November 29, 2009

waiting to see

Acabamos de terminar la segunda ronda de capacitación y todavía siento… extraña. I had to put that in Spanish because I think it just adds to the vibe I’m trying to express. (We just finished the second round of training and I still feel….weird.) Not bad weird, not good weird, but maybe anxious weird?

Training was great. We stayed at the ENA – Escuela Nacional de Agricultura. We lived in a house on the campus, and ate all our meals at the cafeteria. It was weird being back on a campus because I thought I was done with that lifestyle for a while. It was nice to see students relaxing on the “quad”, shooting hoops or hanging out at the little store. But the students were speaking Spanish, playing baloncesto or basquetbol, and the little store sold yucca chips and fresh mango.

Training was not as comprehensive as I thought it would be, but I guess that’s because there’s no way to become an expert in so many diverse fields in such a short amount of time. Instead, we were introduced to lots of different topics that might lead to projects for us and our communities, and more importantly, we were given the contact information of people that can help us make the projects a reality. For instance – lombriculture (worm bins!); compost and green fertilizer; home and school gardens; natural, and simple, pesticides (my favorite was the slug “trap” – make little balls out of masa and beer, place them under a propped up piece of cardboard, and wait for the slugs to come to the cool place with food, then stab them with a pointy stick!); environmental education tips; national park visits; youth camps etc. etc. It was a whirlwind of information, but really good. We covered pretty much everything on the list of activities that my community is interested in, so that’s definitely a positive. But that’s partly why I feel weird.

Now I have all this “training” under my belt, and I’m back in my site, and I feel like I need to start now. Right now. Like yesterday. I think I will begin with my own projects in my house and let the word percolate through the community that the gringa has a garden where she gets her fresh veggies, or she doesn’t have to burn her trash because she composts, recycles, reduces plastic use and takes the rest of it to be properly disposed. But I think that will still leave me feeling kind of…worthless. Not in the woe-is-me kind of sense, but the, what-the-heck-is-she-doing-here? kind. The “We thought we were getting a trained professional to come in and help us fix some problems in our community and she’s making dirt?!” I’m sure that’s an exaggeration, and I know that just living in this community and sharing my energy with the people I meet is a lot, but I just feel a little lazy.

Though, on the housing front, I have another option that just aparació (appeared) so I might be keeping busy in the next few weeks with setting up my house! So, I’m in a weird spot right now. That “hands up. breathe.” spot of the starting line. (To use rowing here instead of the traditional “on your mark” of track.) I can see a future with gardens and viveros (tree nurseries), compost and worms, chickens and fish, and a comfortable house to come home to after a good day at work. But right now, the path to get anywhere near these things is still a little cloudy. I think I just need some more time, and maybe some more pupusas.

November 14, 2009

rocks and mountains

Waking up Sunday morning, November 8th to my host mom standing over my bed with a flashlight and saying very passionately - Verapaz está hundido!, Verapaz está perdido!, Verapaz está inundado! at 3 am is not my idea of a good morning. I didn't immediately register what she was saying, so I went back to sleep to the sound of falling rain. It had been raining on and off since Friday afternoon. When I finally woke up for real at 7 am, I realized what my host mom was saying - Verapaz is buried!, Verapaz is lost!, Verapaz is flooded!. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do.

It was still drizzling outside but, there wasn't any water on the porch like there usually was after bad rains. Nothing seemed abnormal where we were, and no one was offering to run off to Verapaz right away to help, so I didn't do anything. The power was out, and I was planning on spending Sunday with my host family anyway, so I started to help with breakfast. As we were preparing breakfast, there was a decently steady stream of men and boys with shovels and ropes and hoes heading off to go help in Verapaz. I would have liked to go, but I figured we would all go as a group later. A little while later Alicea came over and that's when I knew it was bad. Her family woke at 2:30 am and hiked to higher ground through knee deep water as the rain was pouring down. They had lost their home before (during the earthquake, I think) so they were not messing around with Mother Nature. It was Alicea's host mom who woke up my host mom who woke me up to inform us what was going on. After sitting in the rain, but on higher ground, for about 3 hours, they came back down the mountain and walked to Verapaz to look for family members. It was (and still is the house shown at second 42 is in Molineros) a disaster zone. Rocks the size of motorcycles destroyed entire houses and twisted barbed wire into pretzels. We realized later that day, while comparing stories, that what we thought were thunder claps at night, were actually rocks crushing in to Verapaz. The San Vicente Volcano, Chichontepeque, looms large over Verapaz, Guadelupe and San Vicente. The 355 mm of rain that fell in 4 hours was too much for the rocky subsurface to hold onto the mountain anymore, so parts of the volcano came sliding down.

Peace Corps began contacting us all in the early morning to verify that we were all right and where we were. Our second part of training was set to start on Monday, so all of our training class was back in the area, i.e. communities surrounding San Vicente, the hardest hit in the nation. Thank goodness that most of them had taken the opportunity to go to San Salvador for the night, and most of them were already there when the "standfast" call was made Sunday. That means that no matter where you are, you are not supposed to leave that community/city/pueblo unless told specifically otherwise by the safety and security officer. (Some lucky volunteers were taking a vacation up in the northern reaches of El Salvador, so they had to stay another night because of the standfast call!)

So we waited. We waited in Molineros, which is a 15 minute walk from Verapaz. All day long the caravan of people going back and forth to Verapaz was immense. Trucks would pass by and pick up anyone that was going to help, until the back was practically touching the ground. Other trucks were shuttling people who had lost their homes up to the homes of family members or friends in the higher communities of San Isidro and Cañas. The Red Cross and Salvadoran Army had showed up by 9 am. The rural police had already been there since day break, shuttling the wounded off to regional hospitals.

I was torn between going and not. The opportunity finally came at 4 pm, but it was starting to get dark, it had been raining all day, we still hadn't heard from Peace Corps what we were supposed to do, and I had the only charged phone with signal and saldo (pre-paid minutes) of the Molineros volunteers. (There were three of us in Molineros, two in San Isidro/Cañas, two in San Cayetano and one in San Antonio Caminas.) It was a good thing I didn't go because we received a call at 5:45 pm saying that we needed to evacuate. We were told that Peace Corps was trying to arrange transport, but some of the other volunteers were much more stuck than we were (bridges out, roads completely blocked etc.) Luckily Alicea's host uncle was heading back to San Sal (he and some friends had come to help in Verapaz all day) and they were heading back for the night. We quickly packed up our things, said goodbye to our families - and encouraged them to get out as well, because more rain was prognistacated for Sunday night.

We arrived in San Sal without a glitch, and got to the hotel were Peace Corps was putting up the evacuees. I eventually headed back to SAS (my permanent community) on Tuesday night. SAS was not affected at all by the heavy rains. We live in a relatively flat area, with the closest river many kilometers away. The closest volcano, Volcano of San Miguel, is quite a ways away so land slides aren't too much of a concern. Though, supposedly it is a very active volcano and due to erupt, so we'll see about that natural disaster!

It definitely is something to live through one of Mother Nature's shows of force. I have even more respect for the power of water, (and the necessity of trees in this country! El Salvador counts with only about 3% of the original forest cover.) It's also quite amazing the aid response. This country, though developing and small, has been able to rally people from all over the country, through the help of radio, print and television, to donate items. However, as in our country, and all over the world, there are plenty who have turned a blind eye to the situation. I know that I have done the same when other natural disasters are publicized, partly because I didn't know how to help, and partly because the natural disaster, and victims, felt so distant. This time was different. Family members of host families were lost. One municipal development volunteer (their training class stays in Verapaz during training) lost his entire host family. I've walked the streets that were being shown on television. When Peace Corps tells us we can go back in to San Vicente (the area is still off limits) I will be heading back to help in any way I can.

While I understand that if people were to let themselves get worked into a tizzy about every disaster and every victim, they would do nothing but worry all the time, I do think that we all could extend ourselves a little more to help victims of disasters. Whether it's through donating items, money, planting a tree, saying a prayer or even just telling people about it, to raise awareness, all these actions help in their own way. The relative geographical privledge that the United States has is not to be taken for granted.

November 2, 2009

what am I doing here

What exactly is my objective? They told us during training that it would be a good idea to have objectives or a mission statement written down somewhere for us to reference back to, and see how much it changes as we continue on our journey. Every once and a while I feel completely without purpose, so I think some objectives would be helpful. According to Peace Corps/WorldWide my goals are as follows (paraphrased of course):
  1. to provide interested (and less fortunate countries) with human capital (that's me!) to provide technical assistance in the continuing work to achieve basic needs for all members of the host country.
  2. to provide american citizens with a better understanding of other cultures through their service in other countries, as well as blogs and letters back home to family and friends (you all are helping me fulfill my second goal - thanks!)
  3. to provide citizens of the host country with a better understanding of american culture through the presence of a gringa in their community for 2+ years.
All of these objectives hope to encourage peace, friendship and understanding between the US and other countries. No big deal. I think I can do that.

The objectives of Peace Corps/El Salvador and the Sustainable Agriculture/Environmental Education Program (my specific prorgram) are:
  1. to provide technical assistance to communities interested in agroforestry systems, soil conservation and maintenance; and sustainable agricultural techniques in general.
  2. to provide formal and non-formal education in relation to the protection and mejoramiento "betterment" of the environment.
So that's what other people have told me my objectives are, but what are my objectives? Right now I'm really getting in to the cultural exchange part. I'm participating in any activity I'm invited to, and I'm chatting with anyone who wants to chat - except the bolos when I go running by in the morning. They just get a curt little buenos días and I continue on my way. I've taught some kids in the school red light, green light; hangman (it highlights how awful some of them are at spelling); and a really fun version of rock, paper, scissors but instead it's with wizards, elves, and giants and the kids have to act out the parts. It's a chance to be silly. I also helped my host brother make a piñata with papier mache. The whole family was astonished that corn flour and water could be used for something other than eating! :)

So in addition to immersing myself in Salvadoran culture, and sharing a little bit of my culture, I pretty much just try to
be in the community. My biggest objective right now is just to get my name out there, and hopefully a little bit about why I'm here, and what I can (and won't!) do. It's like introducing a new puppy to your herd of animals. Let the other animals sniff him and make sure he isn't trouble, and then you can start playing. I hope when I come back from two more weeks of training I can get off on the right foot and start "playing", i.e. working.

Another one of my objectives is to continue improving my Spanish. Besides emails, journaling, rare phone calls and books in English, the rest of my day is spent in Spanish. I honestly can't tell if I've had dreams in Spanish yet. While my dreams are vivid as usual, the soundtracks are especially quiet so I can't actually tell what language people are speaking. What I can remember generally seems to be a crazy mixture. Or, I'll be speaking one language and everyone else will be speaking the other. (Now analyze that!)

Another objective is to broaden the horizons of the kids in SAS. As I mentioned in a previous entry, I'm really interested in improving the environmental conscience of the kids. Not only that though, but just life in general. Personal development, life skills and goals - to enjoy reading a book, to know where to look for answers to your own questions (dictionary, newspaper, parents etc.), to dream big about their future, and then have the gumption and tools to make it happen. For my host brother's birthday I bought him the first Harry Potter book in Spanish. He's seen all the movies and he was astonished to start reading and find out all sorts of things that they just couldn't fit in the movies. I'm hoping he will keep reading and learn to love it as much, if not more than he loves television. I hope to be able to broaden the horizons of many kids in this community. Luckily, I think just being here and being different is already changing things.

Another objective of mine is fairly concrete, and that would be the creation of home gardens and compost in the homes that are interested (hopefully the majority!) It is sunny almost all the time here, they have a good, consistent water source (it doesn't run all day, but it always comes on for 3-4 hours every morning) and plenty of decent, available soil. (The soil will probably be the limiting factor here, but that's where the compost and lombriculture can come in and help.) I pains me to see people eating only eggs, tortillas, rice, beans, chicken, sausage, corn, chips, soda, coffee and sweet bread. Many people comment on my height (I'm tall here!) and say that it's all the vitamins and nutrients that are pumped into our foods in the states and that that's what their kids need. I try to tell them that I actually wasn't raised on fortified foods, just good 'ole fashioned veggies, and that they can help their children grow by giving them lots of fruits and veggies. I think home gardens and the increased availability of veggies would greatly help the families here.

So those are my goals. Also, to play Memory with my little friend Elena as often as possible. She precocious, inquisitive, makes up stories all the time (about herself), just a tad annoying, and really cute. She kind of reminds me of what I think I probably was like when I was 3 and a half. She's here now so I'm going to go off and play.