It has been officially a year since I found out that I was coming to El Salvador. I remember waiting everyday for the mail to come after I was told my invitation was mailed. I was at my apartment and Booeycalled to tell me that I had something in the mail at the Kappa house one evening. After putting down the phone I sprinted from my apartment to Kappa and ripped open the package, even after my friends and I decided that we would have a party and I would open it there like the Mormon missionaries do. Time really has flown! Starting this blog after reading so many other Peace Corps blogs I told myself that I would write way more often then most of these other volunteers who only wrote about once a month, because it didn’t make sense that they didn’t have time to do it. Being here I realize that internet time becomes very precious when you have to pay per hour, you only get it about once a week, and your life moves 10 times slower than it did in the states resulting in very little news accumulation. I now realize why these volunteers didn’t write much more than once a month.
I recently returned form a visit in the states to attend the wedding of my Uncle Chris and his new wife, Blair. The wedding was in Vermont, which was beautiful!(The wedding and Vermont.) I was so happy to see my family and also be able to experience Fall. To get to the states is such a trip! It was exhausting traveling for so long but definitely worth it! From my house I took a 5 hour trip including three buses to the capital, San Salvador. (Its no party towing around luggage on and off of very full buses) I then killed time until my flight at 1am. It was then an hour taxi ride to the airport located outside the city. Two flights and five hours later (not including layover time) I made it to Boston. The following day was a three hour drive to Vermont. Can’t wait for my flight to Idaho, which will be much longer, but again worth it! I don’t even want to know how long it really takes Peace Corps volunteers in rural Africa to get to the states from their sites, El Salvador is only the size of Massachusetts.
Some funny things that happened during my travels:
· Usually you are supposed to make sure that the taxi you are taking is from a company, you do that by finding an A on their license plate, not a P for private (meaning they have just painted their car yellow). When getting off the bus in the terminal in San Salvador you are bombarded by taxi drivers wanting to take you to your destination. In the past I have been lucky and chosen company drivers without seeing their license plate, however this time I happened to pick a private driver. He not only was not from a taxi company, he had the oldest car I have been in. I was afraid that we were going to fall apart before I got to my destination. He also had to stop twice and ask people directions to where we were going (the Peace Corps office). At least one of them was a policeman.
· Returning to my site I was on the bus. Along the highway police occasionally stop cars and check their drivers’ licenses and buses for gang members. On this trip my bus was stopped, all the men had to get off the bus and have their backpacks and persons checked for weapons. I guess that makes me feel safer, but god forbid there is a girl gang member (which there are) because she will get right through. Sometimes I just think that this country doesn’t think things through.
· On the flight back into El Salvador from the states I felt like I was already in my community because there were men in their usual button down shirts and cowboy hats. All they were missing were their machetes, which apparently they must have checked on account of security.
· Paying $14 for a sandwich and drink at the airport. That would feed me here for a week or more.
· I felt the most culture shock in the airport once I landed from El Salvador. People were speaking English, everyone had out their expensive electronics, and the prices of everything was crazy! (which I know, I was in the airport). I had just come from bucket showers, dirt floor houses, and cooking over fire. When I finally was with my family however, it felt like I had never left at all.
Today I deep cleaned my room. I should probably do it every month because I had molding magazines, bugs growing in my black flats (which I just had to throw away because it was too gross to clean) dead scorpions and spiders, and cobwebs everywhere. (And I am a pretty clean person)
It has been raining for the past five days straight, creating some big problems for some other parts of the country, but has really cooled the place off. It has been low 80s and I am not sure if I can go back to high 90s. One thing I have learned about myself being here is that God didn’t make me for tropical climates. Someone the other day asked me what my favorite season is. Now that I have been living in chronic summer, I realize it is more of the change that I like the most, not a particular season. From March 2013 until the day I die I will always live in a place with all four seasons.
I am now looking forward to Christmas, which I get to spend in Idaho. Hopefully enjoy some snow! Only two months and time is going to fly. I have a training at the end of October for a project we are starting in my school. It is trying to promote voluntarism in kids. Beginning of November the doctors from New York will come again. They will be coming to my site to hopefully do some trainings with the nurses and health promoters that work out of my clinic. There is a fair in my community for their patronal saint at the end of November. Also at the end of November I will be spending Thanksgiving with an Embassy family (they are American) eating some great American Thanksgiving food! After that there is only about three weeks until I leave for vacation. In between then and now I will be working on a few things:
· Fumigation of the houses to prevent dengue
· Collecting the old tires that usually sit around and collect water where mosquitoes grow and put them in the soccer field as seats.
· Help the venders that come to sell food for the fair learn about clean food preparation techniques.
· Write a grant to build stoves that burn less wood.
· Help put together a kids creativity and music camp
· Help put together a soccer tournament with teams from other volunteers’ communities.
· Write a grant for health lessons and activities in the school.
Here is a little something to make you all jealous you don’t live in El Salvador:
- · I bought 25 oranges for $1
- · Great watermelon at all times of the year!
- · Great tamales made by at least 10% of your neighbors, 5 for $1
- · Fast and cheep (but not quite to US regulations) public transportation throughout the country.
- · Feeling like you are the smartest person alive when everyone is amazed that you know how to wash dishes, cut vegetables, wash clothes,learn how to make tamales and tortillas. Sometimes I wonder what they thought I have done for the past 22 years of my life.
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| A picture from our All Volunteer Conference, about 80% of El Salvador Volunteers went. I am in the fourth row from the front in a pink shirt. |
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| Chris and Blair |
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| Emily and I at the rehearsal dinner |
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| Emily, Zoe, Me, Ellie, and Sarah at the wedding reception. |
