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