Fulfill your visual appetite

B-Rabbit on the microphone. Busting rhymes for the locals...

 The hobbit...

 Looking down on my stomping ground...

 Flying kites, just another day...

 Talking with the oldest person in the pueblo...that´s alive (99 years old)...

Asamblea General of Epic Proportions (not)

Sun is shining, the weather is sweet
Make you want to move your dancing feet
To the rescue, here i am
Want you to know, y'all, where i stand

¿Como ha ido? Today was a historic day in La Reina. It was my asamblea general. The asamblea general is a necessary town hall meeting that all volunteers in el Salvador have to do. It´s an opportunity for the volunteer to butcher their national language in front of all the important people of the community. It also serves as an informative session about Peace Corps, my program and the volunteer´s role in the community. We are supposed to present our findings from the community diagnostic and talk about possible programs for the future.  I had sent out some special invitations to all the churches, the mayor’s office, the bank in town, the school and high school, the health clinic and the local oficina juridical. I also went to the high school and announced my meeting and told them to invite their parents, posted announcements in the most frequented shops and places in town, and had the church and school makes announcements. The meeting was planned for 9 am. I didn´t expect people to show until 9:30, and I´m not gonna lie, I was pretty worried when it was empty at 9:20. But the schools pulled through and sent two classes form the middle school and 1 from the high school. This made my day, seeing the kids march over in their uniforms, all the cipotes (kids) screaming “Chusito!” My nerves settled a little and was ready to take it on.  There was also a lot more village elders than I expected.

The actually presentation went fairly smoothly, of course my mouth decided to dry up as soon as I started talking. So I was forced to fight cotton mouth while I tried to roll my R´s through the presentation. I got a fuerte applause at the end and finally was able to relax a little.

I asked them to include me in their lives and invite me to do fun stuff with them. And immediately after I was swarmed by kids asking what I am doing this afternoon. I guess I´m going to the park to play with them! I am stoked, the asamblea general was a great opportunity to show them I want to be part of their lives.

The next month is gonna be jam packed!!!! I prob wont be able to post. Here is my schedule.

Halloween Weekend: fundraiser in San Salvador for WYD (volunteer committee that gives scholarships) and volunteer costume party.

Following Weekend: I leave for PST 2 which is more technical training in San Vicente for 3 weeks. We get out of PST 2 right before Thanksgiving.  The embassy employees host PCVs for a feast so I requested to stay with some friends from training with a family.

After Thanksgiving: There is the largest carnival in Central America the Saturday after thanksgiving and there is a PC soccer game vs. a local mayor’s team.

After all that traveling around I will be ready to hang out in my site for awhile and start some activities with the bichos (kids). 

Besides all that nonsense things have been pretty tranquilo here I my pueblo. The crazy storms didn´t affect the pueblo too much. We got lucky up here in Chalatenango. Can´t say the same for other parts of the country.  Hopefully the affected areas can recover quickly and return to their lives.

That’s it for now amigos. Salud pues.

Chusito

Being sick, AVC, and life in La Reina

Que ondas mundo. Its been awhile, or at least it feels like it. I think ive been slacking because I have been talking to some people through email and facebook so I forgot about the hundreds of people reading my blog.

First, I want to give a shout out to grandma goofy. Happy birthday! I hope you got my voicemail.  Secondly, thanks mom and dad for the sweet packages ive been getting. everyone else don’t be shy. Send me anything, magazines (surfer, juxtapoz, home and living, Victoria´s secret, you pick), handwritten letters! Photos, mixed cd´s, used bandaids (include a story of what it was used for), anything.

Recently i´ve been kind of sick again, I had a good run of 5 days and finally it cleared up after the All Volunteer Conference (AVC). Kind of lame I had to go through the weekend feeling like dog doo doo, but I made the most of it and had a great time.

The all volunteer conference was held in La Palma which is about an hour away from my site.  It was held at a tourist center where there were tons of cabins and a big assembly hall.  About 95+ volunteers showed up and it was so awesome to meet some other people.  My group felt a little out numbered since we are down to 13 people and one from our group didn’t show up making us a small group of 12.  Other groups are around 30, so it was time to be out going and meet new people. 

The weekend was filled with all sorts of useful information for volunteers in the middle of service, but for the new group it was kind of useless since were not starting projects right now (and we are going to be learning about all that in our second training in a month).  Also there were talks about options after service (3^rd year extensions, master´s programs, foreign service officers, working with NGO´s) the foreign service lecture was really interesting, but the fact that the application process puts the peace corps application to shame is a little discouraging. No worries though, that’s too far in the future to worry about, taking it day by day. 

The AVC started Friday and ended Sunday.  One group went into the city La Palma to check out all the artisan work and the cool pueblo with a lot of culture and another group took off to a nearby volunteer site to challenge the local team in a soccer match.  I opted for the soccer match (getting chunky, not).  It was an intense game that we were winning in the second half but the Salvadoran referee kept adding time. Every time we asked for the time left he said 15 minutes until his team was winning. Super rigged.  On the bright side it was a good opportunity to make more friends with other volunteers.  Apparently there is an epic soccer match held between JICA (Japanese peace corps) and Peace Corps in December.  You better believe im playing in that one. Throwing elbows.

the sweet dirt soccer field...

action shot...

After the soccer game I got dropped off on the side of the road to trek back to my site. I ran into a friend from La Reina on the ride back (who coincidentally was on the same bus up to La Palma on Friday) and we chatted a bit and I ended up hanging at his house for a bit.  He and his dad and brother are going to take me to their land in the mountains to work the fields one day. I’m really excited for this, everyone (Americans) I talk to say its such a great experience and they really respect you after showing what you got in the fields. I arrived sunburned and exhausted and fell asleep before 7:30. 

Don’t want to overload you guys too much in one post so ill let that settle in and post something else after this weekend.  There is the inauguration of the youth radio station (Reina Stereo) this Friday so im sure ill have a good story after that. Also its supposed to downpour for 4 days straight, the river is gonna be pumping, maybe ill take a white water trip this weekend.

Salu,

Chusito