Today I am in San Salvador relaxing with friends and getting some American food. Every year there is a tournament for the four programs in Peace Corps El Salvador on the Forth of July weekend. We play three games of basketball and soccer. My program has won the last few years, so we had a title to defend. We ended up winning once again which was a lot of fun!
I am starting a shampoo project with my ADESCO (community government) so I am in San Sal buying the ingredients. We will make shampoo out of Aloe and sell it in my community to raise money for other community projects. You cannot buy the ingredients anywhere but in San Salvador and we had to go to three shops all over San Sal to get them. It was exhausting but I finally have everything I need.
In El Salvador they have these beliefs that if you rub a broken arm or leg it will help it heal. This guy who is the healer guy (I forget what they call him) was rubbing this little kids arm because they had said that his bicept muscle had fallen and they needed to rub it back into place. During this they were all bashing modern medicine and asking me why I don’t believe in it. It was very frustrating. So when I jammed my finger the other day playing softball they wanted to take me to this guy and have him rub my jammed finger but I was like, no way is that happening so somehow I talked my way out of it. My friend in my community is also always telling me funny things like she can’t eat watermelon because she is anemic and she can’t look at newborn babies when she is on her period. I wonder where they came up with all of these ideas.
I have been teaching English in the school the last couple of weeks. It has been hard to get the kids to participate because they are all so shy about speaking English, but they are all so excited about learning it. They all ask me when I am going to come to their class and teach, even the ones who already get English class. Being in the school really shows you how terrible the school system is here. They have classes from 8-12 but every 40 mins of class they have like 20 mins of recess. The teachers are always are celebrating something(family day, teachers day, moms day, dads day, day of the cross…you name it they have a day for it and miss school) or have teacher’s softball tournaments so the kids have free days very often. During class kids are usually running in and out of classes screaming. It’s not really an ideal learning environment.
Winter has officially come and it rains almost every day. I have a tiled roof and water leaks a lot. If you are in my room during a rain storm, it feels like someone is spitting on you because water gets through the tiles. One of the bigger leaks is over my bed, which is no good but I recently put up plastic over my bed, which should help with the rain and also with all the junk that falls from my ceiling onto my bed everyday. Good news is that it isn’t 100 degrees everyday anymore, more like 90s.
So I thought that I had a cat but apparently I miss understood (once again) that one of the cats was for her son and not for my friend Helen, so when Helen came to pick up a kitten she took mine instead. I wasn’t to torn up about it because I am not really a cat person and would only have it for the rats. On the rat problem: the poison that Emily sent me has been working like a charm! My health promoter also gave me some poison but they only eat the stuff from the states. THANKS EMILY!!
Things that I am doing this month: starting my shampoo project, teaching English, teaching a women’s group about self breast exams, translating for PFCAF doctors, taking my health promoter to a workshop about how to identify emergencies in kids in a rural setting.
THANK YOU to everyone who has sent me letters and packages!!! They really mean a LOT and I LOVE hearing about what everyone is up to in the states.
Funny Stories:
1. There is a little girl in kindergarten that has light hair and skin. They call her my child because she looks more like me than her mom.
2. The little girls in 4th grade had me sign their notebooks after English class, I felt famous. Haha
3. Here many people call each other gorda (fat) or flaca (thin) as descriptive terms. They don’t have the same harsh meanings as they do in English so I have gotten used to people saying “estagorda” and then others telling me I have lost weight. One of my host mom’s grandkids goes to an American school here to learn English. One day he told me I looked “a little fat” and let me tell you it hits a lot harder in English than it does in Spanish.
4. My host mom has a tienda (little store) and has men who come to work for her during the day. They are usually the town bolos (drunks). So after working during the day they will buy alcohol from my host mom and hang around the house. My host family usually makes them do funny things like dance with each other or paint each other’s faces with nail polish and then video tape them with a digital camera, then proceed watch it on the TV right after.
my host mom´s cows
the kittens, the black and white one on the right was going to be mine
making pupusas...Brenda is hiding under the stove because she didn´t want her picture taken
delicious pupusas...inside they have cheese and meat and whatever else you would like
some little girls at the school...they are dressed up for a 5 of May celebration
at the school
5th of May party at the school. Girls dress up in traditional dress and one is named the Queen. The little girl in the front with blond hair, she is ¨my daughter¨
My posters for my General Assembly in May
About Peace Corps and a FODA (strengths, oppotunities, weaknesses, and threats in the community)
Raining outside...you can see that there is a little river outside my door
Cooking over a fire
Host mom slaughtered one of her pigs and these are chicharones that we are making, mostly pig fat boiled in oil/butter and then fried.
This is what quesedillas are here...bread. They are made from maiz (not wheat flour), cream, cheese, and sugar. I think they are really gross.
Making another type of quesedillas, these ones have more cream and sugar in the middle.
