An awesome friend of ours recently asked if there was something she could do to support a project down here. In our pueblo, we don´t have any projects that need support right now. And we might choose not to ever go that route.
But Kelly is a member of WYD, Women and Youth Development, on a national level. They give scholarships to girls living in poverty and exceeding academically. The link is below. Donating online is possible. No pressure. Thanks for taking interest!
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=519-122
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Eco Club to the Rescue
Last Friday, we took an eco club down to the tree nursery of the local NGO. We selected fruit trees to plant at the Cultural House. But we took a nice ping pong break.
This guy here runs the NGO. We needed to pick out trees to plant at the Cultural House. But all the kids kept asking if they could have plants for their houses. He kept caving in. Top-notch guy.
on the way back up the hill to plant the trees
Believe it or not, this young man in front is the president of the eco club. All his friends call him Pupusa. His family owns a pupuseria. They sell pupusas (the national food, corn-based tortilla filled with cheese and served with tomato sauce and pickled cabbage).
Eat your heart out.
We stopped for a water break on the way to plant the trees. This picture is worth posting because Bruce looks like he´s dying from the heat.
fun with tree planting
A friend (and English student of ours) took us to a lake on the other side of San Miguel. It was beautiful.
The volcano emerges from the clouds.
This is our friend. He´s pretending to jetski. Really nice guy.
---
NOTES
*El Salvador swore in its new President on June 1. Mauricio Funes. First leftwing leader in the country´s history. From a poli sci perspective, it´s fascinating to be here these days.
*La Seleccion, the national soccer team, won a big game against Mexico. But then we lost to Honduras. A World Cup 2010 berth is looking very slim.
*There was a decent-sized earthquake near Roatan, Honduras recently. It was the fourth temblor that we have felt here.
*Bruce lost his cell phone on a bus headed back from the capital. Pickpocket? Loose pants pockets? We don´t know.
*We just connected a UK company with a local coffee cooperative. They might do some sweet business together.
*We´re working with the mayor´s office and the town´s NGO to bring second-hand computers down here from an NGO in the States. The computers would be for the schools in the rural areas of our municipality. We have planned a marathon (well, a race of a few miles at least) for July.
*Next week we are taking four community leaders to a workshop on project design and management. It´s a three day-long workshop run by Peace Corps. It´s also at the beach. Nice.
*We´re really excited for our quickly approaching trip to the States. We miss everyone back home. Also shout outs to recent graduates Roger, Tim, and Maria!
Tamales Pisques
We helped organize an environmental forum at the town dance hall. There was no dancing. Here you can see the riveted audience of humans and other friends.
The mesa de honor (table of honor) at the forum. The mayor and a good deal of NGO representatives came out.
We went over to the house of the sub-director from one of the schools to make tamales pisques (spicy tamales). The green masa is ground-up corn and a leafy vegetable called chipilin. We then add beans.
the action
ready for the fire
Kelly´s tamale-making skills are laughable.
Bruce. Beyond laughable.
the finals of our sixth grade Incredible Chess tournament
Los Vencedores, The Winners...they won!
Star Fox Team, the favorites all along, lost the big match. For shame.
Me Gusta La Musica
Once a week, we bring it in the local kindergarten. English through songs and games. The 6 year olds can hang. The session with the 5 year olds is the most chaotic 25 minutes of each week. We learn songs like ¨Hello, What´s your name?¨, ¨Hi, How are you?¨, etc. Sometimes we rock Heads, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes or If You´re Happy and You Know It.
This pic is from back in December. We finally got it from a friend´s camera. This pic is killer. But that´s not our baby.
We helped bring a doctor from the health clinic to the high school for another charla about HIV-AIDS.
Move over Daddy Yankee!
These neighbor kids are the best. We try to play with them once a week. If we haven´t walked down to play for a while, they might climb up our window to see what´s up.
Kelly y los amigos/ adorableness in sepia!
an impromptu parade
Okay. So. We have bats in our house. It´s common. In lieu of a backyard, many houses have patios in the middle. The hallways are all open to nature; the bedrooms are usually safe. The bats, vampire bats to be more precise, fly right over our heads during their trips to and fro the mango tree. Happens all the time. No big deal. One day last week, the woman we live with had a nice old man from the church come over to help out around the house. We were chatting. Then we saw a flying bat land on the hallway roof...but upside down, like in the cartoons. Now this is something we don´t see much. Kelly entered the room to grab the camera. The nice old man, perhaps interpreting Kelly´s exit as fear, casually picked up a broom and knocked the bat dead in one hit.
the recently-deceased murcielago
Plagues, Cute Little Kids, etc.
The rains bring all sorts of surprises. (NOTE: This entry was written in mid-May, but not posted until mid-June.)
El Salvador has two seasons: rainy, and dry. We’ve recently and very gently entered the rainy season. It started with a light sprinkle one night and gradually grew into an almost nightly full-on rain, often with lightning and thunder. Last night it rained harder than ever. This is exciting for many reasons:
1) We feel much more connected to, and influenced by, the weather here. We can’t shut windows and turn on the AC. Our house is very open to the outside world. There are no screens on the doors or windows. During a storm, it’s best to just hang out in the hammock and enjoy the breeze.
2) Everything is getting green again! We hadn’t had rain since November, so things were getting really dusty, dry, and dead around here. The rain has brought life back to our little corner of the world. It has also brought two very bizarre, daylong plagues of different insects. Who knew??
3) Every day is different than the previous. The rains will get stronger and more frequent until it’s raining all of the time in September. This might not sound too exciting, and we’re sure in September we’ll be more than ready for it to end (we were pretty sick of the rain last September). However, it’s more exciting than the dry season; which is basically a guaranteed daily forecast of sun and inescapable heat…and perhaps dust in your lungs.
We’ve been super busy lately. Too busy. We haven’t had time to do a lot of the community integration things we’re supposed to do. We’re going to try to make some changes this week to remedy this. One reason we’re so busy is that we’re working with several different schools. We’re always running all over town trying to maintain clubs and organize meetings, etc. And there are still other schools with which we have not yet worked. So, our new plan is to start a super chivo youth club open to all youth in our town. Instead of maintaining clubs in half of the schools and ignoring the other half, we’ll invite everyone to join this one club.
We’re also going to start being more direct. During training we were told that the culture in the US is much more direct than the culture here. So, we were taught to be super gentle with our words. We’re finding that this is backfiring. People have suggested some projects that, for various reasons, we simply can’t do. Instead of saying “well, no that can’t work because of x, y, and z” we’ve just been saying “we’ll see.” We’re in a big pueblo; people can handle a gentle no, maybe even a direct no. We’ll see.
We’re also not going to laugh immediately at jokes anymore. In order to please people and make people feel good about themselves, we often laugh before taking a minute to make sure we fully understand what’s been said. So, we’ve encouragingly laughed at little one- liners like, “Sometimes people forget they’re married, right Bruce!” and “Bruce should look for a younger wife.” and “Who’s Bruce on the phone with, his girlfriend?” So, that ends today. We’ve decided that a blank stare and a “¿cómo?” would be much better. What were we thinking?!?!? (To be fair, we’re more direct with people we know well. The fake laugh usually happens with people we hardly know).
Ahhh, we’ll be coming home to visit this summer! The dates are still up in the air. It will be glorious! We can’t wait!
Pictures from our adventures this month:
We went to the Lion’s Club for a dinner / dance to celebrate Mother’s Day. This group of kids from the next pueblo over played some great marimba.
We found out that a high school-aged girl in our town has won seven medals in chess tournaments. So we recruited her to be the strategy coach for our kids.
There were literally thousands of these winged ants all of a sudden one morning. Two days later they were all dead. We had been warned about them a few weeks ago. As in, “in a few weeks there will be thousands of winged ants everywhere.” However, we assumed that it was an exaggeration. As it turns out, it was all true. Some people call them angelitos, little angels.
one of our neighbors, enjoying sandía
the view from our most recent hike/ we saw a huge snake!
Bruce during his charla (lecture/chat) about gender equality. We each give a charla on each hike. This hike was the most successful. We only invited kids from our eco clubs and kids from schools who could send a chaperone. Thus, order was maintained. Little victories.
Kelly during her charla about trash separation
the celebration of the First Communion of our neighbor friend
Piñata!
our favorite little neighbor friend
El Salvador has two seasons: rainy, and dry. We’ve recently and very gently entered the rainy season. It started with a light sprinkle one night and gradually grew into an almost nightly full-on rain, often with lightning and thunder. Last night it rained harder than ever. This is exciting for many reasons:
1) We feel much more connected to, and influenced by, the weather here. We can’t shut windows and turn on the AC. Our house is very open to the outside world. There are no screens on the doors or windows. During a storm, it’s best to just hang out in the hammock and enjoy the breeze.
2) Everything is getting green again! We hadn’t had rain since November, so things were getting really dusty, dry, and dead around here. The rain has brought life back to our little corner of the world. It has also brought two very bizarre, daylong plagues of different insects. Who knew??
3) Every day is different than the previous. The rains will get stronger and more frequent until it’s raining all of the time in September. This might not sound too exciting, and we’re sure in September we’ll be more than ready for it to end (we were pretty sick of the rain last September). However, it’s more exciting than the dry season; which is basically a guaranteed daily forecast of sun and inescapable heat…and perhaps dust in your lungs.
We’ve been super busy lately. Too busy. We haven’t had time to do a lot of the community integration things we’re supposed to do. We’re going to try to make some changes this week to remedy this. One reason we’re so busy is that we’re working with several different schools. We’re always running all over town trying to maintain clubs and organize meetings, etc. And there are still other schools with which we have not yet worked. So, our new plan is to start a super chivo youth club open to all youth in our town. Instead of maintaining clubs in half of the schools and ignoring the other half, we’ll invite everyone to join this one club.
We’re also going to start being more direct. During training we were told that the culture in the US is much more direct than the culture here. So, we were taught to be super gentle with our words. We’re finding that this is backfiring. People have suggested some projects that, for various reasons, we simply can’t do. Instead of saying “well, no that can’t work because of x, y, and z” we’ve just been saying “we’ll see.” We’re in a big pueblo; people can handle a gentle no, maybe even a direct no. We’ll see.
We’re also not going to laugh immediately at jokes anymore. In order to please people and make people feel good about themselves, we often laugh before taking a minute to make sure we fully understand what’s been said. So, we’ve encouragingly laughed at little one- liners like, “Sometimes people forget they’re married, right Bruce!” and “Bruce should look for a younger wife.” and “Who’s Bruce on the phone with, his girlfriend?” So, that ends today. We’ve decided that a blank stare and a “¿cómo?” would be much better. What were we thinking?!?!? (To be fair, we’re more direct with people we know well. The fake laugh usually happens with people we hardly know).
Ahhh, we’ll be coming home to visit this summer! The dates are still up in the air. It will be glorious! We can’t wait!
Pictures from our adventures this month:
We went to the Lion’s Club for a dinner / dance to celebrate Mother’s Day. This group of kids from the next pueblo over played some great marimba.
We found out that a high school-aged girl in our town has won seven medals in chess tournaments. So we recruited her to be the strategy coach for our kids.
There were literally thousands of these winged ants all of a sudden one morning. Two days later they were all dead. We had been warned about them a few weeks ago. As in, “in a few weeks there will be thousands of winged ants everywhere.” However, we assumed that it was an exaggeration. As it turns out, it was all true. Some people call them angelitos, little angels.
one of our neighbors, enjoying sandía
the view from our most recent hike/ we saw a huge snake!
Bruce during his charla (lecture/chat) about gender equality. We each give a charla on each hike. This hike was the most successful. We only invited kids from our eco clubs and kids from schools who could send a chaperone. Thus, order was maintained. Little victories.
Kelly during her charla about trash separation
the celebration of the First Communion of our neighbor friend
Piñata!
our favorite little neighbor friend
Kelly at the Nat'l School of Agriculture
In the beginning of May, all of the Peace Corps volunteers from Kelly’s program (Sustainable Agriculture/ Environmental Education) had a week-long IST (In Service Training) at La Ena (The National School of Agriculture) which is located in the western side of the country. We learned lots of good stuff to try out in our communities. The pictures that follow are the highlights from the week. Bruce (being in the program of Youth Development) did not go to the IST; instead, he stayed in our site and answered the question “¿y la muchacha?” about a hundred times.
To make mango marmalade, start with a big guacal of mangos.
Chop them up. Add to them their weight in sugar. Add water and citric acid. Cook it up.
While it’s still boiling, pour it into jars and flip them over to secure the seal. Now, save the marmalade until mango season has ended and sell it for sweet, sweet cash.
We were able to choose between a crash course in bee keeping, rabbit farming, or tree nurseries. I chose bee keeping for several reasons; one of which was that I assumed we’d be wearing protective clothing. Nope.
This is the national bird of El Salvador, Torogóz.
some beautiful flowers
We took a trip to near El Pital (the highest point in El Salvador) to visit an organic vegetable farming cooperative.
Volunteers rarely eat salads b/c raw vegetables (and especially lettuce) are difficult to wash and prep. They need to be soaked in a bleach solution to make sure you kill anything that could make you sick. And actually, I’ve never seen any type of lettuce in our market. So, the sight of the organic romaine lettuce was beautiful. Salads have now been added to the list of “Foods to Eat while Visiting the Grand ‘Ol USA this Summer.”
We visited this national park to learn about organizing field trips to protected areas.
Cerro Verde is a very old volcano / cloud forest. We went on a gorgeous hike. These folks are fellow Sustainable Agriculture/ Environmental Education 2008-2010 Volunteers.
To make mango marmalade, start with a big guacal of mangos.
Chop them up. Add to them their weight in sugar. Add water and citric acid. Cook it up.
While it’s still boiling, pour it into jars and flip them over to secure the seal. Now, save the marmalade until mango season has ended and sell it for sweet, sweet cash.
We were able to choose between a crash course in bee keeping, rabbit farming, or tree nurseries. I chose bee keeping for several reasons; one of which was that I assumed we’d be wearing protective clothing. Nope.
This is the national bird of El Salvador, Torogóz.
some beautiful flowers
We took a trip to near El Pital (the highest point in El Salvador) to visit an organic vegetable farming cooperative.
Volunteers rarely eat salads b/c raw vegetables (and especially lettuce) are difficult to wash and prep. They need to be soaked in a bleach solution to make sure you kill anything that could make you sick. And actually, I’ve never seen any type of lettuce in our market. So, the sight of the organic romaine lettuce was beautiful. Salads have now been added to the list of “Foods to Eat while Visiting the Grand ‘Ol USA this Summer.”
We visited this national park to learn about organizing field trips to protected areas.
Cerro Verde is a very old volcano / cloud forest. We went on a gorgeous hike. These folks are fellow Sustainable Agriculture/ Environmental Education 2008-2010 Volunteers.
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