Farewell to the old volunteers!

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

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!