curbside lessons

Niña Toña is sitting on the curb in front of her house and she invites me to sit and join her. “I used to sit out here every night with Niña Berta until 11, but now it's too dangerous, and she moved away. I miss it.” I sit down and my dog lays down beside me. It's early evening and finally cooling off from the heat of the day. People are coming and going on the main street with black plastic shopping bags in hand, kids in tow, or pailas (wash basins) on their heads. “Buenas Noches” they call out. Sometimes “salu”. Everyone in the community seems to know her and she everyone else, so lots of people stop to chat. We platicar (chat) a bit. Laugh too – often about something I've done or said. But tonight I don't mind. I just like being on the curb with Niña Toña. She has been a friend, mentor and grandma to me ever since I arrived in San Antonio, about a year and a half ago. Even though she never studied beyond second grade, she has quite a lot to teach people about living their life well.

Work Hard
Niña Toña was born in the mid to late 40s. She's not sure and at this point she doesn't really care. From her first marriage she had five children, but one of them passed away. Then her husband passed away. She remarried and had one more child, and then husband number two passed away. So she was left to raise her five surviving children by herself. She remembers working in the cafetales (coffee fields) on the San Miguel volcano, basket for cafe in front, and a child strapped to her back. “Those were hard days” she tells me. “But what else could I do? My family had to eat and it was just me.” Her children are all grown now, and one even made it all the way through university. She is rightfully proud of the life she has provided for her children. But she's not just twiddling her thumbs now into her old age. She still works. Every day she makes tortillas to sell and some days she sells 7 dollars worth of tortillas. She hasn't stopped working yet, and she says that she won't stop until she absolutely can't work anymore. She gets too bored if she doesn't work.

Play Hard
However, it's not like Niña Toña only works. She spends a good part of her day visiting friends, vagando as they say. She also goes to almost every vela (wake) and entierro (burial) in the community, as well as every celebracion and vigilia at her church. She's an incredibly religious woman, but she tells me that she also just enjoys the company at the events. It's a chance to visit and check in on lots of people and see how they're doing. When I was new to San Antonio she was the one who took me around, introducing me to people for the entrevistas (interviews). We eventually visited 50 families and stopped there, but not because we ran out of people she knew, it was because I needed to wrap up the diagnostic. She could have kept going day after day taking me to other friends' houses and we probably would have eventually visited all 600 houses in San Antonio. For an old lady she sure does have a good time.

Give Thanks
And almost a year and half later I'm still hanging out with Niña Toña. Sitting on the curb in front of her house that night she asks me if I want a tamale. She won't let me say no. “They're pisque” (filled with beans) she says. “And they're spicy.” Okay, I'm game. She brings back one for each of us and we eat them with our fingers. As we finish eating she says “Gracias a Dios, ya comimos.” (Thanks to God, we've now eaten.) I nod in agreement. While I don't completely agree with whom she's giving thanks to - I mean, she made the tamales! - I do like the idea of giving thanks, and giving it frequently. I think it's important to acknowledge the sources of our continued existence and Niña Toña does so after every meal and cada rato (every chance) during the day. Whether for you that means thanking God, your parents, the United States Government, your own two hands, Mother Earth, or something in between, I think thanksgiving is a good lesson.

Last Lesson
It's become dark in the time we've been sitting on the curb. The neighbors across the street turn on an outside light and we can see again the people walking up and down the street. The same neighbors have twin girls – 3 years old and quite a handful. I guess it's bed time because all of a sudden a great racket starts up from inside their house. I shake my head and chuckle but refrain from commenting on their parenting skills. Niña Toña seems to understand what I'm getting at. She looks over at me, puts her hand on my knee and says to me in a voice that seems to say – you'll understand when you have kids - “No, Carol, it's okay. Kids need to scream a lot when their little. It develops their vocal cords.” Well, I guess no one can be full of sage advice 100% of the time. But Niña Toña sure gets close.

a typical day - year two

I'm woken up at 5:30 am by the chickens and dogs. I try to roll back over for some more shut eye. 6 am and the radio station starts praising God at an ungodly volume. I can never actually understand the man, so I just assume that's what he's doing. What else could he be talking about for 30 minutes? I toss and turn, trying to smother the garbled words with my pillow, but to no avail. So I resignedly get out of bed. Besides, it's creeping up to 80 degrees already and I for one don't like sleeping in that kind of weather, so up and at 'em Carol, let's greet the day!

But first I have to acknowledge Monkey. As soon as she hears me stirring, she tries to stick her nose under the mosquito net. Some days she's successful. Most days she's not, so she just lies down to wait. Right where I put my feet. So sometimes I step on her. Oops. As I get up and head to the bathroom, she follows me. Don't know if this is normal dog behavior (and I know it's not a proper conversation topic among gentleman and ladies, but who am I kidding, you guys aren't any of those things!) but she really just likes to sit there while I do my morning business. Sometimes she'll put a paw up on my leg, as if to offer moral support or something, but most of the time she just curls up in a corner for another cat nap and waits for me to move on the next morning task. (I swear, dogs really do sleep about 16 hours a day.)

Lately the winds have been blowing ridiculously hard and frequently, and that combined with the dry season means lots of dust and leaves inside my house every day. So I begin the Sisyphean task of sweeping out all the dust and leaves. And it blows right back in. That, combined with the incredible amount of shedding that goes on in the house means that it's quite impossible to keep the house clean. Oh well. I tried. On to the next task.

The dishes are starting to sprout legs and arms so I decide I should wash them. The first splash of water from the guacal sends the ants and other creepy crawlies that have set up shop scurrying. The frogs hiding in the moistness of the drain pipes come hopping out much to Monkey's everlasting enjoyment and I get on with the washing.

Then I proceed to water the worms. Yes, the worms. I have a worm box where I put all my kitchen scraps, save for meats, fats and oil etc. The worms are a happy as pigs in mud, or worms in dirt I guess, eating away at all the awesomeness I throw in there. And for little to no work, I get organic fertilizer. Well, except I have to water them. Which if anybody were walking by and saw me dumping water into a box full of dirt that never seems to be sprouting anything, they meet just consider me even crazier than they already think I am.

So with all those tasks out of the way, it's on to my workout – thanks Jillian Michaels for proving that it IS possible for me to sweat even more than I thought I could! Oh and she's right, she will get you 6 pack abs if you follow her workouts religiously. Mine are still hiding in the little blue igloo cooler, but not as much as before. So onward shredded one!

Next is breakfast, with Monkey underfoot, hoping that just this once the delicious creation will be for her and not the food from that stinkin' bag of dry dog food! It's now about 9 o'clock or so and time to do some real work. The new school year is just around the corner, so I've been heading to school to help the teachers get the classrooms ready for students. It feels like kindergarten because it's lots of cutting and tracing and gluing up decorations and signs around the rooms. Just the type of “creative” things that I'm good at, so yay for artistic therapy!

In the afternoon I head back to my house where I work on project ideas, proposals, calendars or paperwork. I also spend some time reading, and every once and a while I have to test out the hammocks just to make sure they are still functioning. Because even though the siesta is not an officially recognized pasttime in this country, I think it's a shame to lose this marvelous tradition and am doing my part to bring it back! So I practice my hammock napping skills and then it's time for my afternoon rounds. I go to visit my neighbors in the women's group and we chat about future or current projects. How their shampoo is going, what they want to learn next etc. Evening rolls around with the cool breezes – the plus of being in a desert, the sun goes down and the temperature drops about 10 degrees. So that's my time to be out and about. I visit until I'm hungry and then I excuse myself and head home.

Once home, I make dinner, then relax and read as late as I want. But not too late. Cause I need to get my sleep so that I can get up at 5:30 again when the rooster crows!

2011 - the year to get things done!

During training in Peace Corps, the older volunteers frequently tell the "newbies" that they should watch out, because their time will fly. And they are right. Part of this realization came about when I discovered that I haven't written a blog post in over 3 months! Sorry. Also, a new group of volunteers will be coming in soon, and that means that my group will be the "senior" class and that means we are almost done. But, before I can be "done" I need to do some work. (I'm still not sure what "done" means for me, and even when exactly that will take place, but that's a whole other issue.)

I am back in El Salvador after visiting family in the United States for Christmas (and what a great time I had - thanks to you all!) So I'm well rested and ready to get started. School begins soon and I'm looking forward to working again with students, teachers and the Salvadoran version of the school's P.T.A. I hope to move forward with getting fuel efficient stoves in the school kitchen, as well as getting all the teachers trained in interactive teaching techniques that they can then apply to their lessons with all students. Last year the trainings were geared more towards science teachers, but I think I feel comfortable incorporating all teachers. Besides, not all teachers will go for it, and this way the trainings are more likely to have some sort of impact on more teachers, and therefore more students. And the more people we can effect, the better!

The women's group is going well, but I'd like to formalize the purpose a little bit - emotional support group, small income generation, time to just sit and chat or what? And all of those things are important, and we should probably do all, and can do all, at the same time, but I'd still like to formalize something. Not sure if that means a mission statement, but I think we'll let it work itself out. On another note, I'm so proud of them all because while I was gone in the states I was afraid things would kind of fall apart, but some women kept making shampoo to sell and they even contacted someone to give them jewelry making classes. Yay for self motivated people!

The other project I'd really like to more forward with involved something that the Japanese volunteers in San Antonio have been trying to make happen for over 3 years now. San Antonio has tried twice to get garbage collection going and both times the service has failed because it was not financially solvent. I'm hoping that I can inject some energy and new ideas and convince people to try another time. We are going to try and get a subsidized price at the landfill, as well as educate residents about the type of trash they put out to be collected so that people aren't throwing away 3 50pound bags of garbage a week! (And the fee is a paltry $3 a month for pickup - that barely even covers the dumping fee at the landfill, let alone gas and paying the driver's and collectors' wages.)

Together with other volunteers, we are planning more regional teacher trainings, as well as a kids environmental camp. I like these kind of projects because they get me out of San Antonio - because even though it's on the larger size in terms of Peace Corps placements in El Salvador, it still feels like a fish bowl. Also, it's nice working with other volunteers because the energy involved is different. Not necessarily better than working with Salvadorans, just different. And that change of pace is really appreciated when things seem to be getting bogged down. It also involves lots of networking as well as grant writing and I know those skills will pay off in the future. So lots of fun ideas and projects in the starting gate. Just wanted to let you in on them all. Now to get crackin!