Blogtober

Día del . . . in this case Niño. They have Día del everything here: student, teacher, nurse, secretary, etc. We have those days in the States too, but here each one is vigorously celebrated, usually during school hours (there aren´t too many to begin with) and with or without a parade.

some great neighbors at the town´s kindergarten celebration of Día del Niño

a friendly bat hanging from our ceiling

an ant carrying a watermelon seed, wishing it were a baby Jesus candy

traditional dress meets modern drink

traditional campo (countryside) dress

cachiporristas (baton twirlers) on parade

In September, Bruce went to a two-day training session up in the western mountains with all of the Youth Development Volunteers. They shared ideas and advice and learned a few new tricks.  You can see Jesus in the background of this picture.

After the training, Peace Corps transported everyone back to San Salvador where all the other volunteers either stayed the night or walked to the western bus terminal . . . thus allowing Bruce the strange luxury of being driven to the eastern bus terminal in a large and empty tour bus.

baby Jesus candy

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*There are several new chapters to the blog, so keep scrolling down!

*We celebrated El Día del Árbol (Arbor Day) with some third graders. We were saddened by the deforestation in The Lorax (with puppets!) and Fern Gully: The Last Rain Forest. However, we decorated some pro-environment signs to cheer ourselves up.

*We´re becoming more familiar with San Salvador. We´re not there too often (yay! we´ve been healthy), but we did find ourselves in the capital two consecutive weekends:

The first time we went for a meeting, but took in a few sights as well. We went to the zoo (unfortunately, many of the animals have been dying recently). We braved the city center for the first time and saw the national palace and the cathedral (Romero is buried in the basement). We went to to "Irish" pub that doesn´t have Irish beer. However, by far the deepest experience was our time at Centro Monsignor Romero at La UCA (Universidad de Centroamérica). The museum covers several topics from around the Civil War era, including the murders of Rutilio Grande (1977) and Oscar Romero (1980), but was itself the site of the brutal 1989 murder of 6 Jesuit priests and 2 women.

The following weekend we went to the Embassy for the Swearing-In of the new Environmental Education and Youth Development Peace Corps Volunteers. The Vice President of El Salvador, Salvador Sanchez Cerén gave a speech. The Charge D'Affairs (interim ambassador) Robert Blau--himself a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, spoke of how great it is that the United States and FMLN (for the first time the ruling party, they were guerilla fighters in the Civil War, 1980-1992) are no longer enemies, but instead are working together for the good of the country. Members from our training group were in charge of the post-ceremony, discotheque-filled night.

*All year long, a goal of the Eco clubs has been to raise money for an excursion to a national park. The school year ends soon. It´s crunch time. The kids were very enthusiastic about raising funds with a dance show. For three or four weeks, we were meeting (and often) to practice our moves--notably those of a Michael Jackson medley (Thriller, Beat It, Dangerous, Smooth Criminal). In the end, it all fell apart and the show was cancelled. Basically, the kids in charge of the dance moves were too rebellious and the dancers too shy. We raised money by raffling off a basket that Kelly and the kids filled with donated items from the pueblo´s store owners.

*We had a radio interview (our first!) to promote the Youth Festival.

*Bruce started a project in which he is co-teaching with the pueblo´s English teachers to share some tips.

*Kelly is working with the Catholic priest (a devoted and experienced conservationist) and the almost-NGO on an ecological stoves project.

*The school year will be over by mid-November. We´re planning new projects for the school vacation and the new year.

*El Salvador lost to Mexico 4-1 on Saturday (soccer, of course). El Salvador is now officially out of the running for a spot in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. However, on the same day, the U.S. qualified with a win over Honduras.

*We´ve recently seen a large, very fast iguana on the roof. At first we thought it was a cat.

*The cute neighbor kids you´ll recall from earlier postings suggested we celebrate Bruce´s birthday with cake and a piñata. It´s on.

*Hope everyone back home is well and enjoying those sweet autumnal colors for us.

*Go Phillies!

Youth Festival (I)

Los Fox hanging up the propaganda (here, it just means publicity) for the Youth Festival. Back in March, we and our main man Gerardo applied for a grant from an awesome NGO in the States called Kids-to-Kids. On the first weekend of October, months of planning paid off as the youth of our pueblo demonstrated their athletic and musical talents. After the Festival, this banner was stolen.

The first day of the festival consisted of a foot race competition between the schools of our pueblo. It was a very tight competition.

medallas y trofeos

the awards ceremony. . .This whole festival was meant to give the youth a chance to be an integral part of the planning of an event that would benefit them. Getting the youth involved is extremely difficult. They’re not used to having their thoughts valued, so they hesitate to speak up. The teachers aren’t used to having to value the youth, so they try to dominate every meeting, etc. So, getting a youth to be the speaker at the awards ceremony was an uphill battle in various aspects. During our planning meetings, the teachers were mostly against the idea of a youth speaker. We convinced them, reminding them that the grant required youth participation. However, in the moment this young chap was reaching for the microphone, a teacher tried to intercept. Hierarchy is just so ingrained into all aspects of life here. We’re really rocking the boat. We were very pleased with the following day’s activities which were completely orchestrated by community youth!

the winners!

Earlier this year, the new mayor introduced free karate classes to the pueblo. We were able to incorporate the karate kids into the festival.

Kelly and The Karate Kid

Youth Festival (II)

a little fighter with his proud father

The girl on the left is always so sweet to us in the street. Here’s a picture of her kicking her way to third place out of a group of eight in which she was the only girl. Months ago, she won our Earth Day drawing contest. This girl is going places!!!

The skaters rest after their races.

The Green Cross was ready for anything. Thankfully, no one was injured.

Two of our adorable little neighbors came by the park to check out the festivities.

a biker jumps two trusting friends

Kelly and a Peace Corps friend Will, who came to our town to buy our lousy, piece-of-junk internet thing. Thanks Will!

Part of the festival included a classic car show.

one of the four bands that played during the afternoon

The skateboarders and bikers came from pretty far away for the event. The competitions were managed by a young guy from our town.

Women in Youth Development Camp

Kelly is a member of a committee of Peace Corps Volunteers that organizes scholarships and workshops for young Salvadoran women. Here, scholarship recipients participate in an activity about gender stereotypes and biases.

The participants received certificates at the end of the two-day workshop.

future leaders of El Salvador!!!!

The workshop was held at a rustic government-owned workers’ center. We slept in bunk beds in cabins. The perk is that the lodging is free. After the workshop ended, the two of us stayed another night on the lake but in a nearby hotel. This is the view of the hotel’s restaurant on the pier.

Kelly enjoying the lake and protecting herself from stray dogs with a stick

We asked some guy to take our picture, but he stood way too close to us.

This is what it looks like when you put your feet in Lake Coatepeque.

The lake is in the crater of a has-been volcano and, for that reason, is unusually warm and extremely deep. On our way home from the lake we tried to visit a cool archeological site. It took a good two hours out of our day only to discover it was closed. We shamelessly begged the guard to let us in, which did not work.

Tragedy

This man from the Green Cross is fumigating our house. On this night, they fumigated the whole neighborhood to fight dengue. We wore masks to avoid breathing the fumes, but Bruce still woke up feeling less than stellar the next day.

Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica celebrate their independence on September 15. Part of the celebration is a torch that passes through all these countries. We live close to the Panamerican Highway that goes through Central America. Students and community leaders went to the highway to receive the torch in a formal ceremony. Had Bruce not been ill, we would have been there ourselves.

Right before the ceremony was set to start, while most of the students were on the side of the road, a tractor-trailer was unable to stop in time and ran over several people. Two beloved educators from our pueblo were killed, as well as a driver from the Ministry of Education. Several more people were injured. President Funes gave an Independence Day speech, calling the teachers heroes for protecting the students.

The normal Independence Day festivities were cancelled. However, at the end of the month, a parade was held during which the town honored the memory of the teachers.

The Hike to El Cocal

unique fruit

Our August hike was to a place called El Cocal. There were about 40 students from three different schools. ¡Que chivo! Chivo means cool, but also means baby cow.

caminando

In yet another afternoon that would never happen in the States, we—without permission--used the porch and lawn of a stranger’s empty vacation home for our lunch and our lecture series. The house was previously touted as a casa de vidrio (glass house), but ended up being just a house with somewhat large windows. Kelly led an investigative comparison of different habitats. Our main man Gerardo gave a lecture on soil erosion.

Bruce, during his Say No to Drugs charla (chat). It involved a time machine! This young man was a police officer in the future, but then, in the drug-influenced alternative future, he was but a lowly, unemployed drogadicto (drug addict).

Bruce with a future police officer

Future drogadicto? He asked us to take a picture of just him. We figured he would just smile.

A great view of the pueblo taken from the glass house

This picture was taken at the hot springs on the way down. We drank our liquid yogurt, brand name “YES”. We asked our friend if he knew what the word “yes” meant. He gave us a thumbs-up and said, “Yes!”