hope in the end that the Constitution is upheld in Honduras and that they hold out until the people elect their new president in November as was originally intended. This story is huge all over Latin America, because it is a litmus test for how future governments will put up with power hungry executives, and how a country can follow its Constitution and fight off the sanctions of the international community at the same time. If only he’d gone to jail instead of Costa Rica.

Check out a decent article here from the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623220955866301.html

This ended up being much longer than I expected….I’ll post on the rest of my stuff here with my life in the next few days.

Thanks to all who have donated to our Community House fund, WE ARE ALMOST THERE!!!! Let’s finish it off so that we can start repairing!!!
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=519-124

"Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed."

From the interesting Legislator of Arizona, Barry Goldwater

Peace Corps Partnership Grant, NEED YOUR HELP!!!

2009-06-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

The Peace Corps Partnership Fund has accepted my community's proposal to renovate the community house. I have mentioned a few times that this was in process and that I would let everyone know when it was accepted, and now it has been! The community house has survived high magnitude earthquakes and torrential rains for more than 2o years but the roof no longer will hold out. The center is usuable in the dry season, but the other half of the year, it is not. So this project has contemplated in it everything from repairing the roof to painting it and buying chairs and tables for the community to use, as well as community announcement boards that I am very excited about.

The way the Partnership fund works is that Peace Corps publishes our project online, and lets everyone who wants to donate to it do so (tax deductibly). When the total has been reached, they send us a single check to execute the project.

You can find the Partnership page here:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=519-124

Or, you can go to www.peacecorps.gov, go to the donations tab, then "volunteer projects", and then search my project by Homestate:SC or country: El Salvador.

If you know any friends or families or collegues that might have interest in helping out, feel free to mention the link to them. With a bunch of families donating a lot or a little, I feel confident that we will reach the goal and finish the project.

"Many hands make light work"

New Government and Random Stories

2009-06-01T12:40:00.000-07:00

May 28, 2009

Well, things are always nice to start with a positive story. The neighbors family have an unproportionally large amount of birthdays in May, so they try and make a trip to the beach (40 miles…maybe) in that month once every two years or so. So everyone piled into an orange truck and we headed out to Las Puntillas. It’s the point of a little harbor basically. We went crabbing again with hoes and machetes…..I found 5 this time, so I’m getting better at digging holes in the mud, haha.

The 6th of May we had three more eye surgeries, all cataracts done by FUDEM, the eye NGO here, and they are mostly a success. One old person says she has more headaches, and another that his eye waters up a lot, and third says life is good, so I’d say it was a success, haha. That same day I headed out to the National School of Agriculture for our last Peace Corps training for my group. It wasn’t near as good as the last one, but I made a nice find with an NGO there called CARE that might work in water projects so, we’ll see how it turns out.
Habitat for Humanity came out to my site and we did some house by house publicity. They brought out the megaphone mounted on a truck, and about 5 people so we started handed out all their info. They basically work on building new houses or repairing the ones people have by giving credit at a lower rate than the banks. Not as exciting as I thought they would be at first, but they do what they can. We then went through San Pedro doing the same thing. Wahoo, :)
Later in the week Water, Trees, and People, the NGO collaborating on the stove project, sent a US representative to El Sal, who decided to drop by and visit the project here in San Pedro Nonualco. That went well, and she got to meet a bunch of the families and all that jazz.
Oh yeah, we ended up making it into the final tournament in the last spot (8th) for soccer. Which means we had to take on the number 1 team in the first round. We tied 0-0 in regulation and then won in penalty kicks. I pretty much helped in no way that game. No worries though, we played a much bigger and more physical team the next Sunday and got beat 4-0. I got there late, so I couldn’t play….my alarm didn’t go OFFFF.
Also in a proud moment, I would like to announce the completion of my porch closing in deal (except for doors). Don Raul and I finished that up, and I feel like a real skilled mason now.
Check out the pics.

Almost forgot, the mayor has now officially changed here, so this month has been me getting used to the new personnel, manner of work, and all that jazz. Work continues. This Monday the Presidency will change hands for the first time a leftist party in the history of the democracy, so everyone is interested to see how it works out. I have hopes and fears. Only time will tell.
A random note, I think I have heard on the bus a remake of the George Micheal? Careless Whisper song by some rock group. I don’t know if it’s not bad or just me liking some with a little bit of an American rhythm.

Everyone is planting their corn farms and bean “gardens” here now that the rain is here and things won’t dry up. An exciting time for all.

In random news things I’ve seen. I saw that the California Supreme Court upheld the gay marriage ban recently approved by voters. The vote was 6-1 if I’m not mistaken. Anyone want to know which of the 7 California justices was being considered for the US Supreme Court? Let’s see, ah yes, Notre Dame, seems like that’s just a giant cluster. What were they thinking. I saw a video where they were arresting priests on Notre Dame’s campus? Sounds to me like Notre Dame (administration) acted without thinking it through and then felt too deep to pull out. I guarantee they will think twice before giving an honorary degree to someone who is the leading figure in the fight against the Church in the realm of the most pressing moral issue of the day. For some reason, when I see the arresting of old priests at a Catholic school, it reminded me of the scenes in the third new Star Wars movie where the emperor, gives the command for the clones to turncoat on all the Jedi and shoot them in the back. Oh well, who knows why it came to mind. On the Pro-Obama side though, I got a chance to glance at his “Terminations, Reductions, and Savings” document for the 2010 budget and it’s impressive. Reducing funding by $17 billion to govt programs isn’t an easy task without making quite a few people, I’d imagine influential people, somewhat angry. What he is eliminating and reducing is of less importance to me at this point, more the fact that they are making tough decisions to bring part of the budget to more order while admitting that they will be spending more money in the next few years than any administration in the history of our nation. Whether that parts a good or bad thing, I’m not sure yet. Hmmmm what else, ah yes, saw where a Catholic priest got caught with a chick at the beach, and decided to change over to Episcopal church to be with her and so as keep his job as a pastor. It was on the front page here in El Salvador a few days ago too. I couldn’t help but get a kick out of the comments to the articles online about this. There were praising the Episcopal church for having been the recipient of a few renounced Catholic clergy over the past decades, even some that are serving as their bishops now. Ummmm….roight.…. And you wonder why the Episcopal church has so many problems nowadays with defining moral teachings? I have no idea why that might be. They also might want to check the recent entrance rate into the Catholic Church from the Anglican Communion and Episcopal side. Canterbury is the biggest Catholic promoter nowadays :)

Finally, I was awoken last night by the tremors of a 7.1 earthquake off the coast of Honduras. It was kind of cool, but probably the strongest tremors I’ve felt here yet. Everything was swaying right to left, over and over. I walked outside in time to see some lights being cut on in neighboring houses. Crazy stuff.

Projects continue advancing here, more on that soon.

I finished Orthodoxy and there are a plethora of thoughts I’d like to put down, but here are just a few.

“The last chapter has been concerned with the contention that orthodoxy is not only (as is often urged) the only safe guardian of morality or order, but is also the only logical guardian of liberty, innovation and advance. If we wish to pull down the prosperous oppressor we cannot do it with the new doctrine of human perfectibility; we can do it with the old doctrine of Original Sin. If we want to uproot inherent cruelties or lift up lost populations we cannot do it with the scientific theory that matter precedes mind; we can do it with the supernatural theory that mind precedes matter. If we wish specially to awaken people to social vigilance and tireless pursuit of practice, we cannot help it much by insisting on the Immanent God and the Inner Light: for these are at best reasons for contentment; we can help it much by insisting on the transcendent God and the flying and escaping gleam; for these are at best reasons contentment; we can help it much by insisting on the transcendent God and the flying and escaping gleam; for that means divine discontent. If we wish particularly to assert the idea of a generous balance against that of a dreadful autocracy we shall instinctively be Trinitarian rather than Unitarian. If we desire European civilization to be a raid and a rescue, we shall insist rather that souls are in real peril than that their peril is ultimately unreal. And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified, we shall rather wish to think that a veritable God was crucified, rather than a mere sage or hero. Above all, if we wish to protect the poor we shall be in favour of fixed rules and clear dogmas. The rules of a club are occasionally in favour of the poor member. The drift of a club is always in favour of the rich one.”

Orthodoxy, p. 148

A group called PICO, based in California, a grass roots community organization NGO, has started working with the parish here, and talking about the fact the everyone has certain rights, the guy said something that caught my eye in an effort to get people to think how to make good on their rights as well becoming involved to help make their rights a reality:

“All people have rights, but they also all have obligations.”

Delivering stove materials in the trash truck to a neighboring community.

BRICKS!

The driver of City Hall giving all you guys a thumbs up while tying up some barrils of molasses for the stoves.

The second part of the visit of Trees, Water, and People was visiting with the families where I actually live that have had the stoves for almost two years to evaluate their experiences.

The first part of the visit of the US NGO was to train the new families on how to use the stove and for the US representative to see how the project was moving along.

The lesson.

These ladies and gentlemen are the new City Council members for San Pedro Nonualco.

This is the new Mayor of San Pedro Nonualco, Mr. Sergio Orellana, seen here giving his acceptance speech and work plan for this term.

The exchange of the baton/scepter of the city, the symbol of power in the municipality held by each mayor (alcalde)

The previous Mayor, Mr. Guillermo Garcia, giving his speech while addressing the new government seated in the background.

This is sad that the pictures will be backwards, but.... oh well. This blogger continues to not let me move the pictures. Here is my new wall deal on my back porch that Don Raul and I did. Eventually will doors, it will keep the skanky ducks out that keep pooing ALL over my porch, hah.

Getting there.

Almost halfway.

Starting.

The trip to the beach.... we crossed over to these islands to go crabbing. This everyone washing up after having gotten all muddy.

Thats the neighbor Mauricio and a hoe and a hole....and somewhere in the future, a crab... which will in the immediate future be in a soup.

Having a good laugh watching Francisco try and fit in the life jacket.

Nina Delfina and Alex, basically my fam in the main town, working day by day on the computers.

Earth Day Art, HIV, and a Charlie Horse

2009-04-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

SO, I don't know what has happened to blogger, but its not letting me move pictures anymore, so until I figure out why, we'll have to deal with pictures all at once at the end of the post.

April 25, 2009

So Holy Week and Easter Week are over and things are starting to get back to normal. The twins turned two, so there was a little bit of festivity there. They are starting to sprout up and are trying to talk a lot. Check out a few pics.

These past few weeks the wood saving stove project has started to pick up steam. We started with the community furthest out, and knocked it out by turning over to all the families the materials. I brought Francisco along to help the crew of the trash truck and me to deliver the stuff. It was a lot of work, and a long bumpy ride, but with much success. The technician is coming this week to start building out there.

A few days ago, we knocked out two other communities, La Carbonera and San Juan Nahuistepeque, we are just waiting on the iron griddle like parts to get done at the NGO. I feel like that is going to be the holdup for this project. But that is the biggest problem, and at the same time best lesson for a Peace Corps Volunteer….we bring nothing to the table as far as resources go, so we have to organize really well, and keep on people, or things never get done. I’ve found that things get done better by just making friends with everyone, rather than relying on the fact that we are “Cuerpo de Paz” (Peace Corps), haha.

Oh man, normally, I omit all the things that go wrong in the projects, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the latest clownage. I borrowed a metal barrel from someone to bring molasses for the stoves, and didn’t know that the bottom wasn’t welded well to the top part. Well, that led to about 30 galones ($20) of molasses leaking out on the way back from the Sugar Factory. It was ALL over the Mayor’s Office’s truck and the front of the Mayors Office and everything. And there wasn’t any water to wash the stuff with. It was a terrible evening, haha. Now that I think about it, I think City Hall might be a better translation for Alcaldia….anyways, fun stuff.
In other news, one of the students of the rural school of San Juan Nahuistepeque in our municipality won second place in the country in a drawing contest put on by the Embassy and Peace Corps. So the country director and my boss and other people came to do a little ceremony in Celebration of Earth Day.

We also put on a big deal HIV/AIDS event here in La Comunidad in the Casa Comunal. I tried to stay more in the background and let the Health Committee and Isabel the community health promoter do the majority, and it actually turned out pretty well. We invited the head of the Infectology(?) dept. in the major hospital in the capital to do a talk on the history and current indices in the country, the parish priest to talk about prevention from a religious perspective, the head of Rural Health and Sanitation in Peace Corps to talk about its Biology, I put together a social drama with a youth group, and at the end CARITAS brought in a Testimony. I’d say we had close to 100 people there. Although at least half was a captive audience because we had a sign up sheet that we turned into the schools that had given permission for their students to attend.

Oh yeah, thanks to a donation from a group in Utah, we’ve been able to supply a school with a floor and electricity for what will now be its Computer Classroom. Through the same group we’ve also been able to supply the medical clinic and another school with their first computers. There is a third laptop, but I am looking for a hard drive to fix it with.

Finally, here in my home Canton, we have finished our internal study and pricings, land permissions, etc, to starting fix the potable water system. We will now start soliciting embassies, NGOs, and anything else that moves, hahaha.

Good times.

As much as I wanted to quote some of G.K. and his interesting take on tradition and democracy, I’m satisfied with this quote.

“Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.”

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 47

The guys joking after seeing my leg.

my leg.

The escaped crab that showed up in my refri.

What I saw when I opened up my fridge.

Our Testimony at the AIDS deal.

The kids watching our drama by the youth group.

Our play, supposedly a scene from a local bus.

The mayor giving a few words.

(left ot right) Dr. Cedillos from Hospital Rosales, Mrs. Mari from CARITAS El Salvador, Mauricio Juarez President of ADESCO, Prof. Guillermo Garcia Mayor of San Pedro, Isabel Urias Health Promoter, Father Tino Parish Priest

Padre Tino doing what he does.

An activity led by Isabel.

The only pic that came out with me in it. In this activity we put on a song and had a bunch of kids mix what looked like cups of water. At the end we had a surprise AIDS test in each cup and in the cups that had vinegar, and not water, showed up tainted. Only the kids that we had told beforehand not to mix no matter what came out without AIDS. Fun stuff.

Dr. Cedillos giving his datum.

Bri, one of the Peace Corps bosses, doing the biology of HIV/AIDS.

our chain gang of unloading materials in the community furthest away

Some of the things we left.

A pic with the hermita within reach.

I was the one always covered in molasses.

Molasses

Pour it all in. On this trip I brought along Francisco to help and take some pics.

This was one of the fruit baskets made by the school that won the art deal.

Our country director giving the gift and some words of encouragement.

My boss giving a few words.

The truck that brought tubes for the stoves and bricks for the computer room at the school.

The kids at the ceremony.

The table of honor. Wahoo.

The scene for Earth Day beforehand.

The twins next door trying to blow out their candles.

Yummy.

Holy Friday

2009-04-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

Check out some pics from Stations of the Cross here in San Pedro Nonualco. They have them on Main Street and its actually kind of cool because they are carrying a float with Jesus on it and at the Stations where Mary or John or whoever come into play they have another float with that person on it come in and then follow the Jesus Float. There is also a tradition here in Central America to make the stations with a colored sand and clay, its kind of cool. There are a few pictured here working from the end back to the beginning.

A brotherhood reenacting the crucifixion.
Coming up to the parish church in procession.

From a distance.

The float.

from a distance.

Video of the start.

The procession.

The painting "pure love" done by the high school students on the road.

Sand painting.

Another Sand Painting.

Started putting the white painting on the church.

Semana Santa (Holy Week!)

2009-04-06T09:53:00.000-07:00

So, this program is being dumb and wont let me move things down, so, we will have to deal with it like this til I can fix it later. The pictures at the top here are meants for the later parts of the post... haha... good luck.

Don Raul with his granddaughter at the beach. I put the orange peel on her head... its supposed to be a crown
They said I should do my hair like that everyday....whatever.

Our creation at the beach to protect the hole in the top middle that had fish in it.

The artists.

Always gotta get some cards going.

The bishops at the burial with the Franciscans in the background.

Padre Max.

The Facade with the first coat of paint on the day of the funeral.

Top of the volcano.

The crater of the volcano Santa Ana.

A pic I took above my head while walking.

Two other volcanos.

The burial chamber in front of the altar where they buried Padre Max.

A different view.

The New meets the Old.

The next wall that is to be started.

April 6, 2009

The moliendas... where they juice the sugar canes.

taste tests!

The steam geyser.

The pools they are building.

Let’s see, March. I went with some members of my community a few weeks ago to “el infernillo”… “the little hell”. It’s a small ravine on the side of the volcano where a stream passes over a heat vent, leading to a strong shoots of water vapor shooting out of the ground and lots of sulfur. When there is more water in the rainy season it forms pools of warm water, but right now its pretty dry above ground. They are building a little tourism dilly there to catch the water and make thermal pools, should turn out interesting.

After, we passed by the sugar cane grinder deals in the country and got to taste the sugary substance that bubbles to the top, very tasty.

About a week ago Mauricio, the neighbor, and I decided to go hunting for crabs and fishies in the streams close while going swimming in the different places where the water is deep enough to frollick in. I lost my machete as we were on our way back at night time and it fell out, couldn’t find it the days after either. I think we are going to go this evening to crab and fish in the night time.

Gin Rummy in the middle of nowhere.

Here are some pics of the progress on the church reconstruction. They were stalled a while without funds, but now got the paint donated so are back at work. I’ve also started taking pics of the wall that they have in mind to start next so that we can send out some grant proposals.
Next, ah yes, I had an awesome time going out to climb the Santa Ana Volcano. It’s the tallest volcano in country, and just erupted in 2005. They have had it closed off since then and have just now reopened it. We have a volcanologist as a volunteer out there working with the El Sal gov who was our guide and all that jazz. That’s the first time I’ve seen something like that….talking about the crater. I mean one wrong step and its weeeeeee 2000 feet down to the superheated acid lake in the middle. We took a pic as a group at the top, but they haven’t sent them out yet, so oh well.

Video from on top of the crater, and a snippet of the Crater Lake Coatepeque.

When I got back from that, I arrived in time for what would be the equivalent of a wake for us, but for the Italian Franciscan priest that evangelized 30 some years in San Pedro Nonualco. A group of Franciscans came in the early 20th century here to the region and evangelized this area. Padre Maximiliano spent some 32 years in San Pedro and then was moved to another place close at the end of his life. He had asked to be buried in the San Pedro parish church when he died, so the parish honored that request upon his death. Here are some pics from the wake and then funeral. He was a very honored and respected person in the region for his humility. 2 bishops came, and a large group of monks from the Franciscan order, and a large group of the diocesian pastors were there in support. There were tons and tons of people, and even the small groups of evangelicals were showing up at the Mass.

Seeing as yesterday was Palm Sunday, now Semana Santa (Holy Week) has started here and the majority of the people are on vacation, especially the govt. There are processions and confessions and Masses all week and seeing how I wasn’t here last year to check it all out, I am excited to see how it goes this year.

Oh yeah, this past weekend I went with all the host fam to the beach to go fishing with cast nets and all and hang out. It was a nice relaxing time. The kids and I built a large sand “thing” that was supposed to not let the water get in, but we had to leave before we saw how many waves it took to knock it down, haha.

Finally, the stove project continues to move along, with the recent vacations and deaths and stuff we still haven’t been able to send out the materials, but the week after holy week we are going to start again. We have the funding necessary and all that jazz soo… wahoo. Also, we have finished measuring everything we need to fix our potable water system now, and only need the land permissions and prices. I have priced the pvc in the US, so I have an idea, but we need to find out here. Once we have all that it will be time to go knocking on doors at different institutions.
The last project I am looking to do here is probably one of the most important (and within reach), it is to fix up the casa comunal (community house) so that it isn’t useless in the rainy season. The roof is going on 20 years old (and we aren’t talking shingles, haha) and they need to fix up the outhouse, need some chairs and tables, and a board to put community announcements would be key. I am finishing up the paperwork on all that too with the Development Committee, and hope to have it up on the Peace Corps Partnership site soon (http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors).

I finished the book On Being Catholic and have also finished El Alquimista (The Alchemist) in Spanish. Both were edifying, but the Alchemist was actually a really thought provoking book, if it exists in English you should check it out. It’s by Paulo Coelho and it’s about discovering the meaning of life haha.

“Los alquimistas hacen esto. Muestran que cuando buscamos ser mejores de lo que somos, todo a nuestro alrededor se vuelve mejor también.”

“The alchemists do this. They show that when we try to be better than what we are, all our surroundings end up better as well.”

El Alquimista p. 185

2009-03-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

March 13, 2009

Got time for a few pics from the Mayan Ceremonial Caves we visited (Actun Tunichil Muknal), the ruins in the jungle at Tikal, and where we ate breakfast this morning on the island.

Outside the entrance to the cave. We were inside 2 and half hours, about 600 ft below ground.

Its ok Jerome.

The last hiker that didn't make it out.....hah, old sacrificial victim supposedly.

You can barely see me below.

Jerome on top of one of the temples looking out at the others that are poking out of the jungle.
25 for Guatemalans and 150 for foreigners.... hmmmmmm.

The motto of the island we are at.

The view from where we had bfast this morning.

Putting my best side forward.

New Latrine!!!

2009-03-03T13:22:00.000-08:00

March 3, 2009

So, yeah yeah I’ve been a slacker on this thing, but you guys should be glad…. That means that I am out working somewhere else instead of always at the computer, haha.

The past few weeks there have been a few things going on. First, I was translating for a week in San Juan Nonualco for Habitat for Humanity. There was a group of 11 Queen’s University students from Canada that came down to build a house. They were a good group of guys and girls. I am still trying to bring Habitat out to my site to build some houses, so keep your fingers crossed. Speaking of fingers crossed, have you have seen Hispanic baseball players cross themselves before or after doing something and then kiss their hand? Ever wondered why? I just learned that it’s because they are making the form of a cross with their thumb crossing over their pointer finger. Get right out of town, I never knew that.

The university group from Canada.

Anyways, also we had the scholarship ceremony for our 5 University scholars with representatives from Peace Corps, the US Embassy, the municipality, and the Church all participating in honoring the students. The five are now on their way to their degree.
I also attended the High School graduation here a few days ago. It starts with a Mass and then moves in procession to the graduation ceremony in the High School. That was nice too, check out some pics.

The graduation ceremony almost starting.

Mauricio (brother of Fran), Dona Amalia (mom of Fran), Francisco, and Manuel (uncle of Fran)

The stove project continues, piece by piece it is falling into place. Some communities are ahead of others in the process, but they are well on their way.

Finally, Don Raul and I have finished my new latrine/outhouse. It is stellar, much more stable than the previous….much less chance of people falling in. It is about 3.5 meters deep, which made it interesting for going in and out.

More or less beginning.

Different Angle.

Deeper.

Uh oh...

Oh ok, whew.

Higher.

For some reason this pic just makes me smile.

"Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in
peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of
winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you
are certain in every battle to be in peril."

-Master Sun

Eye Surgeries with FUDEM!!!

2009-02-08T08:19:00.000-08:00

February 3, 2009

I can’t think of too much to talk about as of late, just two things. First, is that I assisted our 3rd and 4th surgeries for the people who have eye problems. The first two I didn’t actually accompany through the whole thing, but since these two were for my neighbors I went with them for emotional support haha. I have been working with this group of people since the beginning of the year 2008, and now we are here a year later with the surgeries, wahoooo. I wasn’t sure it was going to happen, but it did. The mayor’s office has helped out with transport to the capital and FUDEM has been very generous in helping out the people with little money for the operations.

One of the two had already entered into surgery and the second one is here waiting with the family.

Lightening the mood a bit by putting on the guy's hat who had already went in.

The second thing is that my birthday went by and it was actually pretty fun. We had one party in the main town where I do my internet work, and another (which was supposed to be a surprise) a few days later with my ADESCO. Fun stuff.

Alex and Nina Delfina made me a banner when we celebrated my bday in their house (where I do internet work) with hamburgers and hot dogs

very scary.

yummy.

Celebrating in the canton with the ADESCO.

We miraculously won another basketball game this past Saturday (I’m still trying to get a pic of our team up here) and we lost another close soccer game Sunday.

Ok, so I was late in posting this so, I now have a few things more to add before the end. The Scholarship committee that I am part of here in San Pedro Nonualco has chosen its 5 University Scholars for this year. We finished the selection process and held a meeting with the winners and their parents this week, the students are very excited. The San Pedro Nonualco Scholarship Committee started the year before I got here with the previous volunteer and a small group of teachers, directors, etc. They are all volunteers on the committee, which originally served to scholarship kids to high school. Now, the government is paying for high school, so the committee is focusing more and more on University scholarships. All the money that supports these very, very able students comes in from the US and Canada. Take a look at the San Pedro University Scholars 2009. There are three that will major in Math, one in Medicine, and one in English.

Our University Scholars.

Finally, the festivals of “The Sweet Name of Jesus” have finished once again, which means that the pilgrimage has come and gone. I did it again, this time knowing a few more people, so, that and the fact that I knew what to expect helped it to go by quicker. We left from San Pedro at 3am, got to the reunion point with the group from even further away, and from there left at 530am and did it in under 6 hours this time. Fun stuff.

Waiting in the streets at 5 in the morn for the arrivals of Kid Jesus.

Part of the group I was with.

The gringo.

(we consider that word to have bad connotations, but the rest of the Latin world just uses it as meaning American haha.)

passing by a waterfall.

Part of the basketball team that I did the pilgrimmage with. (that guy stole my hat!)

Getting close to the end.

They also had different musical “artists” come through in those days in the main square, as well as a Cumbia group from Colombia. I forgot my camera those days though haha.
Check out the card table that my neighbor Mauricio and I made under a tree in between the two houses, hahaha. He found it about 15 minutes down the ridge and so we went and brought it back, along with other firewood. I tacked on the blanket that the planes give you from when I first got here, not too shabby.

The card table that my neighbor Mauricio and I made.

Also, I finally finished the then Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity, deep stuff. It took way too long to read, but there are a few things that it puts into perspective. In comparison, I read the Song of Roland (one of the oldest chanson de geste, so it is said) today in its entirety while in the hammock, haha. Charlemagne is the man, next to Roland of course :)

Roland and his horn.

“168

Count Roland realizes death is near:
His brains begin to ooze out through his ears.
He prays to God to summon all his peers,
And to the angel Gabriel Himself.
Eschewing blame, he takes the horn in hand
And in the other Durendal, his sword,
And farther than a crossbow fires a bolt,
Heads out across a fallow field toward Spain
And climbs a rise. Beneath two lovely trees
Stand four enormous marble monoliths.
Upon the green grass he has fallen backward
And fainted, for his death is near at hand.”

Song of Roland

(8th century oral tradition about the last days of Count Roland, nephew of Charlemagne, 12th century written ed.)

2009!

2009-01-20T15:29:00.000-08:00

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

US Christmas and Random Pics

2008-12-25T15:17:00.001-08:00

So I am in the States for a week for Christmas and it is a little colder than it was in El Salvador. Things are very tasty and I am enjoying all of the hot showers.

Here are some random pictures from the past few weeks before coming to the US.

A group of us at the AIDS conference preparing our presentations in San Miguel.

The road to the site where we were going to give our presentation was pretty bad, one of my group got sick.

The community house where we gave our presentation to a group of young and old alike.

A random pic of the bus that leaves my community everyday.

The parts of the stove project that I turn in to the families. All materials have been turned in to prepare for the models in the 6 different communities.
The very nice base that one family has constructed waiting to build the stove on top.

The view from our farthest out community, Roble Virolenyo, is also participating in my fuel efficient and smoke free stove project.

A view of the volcano of my pueblo from the valley near the river where I went crabbing and fishing with some families from my community.

One family that I fished with.

Win, Lose, and Rain

2008-12-12T13:10:00.001-08:00

December 12, 2008 (pictures incoming)

Sunny with a few showers.

Haha… Just random frustrating obstacles that have crept up are erking some of my projects.

The first of which has been my computer. The machine itself is fine, but a laptop is worthless if you can’t charge it J The charger has been out a few weeks and has put a hold on some of my work here….and the blog….sorry fam. More on that later.

So let’s see. Since Thanksgiving I have been focusing in on the stove project and getting the models built. Yesterday, after helping take the municipal trash to the ‘dump,’ I went to the sugar mill and bought 27 gallons of molasses, the last ingredient I didn’t have, and today I went around in the municipal trash truck to all the cantons dishing out the stuff to the houses that are going to build the model stoves. The guys that helped me out are awesome guys…. I will have to go help them take out the trash more in the future. Now all the families have the part that I and the NGO have promised them, and I have to coordinate now to get the builder guy out to our town. That should be fun. I have to provide food and shelter for him til he gets them all built J I’ll cook, haha. I haven’t quite mastered the art of cooking beans and Salvadoran tortillas.
In other news, some more money came in for the church reconstruction project, so that was good. They are in a real bind right now here at the end of the second stage of building the façade and we are SOOOO close. Very frustrating, and I’m not even building the thing. From what I gather, they are about $8,000 from finishing the front. But little by little they will eventually get it all done.

My English classes move along, although sometimes I have to move the class times and move the weekday schedules around to fit around my main project emergencies, and I can see that it is frustrating some of the students, but…. what can I do? You can only volunteer so much of your time, hahaha.

Today, also, one of our scholarship collaborators/organizers from the Louisiana, Dr. Thomas Hymel, visited us, and hung out with me for the evening after our meeting with the scholarship students. He’s a real nice and laid back guy that is easy to chat with. He does a lot of good work for us/the San Pedro community. I hope he keeps doing so. He also brought me the charger that is sustaining my computer for the moment. My computer recognized it wasn’t my old one and won’t let it charge the battery, even though it seems to be the same power level as my dead one. So, looks like I will still have to get that new charger….I can’t decide on the versatile 65watt one that works in an airplane, car, or outlet, or the faster charging and better functioning 90 watter. Either way, I’ll order it soon to have it at the house when I get there.

Speaking of wonderful instruments of technology….my phone is reaching the limits of its existence and/or the limits of my patience level, haha. The battery doesn’t last a day, that was a given due to its age, but now it has a hard time getting signal everywhere and keeps cutting my calls short. I will remedy that while in the states as well hopefully.

My biggest problem right now with an ongoing project is a shortage in funds that the NGO that is my counterpart for my stove project. They have committed to about half the number of stoves (the parts they help out with) that I think people are going to want here in our municipality, after previously telling me earlier in the year there was no limit, so I am in the process of searching for possible sources to help out there. We’re talking approx. $3,500. I have one fund that I could occupy for like 1,500, but I am already collaborating on that fund to try and get our roof fixed on our community house and some other odds and ends there. I also had some problems getting affordable (free) exams (blood, urine, heart, HIV) for my people who need eye surgeries, especially with the electrocardiogram, but now of my first group I just have one lady who just needs the electrocardiogram, and then in January we can get the surgeries (hopefully). So we’ll see.

In visiting with Habitat for Humanity recently, I think there might be another opportunity there for us in the housing sector, so we’ll see how that works out in the next month. All projects will pretty much be put on hold in the beginning of January due to the elections of Mayor, in which I will be waiting to see if I will have the same mayor for the rest of my service, or if he will change….should be interesting.

It’s coming toward the end of the year, don’t forget the donate tab for all your write-offs and skymiles. All these projects come at some kind of cost, and the more I have to work with, the more I can help on these projects, and smaller ones that search me out from the families here.
I’m in basketball and soccer tournaments here. I play defense in the soccer games on Sundays and center in the basketball games on Saturdays. They play basketball every evening in the main town and it kills me that that I can never make it to play (and they rag me for it too). But such is life in the canton.

Just 10 days til the states. I bet its cold up there. Blast.

"Not to be encompassed by the greatest, but to let oneself be encompassed by the smallest--that is divine."

Holderlin in Hyperion, quoted in Introduction to Christianity by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

THANKSGIVING!!!

2008-11-28T16:03:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-22T10:45:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-04T09:45:00.000-08:00

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

Lago Coatepeque and a Trainee Visit

2008-10-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

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

Planning and Projects

2008-10-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

October 4, 2008

Ok, so it’s been about a week and change since I updated so, here goes for all you (5) people that just come rushing to this page every day to see if I have updated :). Also, I've kind of been slack about taking pictures at events these past few weeks, and I have forgotten the pics of the kids at the fiesta, but I will post those later... .words will have to suffice.

I went about a week ago to the cap to price our scholarship student trip out to the western part of the country where they have the Mayan ruins. There are two places that we have interest in taking the students. The first is called Joya de Cerén and is acclaimed to be the Pompeii of Latin America. They say that because they (archaeologists) were able to fill some of the holes left by the incinerated bodies and animals and dig down to even the rows of corn that were left covered in ash. Unfortunately though, I have been to Pompeii and there really isn’t much of a comparison. The scale to which we are talking is so much bigger in Pompeii as well as the fact that the site of Pompeii preserved an older and more sophisticated civilization that is more fun to check out. They are rebuilding the museum and I think that’s where they have all the nifty stuff from here at the Joya, so whenever they get that done it should improve the site a lot.
ANYWAYS, the next spot we are planning to visit is San Andrés, this place is a little more established and has a museum where they will take the kids on a tour, they have an indigo “device” from the Maya/Colonial era and they have a large main plaza with some of the bigger ruins intact. Apparently San Andrés (well not it’s named that at least, I doubt it was named St. Andrew at the time) was the center of the civilization in the valley and Joya de Cerén was one of the many outlying farming village.

The plan is then to eat lunch and then go by the Termos del Rio, a water park that seems pretty cool that they have out in Santa Ana. It’s more expensive, but we are getting some discounts and stuff since its school related, but that part still has to be finalized.

The morning of the last day I was in the capital my body started to hate me and I think I am just now pulling out of all that mess. So that factor plays in the background of all the rest to come. This same day I had to head out early because I had a meeting in the cantón of Roble. Roble is the Cantón farthest away from San Pedro Nonualco, but we had set the meeting for the fuel efficient stoves in the middle of it so I didn’t have to go as far though, and so that people would actually come, haha. They ended up bringing me a horse that I rode half the way up on, and then switched with my guide who went the rest of the way. The meeting actually went really well, even though I pretty much wanted to keel over for most of it….we had the shindig in the middle of the street, and I answered all the questions, etc etc, and then I got on the horse and headed back. This time I didn’t get off, haha. An hour and change later I got back to San Pedro where I had left my stuff at Alex and Niña Delfina’s house, where I do all my internet work. My stomach gave them a few surprises there, but eventually I made it back.

The majority of that has passed now and most of my work has been working in the different cantons organizing the powers to give presentations on everything in each community and then seeing how many families are going to be interested. We met in a school a few days ago in the last community and twenty five families signed up right afterwards. Yesterday, I brought representatives from all the ADESCOs to our Community building here in our canton to see and answer questions about the stoves, and thank God now that all that is over. We are looking right now at about 132 confirmed interested families and we haven’t even built the models in each community. That’s our next step, hopefully by the beginning of November we can start. From what we have priced, it’s looking like its going to be about $25 a family from start to finish and they all know that and still there is lots of interest, so we’ll see. I’m trying to find a way to lower that price still because there are some families that can’t afford it, but we’ll see what comes through.

In other non-stove news, I visited with the other medical dispensary that we have restarted up in one of the “kid days” and it seems to be moving along really well. Every Wednesday that invite mom’s (or dad’s, but they are usually working) and their kids to come and receive a talk on a certain health related topic, and in the process they weigh all the kids and give them a little nutritious meal. This time the health promoter from the main town had come in to give the talk and a Japanese nutrionist (from a program similar to Peace Corps…but Japanese…JICA) did consultations with the moms.

The health promoter talking with the moms

The JICA nutritionist giving consultations

Oh, almost forgot. Peace Corps brought out the new Agroforestry/Environmental Education group to my site a few days ago to get an idea of life here and I got to teach how to plant live barriers. Luckily I remembered how to build the A-level thingamabob or I would have felt like an ignant. My boss and one of the ag engineers came out too to check things out too, so it was a lovely time, until it rained on us. They have a good group and I think I heard of a few master’s degrees as well so, they will do fine.

Finally, today I went with the kids of the CBI, basically a daycare for kids who aren’t of age for kinder that the government has here and that is administered by my ADESCO, to a gathering for the whole department that the government put on. It was nifty, there are only two CBIs in San Pedro Nonualco, one in the main town, and one in my community. So it was about 50 kids under the age of 5, haha, craziness. It was held at another “complejo” school, one like that school that I went with Juan for the math competition, but this time government and not parish run. It was actually interesting because it was a Sports Complejo….they focus on development through sports…..anyways, there were a ton of kids there and now I have blisters on my hands from pulling the string on too many piñatas up and down all morning.

This week coming up proves to be a long one. I will be heading out to Santa Ana to prepare for our year anniversary party on the lake that we are throwing, haha (yes our group is crazy) and then when I get back there will be a volunteer in training that is going to come out to my site to stay from Thursday to Sunday. Should prove interesting.

My health promoter ladies in La Comunidad cleaning up the wound of a neighbor who chopped off part of his big toe with a machete.

I can’t help but put in this Newsweek comment that appeared in the July 21 week as my quote to close this entry. There was an edition that came out in April that had articles on Pope Benedict XVI and this reader from South Africa pretty much nailed it on the head with his taking it to modern “thought”…. If you can call it that.

“Evaluating Pope Benedict

The author of ‘Why this Pope Doesn’t Connect’ (April 21/April 28) states that Benedict pales in comparison with his predecessor in a number of respect including ‘looks, vitality, charisma, showmanship, tenure and popular appeal.’ Is she referring to the head of the Roman Catholic Church or the lead in a high-school rock band? Surely these specific characteristics are of scant importance in a person leading the largest Christian denomination on the planet. She goes on to state that certain other elements make him unsuitable or unpopular as an ideal pope, including his unfortunate visage, his predilection for traditional papal fashion and the fact that he served as John Paul’s theological ‘enforcer.’ Again, one can only wonder why anyone would deem these features important in determining Benedict’s acceptance among Roman Catholic Christians. Surely his religious devotion, intelligence and peculiar application of church dogma would be of far greater interest. The article further opines that the Roman Church operates in a “chaotic world” and then ends by saying that American Catholics understand that they will not be satisfied in their desire for the church to change. It does leave one wondering whether the world would not be less chaotic if it was less American and more in line with church teaching.

Johan Marnewick

Johannesburg, South Africa”

Published in Newsweek, July 21, 2008, page 10.

El Salvadoran Independence Day

2008-09-20T15:25:00.000-07:00

September 20, 2008

Well not too much to report as of late, but I think it only appropriate to start out with one of my worst fears coming true. I’ve gotten used to just going to bed as of late, whereas as for the first few months I always checked my bed because of the ants that kept invading it in the beginning. I fixed that problem, but now I will be sure to start checking it again :)…..check out the pic…..

I spy.....

oh.... hello there.

come to bed my sweet...... ahahahahaha

Yeah, that little guy was waiting for me the other night. After a 15 chase around the room, I finally got tired of trying to spear him with my machete and just chopped him in half with a knife…..haha.

In other news, I have enjoyed the latest rash of remakes of US songs here. I thought that most of the 80s and some 90s songs they were remaking in Spanish, but turns out now they are redoing the Elvis songs too. They basically just steal the beat and change the words to rhyme in Spanish, but it’s pretty funny. Is that legal? Haha.

Also, we have started to hold meetings for the scholarships that we are going to give for the University for 2009 as the San Pedro Nonualco Scholarship Committee. There will be 5 scholarships given to students and residents of San Pedro in the amount of $1,000 a year given in disbursements of $100 a month. All of the money comes from donors in the United States and Canada. The scholarship committee started working with just High School students helping pay the tuition and costs, but now that the government has started paying the majority of that this year, we have been able to turn more of the focus on a level of education that the majority of them never thought possible to be able to attain. Slowly I think the committee will work its way to just focusing on the University scholarships if the government continues to pay for high school tuition. As always, anyone wishing to donate to giving students who have no chance at going to college without help, feel free to do so through the donate tab or email me if you would like a tax-deductible way to do so. The first meeting we held for just our town we had about 40 people show up with another 10 who told me they couldn’t be there but wanted to apply. I think we are planning on starting the selection process on December 1, 2008 and finishing up in time for me to head out to visit home for Christmas.

Hmmm…. Ah yes, I also finished my worm box the other day, a miniature model of what I saw up in Chalatenango (the northern province of El Sal) that time. Knowing my luck though, about 5 minutes after me and some of the neighbor kids finished cementing the floor of it, a storm came up with the hardest rain here I’ve seen in country all day and filled the plastic that I had covering it to the point that it sucked all the plastic into the cement and brick boxes and then proceeded to fill the two boxes. Life is good.

prepping the ground for my wormboxes, haha, i love that word

I forgot to take a pic until now of the process

finishing up cementing the bottom part

after it all filled up with water and prepared it like this so as not to turn into a "turtle pool" as everyone said it looked like, haha

In political news, the whole Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) and Evo Morales (Bolivia), with a little bit of Honduras, deal here has become pretty huge. Everyone (those who have access to media) is always interested to know what I think and if I have heard the latest updates. Commercials now are all over the place here on TV bashing Hugo Chavez and linking him to other leftist political parties here in country in an effort to gain advantages for the coming elections. Apparently, last night they showed a clip where Chavez was caught talking about the El Sal elections coming up and how that he hoped the left won because they are guerrillas. Anyways, it’s all getting really interesting down here, but from what I’ve heard from the US (and from reading online), it doesn’t seem to come up a ton. Same ole crazy world.

Finally, El Salvador celebrated its Independence Day on September 15 of this month, and it was all pretty cool. There is a Mass to start it all off in the morning and then all the schools gather in front of the mayor’s office for a little presentation and then they all line up (each one has a band and dancers….kinder to high school….it’s pretty amazing) and start to parade throughout the streets of the main town. Then each one swings back around to the main plaza in front of the office to do a final band hoorah, and then pass on to let the next one come in and be announced by the mayor. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Don Raul’s kid Francisco was directing the band of the high school so I was there to take pics of them a lot as well.

During the anthem here.

The middle schoolers as dancers for their group

The High Schoolers.

The kinder boys.... awesome.

The kinder ladies.

More high schoolers.

Almost forgot, I finished the Book of Mormon....whew. Now I kept Thomas More as a nice redirect afterwards, now I can get into that, but I haven't decided what next. More will be a challenge if I actually let it.

I saw First Knight with Sean Connery and Richard Gere last night on tv at the neighbors house and a dialogue caught my eye. Enjoy.

"Arthur: We have had our share of war. Now, I look forward to quieter days. But first, admit our guest.

- Malagant...- Malagant is here at my invitation.

Malagant: May I congratulate the King on his forthcoming marriage. I see my place hasn't been taken yet. I was first among your knights.

Arthur: You left of your own free will.

Malagant: We each of us must follow our own road.

Arthur: Where does your road take you? To Leonesse?

Malagant: Leonesse is my neighbour. I offeredthe lady a treaty of friendship.

Guinevere:- Is burning villages friendship?-

Malagant: Yes, My Lady...Your land is becoming lawless.Were you not just attacked?

Guinevere:- You know who attacked me.-

Malagant: I made it my business to know. Justice has been done.-

Guinevere: You know no law above yourself!

Arthur (reading): "Armed forces to be given access to all Leonesse." "Troops to assist in the enforcement of law... in all Leonesse."

Arthur to Guinevere:- Do you want to sign this?-

Guinevere: I'll never sign it.

Malagant: She's very brave...now she's to be married. Will Camelot protect Leonesse?-

Arthur: Is Leonesse in need of protection?

Malagant: Come. Arthur.I'm here to settle this business. Leonesse is too weak to stand alone. Let's say half each. The lesser gives way to the greater. What nation is greater than Camelot? The land of justice. Come... your hand on it. We'II all live together as friends.

Arthur: You offer mewhat isn't yours to give.

Malagant: You all know me.You know I'm a man of my word. Don't make an enemy of me. - I mean no harm to Camelot.-

Arthur: You know the law we live by. Where is it written. Beyond Camelot live lesser people? People too weak to protect themselves, let them die?

Malagant: Other people live by other laws.Or does your law rule the world?

Arthur: There are laws that enslave men. And laws that set them free. Either what we hold to be right and good and true is right and good and true for all mankind under God. or we're just a robber tribe.

Malagant: Your words are talking you out of peace and into war.

Arthur: There's a peace you only findafter war. If that battle must come. I will fight it!

- And I!- And I!

Malagant: The great Arthur...and his great dream. No dream lasts forever.

Lots of Projects

2008-09-11T14:28:00.000-07:00

September 5, 2008

Lots of programming for events and projects going on recently. We had a big to-do in the main town at the parish church this past week. It finally came to the point to hoist up the bells to the top of the façade. The story behind them is that a group of Franciscans came to the parish in the early 20th century and really solidified the place as a parish and in 1951 they had 4 bells made with the connections back in Italy and somehow got them over here and to the parish church in San Pedro Nonualco. It was said that you could hear the bells some days from quite a few municipalities over. In the earthquakes of 2001, the façade was critically damaged, so the parish brought them down in an emergency so as to save them if the façade came down in the aftershocks. The bells have been in storage since then….well, until this past Saturday. The parish sent out over 1200 envelopes to people all over the parish to get the funds to bring the hoist truck up to San Pedro Nonualco and everything came off as mostly a success. There were a few complications in the installation of the bells due to some size changes, but two were installed and rung and this week they are working on finishing up the other two.
Padre Tino told some funny stories of old people talking about how they had been sad the past years because they thought they were going to die before the bells ever got put back up. Now they said they can die happy because they know the bells will ring at the funeral mass. Tear.
For all you donors out there on the church reconstruction deal, you will be happy to know that your donations helped make that event happen. The facade should be done by the end of the year, wahoo!

Prep Work.

More Prep Work.

Padre Tino doing his baby thing with the bells. (the tiny bell hasn't been brought out yet.)

The St. Peter bell

What are they all looking at?

In other news, I invited as much of the community as I could this past Sunday to a meeting the Casa Comunal for information concerning trainings in different areas of agriculture. All morning it rained, and then the soccer game that I thought was for the morning was actually at the same time as the meeting, so I actually took out two chairs in the Casa Comunal… literally expecting that many people. But in the end some 15 showed up with a few who told me ahead of time they wanted to come but weren’t going to make it. The goal is to use some grant money that we almost have, haha, now that the meeting is over I can finish my part of the proposal, to go to the National University for Agriculture to take some lessons in grafting and other minor things. I hope it all works out.

Some of the members of ADESCOSAPEN, the parish volunteer group that heads of the church reconstruction.

lots of people.

a further back view

Finally, I held a meeting of all the ADESCOS (Community Development Associations) for the municipality to bring the stove project to more people, so that was fun. The guy in charge of the NGO gave his presentation on reforestation and these stoves that improve health, protect the environment, and cost the families less in firewood. Seeing how 80% of Central American families cook with wood burning stoves, I think this project could help a lot of families. Also, it should be good training exercises for the ADESCOs.

You can only see a few of the people, but there was actually representation from all cantones.

A foto of the stove we are promoting.

Work continues with the Medical Dispensary, Isabel is recouping from the death of her father and her and Consuelo are back in action. They have started a mosquito campaign starting with the water basins and are planning to fumigate now that they have supposedly killed the majority of the eggs for the next few months. That should be fun.

The group from all over the country that met in San Vicente the past week at our Project Design Seminar.

My group from San Pedro that attended the seminar.

Oh, almost forgot, I went with Juan Jose (Don Raul’s youngest) to Olocuilta, a city in my department of La Paz, where he participated in a Departmental Math Contest. He won his grade in the municipality and ended up getting third place in the Department…he’s really good at math, haha. We were reviewing the day before the stuff, and he was pretty quick with it all. I think he’ll get better as the years go by. The school that hosted it was a parochial school that is known as a “complejo” or complete school here. That just means that it has all grades…..1 through 12. Apparently it had some big donors from Spain from what I was reading….nice place. The more that I see get around this country, the more I see that Europe in the name of the EU and especially Spain, Germany, and Switzerland are super involved and invested here. Go them.

The school was really nice.

The baller himself

Juan Jose after having received his 3rd place in the Dept on stage.
agreed.... this tie is terrible!

As far as my eye deal goes, the first few people have completed their process with FUDEM and are getting their dates lined up for the surgeries, wahoo! Like I said before, if I get just one actually done and successful, I will be happy.

September 9, 2008

So I forgot that I had promised to go to a get together hoorah in El Tunco (the pig, haha), La Libertad at the beach, so that was fun, but I really didn’t want to go because it is going to make things financially this month. But, if I hadn’t have gone it would have raised the prices for the rest of the volunteers in my group, so….. oh well, it was all good. Apparently El Tunco and the beaches around it have like worldwide respect for its surfing. Few had enough money to rent a board but one of these days I am going to learn how J…..in a place that won’t kill me haha. Like I said though, it was good to get away for a day, we met some Brazilians, Israelis, Canadians, a large sea-turtle came up and we watched him lay his eggs (kind of), and we were told by some guards the next day that some thieves came up that night that we were there with machetes looking for some gringos that they heard were at the beach. Luckily the guards had guns, haha…. They said they shot at them and they ran off.
Always fun in El Salvador.

A pic of the place we were at.

Tomorrow I have to go to El Sal to meet with the Wood efficient stove guy, and then turn in this grant proposal at the office. In the evening I got to come back to San Pedro to dig my hole that I’m going to live in until the first of the month.

the new pups at Don Rauls
the mama tied up so she wont run off and leave the things

“Do not say, ‘It was the Lord’s doing that I fell away’; for he does not do what he hates. Do not say, ‘It was he who led me astray’; for he has no need of the sinful. The Lord hates all abominations; such things are not loved by those who fear him. It was he who created humankind in the beginning, and he left them in the power of their own free choice. If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose. Before each person are life and death, and whichever one he chooses will be given. For great is the wisdom of the Lord; he is mighty in power and sees everything; his eyes are on those who fear him, and he know every human action. He has not commanded anyone to be wicked, and he has not given anyone permission to sin.”

Sirach (or known in early Christian times as Ecclesiasticus, “belonging to the church”) 15:11-20

New Things on the Sidebar of the Blog

2008-09-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

So before my next post, I wanted to update you guys on some new additions to the things on the right side of my blog.

First of all, there is a DONATE tab that I put up that PayPal has. Its pretty nifty and it lets people who want to donate quick and easy do so with credit card, banks, or whatever means you want. This money will be used to help out families in need, or bring down the costs of some of the projects that we have here that some families just plain cant afford. To give one example, I have continued to pursue the stove project that the previous volunteer started, but on the level of the entire municipality. There are many, many families, especially in my canton, that dont have them because of the amount of bricks and stuff it takes too build it (we are talking 20 dollars, basically). The stoves however are done by a NGO called Agua and Arboles Para El Pueblo and they provide the more expensive parts of the stove. It has a chimney that protects the ladies from all the smoke from the woodburning normal openfires, and also reduces the amount of firewood needed by 50%, helping their pockets, and helping the environment.

Its a really good example of a project that people can donate to in small amounts and in the big picture it will reduce the cost of each individual family. Anyways, thats why I put the doodad up there, or people can continue to donate to the scholarships, medical clinic, or church reconstruction, and do it through this and just put a note in there to tell me where to put the donation.

EARN THOSE SKYMILES!!! haha.

Also, I have added a few fun ones like, "Things I miss in the US"....and the opposite "Things I will miss from El Salvador"...."Places I want to visit".... and "Current Projects...for those who care"

Enjoy.

"Girls love the worms"
PC Volunteer

Security Conference and Project Development..and worms

2008-08-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

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