The first week in May I helped translate for some doctors from New York. It was really fun and a great break from my site. They put us up in a hotel and fed us, which was unbelievable! I met a lot of current volunteers, all of whom have been here for at least a year. The doctors are part of an organization called PFCAC (I think was the name) it was started by pediatricians but a variety of doctors came: dentist/oral surgeon, pediatrician from Canada, PA specializing in neurosurgery, and another PA and MD. They are a great group because they are not just here to throw medicine at people and step on the toes of the doctors, nurses, and health promoters that work in the communities, but are here to support them. They saw patients if there were emergencies, but were in the communities to do a diagnostic to see what kind of education and support that is needed. There were a couple of emergencies. There was a baby who was extremely dehydrated because the mom thought she had a breast infection and wasn’t breast-feeding and another kid who was thought to have appendicitis. The dentist pulled teeth like crazy! Everyone here has rotten teeth. Some kids have these teeth that are rotten to the gums with nothing left but the root of the tooth. Other kids have had all their molars pulled because they were all decayed. I’m not sure how they eat. I helped a little with translating, but because my Spanish isn’t great, so it was really hard! I also helped with varnishing the kids teeth with this liquid with a high percentage of fluoride, so I was able to see just how gross all the kids teeth really are. First thing I want to do in my community is charlas (lessons) on the importance of brushing your teeth! The doctors are coming back in July with a lot of medical students for three weeks, and I am really excited to help out again.
This last weekend I participated in my first Peace Corps soccer game. PC has a soccer team that plays at different volunteers’ sites against community teams once a month. It was a lot of fun, we lost against this girls team who were all really young, but feisty! It had rained the night before so the field was all really muddy. It was hard to run on the slippery field and quite a few people slipped and fell, but it was a lot of fun.
Our technical training starts on Monday and lasts for the next three weeks. We will be doing a lot of traveling to other volunteers’ sites to see what kinds of projects they are doing in their communities. I’m really excited to see different parts of El Salvador and stay in some hotels! I love travelling here! The country is so different! In some places the climate is cool and there are pine trees, and others it is super hot and dry (like my site) and still others there are beautiful volcanoes with lakes and tropical flowers and trees. They even make tortillas different where I live. In the west the tortillas are really thick, and in the east where I live the tortillas are thinner (I like the thinner ones better).
So I killed my first rat last night, I feel like a real Peace Corps volunteer now. It was in the middle of the night, and I am awoken to the sound of squeeking and the fall of my sticky trap to the floor. I put the trap in the space where the roof meets the wall, but they don’t touch so there is a space there that the rats like to run along. Every time a rat gets suck on the trap it falls to the floor. As I usually do I put a bucket over it so that someone can come and kill it for me in the morning. But as I lay in bed listening to the little sucker scratch at the bucket I remember what my dad told me the night before, “to be a real Peace Corps volunteer you have to start killing your own rats.” So I decided that tonight was the night I was going to kill my first rat! I climbed out of my mosquito net, turned on the lights, put my glasses on and pulled back my hair, put my boots and work gloves on and grabbed a plastic bag. My plan was to scoop him up in the bucket that was covering him, take him outside and squish him with my foot. However, all was lost because when I began to lift up the bucket he ran out from underneath it. But I couldn’t just let him invade my room without penatly so I chased him under my bed and around my room with my bucket, trying to capture him. He was pretty fast, but after running back and forth against the wall about five times I finally got him under my bucket. He was actually half under and half out, so I looked into his eyes and cursed him and every other rat that had invaded my little room and I squished him! Completely happy with myself for killing my first rat I threw him outside and got back in bed. Dad, I am now almost completely self sufficient, haha at least in one area.
The first person from my group decided to quit and go home last week. They say that there are always two or three people in each group that don’t make it to the end, and one is already gone. Hopefully not to many more decided to go home.
Things that have changed since I have arrived here:
· I now like
o Mangos
o Tortillas
o Pupusas
o Horchata- a drink made from peanuts and some other stuff
· I feel comfortable riding buses by myself. During training I was terrified to ride the bus by myself, mostly because PC does a good job scaring the shit of out you, but they are mostly only really dangerous in the capital and big cities—public transportation is really great here! You can get practically everywhere in the country on bus. I could get to the other side of the country on less than $6.
· I am now tan
· I no longer wear makeup because I would just sweat it off anyway
· I also wear my glasses a lot because the dust in my site makes it hard to wear my contacts.
· Some phrases that I say a lot in Spanish, I have to stop and think of how to say it in English when I am talking to my family and friends in the states.
· I go to bed at 8 or 9 every night!!! And wake up at 5:30 or 6. Most people here are up before then. One night I went to a veila (Its were they all get together after someone dies and sit around talk and eat tamales, coffee and pan dulce) I was up until 10:30 and I thought I was going to fall asleep in my chair!
· I learn about world news and get on the internet once a week. (I used to be on the internet multiple times a day)
I can’t believe that I have been here for over four months! Time really does fly here! I do a lot less each day than I did in the states, however each day seems to pass a lot quicker here. I still feel very new and when talking to other volunteers, I really do have a lot more to learn about this country! A new set of volunteers come in July so I won’t be the newest for long. The older volunteers are having a swearing in party for my group in the beginning of July, which is kind of funny because a new group comes right after that.
