Bruce & Kelly's Peace Corps Journal

Farewells

2010-02-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

Well. Our Salvadoran adventure has ended prematurely and we are now thrust into a new and exciting chapter of our lives: parenthood! Wow. While back in the States for Christmas, we found out that Kelly is pregnant--thus making her medically unfit to continue her service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Bruce returned to El Salvador for another month to give closure to our service. While we were looking forward to spending more time with friends, neighbors, students, coworkers, and other Peace Corps Volunteers, keeping in touch will have to suffice. And someday we hope to go back and visit Chinameca, a place that will always hold a special place in our hearts.

To our family and friends in the U.S., thanks for reading the blog. It was a pleasure sharing this experience with you. Be sure to keep scrolling down, as this post goes back to October. We hope to see more of y'all, now that we're back in Pennsylvania and Delaware (currently looking for jobs). We look forward to introducing you to our little baby, set to arrive around August 9 (gender will be a surprise!).

Para los queridos Chinamequenses, gracias por todo su amistad y apoyo en nuestros proyectos en la comunidad. Para nosotros, fue una experiencia maravillosa e inolvidable. Siempre vamos a guardar un espacio enorme para ustedes en nuestros corazones....y siempre queremos mantener contacto. Cuidense mucho y que Dios les bendiga.

Bruce receives a painting from the director of the Cultural Center during his last days in town.

a farewell dinner with friends

Bruce and Carlos (Choloman)

Bruce went with some friends from our pueblo to try surfing at a nearby beach. He basically caught one wave. He was then stung by an evil sting ray.

at a local finca (coffee farm) with our friendly neighbor

Kelly sent winter-themed stuffed animals to some of our favorite little friends.

a farewell trip to the beach with some Peace Corps friends

On Bruce's last night in town, he went to a nearby pueblo to say goodbye to a great family...and watch a toreada (bull fight). We chose to sit on the second level because it seemed likely to collapse onto the first level. The evening also featured fancy horse stepping.

One guy took a bull horn to the groin.

a farewell to Bruce, with gifts for Kelly and the baby

Caiman Fun

2010-02-27T17:55:00.000-07:00

Gerardo, beer, stick

caiman

Bruce and some coworkers (Gerardo and Cesar are pictured) finally made good on the promise to hold the caiman kept at a restaurant just outside town.

Kelly likes this picture because it looks like Gerardo is doing a ceremonial caiman dance.

Bruce, Gerardo, Jorge

A longtime friend of Bruce visited for ten days. Here, he is seen jamming with some local guitar students. We also put on a play of Donde Viven Los Monstruos (Where the Wild Things Are).

sheep

Bruce visits the newborn niece of Choloman

a popular soda

These women make some of the best pupusas in the world!

Casa de la Cultura

2010-02-27T15:49:00.000-07:00

Bruce plays Train Wreck (the most popular icebreaker) with a kids' English class

during one of our adult English classes

Our students wanted to celebrate the end of the year with a

piñata!

Bruce hates ducks.

Kelly, during a meeting of our chess club

We worked with the director of the Cultural Center (Casa de la Cultura) to create a Kids' Library. To promote it, we started a series of reading circles that also included arts activities.

With Maria Dolores (Cultural Center director) and her daughter Gerardina

Our reading circle kids worked to color the pages of Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree" (El Árbol Generoso).

Mauricio draws Central America

We worked with high school students to paint a World Map on the wall of the Cultural Center. Work in progress.

Thanksgiving

2010-02-27T15:33:00.000-07:00

We had some of our dearest friends and coworkers over for a Thanksgiving (Día de Acción de Gracias) dinner that couldn't be beat. Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberries, stuffing, green beans, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, apple pie, wine, etc. We told them about the history of Thanksgiving. Everyone at the table thanked God for their blessings. It was awesome. In this picture, you can see the salt, pepper, bay leaves, and rosemary used on the turkey.

apples and onions to stuff the turkey

pavo

Estefani and her first Thanksgiving dinner. She mostly enjoyed the cranberries and bread.

Kelly with our host mother and her niece

Choloman y Tapa Dulce disfrutan la cena

A Salvadoran newspaper advertised for a restaurant in the capital, in anticipation of their "Pennsylvania Style" Thanksgiving buffet.

We hosted the November Peace Corps Soccer Game. Every month there are games between Peace Corps Volunteers and local Salvadoran teams in a Volunteer's site. The male Volunteers won their game! However, as Chinameca doesn't have a ladies' soccer game, we asked a friend of ours to invite her regional team. They were basically a pro team and won, uh, decisively. That night we headed to nearby San Miguel for Carnaval, the biggest and craziest event in the country.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Ecological Stoves

2010-02-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

We organized an ecological stove project with the NGO Stoveteam International, as well as our pueblo's church and mayor's office. The eco stove uses 70% less wood and produces 90% less smoke than an open cooking fire. Respiratory disease is the leading cause of death among Salvadoran kids. Deforestation is also a huge environmental concern [in fact, during this demonstration, a Stoveteam representative discussed the correlation between deforestation and landslides...unfortunately, several days later there was a terrible landslide in El Salvador that killed more than 200 people]. These stoves tackle those health and environmental issues; after an initial investment in the stove, the family can also save money on firewood. This picture is from Stoveteam's first demonstration in our town.

Stoveteam came back to give a second demonstration. Town residents cooked pupusas, pasteles,

plátanos, etc. We brought in over 60 stoves with this campaign. The mayor's office is continuing to promote the stoves and keeping a list for another order. This makes us very happy because sustainable development is an all-too-elusive goal.

puppets

Josecito took this picture.

After the terrible landslides, the whole town rallied to provide relief for the displaced survivors. We collected money, food, and clothes for the community of Verapaz.

We were celebrating one year in site out west (went ziplining!) with our training group when the landslides occurred. Our friend here was unable to return to her site (close to Verapaz) for weeks. She spent a few days with us in Chinameca; she happened to be there during our relief campaign.

These pupusas are cooked on a comal (black clay skillet). This is the old school way of cooking (delicious) pupusas.

Kelly, Estefani, Norma

Estefani and Bruce

Chinameca, our beloved pueblo

Making Tamales

2010-02-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

Some friends had us over to make tamales de elote (corn). It took practically all day, but was a good time.

snack time

Kelly cut corn and I don't care.

Bruce grinding corn at the mill

Ana and Kelly take the ground corn back to the house

Walk like a Salvadoran.

Los Fox form the tamales by filling the husks with the ground corn.

Orbelina and Baltazar, tamale experts

Kelly mixes atol, a hot, thick corn drink.

Tamales, ready to be steamed on the fire. Mission accomplished.

Day of the Dead

2010-02-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

Bruce buys plastic flowers from friends on the Day of the Dead

Kelly with our host mother (Doña Lydia) at her husband's grave.

The rest of this chapter is a collection of random pictures. Here you can see the two of us on the welcome sign to the mayor's office--not something we would have consented to, given Peace Corps' apolitical stance. But of course, we were never asked for consent.

In 1951, an earthquake destroyed the church in our town. It's said that the church was one of the most beautiful in all of Central America. This statue is one of the only features that survived the earthquake.

iguana on our roof

Reformed gang members from a nearby jail came to our town and put on a moving play aimed at deterring youth from gang life.

U2 is big in El Salvador. You probably know the U2 song "Pride (In the Name of Love)." Well, there is a campaign from a local radio station to bring U2 to El Salvador. Newspaper ads, billboards, and grocery store charity stickers (pictured) beg "U2, Come! [give a concert] In the name of El Salvador."

Winnie Pooh y Jesucristo

Volcano Hike

2010-02-27T13:58:00.000-07:00

A goal of our eco clubs was to raise money and carry out an excursion to a national park at the end of the school year (November). We organized a bus trip from our town to Volcanoes National Park, about four hours west. Approximately 60 people went on the trip and half of those embarked on the climb up Volcán Izalco (pictured). The park is located in a cloud forest. It was a great day.

Kelly, on the way up Izalco

nubes (clouds)

Kelly and Monica, on the final stretch

at the summit

Bruce and Wiliam Geovani. The skies were clear in one direction, but menacing in the other.

views of western El Salvador's coffee farms

in front of the crater

Shortly after this picture was taken, a thunderstorm rolled in. Everyone practically ran down the volcano.

The kids in the back of the bus sang for most of the ride home. We sang a well-received rendition of one of El Salvador's favorite songs: Lady in Red.

Bruce's Birthday

2010-02-27T13:39:00.001-07:00

Kelly and the neighborhood kids threw a "surprise" party for Bruce on his 26th birthday.

Brush! Brush! Brush! Brush!

Candy!

Piñatas make kids crazy!

We bought a cake from the ice cream store and put it in the freezer. But it actually wasn't an ice cream cake, so we all ate frozen solid regular cake.

Beto and Josecito flying a kite

Kevin and his kite

Beto thought we were taking a video.

He put on quite a dramatic performance. At least we got these two shots.

some of our favorite vecinas (neighbors)

El Gueguecho

2010-02-27T13:30:00.001-07:00

Our October hike was to El Gueguecho (Adam's Apple), an abrupt hill covered with trees. Here you can see coffee beans preparing for a December harvest.

We spotted several butterflies (mariposas) at a small church.

In the U.S. we take private property very seriously. In El Salvador the idea of private property is rather lax. For example, this kitten was thieved by a girl on the hike. The two of us demanded she return the kitten to its owner. However, the other adults on the hike insisted it was no big deal. Fijese que, this girl doesn't have a cat.

El Gueguecho

kids enjoy views of the San Miguel Volcano from El Gueguecho

the post-lunch discussions

El Salvador has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in Latin America. This activity, in which every hike participant carried an egg as if it were his/her baby, addressed the demands of parenthood. Oh, the irony.

Kelly eats the ugly but delcious zuncuya

disinfecting fruit and vegetables

Philly Cheese Steak

Blogtober

2009-10-11T14:34:00.014-06:00

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)

2009-10-11T14:25:00.010-06:00

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)

2009-10-11T14:15:00.009-06:00

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

2009-10-11T14:05:00.006-06:00

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

2009-10-11T14:01:00.007-06:00

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

2009-10-11T13:51:00.005-06:00

strange 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!”

Last Friday

2009-08-19T18:03:00.007-06:00

People here have a hard time with the name Bruce. They spell it Brush, Bruuz, Brooke. Some folks know Bruce Lee, that’s my best bet. A few have mentioned Springsteen or Willis. Sadly, Batman’s Bruce Wayne is Bruno is Spanish, so that doesn’t help. However, the Jim Carrey film Bruce Almighty (Spanish title Todo Poderoso, which means All Powerful) is quite popular. We work with a man named Gerardo (the bearded fellow in many of our blog pics). Every time he sees me, Gerardo yells, “Bruce Nolan! Todo Poderoso!”… sometimes even “Todo Poderosísimo!” (Very All Powerful). I saw the movie with my fraternity when it first came out, but tragically, Kelly had never seen it. So we were sure to aprovechar (take advantage) when we saw it on the street for a dollar.

new ceiling, same lovable geckos

during Kelly’s charla on endangered animals

With five-cent milk popsicles (or small plastic bags filled with frozen Coke), it’s possible to bribe your eco club into yet another tree planting. Note the small black dog on the lap of the boy with the green shirt. It is a ten-day old puppy of the girl standing behind him.

hackey sack

No one is safe from bunny ears.

Look out!

He urinated in my Phillies hat.

the dirtiest Phillies hat since that of John Kruk

After planting about forty trees (Palm and Nim) outside the new polideportivo (multi-sport facility), we played some soccer.

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NOTES

There are five new posts with some swell pictures, so be sure to keep scrolling down.

Michael Jackson’s death was huge here. The little neighbor kids have taken to MJ dance parties. We Are the World seems to follow us everywhere we go.

Bruce met the national soccer team at the airport food court in San Salvador.

We recently visited the States. We had a really enjoyable ten days with the family. It was nice to be there for the 4th of July. It was far too brief a visit, but well worth it. Thanks to y’all for making our trip home awesome.

Honduras had a coup d’etat that, among other negative consequences, impedes our planned travels to Nicaragua.

Classes were cancelled for three weeks on account of gripe porcina, swine flu. Schools are now extending the normal schedule to recuperate lost time.

El Salvador, sadly, will not be in the World Cup next year, in spite of a promising start.

Some of the pupuserías seem to be using less queso.

Bruce got a nasty blood blister playing in an ultimate frisbee tournament with other Volunteers at a local beach.

Our host mother turned 85 on our two year anniversary. We shared a belated, but special, dinner.

School marching bands are prepping for the Independence Day parade on 15 de septiembre. Interestingly enough, these practices often take place during precious, swine-shortened class hours.

Thoughts and prayers go out to Bruce’s grandmother and Kelly’s grandfather who are both recuperating from major medical problems.

Festival Cultural

2009-08-19T17:48:00.007-06:00

the park fountain

returning from a tree planting at the local springs

Poetry is big in El Salvador. La Casa de la Cultura regularly holds poetry nights. With a local NGO, we helped plan a Festival Cultural during the fiestas. Community members came to declamar—-recite poetry, often memorized and always delivered in a sweeping, dramatic manner.

On the walls behind this performer are a few of the posters from the photography exhibit component of the festival. The themes for the pictures were traditional life of the pueblo and recent projects of the NGO.

another poetry enthusiast

posing with the queen of the fiestas patronales, who came to the Festival Cultural

The festival continued with music. At first, karaoke. Bruce sang Let It Be and, to woo the crowd, proudly announced all the town facts he has learned thus far: 1) it is the capital of the world, 2) it is a little branch of heaven, 3) it is the only place visible from the moon, 4) it is the only place where the Beatles gave a concert (in the gazebo). Our beloved amigo Gerardo has drilled this into our heads. Then, three bands played. The final group played folkloric music.

The talented group played Salvadoran songs (El Torito Pinto is the most famous), but also enough music from South America to earn the label andino (as in The Andes).

The Savior of the World, from our bedroom

So we have seen our first fiestas patronales. It is probable that the town spent too much money. The queens all paid a good deal in dresses, that much is certain. The town also played hosts to famous musical acts Platinum, Marito Rivera Band, Los Hermanos Flores, and Los Guaraguao (a Venezuelan band that penned the famous revolutionary anthem Casas de Cartón, Houses of Cardboard). And yet, these fiestas lift the spirit of the pueblo. People told us long in advance that se pone alegre during the fiestas. So basically, things get happy.

Perquín and the "Marathon"

2009-08-19T17:28:00.007-06:00

Here we are with our host mother at a fiesta rosa (celebration for a quinceañera, 15 year old girl). We are also joined in this picture by Colleen, an excellent trainee who spent three days in our site for her Immersion Days. She spent her nights with one of our favorite families, went to her first fiesta rosa, and joined us on an excursion we took with our community to Perquín, Morazan-—hot spot during the civil war and home to a great museum.

Rocket launchers at el Museo de la Revolución Salvadoreña in Perquín. Ex-guerrilla fighters serve as guides in this museum about the civil war (1980-1992). We saw craters left by bombs. We crawled through war-era tunnels. The experience was heavy. You, the reader, might find it interesting (and disturbing) to read up on the war--including the role of the US.

parts of planes from the war

Atop Cerro de Perquín. That’s Honduras in the background.

Kelly on a bridge at the reconstructed guerrilla camp

After Perquín, we went to a small village called Mozote. In December of 1981, the Salvadoran armed forces massacred all inhabitants: men, women, and children. There was one survivor, a woman who died a few years ago. Behind the silhouetted family in this picture, there are plaques with the names of over a thousand victims.

The Garden of the Innocents is next to these church walls that celebrate the children’s arrival in heaven.

Before returning home, we made a final stop at Río Sapo. We ate, swam, and enjoyed the views.

Our almost-two-mile “marathon.” There were bands playing. There were prizes. It was great. Some people cheated.

A friend of ours won second place in the women’s category.

Fiestas Patronales

2009-08-19T17:12:00.004-06:00

Salvadoran communities all have fiestas patronales, a week-or-so to celebrate the patron saint. Our pueblo’s patron is not quite a saint; he is Salvador del Mundo himself (The Savior of the World, Jesus). We share him with the capital. We got here in November; and since that time, we’ve been hearing about the August festivities on a regular basis. It’s the highpoint of the year. Lots of folks come home from San Salvador, the US, Canada, Australia to visit their families. There are rides. There is pizza. There is live music every night, both on the dance floor and in the streets. Each neighborhood has one day and a committee prepares months in advance. There was a picture of us in the fiestas patronales magazine, as well as the new banner in the mayor’s office.

It was all kicked off by a parade. In this picture, Salvadoran folklore myth El Cipitío (pointy hat) walks next to Minnie Mouse.

Yep.

A strange, mystical man scares our little friend Roberto with a Bill Clinton mask. Check out the stilts in the background.

parade spurs

It’s good to be the mayor.

Each neighborhood (and some institutions, the Red Cross, the Green Cross, the market) selects a queen: Vanessa the First, and so on. They compete as candidates to be the queen of the fiestas patronales for the whole town. During the parade, each one rides on top of a truck or van. Throngs of her neighborhood supporters surround her. Some rock t-shirts or carry signs to promote her. Kids bang on drums and blow horns. The queen throws candy, bags of drinking water, etc. She smiles and waves like the royalty that she temporarily is.

Look out!

Supporters from one barrio (neighborhood) support their queen.

It plays out like most beauty pageants. There was formal wear. There were skimpy dresses. There was dancing. We even had near-celebrity status judges, all from out of town to avoid a biased decision. One judge was from Bailando por un Sueño (Dancing for a Dream, a popular Salvadoran reality show). The backdrop on the stage in this picture is a copy of the famous Monument to the Revolution in San Salvador. We would argue that it doesn’t quite fit here. At the bottom of this picture, there is a banner to promote a “marathon” (any race, in this case about 3 kilometers) that we organized with the mayor’s office to raise money for a project to bring used computers to the rural schools.

This picture was taken early in the competition. The candidates are introducing themselves. All the ladies are shaking their hips in unison.

Junio y Julio

2009-08-19T16:48:00.009-06:00

Perhaps the greatest West Nottingham Academy reunion ever held in El Salvador. Bruce taught history for two years at the same school where the Costa Rican mother/ wife of these good folks teaches Spanish. The sons were students of ours (Kelly was a substitute for three months). The family drove from Maryland to Costa Rica, stopping at points of interest along the way. And thus, they momentously became our first visitors from alla (over there=the US) and enjoyed their first ever pupusas. They spent a night on their way down in June and another on their way back up in August.

The winners of the Ajedrez Increíble (Incredible Chess!) competition. A teacher at the school does some mean calligraphy, so we anticlimactically held this brief ceremony days after the competition to allow the teacher time to fancifully write the kids’ names.

We helped organize this charla on home and school gardens.

We brought four leaders from our community (representing the mayor’s office, the health clinic, the local environmental NGO, and a school) to a three-day workshop on Project Design and Management. It was funded by USAID, run by Peace Corps El Salvador, and held at a posh resort on the Costa del Sol. Topics included citizen participation, leadership, community mapping, identification of community strengths/ weaknesses/ opportunities/ threats, objectives, budgets, action plans, evaluations, and grant applications. Our community focused on possible projects to promote tourism, such as the development of an ecological park.

We planted trees outside one of the schools. But we needed to protect the young, vulnerable trees from horses, drunks, etc. So beforehand, we walked a mile to a forested area where we had been granted permission to cut down bamboo stalks. Seventh and eighth grade eco club kids cut down the tall bamboo and made a fun competition of cutting them into stakes (fewest whacks of a machete wins).

This young man is the president of our eco club. But in light of the situation in Honduras, some of the other kids have been joking about a golpe de estado (coup d’etat). They say this president doesn’t do much. Hence, this propaganda that shows him working.

Girls are usually more hesitant to participate in physical tasks, be they sports or tree plantings. It is constantly a priority of ours to hassle them until they join in.

The newest Peace Corps Youth Development and Sustainable Agriculture/ Environmental Education group is currently in training. Both groups have now visited us in our site. Here, some of the new "Youthies" try out their magic wands during a game day we organized with the fourth graders.

A few weeks before we left on our trip to the States, Kelly saw a scorpion in our closet. I was already asleep. We decided to put masking tape around the door to form a seal and kill him in the morning. We searched thoroughly but found nothing. Over a month later, I got out of the shower, opened the closet, and chose a shirt. He was inside that shirt. As I put my left arm through the sleeve, he hitched a ride on my hand. He got me with his tail (and I think also his pincher). I threw him to the floor. I was barefoot, so he was able to make a getaway. He ran under the dresser. From there, he could have easily slipped under the door to the room of our host mother. The initial pain was no worse than a bee sting. I yelled to Kelly. Then the scorpion emerged from his hiding spot and I killed him with Kelly’s sneaker. I started the treatment I had memorized in training: scrub the infected area, apply Hydrocortisone cream, and take Benadryl capsules. Within a short while, my mouth went numb. I headed out with Kelly and Gerardo to hand out invitations for a meeting. We were to visit all the schools. After chatting with the director at the first school, I stood up, walked outside, and sat down. My legs had gone numb. I went home and rested. My arms went numb. The local advice poured in: bite a stick, eat brown sugar, rub the guts of the scorpion on the bite. My body was asleep all day. My hand was still numb the next day and the pain lasted another two days.

Bruce the Hobbit. The morning of the scorpion bite, he had to lean on the walls on his walk to the bathroom. He then graduated to this stick. Kelly thinks he bears a striking resemblance to a man known as “Joe, the Wizard from the Northeast”--a homeless and slightly crazy man who wandered the banks of Delaware´s Christina River and was full of crazy tales for all the rowers during regattas.

Women & Youth Development

2009-06-17T16:10:00.002-06:00

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

Eco Club to the Rescue

2009-06-16T21:20:00.007-06:00

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.

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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

2009-06-16T21:04:00.007-06:00

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

2009-06-16T20:51:00.007-06:00

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.

2009-06-16T20:28:00.007-06:00

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

Kelly at the Nat'l School of Agriculture

2009-06-16T19:51:00.007-06:00

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.

El Dia de la Tierra

2009-05-04T21:05:00.009-06:00

Earth Day 2009! La Banda de Paz (the Peace Band, formerly La Banda de Guerra--the War Band) during the parade through town.

Once a week, the two of us teach English via songs and games to the students of parvularia (kinder). Their participation in Earth Day was clutch.

mariposas y flores

Students show off some chivo (cool) posters they made in the Casa de la Cultura.

The president of the almost-NGO with which we work addresses the crowd. The two of us later gave a well-received speech about global warming.

during the parvularian drama about the growth of a seed

a consortium of the sun, water, bunnies encourage seed

a group of five young butterflies bring it on

Lata Lenta, a character in the play "La Vida de la Basura" (The Life of the Trash)/ The play was written by Peace Corps El Salvador's acting troupe "Gringuissimo"./ The kids from our Eco Club did a great job.

cool hats

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NOTES

The times they are a-changin'. * On May 1, our pueblo's new mayor took power. Our pueblo, like the country, is saying goodbye to ARENA and hello to FMLN. Our pueblo, much more than is common, has a history of changing parties. On June 1, Mauricio Funes of FMLN will become the first left-of-center President in the history of El Salvador. * And now for the weather. The rainy season arrived the other day. It had not seriously rained since October. Hence, the recent rainfalls have been our first in site. It will now rain almost every day until October. Come visit! But seriously, come visit.

Kelly currently has a week of "In-Service Training" out west with all of her Agroforestry/ Environmental Education peers. She will fill all y'all in later.

The United States of America. We are planning a week-long trip in or around July. We hope to do the PA-DE-Jersey Shore circuit. It's been tough being away from the family, so we're stoked to see everyone again. You all rock. We will also aprovechar (take advantage) in terms of eating those foods, drinking those drinks, and taking those sweet, sweet GREs of which we've been dreaming.

Brazo & Martillo

2009-05-04T20:52:00.006-06:00

the directors, off stage

ye olde minuta shoppe/ approximately a snowcone

special thanks to N & M for some key luxury items from the States!

avocados from the branch that fell

gas tank for stove

brother, sister on a hike to the mountain springs/ the boy's t-shirt has a bear on roller skates and promises that "Here Comes Trouble!"

chico, chucho

Thanks for the box of goodies, Danny and Amy!

El Viernes Santo

2009-04-13T20:48:00.010-06:00

Everybody knows...TURTLES LOVE MANGOS!

our roof

On Good Friday (el viernes santo), our pueblo decorated the streets with alfombras (carpets, but in this case sawdust paintings of Jesus). The final and most elaborate Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross) then took place. See pictures below. The Catholic traditions here are impressive. Unfortunately, we had gripe (colds)--or possibly just dust in our throats and lungs--all of Semana Santa (Holy Week) and weren't able to take in too many of the processions.

spraying down the alfombras with water

one of the stations for La Via Crucis

Monsignor Romero. Last month marked the 29th anniversary of his assassination. There was an enormous banner in our church that read (translation) "Saint Romero of the Americas." However, he's actually not yet been awarded sainthood.

Our pueblo has Catholic churches on both the east and west ends. Here, Jesus is ironically leaving from a church called Calvario (you will remember that was crucified on Calvary hill) on his way to the larger church.

the altar servers

the statue of Jesus, carried by many men

Huevos Chimbos. Folks save their delicately cracked eggs, fill them with confetti, cover them, dye them, and give them to children to smash on each other's heads. There is no Easter Bunny in El Salvador and no special candies. But we had special candies. Shout out to N and M for the package that included Reese's peanut butter eggs! Also shout out to Marlboro Middle School in New Jersey for their great questions through WorldWise Schools!

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MORE NOTES

Funerals: We´ve greatly enjoyed attending a number of celebrations in our site: religious processions, a first communion, a fiesta rosa. A few weeks back, someone asked us if we had been to a funeral in El Salvador. We had not. Sadly, that is no longer true. A teacher in our pueblo´s bachillerato (high school) died in March. He was a member of the almost-NGO that we work with. He came with us to the San Miguel Carnaval and on one of our hikes. He would always take pictures on his phone. There were hundreds and hundreds of folks at his wake. He will be missed. The next week, the sister-in-law/next-door neighbor of the woman we live with passed away. She was the only close relative left in our pueblo. Relatives came from the capital and the States. Both Don Loncho and Doña Alba are in our thoughts and prayers.

Scholarship Win: With our almost-NGO counterpart, we applied to and won a scholarship from an awesome organization in the US named Kids to Kids. The $495 will pay for a Festival de la Juventud (Youth Festival) that we will carry out in September. Foot races, skateboarding, rollerblading, soccer, ajedrez increible (a chess tournament of sorts), live music, art, etc.

Goodbye to Steph: Bruce´s boss, a Peace Corps El Salvador legend, is returning to the States after six years in country (first as a Volunteer, later as administrator). Our training group had an almost-surprise party for her in La Palma, a beautiful pueblo up north famous for the Fernando Llort-inspired art (very colorful animals, people, houses/ the art is so busy and vibrant that it is somehow becomes tasteful again). We danced the night away in the school. Thanks to M&C for putting the event together.

Earth Day: April 22 is Earth Day and we are currently putting much of our energy into the parade/ dramas/ speeches that we will have. Our first true large-scale community-wide event.

Hike, Baskets, Chess

2009-04-13T20:34:00.005-06:00

We had another great caminata (hike), this time to some boiling mud pots. This picture is from Kelly's charla (talk) about the ozone layer.

Bruce during his autoestima (self-esteem) charla

We came upon some men who had captured and tied up an iguana. People say the meat is excellent. The problem is they're endangered. The good news is we're teaching the youth. Note sad look on boy's face.

We're building canastas with one of our Ecological Clubs. Canastas are baskets, in this case used to hang plants at the school.

Everyone knows...KIDS LOVE BASKETS!

our president and his basket

The Incredible! Chess Club. There are four teams: Los Vencedores (The Defeaters), Los Campeones (The Champions), Los Imortales (The Immortals), and Star Fox Team (we have no idea how they came up with that name)

strategizing

During Semana Santa, we started painting two chess boards on the playground. Still a work in progress.

Arriba Con La Seleccion

2009-04-13T20:00:00.005-06:00

Rocking our Peace Corps soccer jerseys in one of our pueblo's most renowned totoposterias (place where they make totopostes, the local specialty). We're standing in front of a giant oven.

tustaca y totoposte

Arriba con la Seleccion! La Seleccion is El Salvador's soccer team. On March 28, we went to San Salvador to watch the match with the United States. It was one of the qualifying games for the World Cup in South Africa next year. We thought El Salvador (easily the underdog) would win, but the U.S. got two late goals. The amazing game ended in a 2-2 tie.

during the VIH/SIDA (HIV/AIDS) charla we helped organize for the local high school

our mango tree

our lime tree

our avocado tree/ today a huge branch with 21 avocados came crashing down while we were doing our laundry

The woman we live with hires this very nice woman to clean and garden a few times a week.

Kelly's left eye

a bird outside our window

Kelly's Birthday

2009-04-13T19:45:00.006-06:00

back at the hot spring cooking plantains

eating plantains

great friends of ours visiting our window on Kelly's 25th birthday

birthday Oreos

We play with these kids every week. We read stories (Dr. Seuss, Corduroy, El Cipitio, etc.), color, play ball, hide and go seek, etc.

Kelly and the gang

again

balloon fights!

zapotes from the school director's house

the largest lemon in the world!

Funes Wins Historic Presidential Election

2009-03-16T20:44:00.005-06:00

Mauricio Funes was elected yesterday as the first left-wing president in the country´s history. It has been fascinating to be here during the election season. It will be equally fascinating to see what happens now. You might enjoy reading more about the election online.

Fijese que... (Part One)

2009-03-09T20:25:00.010-06:00

FIJESE QUE...

Exploring a different culture has been a truly rewarding experience for us. There are new and exciting foods: pupusas, tamales, and an endless selection of new tropical fruit. There are interesting idiosyncratic tidbits: “he’s so angry, it’s like he ate scorpions!”. There are the people, who are so fun-loving, hospitable, and outgoing. There are their memories from an unbelievably horrid civil war. There are the politics, which have a totally different vibe than at home and are more intense now than ever with a possibly groundbreaking presidential election in less than a week.

There have, however, been some cultural differences that have been harder to deal with. One is machismo. Machismo we will save for a different entry, when Kelly has a tall glass of wine and can laugh and laugh as she recounts anecdotes. Today we will talk about time and productivity.

Long before Peace Corps, we certainly knew that life here in Central America was slower. And it's easy to romanticize that fact, to see things through rose-colored glasses. No one refers to life as a "rat race" down here. People spend more time with family (unless the family is in the U.S.). But one goal of Peace Corps is to share our experience with all of you good folks back home. We wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't communicate some degree of frustration or disillusionment. Hence, we vent...un poquito.

In the states, things run like clockwork. People arrive early to important meetings and events, allowing extra time in case something should go wrong. That certainly does not happen here. We’ve received some very formal and serious looking invitations to meetings. In spite of such formalities, things consistently start between 30-90 minutes late. The rule might even be the more legit looking invitation, the later it will actually start.

In the States, people carry planners, writing down important events, keeping everything organized. It would be really embarrassing if you told someone you’d meet with them and then forgot about it completely and didn’t show up. It would be rude. Time is so very much valued. People value their own time and that of others as well. Time is money. In the States, people often refer to things as ‘a waste of time.’ We have never heard anyone use a similar expression here. We’re not really sure yet how you would say it, and you probably don’t want to be the first person to say it. “Tranquilo” they’d say, “Hay más tiempo que vida.” (Relax, there’s more time than there is life!) All of this brings us to "fijese que".

Fijese que basically means, “look, here’s the deal” or, “however, as it turns out. . .” It’s what you might say to someone right before you tell them why the planned activity/ meeting/ excursion/ class is not going to happen. As in, “I know we had planned on having a meeting with the students right now. Fijese que, we cancelled classes; the students have all gone home. There will be no such meeting.” We’ve been hearing a lot of "fijese que"s these days. It often involves scheduling conflicts. We’ll think we’re totally confirmed for a planned activity, and then...kerplunk.

You might be thinking that these damn gringos are trying to hold the Salvadorans to their gringo standards. That we need to do as Simba did when he moved in with Timon and Pumbaa: learn the virtues of Hakuna Matata. That's part of it, perhaps. Peace Corps is impressively laissez-faire, flexible, supportive...but they still crunch numbers and there's an underlying go-get-'em attitude that's typical of the U.S. But we believe there's more to it than that. It's not just an issue of time. It's an issue of productivity.

There are definitely exceptions: we've met really ambitious folks. But so many people just don't get the job done. Ever. It's as if, to many, words speak louder than actions.

In some parts, there is extreme poverty. There is exploitation. There are folks who work ridiculously hard to pick coffee for absurdly low pay. But there is a widespread hand-out mentality, doubtlessly a consequence of El Salvador's struggling economy, job shortages, troubled past, natural disasters, and the list goes on. However, there are lots of folks who are doing alright. This hand-out mentality, it seems to us, is a huge roadblock in terms of productivity. There exists a sad self-pitying inferiority complex in the mentality of many. We realize the uphill battle people face in many areas. But the absence of aggressive action can be baffling.

Another factor is religious fatalism. It is sooo common to say "Primero Dios" or "Si Dios quiere..." If God wants this, it will happen. We'll see if we get the job done. It's in God's hands.

The power of collective thought also factors in. The U.S. prizes individualism. Not nearly as much here. There is a set way of doing things. "Oh, teachers don't help out with after-school clubs." "Boys don't help out around the house." "The people here only like cheese or pork pupusas." The outside-the-box mentality is much less common here.

However, things are complex. We know. We haven't even been here for six months yet. And many things about this culture are unbelievably amazing.

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RANDOM NOTES

*We went to the Lion's Club in our pueblo for a Valentine's Day dinner and dance. It was adorable. We danced cumbia to the live music (we thought it would be a band, but was some dude with a karaoke set).

*Cuaresma (Lent) is underway. Instead of Stations of the Cross inside the church, the faithful follow a gi-normous statue of a cross-carrying Jesus from one church to the other. Thirteen strong young men hoist the statue on their shoulders. The priest reads. Old ladies sing.

*The major projects we have going on right now are our two ecological clubs, our incredible! chess club, our journalism/ literary club, English with the kindergarten students. Next week we start more English projects. They're very much in demand.

*Kelly turns 25 tomorrow (March 11)!

*The election is Sunday! Tomorrow is the last day for propaganda. Everyone is sick of the campaign songs. Mauricio Funes may become the first left-wing leader in the history of the country. Or Rodrigo Avila may win, adding five more years to the ARENA party's 20 year ownership of the presidency. Tensions run high.

*Check out the U.S.-El Salvador game on March 28. It's a qualifying game for next year's World Cup and it´s in San Salvador. It should be on ESPN2 in the States.

*We miss you.

*Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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the journey

a box sent from heaven (or Pennsylvania)

the sun shining through our church as we head out on a hike

leaving town/ you might be able to see two trees that stand out on top of the cerro (tall hill, not quite mountain)...that was our destination

this was the largest hike we've led so far (eighty people)

our volcano

the expert (he claims there are seldom-seen spider monkeys nearby!)

on our way to destroy the one ring

Fijese que... (Part Two)

2009-03-09T20:16:00.007-06:00

Bruce's compass (shout out to Uncle J and Aunt K!)

at the top, we imparted charlas (talks/ lectures)...we made them fun

Kelly teaching soil degradation through a wild game

during Bruce's values-themed charla (with lollipops!)

huevos de golondriz (we think they are quail eggs)/ our priest raises the birds and the eggs are sold on Sundays/ they are very small

these are Guatemalan quetzales/ we went on a church day trip to Esquipulas, Guatemala to see the famous Cristo Negro (a statue of Jesus carved from dark wood)/ it is the most popular Catholic pilgrimage in Central America

Pollo Campero and the famous church of Esquipulas

Cristo Negro/ after singing many a religious song during our 5+ hour bus ride, we were shocked when the sweet old ladies we went with conspicuously but unashamedly jumped in line ahead of hundreds of other pilgrims...we followed them...when in Rome...very awkward/ despite the line jump, we waited an hour and a half to see Cristo Negro/ after viewing the statue, it is customary to walk backwards all the way out the chapel so as not to turn one's back on God

Bruce and Kelly with the woman we are living with (next to Bruce)

we took a moto-taxi (small, three wheels) up the hill to a park that hosts the famous cave where Cristo Negro was (according to legend) discovered/ according to fact, Cristo Negro was carved in Spain during the 16th century/ the park also had lions, crocodiles, monkeys, etc.

Fijese que... (Part Three)

2009-03-09T20:04:00.008-06:00

magos kill enanos, enanos kill gigantes, gigantes kill magos (it's like rock, paper, scissors...but it's played in teams and involves gestures, running, tagging)

Kelly making a poster for our newly-formed sixth grade chess club

some of the best pictures we have taken in El Salvador are of our students/ yet, for good reasons, we can't put these pictures online without talking to all the parents/ so we are left with pictures like this that leave out faces and such

during our first chess club meeting/ alfil=bishop

one of our ecological clubs at the local sulfur hot springs

believe it or not: we cooked in the boiling waters of the hot springs plantains, eggs, and potatoes/ delicious/ you might also notice the unfortunate, but ever-present litter that partially undercuts the beauty of this country

potatoes and hard-boiled eggs a la hot spring

political propaganda, sometimes quite artistic, abounds/ the quote reads, "if we were capable of uniting, how beautiful and soon would the future be" -Che Guevara/ to the immediate left of this painting are portraits of the left-wing FMLN presidential and vicepresidential candidates, Monsignor Romero, and our pueblo's newly-elected mayor

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

on Saturday, we went to our first fiesta rosa. when a girl turns fifteen (she is called una quinceañera), there is often a huge party. this is a picture of our invitation. the event started out with a special mass in the church for the young lady. we then headed to the school for dinner, dancing, cake. it was a thrill. the girl and her friends practiced a show; it was basically a twenty minute music video that included clips of the latest songs from Daddy Yankee, Britney Spears, and such. we danced too. we're still learning.

9 de febrero

2009-02-09T12:56:00.008-07:00

Kelly, gecko, gecko's tail (shed in moment of fright) in hand.

The tower (foreground) and church (if you have excellent eyesight and squint just the right way) of San Vicente. After seven and a half weeks in our site, we reunited with our training group in San Vicente for two weeks of the second and final stage of training. During this time, we lived with our original host family once again.

Kelly and her Agroforrestry/ Environmental Education cohorts, however, spent the second week at La ENA (the National School of Agriculture) in La Libertad. The campus is full of resources, making it a perfect place for a week of very hands-on training. We practiced vegetable gardening, fruit tree grafting, pest control, tree nursery management, ecological stove building, worm composting, regular composting, hydroponic gardening, etc.

Our rural training community is now quite different. The Cheers-esque 'everybody knows your name' vibe is gone. For this half of the year, there is a massive sugarcane harvest that brings in workers from Honduras and Nicaragua, opens seasonal pupuserias to feed the workers, and generally transforms this otherwise 'tranquilo' land into a nexus of Mack trucks, smoke, and sketchiness. Think the-land-of-the-lifted Lorax. Also, do you remember those adorable kittens from a post in the fall? They're all dead; so is the family dog. The small house in which we slept for our first three months in country is now a 'comedor' that offers pupusas, chicken, fish, etc. This time around we slept in a tiny room next to that of our host family. The curtain that was our door didn't stop our five-year-old host brother. It was nice to see our host family and neighbors again. We played ball, colored, hid, sought, and ate deliciously sour unripened mangos from the tree.

aloe-telecommunications multi-tasking

Kelly cutting up some aloe for shampoo. We visited a Volunteer who works with a women's group that makes and sells their own shampoo.

fun with shampoo!

approximately the Youth Development '08 group

Keychain (one of you lucky readers might get this next Christmas!)

Kelly, coffee

Juayua

A friend's t-shirt ("I don't eat turtle eggs").

9 de febrero, cont'd

2009-02-09T12:41:00.005-07:00

We walked down the dustiest road in the world to see the waterfalls of Juayua. Well worth it.

Bruce, jumping at the waterfall.

Bruce and Kelly (shout out to AB, from whose gallery these three photos were stolen!)

"Winnie Pooh" is everywhere.

Kelly milking a cow in our training site.

At 4:30 in the mornin', I'm milkin' cows...

Our training site host brother, post-vote. Note the thumb. January 18 was election day for alcades (mayors) and diputados (congressmen, sort of) in El Salvador. In San Vicente, the left-wing FMLN was replaced by right-wing ARENA. The opposite occurred in our pueblo. The presidential election will take place March 15.

Our friends striking a classic Salvadoran pose (no smile) during the Obama inauguration.

---

Back in Site

We've been back in our site for two weeks now. The school year started mid/late January, so this has been our first opportunity to introduce ourselves to the kids in their classrooms. We made a poster with a hand-drawn map of our journey from Pennsylvania/Delaware. We listed and solicited ideas. We made grammatical errors.

Our first order of business was starting up ecological clubs in two schools. The kids suggested and voted on project ideas and group leaders. We played wild dinamicas (games) that included popping balloons and dancing like milkshakes. The kids are in 7th-9th grade and so far it has been a blast. Our journalism club will start up this week.

The second order of business, it turns out, was getting amoebas (Bruce) and bacterial infections (Bruce and Kelly). Last weekend was a very long and dreadful one. But we are back on top and feeling just fine.

We're Talking Smurfs, Part 1

2009-01-06T09:40:00.005-07:00

Happy New Year!
We hope that 2009 is treating everyone very well so far. Things in El Salvador are rockin’. It’s tough to be away from family and friends, especially during the holidays. We miss everyone very much! Luckily, we have been distracted by an endless slew of parades, masses, fireworks and other such festivities.

Kelly and Bruce with Bruce's awesome boss

Some mismatched shoes during a soccer tournament we helped run

Each night between Nov 24 and Dec 24 the statues of Mary and Joseph were taken to a different house in search of a place to give birth. This tradition is accompanied by lots of singing and candy and is called La Posada.

Pitos, or bird shaped whistles made from local clay

One of the pet turtles at our house, maybe with some tortilla on his face

We took a day trip with local friends to a nearby beautiful town called Alegria. Outside of the town there is a bright green lake in a crater. This is the road to the lake. Red, white, and blue are colors from the political party ARENA. Telephone poles, curbs, buildings etc get painted like this before elections.

Frosted Flakes

Bananas growing on the tree

Please Don't Bother the Birds

Tasty chocolates sent from the Lehigh Valley from Bruce's Grandparents. These were a huge hit with everyone during our lakeside picnic.

We're Talking Smurfs, Part 2

2009-01-06T08:41:00.008-07:00

Very tiny orange flowers

Enjoying the beauty of the lake (text messaging)

Monsignor Romero

The central park in Alegria

This one's for Michelle, Dexter and Bella.

Hen on our roof- not our hen, a lost hen

Stray cat on our roof- there are sometimes a few cats, and they like to fight

Oranges for juicing

El Cipitillo- a mythical creature who steals corn and bananas from farmers

Christmas in El Salvador, no wait, this is from a calendar of images from Pennsylvania

Christmas and New Year`s in The Savior

Here in El Salvador, Christmas Eve (Noche Buena) is celebrated more than Christmas Day. We attended a parade of Pastorelas (kids dressed as shepherds, angels, Mary, Joseph, kings, etc.); they walked through the town singing some pretty catchy Christmas tunes. Our favorite of the Christmas songs here is called “Burrito de Belén.” In the song, a kid is singing to his donkey telling it to hurry up “¡apurate!” so they can get to Bethlehem to see Jesus. It’s complete with a “tuqui tuqui tuqui tuqui, tuqui tuqui tuqui ta” which is, of course, the sound a donkey makes as it runs. Anyway, there are other great Christmas songs here too, and after the parade there were two concerts of these songs. A mass followed with more of these songs. It’s not uncommon here to applaud for baby Jesus. A few times during mass, the priest would say, “let’s have a big round of applause for baby Jesus!” and the whole congregation would clap like crazy. The same thing happened during the parade last month for the Virgin of Guadalupe. . . “Let’s have a round of applause for the Virgin!”

Most people here set up a manger scene or “nacimiento” in their houses. Some of them are basic, but many of them are quite elaborate and not limited to the main characters of the typical manger scene. We’re talking Smurfs. We’re talking Barbie, Wizard of Oz, El Cipitillo (see photo), etc. It’s sort of an opportunity to showcase whatever you have. And it’s not irreverent if everything you showcase is worshiping Jesus. We saw one very nice manger scene that was quite elaborate. One level down from the manger, on another table, was a winter village complete with several snow-covered houses with little lights inside, and lots of little figurines of people sledding, skating, etc. The owner told us that his plan is to build another table, lower than the second one, to have a scene from the magical world, with figurines from Disney’s Snow White, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Pinocchio.

New Year's Eve is a family affair here. A 9pm mass follows and precedes family dinners, and cohetes (fireworks) ring in the new year throughout the night. The cohetes are not colorful or controlled as they are back in the States. The cohetes here are more like small bombs, it´s all about the noise. Burns are apparently not uncommon, though we haven´t heard of any accidents in our community. We ate dinner with a nearby family on New Year´s Eve. The house used to be an Inn of sorts and the owner still has a guestbook from the year 1928. It was really interesting to see what kinds of people were staying in our town so long ago. Many people from Turkey came for commercial reasons. There were travelers, photographers, journalists, and missionaries from countries such as Ireland, France, Brazil, Palestine, Germany, Switzerland, and neighboring Central American countries. The couple´s 17 year old son was eager to tell us all about the guestbook and several photo albums as well. After we left, we were observing how in the States, a 17 year old would probably prefer to be out with his friends on New Year`s Eve, rather than with his parents and grandmother and some foreigners talking about the history of his home. Maybe this has more to do with the smallness of the town rather than El Salvador in general.

Work

We have completed our community diagnostic and have drafted a work plan for our time here. We are going to have two ecological clubs in the schools, a “periodismo” club that will include art, poetry, interviews, articles about community events, and the like (hopefully with a publication every three months), a chess club (with giant pieces, not unlike those in Harry Potter), an English club for kids and another for teachers, festivals, hikes, sex education, recycling/ composting programs, and so on. The vacation (longest of the year, essentially their summer vacation) is drawing to a close for the students. For us Peace Corps folk, the first four months were more than anything about adjustment, language and cultural training, practice, and integration into our community (“building relationships”). Even though we were sworn in as Volunteers in mid-November, we will be completely finished with training soon. And by the end of this month, we will be doing a good deal of “actual work.” For real.

La Caminata (the hike)

2008-12-18T11:52:00.008-07:00

Comandante Sombra. We joined a large group (40 people?) on an expedition to walk up the cerro (steep hill, not quite mountain), down into the crater, up the other side, and finally back down. A great day.

bambú

The young boy in the middle was our guide into the crater. His family gathers the coffee beans for the harvest. He wore only flip-flops on his feet and led us down ridiculously steep walking trails. He was basically awesome.

in the canyon/ hikers in distance

volcano and flower

These kids were rock-stars. They ran down the hill at the end of the hike, kicking up dust that got in our eyes.

100-pound sacks of coffee beans

La Virgen (the virgin)

2008-12-18T11:36:00.005-07:00

reindeer made of straw/ presents sent from home (thank you Moms!)

This is a farol (or farolito). It is made of wood and colored plastic wrap. There is a candle inside. We marched in a procession from one Catholic church to the other, following a statue of la Virgen de Concepción.

Bruce and friends after the procession.

Kelly, machete, coconut

This is the float for the procession of la Virgen de Guadalupe. Children were all dressed up in traditional clothes. Young boys had fake moustaches. A throng of singing townspeople followed the float for two hours. Two men lead the float with tall sticks to raise the telephone lines to allow the float to pass. Then the insanity began. Fireworks upon fireworks. A man dressed up as a bull, running through the crowd, setting fireworks off in all directions. This is a tradition. Bruce´s hand was slightly burned. We didn´t return to the park for the 3 am mariachi concert on account of a hike the next day. But the fireworks woke us up anyway.

our adorable neighbor in traditional dress

El Volcán (the volcano)

2008-12-18T11:16:00.005-07:00

Kelly está lavando la ropa.

cafe

This is the San Miguel (a.k.a. Chaparrastique) volcano. Our pueblo´s police officers are incredibly friendly and took us on three guided tours of the region in their police trucks. We now know almost all of the cantones (very rural areas) in our municipio. We also saw beautiful sites: the volcano, the ¨laguna seca¨(dry lagoon, really a huge crater), hot springs, boiling ponds of mud (Yellowstone-esque), etc. We saw extreme levels of poverty (cantones without water) and luxury (the hacienda of one of the so-called 14 Families who--before the civil war--owned basically everything).

Kelly y la laguna seca

We could see, in the distance, the volcano of San Vicente (our training site). Also at this summit, we could see trenches leftover from the war.

Kelly and tree

coffee country

another amazing tree

tarantulas strike back!

Bruce, after the kill

La Playa (the beach)

2008-12-16T11:38:00.011-07:00

coin pouch...¡que chivo!

monster

malaria pills

Hombre Araña/ It´s difficult to find professional-looking notebooks in El Salvador.

chucho (dog, more common here than term ¨perro¨)

at the beach! with our counterparts!

chickens finishing our coconut

sad chicken/ no more coconut

There is a dog in the middle of these cows, asserting his authority.

just like on the Jersey shore

---

Every so often it feels as though we are characters in a high school Spanish textbook: Bruce and Kelly are Peace Corps Volunteers serving in El Salvador, Central America. They are working with a development agency that has received a grant from an NGO in the U.S. Help Bruce and Kelly translate the following letter...

There are also times when you take a step back and realize that you are dicing radishes for a Salvadoran first communion.

We have now been in our site for one month (El Salvador for three). We have been keeping busy. Police-guided tours of the region. Excellent, beautiful hikes with new friends. Meetings at the mayor´s office about a new recycling-composting program. Soccer. The Carnaval in San Miguel--said to be the largest outside of Brazil. Candle-lit religious processions. Meetings with NGOs, schools, the local health center, Cruz Roja (Red Cross)...

On Monday we held a general assembly with an audience of our Peace Corps bosses and the leaders of the community. We formally introduced Peace Corps, our individual programs, and ourselves. We also presented a long list of project ideas that included excursions to forests and ancient ruins (of the Lencas), reforestation, environmental festivals, gender equality, sexual education, sporting events, English classes for teachers, community newsletters, nights of poetry/art/music/movies... Most or all of these projects will be youth-centered. We will work on these projects in conjunction with community organizations.

We miss everyone back home! Hope you all are preparing for a festive holiday season. ¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero 2009!

First Days in Site

2008-11-24T09:40:00.006-07:00

Nightstand in new site

View from window

Drinking water. Delivered on Mondays.

¨Donde Viven Los Monstruos¨ y ¨Huevos Verdes Con Jamon¨. We have befriended the neighbor kids and they are big fans of these books.

A counterpart took us to San Miguel, the nearby city, to see a celebration of 35 years of El Salvador´s Casa de la Cultura (Cultural House) program. Here is San Miguel´s Catedral Nuestra Senora de la Paz.

This is an early 20th-century theatre, recently restored. A great rock band played on the steps. Their setlist included a Mana cover, ¨La Bamba¨, and ¨Another Brick in the Wall¨.

Folklore dancers, part of the celebration

The theatre also featured a temporary exhibit about El Salvador´s role (still on-going) in the war in Iraq.

Swearing In and Moving In

2008-11-24T07:34:00.008-07:00

This scorpion was a worthy adversary, but we got the better of him.

A heartfelt send-off to Kelly and Brush

One last dance party

Celebrating the patron saint of our canton, San Diego

A great speech from a friend at the U.S. Embassy

Torta

Kelly, Bruce, another Volunteer, U.S. Ambassador, and our host family

---
We are writing, for the first time, from our permanent site. We live in a beautiful pueblo in the department of San Miguel--in the east of the country. Also for the first time, we are writing as Peace Corps Volunteers (Trainees no longer).

Training ended well. We both joined leadership committees. Kelly is now a member of WYD (Women in Youth Development, they give out scholarships for girls to attend high school). Bruce is on PAC (Program Advisory Committee). We found and killed a scorpion in our bedroom. Christmas decorations started to appear. Our training host family threw us a surprise going-away party our last night in town: Dinner. Dancing with little kids. A sign to wish farewell to ¨Kelly y Brush¨. The night coincided with a procession to mark the feast day of San Diego. A truck with religious statues and a disco ball made its way down the street, surrounded by musicians and a crowd that let off small-time fireworks.

We spent two nights in San Salvador. That Friday (14th), the majority of our training group´s counterparts (folks who will help us get situated in our sites) came out to meet us at a hotel and to attend an orientation. Very nice people. They left and took our luggage to our new site. We then arrived at the embassy for Swearing-In. It is the second-largest U.S. Embassy in the world, second only to the one in Baghdad. A friend of ours gave an excellent speech about the challenges faced by the Salvadoran youth. We met the ambassador and enjoyed a great dinner. Afterwards, there was a hotel party hosted by last year´s crew of Volunteers with ¨most likely to...¨ awards and so on. Kelly is most likely to appear in a Peace Corps poster. Bruce is most likely to appear in a Salvadoran music video.

We said goodbye to the other twenty Volunteers in our group, who are now spread out across the country. When we got off the bus and arrived in our site, the two men we had met the previous day picked us up and gave us a quick tour. We saw the environmental foundation where they work. We opened coconuts with machetes (new hobby) and drank the water. We moved in.

We are living with a widow of ¨la tercera edad¨ (the third age, a polite way of referring to someone between 60 and 90. Our living situation has changed drastically. There are tile floors and high ceilings. There is a courtyard in the middle of the house with beautiful flowers and three turtles. Three of the woman´s four children live in New York. We will definitely stay in this house at least until February (after the second phase of training in San Vicente). Perhaps we will stay for the two years.

Our first night in town, we had dinner with the director of the Cultural House (also a widow) and her daughter. Dinners at their house have become a tradition. Through them, we have visited said Cultural House (reading, arts, crafts, guitar lessons), the church (we met the priest and bought a songbook--now we´ll be able to understand something after the Sign of the Cross), and the Lions´ Club (shout-out to Bruce´s childhood Lions´ Club baseball team!). We had a great dinner at the Lions´ Club in spite of the bat (great word: murcielago) that kept flying just above our heads. Last night, we accompanied them to a special prayer service that is held nine years after someone´s death. A picture of the deceased woman was the centerpiece of a large scene depicting Jesus´s miraculously successful catch of fish. There were many candles, snacks, and relatives from LA.

There are several schools in town in which we´ll be working. We have visited them several times, but not much is going on on account of summer vacation. We are helping referee a soccer tournament held to give the kids something to do.

Instead of launching into projects right off the bat, we will be meeting as many people in town as possible. We will conduct at least 40 house visits to learn about the community´s needs. We will interview the local mayor, police, health officials, Red Cross, Ministry of Education, kindergarten, high school, university, NGOs. We will present the findings from our diagnostic during a general assembly with local leaders and our Peace Corps bosses in mid-December.

We have big shoes to fill. The Peace Corps Volunteer we are replacing accomplished a great deal.

It´s a change moving from our rural training community to this pueblo (town). The residents actually refer to it as a small ciudad (city). At least to us, it doesn´t feel like a city. Figures vary, but there are about 10,000 people in the town. There is a sometimes-bustling market, an attractive park in which folks sit and talk or peruse the $1 pirated DVDs. The pace of life is not quite as slow. There are advantages (great computer labs, more resources for projects) and disadvantages (more expensive, can´t know everyone). But there are still women selling French bread and delicious pastries from the guacals (think large buckets) on their heads. There are still cows running down the streets. There are still geckos in our room. It is still El Salvador and we are excited to integrate into the community.

We mentioned before that our first two months in El Salvador were an emotional roller-coaster. We don´t expect the next two years to be smooth sailing. However, now that we´re in our town and getting acclimated, there are fewer unknowns and we´re feeling more confident and excited about our decision to come here. Everything´s coming up Kelly and Bruce.

Tarantula Pinata Waterfall

2008-11-11T12:00:00.003-07:00

Kelly with a neighborhood family

Our host brother (eyes closed) with friends

Our first tarantula

It was big. Now it is dead. Our host brother´s friend stomped it to death.

At la Fiesta de las Familias. Eeyore´s name here is Igor.

La Fiesta de las Familias.

Our host family´s nephew with a pinata before its utter destruction at the hands of other bat-wielding host family nephews.

Our volcano hike was canceled, so we joined a friend on a trip to this local waterpark. However, there was a special event with thumping music and a pupusa-making contest. Not the tranquil daytrip we expected.

Random Observations
Just about all the buses are decorated in the same fashion. There are stickers and posters of either Jesus or Che Guevara both inside and outside the bus. There are definitely stickers and posters of both Tweety Bird (Piolín) and Winnie the Pooh (Winnie Pooh). Many buses are former U.S. school buses.

Roosters crow all day long. Cartoons and songs during our childhood led us to believe that roosters crow in the morning. Serious disillusionment.

Soup is a popular breakfast item. We eat corn flakes with hot milk. Eggs and bananas are common dinner items. In fact, the staples of the diet in El Salvador are tortillas, eggs, beans, rice, bananas. We eat delicious avocados. Pupusas are El Salvador’s most famous dish. They’re similar to tortillas, but filled with cheese and/or beans and sometimes vegetables called ayote and lorroco. We hear there are other varieties.

A small bag of chips only costs 10 cents, but it costs 60 cents to print one photograph at la tienda Kodak. El Salvador’s currency has been the dollar since the early 2000s. Dollarization has been controversial due to sharp price increases. Many folks also speak ill of the somewhat newly-formed CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement).

“Lady in Red”, “Nothing Compares to U”, and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” are among the most popular English songs here.

There are several movies about El Salvador’s Civil War (officially 1980-1992, but things had been really bad for years before), notably “Voces Inocentes” (Innocent Voices) and “Romero” (about the archbishop who spoke out against the military dictatorship until his assassination). They were filmed in Mexico. “Romero” was filmed in English and dubbed by actors from Spain (the difference in accents is significant).

People greet most everyone they see here. Neighbors know one another. These are definitely some of the most endearing aspects of life here.

There are many gestures that take the place of words. People often indicate a direction not with their fingers, but by pursing their lips toward something. To get someone’s attention, you go “Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch” (sounds like the jingle for Chia Pets, minus the –ia sound). It is common to state the obvious. When people are just standing around, you say, “Paseando?” (Just hanging out, huh?). So when people are washing their clothes, you say, “Oh? So you’re washing your clothes?” Et cetera.

The mythology here (mostly scary stories) is fascinating. There is El Cadejo, the wolf-like creature whose eyes shine like embers as she pursues folks who are out after dark. There is Padre Sin Cabeza (the Headless Priest). The Carretera Bruja: a cart that passes by at night with skulls on stakes. However, by far the most popular stories are those of La Ciguanaba and El Cipitillo. La Ciguanaba appears to men (who may have been drinking) as a beautiful woman. Oftentimes, the man will allow her to ride behind him on his horse. La Ciguanaba will then transform into a hideous woman with a terrifying face and breasts that sag down to her waist. The man flees for his life and returns home with a tremendous fever. Sometimes he goes insane. The father of our host father has such a tale from his younger days. Cipitillo is the son of La Ciguanaba. He is basically an uneducated hick. He eats ashes and bananas. His belly bulges out from malnutrition. He wears a gigantic sombrero. His feet are reversed. He is funny—not scary.

Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are the most popular fútbol teams.

Sunday nights there is a popular four-hour long Mexican program on tv called “La Academia”. It is similar to “American Idol”, but with several twists. At the beginning of each show, each contestant needs to write the name of the contestant that (s)he thinks should be kicked off and give reasons why in front of everyone (including that person). Though that may seem cruel, it is nothing compared to El Salvador’s “Cantando por Un Sueño” (Singing for a Dream). Each contestant has a friend or relative with a dream. For instance, someone needs a life-saving operation (s)he can’t afford. Someone else’s house still hasn’t been rebuilt from a hurricane. Only the winner of the contest wins the dream for their friend. Muchos sueños rotos.

El Dia de Los Difuntos......¡y Mas!

2008-11-11T09:16:00.006-07:00

Our host brother at the gravesite of a relative.

Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead

Bruce taking the beans out of their pods.

It is difficult to take a picture of a piscucha (kite).

Our host brother with piscucha. Note the Colorado Rockies hat.

Our casita. This is where we sleep. It was constructed with help from the European Union after two devastating earthquakes in 2001. Speaking of earthquakes, we felt a tremor last Thursday night.

Our entire training group spent the night in town to watch the news on Election Day.

Bruce with new guitar. $45. Hand-made by a local Salvadoran man who may have spent eight years in jail for murder.

November 2 is the Day of the Dead. Relatives came from out of town, mostly from the capital, to pay respects to their deceased relatives. Flowers, some real some plastic, were placed on the graves. There is a cemetery in the city, but out here it is common to bury family members on one’s property. U.S. high school students often study the Day of the Dead in Spanish class around this time of year. However, the customs studied are usually Mexican.

Thursday was a big day. First of all, I (Bruce) got a box sent from my mom in Pennsylvania with some favorite childhood books in Spanish. For example: Shel Silverstein’s “El Árbol Generoso” (The Giving Tree), Maurice Sendak’s “Donde Viven Los Monstruos” (Where the Wild Things Are), and Dr. Seuss’s “El Lórax” (came with a Lorax puppet!). Dark chocolate for Kelly and Brach’s candy corn for me.

Secondly, on Thursday afternoon, everyone in our training group found out their sites. Folks in our group are spread out all across the country. Kelly and I had already heard rumors of our site and they were confirmed. We are going to a pueblo in the department of San Miguel, in the east of the country. We were given information on the pueblo and the Final Report of the previous Volunteer. We called our counterparts (locals who will at least help us find our footing when we get there). There are several options in terms of living arrangements. It may be a while before we have a new address. But on Saturday, November 15 we are going to the site where we will live for two years.

For most students, the school year came to a close this past week. So we will arrive at our site over “summer” vacation. Friday night, we were lucky enough to accompany our host family to a graduation (9th grade) party. The majority of students here don’t continue their studies in bachillerato (high school), so the 9th grade graduation is a big celebration. There were decorations, dinner, dancing. Our host brother borrowed our camera for the day. Between the graduation ceremony and the party, he probably took a hundred photos.

Saturday, we had La Fiesta de las Familias at the Peace Corps office. This was held to say thank you to our training host families (whom we will leave Thursday the 13th). We had lunch, a photo slideshow, games, and piñatas.

Cats and Basketball

2008-10-28T17:25:00.004-06:00

Here are some pictures of our neighbors and their newborn kittens. Both the kids and their kittens are adorable. Also, some pictures from a riveting basketball game at the school after working on our mini-project...

October 28: A Creative Title

2008-10-28T07:30:00.007-06:00

Our host brother dressed up as the President for a parade. Here he is with his brother (age 18) and mother. This made for an interesting misunderstanding; we thought the actual President was going to be in town.

Our host brother with his cousin. This is their favorite pasttime.

Erick as a cobrador, the person who collects fares on the pickups.

Pictures from our weekend at the beach (in the departamento La Libertad):

Since our last entry:

We’ve continued working with kids at the school, swinging cumas (curved machetes) to remove the overgrown weeds at the school. We will soon get together to paint rocks to line the school’s entrance. This project is all about the students having a voice. They suggested possible projects and then voted on which one we would do. Student groups are the norm in the States, but here the students are not accustomed to having a voice and making decisions for themselves. They really feel proud of all of their work, which is great to see!

We have continued to have our language and culture classes. The subjunctive approaches. Puchica!

We took a hike (on Bruce’s birthday!) to an abandoned hacienda down the dirt road. Before the war, this was the house of the wealthy landowner in the community. There was an enormous tree that can only be described as Tolkein-esque.

We each taught a 7th grade English class.

We filled out our absentee ballots.

The host family’s cow gave birth.

The Phillies made it to the World Series for the first time since Bruce’s childhood abruptly ended with Joe Carter’s homerun in Game 6 back in ’93.

El Salvador’s soccer team, La Selección, has also been winning.

Our host family bought a washing machine. This was a huge surprise, as we haven’t heard of anyone in the area having one.

We’ve been interviewing people for our “contacto comunitario” assignments. Small businesses: comedor (restaurant), tienda (little store), molino (mill), and agroservicio (farm product store); San Vicente’s university; the Ingenio (a sugar processing plant…the source of water and jobs for the people who live nearby…we got to wear hard hats on our tour).

Our host family vaccinated all their roosters and hens. It was an afternoon full of catching all the birds. We were useless observers. We occasionally served as barriers because the birds didn´t know of our uselessness.

We enjoyed our free weekend by spending a night away at a beach near La Libertad. The water was great. The beach was a mixture of black sand and stones. When the waves retreated, the sound of the moving stones was just like that of a rain stick.

We went to “las ruedas.” Rueda de Chicago is the phrase for Ferris wheel. So we went to “the wheels.” It’s an October tradition in San Vicente. A haunted house. A carousel. Our 4-year-old host brother loved every minute.

While writing this journal entry, I discovered a mountain of ants in one of my backpacks. My plan was to give a box of Mike and Ike’s (Lehigh Valley, represent!) to our next host family. The ants’ plan was to eat that candy.

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Seriously…

We enjoy updating this site. However, the limitations of an online journal should be noted. Because the site is public, it becomes a lowest common denominator of sorts. In our offline, paper-based journals, we can write with more detail and honesty. These are both traits of worthwhile writing, but in a public forum, they respectively invite boredom to the casual reader and potential mistrust from the host country nationals.

These limitations are worth mentioning if only to communicate that it’s not all smiling kids with kittens and sunsets at the beach. There are uglier things that don’t make for natural photo ops or nice stories for home. Children in El Salvador obviously don’t have as many opportunities as children in the States. Emigration to the U.S. is huge. Teenage pregnancy is extremely common. There is malnutrition and disease. There are gangs. It’s sad that questions such as, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” are not common. It’s sadder that the answers don’t come easy.

El Salvador y Los Estados Unidos

There are millions of Salvadorans living in the States. They send remittances home that make up 15-20% of El Salvador’s currency. They have their relatives visit and show them around their city. The U.S. is emulated back in El Salvador. Hannah Montana, the poster girl of Disney pop cultural imperialism, offers a glittery smile from the t-shirts of countless rural Salvadoran youths.

To be a gringo in El Salvador is to get a great deal of attention. Many people here want to move to the States. Some have an unfortunate inferiority complex about El Salvador. So they don’t quite understand what we’re doing here. However, as gringos, we have automatic star power. It’s easy for us as Peace Corps Trainees (students with a learning curve on one hand, the U.S. government on the other) to get an audience of local politicians, captains of industry, etc.

Of course, there is also the legacy of the long and bloody civil war that was largely funded by the U.S. government. We don’t mean for this to be a political forum, so we’ll leave it to you to look up the details. Suffice it to say, some Salvadorans are suspicious of the intentions of volunteers (not as common a concept to begin with) from the U.S. government.

That being said, we are optimistic about the opportunity to work toward positive, sustainable (albeit small-scale) development in one community. The people of El Salvador are warm and hospitable. The youth are awesome. It’s great having so much support from family back home in the U.S. Culture shock, with its highs and lows, is often compared to a rollercoaster. Some days have been incredibly difficult. But what do most folks say after riding a rollercoaster? They say, “that was incredible.”

Events coming up in the next two weeks:

-a “personal flag” activity with the kids at our school
-two presentations at the training center
-Día de Los Muertos
-the U.S. Presidential election
-site assignment (on November 6, we will find out our permanent site for the two years)

Immersion Days

2008-10-14T17:59:00.003-06:00

In the distance: Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Golf of Fonseca

Heading back from our hike

Nubes (clouds)

These leaves retreat when you touch them.

Vacas (cows)

The youth group we hiked with thought I should take a picture of this bird.

Banderas of the two major political parties (ARENA and FMLN). There is a presidential election in March.

Kelly and I experienced our “Immersion Days” this past Thursday-Sunday. It took about four hours to get to our destination: a beautiful pueblo in La Union, the easternmost departamento (like a state or province). Two current Youth Development Volunteers (a married couple) are serving there. They showed us a great time. The first two nights, Kelly and I went to separate host families in small communities outside the pueblo. The third night we spent with the Volunteers.

It was a gorgeous walk on an old, rocky road (no vehicles) to the canton where I slept. The father lived in the U.S. for over twenty years; we talked at great length about the States over homemade pan dulce (sweet bread) and his Rand McNally Road Atlas. I walked to the local Catholic Church with the father for an hour of prayers and songs. The parents and four children made me feel at home. I helped the son with his English homework. We watched a DVD of the daughter’s recent fiesta rosa (enormous party celebrating a girl’s quinceanera, fifteenth birthday). Their view of the mountains was basically awesome.

(Kelly now writing) When Bruce and I arrived at the volunteers’ site a woman named Anna was waiting to take me to her family’s house, which was a 20 minute bus ride out of the pueblo. We had some lunch and then Anna and her four kids and I set out on a walk to go bathe. I was not completely sure what was going on, on account of not speaking Spanish (just kidding, I think my Spanish is coming along quite nicely, but sometimes I choose to go with the flow rather than ask people to repeat themselves). We walked along a dirt road for about 25 minutes then headed off the road down a very steep, very rocky, very slick path (I was trying hard not to fall and I was wearing hiking shoes, while everyone else was running past me in flip flops). We arrived at the base of a beautiful waterfall where there was a large pila (like a big sink) overflowing with water from a nearby spring. There were several women washing clothes at the pila and chatting. I awkwardly and slowly learned how to properly bathe myself when surrounded by other people and wearing clothes. It was a very memorable experience; the base of a waterfall in El Salvador is as good a place as any to take a bath. The rest of my time with the family (which included Anna’s parents, her four sisters, one brother and four kids) was wonderful. They are certainly some of the nicest and most generous people I have met and made me feel very much at home. If we find ourselves in that region of El Salvador again, we will certainly stop in to visit.

We were “immersed” in the lives of the Volunteers. We observed and sometimes participated in their classes at the school (English, Life Skills—sex education and so forth). Their classes included games and songs. We attended one of their youth group meetings in which kids brainstormed activities to do over vacation; their school year will end next month. We played baseball with a group of smiling kids. We took a great uphill hike through corn fields to a beautiful view. To one side was the San Miguel volcano. To the other, we could see Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Golf of Fonseca. We ate delicious chicken pupusas. We played a game called Sequence. We met a lot of great local people. We were not eaten by the Volunteers’ ferocious dog. It was a great experience.

We made it home just in time to attend a two-year-old neighbor’s birthday party. The piñatas were smashed. The chairs were musical. We still had confetti in our hair when we got into bed.

Kelly Bobs Her Hair

2008-10-14T17:47:00.004-06:00

Licha...from the inside.

About the size of Massachusetts

Nativity scene in the style of artist Fernando Llort

Kelly with new haircut and four-year-old host brother Eric

En la himaca

Our great host family. 18-year-old son not in the photo.

Alarm clock

One night last week, we were watching a telenovela (soap opera) with our host family. One of the actresses in “Mientras Haya Vida” had a smart, short haircut. There were probably about forty-five seconds between Kelly mentioning how she liked it and her sitting down for a similar haircut from our enthusiastic host mother. Our host mother sells Avon and L’Bel, and also serves as a hair stylist for the community. After the haircut, we took a few pictures with our awesome host family.

Pictures...and More!

2008-10-05T10:53:00.010-06:00

Arrival in Country

Clotheslines

Stove and Pila (back right, used for laundry, dishes, bathing children)

Iguana (we have heard they are both endangered and a popular food item)

Our Room (built by European Union after earthquake)

Our Mosquito Net

Licha (Kelly´s new favorite fruit, chewy fruit inside)

Porch

Aloe

View of Volcan Chichontepec From Our House

It´s been another busy week. San Vicente is now old hat. Twice this past week, we ventured into the capital: San Salvador (population close to 2 million).

The first time we were shepherded by our teacher. The transportation is intense. It took us a pickup and three buses to get to the Peace Corps headquarters. On the way, we stopped at the largest shopping mall in Central America (we bought a soccer ball!). The majority of PC staff were on hand to chat with over lunch. We had briefly met many of these people, but on our first whirlwind day in country. Lunch was comida tipica (typical Salvadoran fare): tamales, pupusas, enchiladas (much different than the Mexican variety), fried yuca, and atol de elote to drink (warm, thick, corn-based).

Yesterday we headed to San Salvador without our teacher´s guidance. We didn´t get lost, but puchica (wow!), it was an adventure. We were given a tour of an anthropological museum. There were some fascinating exhibits on the indigenous people, the Spanish conquest, agriculture. We took a break from pupusas and ate pizza for lunch. After lunch, we sold out big-time. There is a posh hotel that allows all Peace Corps Volunteers to use its pool and health club. The pool had a waterfall. The showers were hot. Gym. Sauna. The typical Peace Corps experience.

Our work in the community has been going well. We had a meeting with the ADESCO (asociacion de desarollo comunitario, basically the tribal elders). The school kids we are working with voted for a garden. This will be our mini-project for the next six weeks.

Other highlights of the week: We received some dance lessons (salsa, merengue, cumbia) from Peace Corps. We bought a cell phone. We played soccer on a field amongst horses and cows. We had to be careful where we stepped.

This upcoming weekend, we have Immersion Days: a site visit with a current Volunteer. We don´t know many details yet. It should be interesting to get an idea of what to expect once we´re out in our permanent site.

The pictures. We haven´t taken many yet for a couple reasons. One is security (especially in the capital). The other is confianza (confidence, trust). We don´t want to snap a bunch of pictures of our host family until they know us more. More to come in the future.

Love,
Bruce and Kelly

Greetings from the Little Thumb of Central America

2008-09-28T12:28:00.006-06:00

Kelly with our Spanish teacher and the other two gringos in our community.

Where to begin? Our apologies for not sufficiently updating the site. Our previous attempt was thwarted and we´ve been very busy with training.

We are living with a host family outside San Vicente until mid-November to learn the language and culture. At that point, we´ll move to our permanent site. After two months, we´ll return to where we are now for two weeks of technical training. Finally, we´ll stay put in our permanent site. It is confusing. And there is a good deal of Peace Corps lingo, acronyms, etc. that goes along with it all. We will spare you them.

Our current host family consists of a mother, father, 18-year old son, and 4-year old son. The father works in San Salvador (90 minute commute each way). The mother cooks, cleans, cooks, cleans, repeat. The majority of both sides of the family reside in close proximity. They, like most families, have a few nephews living in the States (Houston, Miami, Boston, all over). Our host mother´s father runs a tienda that sells agroservicio products for working in the fields (the livelihood of most area residents). His wife owns the mill, in which most of the town´s women grind corn into tortillas. This all takes place where we are living. There are horses, cows, dogs, cats. Chickens, roosters, turkeys (often taking us off guard by their presence in the trees at night). And for good measure, the occasional gecko, iguana, cockroach. The only real threat is mosquitos, what with their love of malaria and dengue. We apply repellent several times a day and recently upgraded to a new and improved mosquito net for our bed. Frogs sing to us in the evening. Roosters wake us in the early morning. Spiders decorate the place. The bucolic scene of fruit trees (lime, orange, avocado, etc.), tropical plants, the volcano, and the clay rooftops is only partially eroded by the ever-present trash on the ground. It rains everyday. The dry season (the only other season) starts in November.

The pace of life is notably slower than it is in Pennsylvania or Delaware. It is considered rude to launch into business before making a significant amount of chit-chat. One must gain the confianza (confidence, trust) of the people before anything. We´ve been spending a good deal of time with the locals. Today we treked up into the fields to see them firsthand (mostly corn, beans, tomato, pipian-a type of squash). This afternoon we will play another game of soccer with the local kids.

The pace of life for a Peace Corps Trainee, however, is about as slow a really fast thing. The other two gringo trainees that live in our caserio are among the most advanced Spanish speakers in our group of 23. That works well for us, because they head into San Vicente for their language lessons and we enjoy a 1:2 teacher-student ratio. Our language classes run from 8-12. Even lunch is in Spanish. As it turns out, everything in this country is in Spanish. Except for the occasional pop song (Celine Dion, Donna Summers, Roy Orbison) and movie (Adam Sandler, Jack Black, etc.). After lunch, we learn about culture and work toward a mini-project with local schoolkids. We´ve already had several meetings at the school and one at the mayor´s office. This ends by 5. It´s dark (and therefore inadvisable to be out and about) by 6. We eat shortly thereafter. Then we launch into our copious amounts of homework. We enjoy Tuesdays, when our training group reunites in the city for meetings on safety, health, logistics.

On Friday, our group of four + teacher headed to the market for research on fruits and vegetables. Some of them, I swear, were invented by Dr. Seuss. Some are delicious. Some are incredibly bitter. All are interesting. Hopefully we´ll post pictures of the fruits later on.

Transportation. It is a 10-15 minute, 25 cent ride from our host family´s house into the city. There are buses, but much more frequently there are pick-up trucks. Unless they are packed, we take the pick-up. It´s not as scary as it sounds.

It´s quite an adventure. We look forward to learning more Spanish. We´re heading into the capital, San Salvador, later this week. We may also hike up the volcano and visit the beach. Good times ahead. Take care!

Love,
Bruce and Kelly

P.S. Aunt Amy, feel free to use any of this material in your class. If your students have any questions, we´d be happy to answer them.

One Week in El Salvador

2008-09-23T17:21:00.002-06:00

Hello All,

Due to technical difficulties, we won´t be able to post a stellar entry today. We´ll try to make up for it next time.

Things are going well. We have a really great training group. Right now (and for the next 2 months) Bruce and I are living with a host family outside of San Vicente. They are very nice and have a 4 year old boy who is pretty entertaining. We´re super busy with language classes and training activities. It is very hot and it rains very hard pretty often. Our host mom is feeding us well. We bathe with buckets of cold water and wash our clothes on a rock slab. The host family has dozens of poultry wandering around and cows and horses often wander through the property.

OK, we wish we had more time now to elaborate and give more details. We need to get home soon, so we have to run. We will try o post a better entry ASAP.

Much Love!
Kelly & Bruce

Staging

2008-09-15T18:42:00.003-06:00

Off we go! Kelly and I are checking out of our hotel in Crystal City, VA (across the Potomac from DC) tomorrow morning at 3 am. We fly from Reagan to Miami to El Salvador (2 hours behind EST). Should be there by 1:30 pm Pennsylvania-Delaware time/ 11:30 am El Salvador time.

Things have gone well so far. We took the Amtrak from Wilmington to Washington (just like Joe Biden!) yesterday. We've had a day and a half of pretty intense (and yet often light-hearted) orientation. There are 24 folks in our training group and one other married couple (same age as us). The trainees come from all over the country.

We're the lucky ones. Just yesterday, the Los Angeles Times ran an article about budget cuts (no more Newsweek delivery!) and delayed departure dates for many Peace Corps Volunteers. The falling dollar is the main culprit:

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-peacecorps14-2008sep14,0,5768469.story?page=1

Comfort-wise, we've not been eased into the Peace Corps experience. We've received a sweet per diem. Our hotel room has a flat-screen television, lavender-scented linen spray, a massage-style shower-head, etc. Our staging director claimed that Senator McCain stayed in this very hotel last night.

We are both very excited, but we do leave with heavy hearts. We wish the very best to Lisa and Joe; we know your wedding on Saturday will be spectacular. On a sad note, please keep my grandfather, James Joseph Fox, Sr. (known to his many grand kids as Daddy Jim) in your prayers. He passed away on Saturday.

Please keep in touch. We will miss you all very much.

Heading to El Salvador!

2008-08-29T09:48:00.003-06:00

Hi Folks!

We'll be heading to El Salvador on September 16th (after two days in DC) to start 26 months of Peace Corps service. Bruce will be doing Youth Development and Kelly will be doing Environmental Education. We'll be near San Vicente for training during the first two months. We'll live with a host family and may have internet access often. We will be very busy with training, but we will try to keep in touch as much as possible. After training, we will be assigned to a community in need of a Youth Developer and an Environmental Educator. We are not sure what kind of internet access we will have from that point on. Even if we have limited access, we hope to update this journal periodically.

We would greatly appreciate any letters you might want to send us, since we will miss you all so much! Please email us for our address.

Thanks so much for all of your support and well wishes. We're really excited about this adventure and we look forward to keeping in touch with all of you!

Much Love!
Bruce and Kelly