High point before the new year

Things are starting to get real lively around the pueblo.  Every house has their own nacimiento or birth of baby jesus.  Every street corner is littered with lights, the park is filled with giant presents and santa claus.  My host mom demanded that I fabricate a market and a small pueblo out of cardboard boxes for her own nacimiento.  Apparently the people include a police station, mariachi band, a excursion bus and even toy convertible cars.  They think of everything here.  The fireworks haven’t been too bad recently, a couple here and there but apparently it is supposed to be a war zone come the 24^th.  I will be spending the navidad in my pueblo but deciding to take the new year to myself on the beach.

I may have scared some people with the last posts, but really amazing things do happen in this country.  There is more than getting robbed and seeing dead bodies.  I had two amazing trips with some of the most talented and determined youth in the country.

It started with a WYD camp in Suchitoto, Cuscátlan.  For those of you that don´t know about WYD, it is a volunteer selected committee that raises money to give high school and college scholarships to kids in El Salvador.  The emphasis of WYD is for volunteers to become mentors to the kids that they apply for scholarships.  So not only are these kids receiving an education beyond what would normally be feasible, they also have a positive role model in their life that takes an interest in their studies and their life in general.  Twice a year we put on camps for the scholar students.  The first camp is more of a technical camp where we give them life skills training, such as preparing for an interview, self-esteem, self-defense, decision making, time management and prioritization.  The second is a reward to all the kids that have completed the school year.

Since I am a new member I was unable to attend the first camp.  But last weekend I attended the second camp where we took them on the lake, to an art gallery, played games, came up with skits, had art classes, went to a waterfall, and had a civil war discussion.  I was very impressed with all the kids.  They are outgoing, intelligent, creative, friendly and respectful.  At the end of the 3 day camp some volunteers that will be finishing their service in the next few months got up and gave the kids a little speech.  Each volunteer that gave a speech either started or ended in tears.  They made it clear that working on the WYD committee and with these kids was by far the most influential part of their service.  After the volunteers, some scholar students got up and gave their thoughts.  Again, tears flowed.  And I can´t lie, I was on the verge of tears.  I almost lost it when one of the kids welcomed Andrew and I into the WYD club and thanked us (even though we haven’t done anything yet).  I left for my site after the camp in deep thought and touched by what I learned from those kids.  I am super excited to be on WYD and to get to know the kids some more in my site.

 Boat ride, scholar student deep in thought...

 Drawing lessons...

 Waterfall, minus water...

 Yesterday I had to wake up at 5am (3 hours before my normal wake up) to head to a Youth Festival.  I went with Don Roberto (Casa de Cultura director), Marina (young activist in the community), and three high school kids that can sing their hearts out.  The festival was set in the department of Cabañas.  Every Casa de Cultura in Chalatenango and Cabañas was invited to bring any youth group to show off their skills.  There was dancing, singing, karate, mambas, bongos, ranchero, folklore dancing, theater, painting, jewelry, and some religious performance.  It was an amazing turnout and I am really glad I got to go.  The kids are really starting to take to me and feel confident joking around with me.


Niño enjoying the mamba music...

 Kids from my pueblo singing, Ceci and Christian...

 Some sort of cultural/religious ceremonial dance...

  On the way back we were in a micro with a theater group from a nearby pueblo.  It was a rowdy bunch of teenagers.  We had joke telling time and when they asked me to tell I joke I insisted I only have jokes in English.  They insisted more that I tell it in English.  I knew where this was going.  So I pulled out the only joke I could think of (all credit to Zanique Albert for the joke):

So, a guy walks into a bar (at this point everyone laughed by I ensured them there was more to the joke). Again, a guy walks into a bar.  He sees a bear sitting down. He takes a seat next to the bear and notices that the bear looked a little sad.  The man says, ¨whats wrong mr. bear?¨  The bear looks at the man and replies, ¨well you see the thing is…………………….I lost my job¨  The man says, ¨whats with the big pause?¨  The bear replies, holding up his paws ¨what? These paws?¨

At this point I knew nobody understood.  The bus got really quit and I told them that they made me do it.  I still received applause, but they didn’t ask me for another joke.  Damn kids.

The micro full of kids...

It was still a great time taking backroads to Chalatenango.  My day ended with playing some street soccer with another family in the neighborhood. 

Good times. Next Saturday is my soccer game in Estadio Cuscátlan against the Japanese volunteers. USA, USA, USA.