Casa de Chela

Dont have much time to post anything of importance but here are some pictures. i promise a more meaningful blog next time. peace.

The court yard in the middle of my house, those are fruit growing from the tree...

 my bed, equipped with mosquito net...

 my desk area...

 the relaxing area...

 cocina with grandma and maria...

 front of my house...

Bien Ocupado

Sup sup sup,

So i just got out of the first meeting of the womens group in the community.  They selected the name: Mujeres, la esperanza del futuro (Women, the hope of the future).  It was a very successful meeting where they selected their directive and brainstormed in possible projects to do in the future. I introduced myself and asked if i could be a part of their group to support them and observe their meetings.  It was a great experience and i think im lucky i got to be their in the beginning. I hope i can end up working with the Esperanzas.

Anyways, my life is busy busy this first week and time is just flying already.
Things are just falling into my lap. Let´s recap:

-went to an inauguration for a recycle/trash management facility with the mayor´s office. President of El Salvador didn´t show up. typical.
-visited the high school and made a fool of myself in front of the whole school on the loud speaker. Best way to make friends.
-got invited to a nearby canton with some high school students.
-walk the pueblo every night after dinner and talk to Don Tito, Don Tino, Don Juan, Don Angel, Dona Marie, and everyone else and their mothers.
-got invited to eat pupusas on Saturday with Don Juan and his family
-going to the river Saturday with Javier and other people
-taught kids how to play chess and ping pong
-going to a meeting Monday at the Health Center
-going to the middle school Monday to make a fool of myself in front of more kids
-going to Chalatenango the city on Tuesday
-got invited to the Mayors house for dinner or lunch one day
-invited to another house for dinner
-invited to visit family in a nearby canton
-making house visits with Don Roberto and Don Juan Wednesday to listen to stories from the elders

and lots more that I can´t remember right now.

Things that I do now that I didn´t do in the states:
-wash with a bucket
-say grace before every meal
-wake up before 8 am
-speak spanish
-play soccer
-walk around the neighborhood at night
-eat squash
-eat my cereal with boiling milk
-sleep in a mosquito net
-live with cats instead of dogs (not by choice)
-wear a collared shirt everyday

Well, thats jsut a little taste of my life right now. Hope everything is tranquilo in the states yall.  Catch ya later.

Chusito.

Casa de la Cultura

All to myself...

 View from the Casa de Cultura...

 The World´s Greatest Grandpa...

Family Fiesta and Swearing In

Hola todos y todas,

Que ondas? So I am chilling in my new community, and it is b-e-a-utiful. I am surrounded by hills and mountains that glow with every shade of green.  My pueblo is pretty darn big, not gonna lie, very intimidating.  The first few days I was in a daze of confusion not knowing where or how to begin my process of integrating.  Slowly things began to come together.  Sunday, my host brother (Javier, also a high school english teacher), took a walk around the community and met several people, including Don Juan.  Don Juan works at the Alcaldia (mayors office) and it was an immediate in.  Next thing I know I am invited to an Alcaldia meeting, invited to an inaugration of a trash management facility where the president of El Salvador will be, invited to eat pupusas with his family and also the mayor personally opened his home up to me for any reason (eat, sleep, talk, business).  I am starting to feel at home.

Today I met with the director of the Casa de cultura, Don Roberto, he is such a nice guy and made me feel even more at home after walking around with him.  I met more important people and got invited to a women´s group meeting.  The kids at the school invited me to their cantone for a day, the janitor invited me to work in the campo with him on the weekend.  Things are looking up.

Taking a jump back to the family fiesta and swearing in.  I was nominated by the other trainees to be the grandmaster of games.  It was a great test of my spanish in front of all the host families.  It went really well and Yolanda got a kick out of it.  Swearing in was pretty cool, the US ambassador came and gave a speech.  We nominated Andrew to give a speech as well and he rocked the house.  He had everyone laughing in spanish (jajajajaja).

Here is a handful of pictures of the recent events, I will try to get some of my town and new house.

PS I updated my address, Don Roberto said all packages that get sent to the Casa de Cultura will be received by the Alcaldia and we will be notified.

Eduardo, the man...

Preparing for swearing-in...

Ambassador...

San Esteban Crew...

Quick update...

soo a quick update regarding my site assignment, turns out the grocery stores, banks and internet cafes are a short drive up the road.  Still very close.  I gave my counterpart a call today and it was soo difficult to talk spanish on the phone after a day of english at the training center.  I am going to have my spanish teacher call him tomorrow to smooth things over and make sure I didn't miss any vital information.  Thats it for now. One day until swearing in, 4 days until counterpart day and my new community.  Take care everyone.  I will try to do the same.

Crazy Chucho...

Just one of those crazy street dogs hustling the trash can for some goodies.  One of the daily occurrences that makes me laugh a little then scream "vaya chucho, fuera!"

YAHTZEE!!!



Site Assignment...

The ferria (carnival/fair) has been in my pueblo for the past 2 weeks.  It was supposed to be only one weekend but they showed up early to set up and claim the prime real estate in front of my house.  I was trying to find the word for carnies in spanish but it doesn't translate.  They have a ferris wheel, merry go round, and one of those pendulum boat thingy's that swings back and forth.  The merry go round and boat pendulum are man powered, meaning a guy stands there and pushes the merry go round or swings the boat back and forth until it is vertical.  Tough job. 

The ferris wheel at night...

So I finally received my site on Thursday and it is not what I was expecting when I accepted my invite to the Peace Corps.  This is not a bad thing.  My site is called Municipality La Reina, Chalatenango.  It has 10, 000 inhabitants spread out in 7 cantones and 40 caserios.  My main point of contact is the director of the Casa de Cultura.  Pretty much a house of culture that has the history of the town, a mini library and holds workshops for the town.  My other contact is my new host mom's son, who is an English teacher.  La Reina has a Kindergarten, a school from 3^rd to 9^th and also an Instituto (high school).  I guess there are grocery stores, banks, internet cafes and restaurants.  Not the image I had heading down here, but that's OK! Because it is such a big site I am a bit intimidated, but they would not have placed me there if they didn't think I could handle that.  I feel like I have the attitude for it and all the other trainees tell me that if anyone can take on the bigger site I could. They are so nice.

close up of my site...

 I am the little orang star in the upper middle. San Salvador is the brown spot in the middle of the map.  The other stars are the rest of the trainees in my group...

That is a spark notes of what I have been up to.  I will be meeting my counterparts next Saturday in San Salvador then heading out to my site for 2 months and returning to San Esteban for 2 weeks of more training before going back to my site for the duration of my service. 

My experience so far has been soo positive and enriching.  The local people are extremely welcoming, it's kind of crazy how open they are to foreigners.  I would never be able to knock on a random door in the US, introduce myself and expect to be invited inside for coffee and pastries.  But that is what it is like here.  Every day is new, challenging and filled with something that makes me laugh. I think as long as that trends keeps surfacing in my daily routine I wont have any problem making it through the 2 years.  And plus, the country is just breathtaking.  Every morning when I ride down the hill on a pickup I just look out at the massive volcano and get a big grin on my face.  The person next to me gets a little creeped but I am used to it being a gringo. 

 

All you jokers out there, thanks for reading my post. Salud!

Jesus is watching you...

Moje, Embassy and other updates

Buenas muchachos/as

this second month has flown by so fast. I have been so busy with spanish class and community projects I havn't had much time to type out an update. I will try to squeeze in the important and exciting events that have occurred.

The other trainees in my community have been working with a youth group at the school called Guardianes de Ambiente.  We coordinated a caminata (pretty much a walk to the soccer field) to do a day of activities and competition. We split the group into two teams a week before and tye-dyed t-shirts for each team as uniforms for the caminata.  We started the caminata with a charla (lesson) on the importance of trash management and how it affects your community and personal health.  After that we played all sorts of games for points. We played potatoe sack relay, egg in spoon relay, tug o war, pop balloons with your butt relay, limbo, wheelbarrow race, soccer game and a trash clean-up race.  It went really well and the kids had a blast.

Green Squad aka Team Exterminadores...

 Purple Squad aka Sobreviventes...

 Tug-o-war...

 Limbo!!!!....

 Most of the group at the end of the day....

3 of the training communities took a field trip to Ilobasco, San Vicente whcih is a really cool town with tons of craft art or artisanias. We visited this center called Moje.  It was a massive craft center with culinary courses, wood working, painting, cermaics, metal work and hair styling.  The center offers 8 month courses completely free for youth.  All the materials, transportation, meals are covered for the youth that sign up as long as they commit to the program.  Once they complete their course they can come up witha micro business plan and Moje funds their materials so they can sell their art work for full profit.  It was a truly magical place.  They offer the program to any youth.  They work with mostly kids that cant afford college or maybe troubled youth that want to get a jump start in the right diection.  I took some pictures of what we saw.

This is a small glimpse of the massive amount of ceramic pottery they have there...

 This student was fitting his paitings into hand made frames...

 It is kind fo hard to tell from this picture but there are made from stacking pieces of wood to make the pictures 3D. Really intricate wood working that reflects the architecture of El Salvador...

We recently visited the US Embassy and had a talk with the US ambassador and enjoyed free finger foods compliments of the US government.  The US Embassy in El Salvador is the biggest in the world because they built it all on one plot of land after the civil war.  It was an impressive place and the ambassador's house was fantabulous.  She shared some really wise words with us and made it clear that what we do in this country makes a difference. She makes a point to visit a volunteer site every time she makes it out of the embassy.  Quite impressive and encouraging.  I guess there is a raffle for volunteers to go to the 4^th of July party every year at the embassy.  Show me where I buy those tickets.

I have more pics and other stuff in the next post...