Where to begin?
There has been so much has happened since I wrote last. Well let us see, first things first. I received a call late last week that I will officially be in my current site for the rest of my service! Hearing that just made everything better and took a huge relief off my shoulders. There are a lot of new rules of course and I will have a lot less freedom to travel around as I used to have in the past. A lot of the people in my training group feel we will be living in an older Peace Corps. I can no longer visit a nearby city for grocery shopping and errands because it was considered a very at-risk area (the only Pizza Hut closest to me…gone :-(.
San Salvador is completely and totally off limits unless for medical or if you have visiting family. You have to use your vacation days to go there if not for medical reasons. There will be a lot of changes such as we can no longer use public transportation outside the department you live in; so I have no idea how I am going to visit my friends across the country. Two more people from my group have decided to leave because of the new rules and many other reasons. Now my training group of 15 is down to a lonely 8. It makes me sad but I respect their decisions. A shuttle service will be implemented, but I think it will take a few months to figure out the kinks.
They are also closing the training center since there have been no new volunteers and we do not know when we will receive a new group; there really is no point in keeping it open (that means all my Spanish teachers will probably lose their jobs). They are closing the Peace Corps Office in San Salvador within the next 6 months and moving it to a safer location (where we do not know yet). San Vicente (where I was during training) is now considered unsafe, so I have no idea if I will be able to visit my old host family in the future. But, between the changes, rules and probably more rules to come, it is still worth staying here. I love my community, my host family, my school, and El Salvador. There are challenges in any job, so I will accept them as they come. The good news is I get to stay here for my entire service and (hopefully) the security madness is over.
So what have I been up to? The smoothing out of the mural finally finished, hopefully we waited long enough for it to dry completely…and start painting this week! We have to do a grid system to paint the wall since there isn’t a projector within a 10-15 mile radius. Helped start a class for women in my community to learn how to make carteras (little purses) with Churro plastic bags, these are chip bags that the kids eat all the time and they come in every flavor possible. They have avocado flavor (my favorite and are BRIGHT green), bean flavor, pizza flavor, nacho flavor, spicy, cheesy, you get the point. They are ten cents each with about five cents of heartache sodium, MSG, and orange colored teeth are included for free. You can clean them and cut up the bags to make these purses. We had two classes last week and 8 women showed up, plus everyone showed up for my 2nd AND 3rd class. I was pretty impressed and they are learning fast. I am really proud of myself :-).For the last class I am going to buy them a soda (to then cut in half and use to put paint in for the mural) and a Churro bag for their next purse ;-). While painting the mural, I am hoping to gather a few persistent and hard working kids together who are interested in forming a youth group.
We have a bunch of electrical poles in my community that border the road which could use some color now that the election is over (it was on Sunday, my mayor was reelected…again) and we can tear down all the party posters. What else? My new host family is beyond wonderful. I have officially killed the “building a house” idea. They are easy going and I feel I have gained a whole new perspective. I made them hamburgers with French fries last week and they were thrilled (even bought REAL cheddar cheese at the grocery store). I also made Macaroni and Cheese which they ate with tortillas…naturally. Next time, we are going to try pizza (how I do not know yet…) and they want to make hamburgers again soon. They are so interested and curious about the American culture and want to learn (my host sister is also taking my class). We recently visited the famous waterfall in my site which I had yet to see (there is a restaurant and a hotel that my host sisters work at on the weekends…but NO ONE comes for some odd reason). It was beautiful and I included a photo of us together with one of their cousins too.
I also brought back my kitten from abajo (farther down) because it turned out my host mom has been trying to find a cat and I was afraid to ask to bring him. We have rats, but no longer! Photo above for proof. ;-) I am still blown away when I feel I have learned mostly everything; I am surprised by something new. The red fruit is like an apple-pear and is delicious. They grow on trees and I ate a bunch recently.
It is also mango season!!! I bought 5 medium sized yellow mangoes for a quarter a few days ago. They were juicy and sweet, way better than any in the U.S. (sorry guys, its true). Pretty soon the flowers will grow into large bursting mangoes in my site and I can eat them every day for free. I also received my friend’s toaster oven and cooked homemade granola that I eat with a yogurt parfait every morning (now that I have a fridge, oh how I missed you yogurt). It has been a crazy month of work, new activities, but hopefully things are settling down a bit with the security situation more stable and not wondering every day how many days left I have here. Either way, I know no matter what things are just starting to gear up for how much I can really try to do here to make the smallest difference.
The last photo reminds me how much I appreciate this culture. In the United States, once you basically turn 18 you go off to college and only now it is becoming normal for young adults to move back into their parent’s house because of the economy. But normally you are on your own. Whereas in El Salvador; people live in the same community mostly their entire lives. Unless you meet someone or get married, only then do you move. This is a photo of my host mom and her father who lives a thirty minute walk away. One of my host brothers lives with his grandparents and many times my host sister’s sleepover to spend time with them. He passes by a few nights a week for coffee in the afternoon or dinner; here my host mom and him are just sitting and talking as the sun sets. I am sure all of us have times when we want to kill or strangle our family but when we are not together, at least for me, I always wish they lived closer. :-)
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