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...