- I forgot to put this story in my last blog post. I gave my puppy Canela away. I got her thinking that she would be a good buddy to have around that would make me feel more at home. I was wrong. People here are accustomed to treating dogs like trash. They don’t feed them, they kick them and punish them for being present. I thought that my host family would treat my dog differently because she was mine, but I was wrong. When they would shoo, and kick her I would get angry with them. Having Canela was hurting my relationship with my host family, so I decided that it would be best if I gave her away. I gave her to a guy whose puppy died the week before. She comes over to visit me once in a while so that is fun.
- I was at the river with Brenda and three of her nieces and nephews. The kids brought some chips and soda. We all ate the chips while in the river and then they just dropped the bags in the river and let them float down stream. Not five minuets later another boy throws a large stick in the river and Brenda yells at him for throwing “trash” into the river. I couldn’t believe that she had just dropped a plastic bag in the river and then scolded someone for putting a stick in the same river.One of my neighbors has this little baby bird that hatched in a tree near her house. She captured him and put him in a birdcage. To feed him she pries his beak open, then hold it open with two fingers, shoves food down his throat, and jiggles him so the birdseed falls down his throat. After the food she uses a little syringe (without the needle) to force water into his stomach. It was the saddest thing to watch that poor bird being force fed.
- When people learn that I wear contacts, they are convinced that they are the reason my eyes are green. I have to take them out to show them that my eyes are really green and that the contacts are just clear. I guess most people here that wear contacts wear them to change their eye color, not to see.
- I was teaching English in the fourth grade class and a student came up to the desk while they were copying the board to sharpen his pencil. In the cup on the fourth grade teacher’s desk is a straight edge. He took the straight edge and used it to sharpen his pencil. I just thought of how in the states that would never ever happen, but here they don’t even think about how dangerous it is.
- March is the month of elections, so they have been campaigning here for a while. Here they have about seven parties. Around town they have put up the party flags to advertise. I thought it was funny that every poster with the party’s flag on it had a big black X on it. I thought that it was someone vandalizing it. Turns out that on their ballots have pictures of the flags and even the candidates because there is a large population that can’t read. The flags have big Xs on them because they are showing that people should vote for them.
- Whenever I am pealing a mango or some vegetable with a knife people are always really nervous that I am going to cut myself. One time amom made her fourteen-year-old daughter finish pealing my mango for me.
- There is another room right next door to mine where Brenda has her computer and printer. This is also where we can hook up the Internet. She lost the key to the door and we haven’t been able to get in. The other day she decided that she was going to try to open the door with some random keys she has. As she is doing this, all I can think is that there is no way that she is going to be able to open that door, until the door opens. She unlocked the door with the key to her husband’s house. I couldn’t believe it! Apparently it is pretty common for one key to work on other locks here. Doesn’t sound very safe to me. Luckily I brought a combination lock for my door. Combination locks are not common here and almost nobody knows how to use them
- I am sure most people (at least women) have had the experience where they feel something tickling their arm or under their shirt and find that the culprit is a piece hair that must have fallen out when you were brushing your hair. Before Peace Corps I was very accustomed to this happening, however here in El Salvador it is never a hair! I have found that about 90% of the time the little tickle is an insect walking on me, usually a big fat ugly one. Now I no longer calmly try to find the harmless hair that is somehow entangled itself in my clothes, I frantically search all body parts knowing that it is most likely a huge ugly bug, it will probably bit me if I don’t kill it in time, and I will most likely contract some tropical disease and die. (note to family and friends: there are not that many bugs here that will give you diseases, but there are a lot of bugs that look like they would.
- I was in the Super Selectos (an American-like grocery store) and I was waiting in line to pay, when I see this guy open up a beer and start drinking it in the next line over from me. You then look in his cart and he has two other empty bottles of beer that he has drunken in the store at 9 am. He put everything on the little conveyor belt and the cashier guy rings up everything including the three empty beer bottles with out so much as a flinch.
