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!

change, please!

"Stay safe!"
Those might not have been my parents' exact parting words when they dropped me off at the Holiday Inn: Georgetown for predeparture orientation, but I think that those are the understood parting words for anybody going off on a trip, especially for two years of Peace Corps in a developing country. So how are we doing so far?

Well, I'm doing just fine, thank you very much! (So don't worry!) But what about everything else? Aaaaaand, that's where things get interesting. I have never spent more than 1 month in any one country, so I haven't had a chance to really get into, understand and, honestly, care about, daily national news in another country. But dang are things interesting here!

So if you didn't know - and I know my mom is probably trying to forget - El Salvador has a gang problem. There are two big ones - Mara Salvatrucha aka MS, and roughly translated to - slippery Salvadoran trout gang, and 18. And these gangs are good; organized and integrated in all aspects of public life: politics, police, education, transportation etc. Many of them have made it to the United States, joined gangs there, learned good tricks, were arrested, learned even better tricks in jail in the United States, and then got deported. (Actually, I think these gangs have cells in the United States now as well.) So now El Salvador has a growing gang problem, and not nearly enough money, man power or experience to deal with them all in their jails. But they're trying. They just passed a really... strict? progressive? intelligent? stupid? anti-gang law that has caused quite a push back by the gangs. And it looks like things are going to get worse before they get better. What do I mean?

Okay. The anti-gang law is kind of like Arizona's anti-immigrant law - if the police even think that you might be in a gang, they can stop you, arrest you, and put you in jail, just for suspicion of being in a gang. Well, of course gang members don't like this. So much so that the two rival gangs - MS and 18 - issued an unprecedented joint press release that threatened violence to any public transportation unit on the streets during a three day period unless the law was rescinded. Well, the law was not rescinded, and the country shut down for three days because no buses ran for fear of the threat of violence - with reason of course. Some buses that were running were stopped and one driver was pulled out and shot, and then the bus was torched. So things are pretty serious, but really only in the capitol, and Peace Corps is nice enough to not pay us enough to be able to spend much time there. :)

What happens next? We all watch our back, make sure that we are on a bus with two doors (for a quicker exit) and try to travel as infrequently as possible. And the gangs stay in power. We have some awesome volunteers here working in Youth Development (and other volunteers from other programs that have youth groups as well) that work to show kids that there is another way to live your life. You don't have to be in a gang. But it's especially hard when many dads are working in other places - often the United States, so the boys lack strong, positive male role models. Some of them go looking for and then find that role model in a gang member and the problem continues. Especially when gang members are in the same police force that is trying to stop them. The armed forces have been deployed to patrol streets and buses with the police to try and bring security, but, there are gang members in the army as well.

So we hope for change in the youth. But also a change in attitudes towards reporting. There is great fear in this country towards reporting crimes, or turning in someone. Much of this fear can be traced back to the civil war were people were pulled out of their homes in the middle of the night and shot for supporting the national army, or the guerilla fighters. And so people learned to keep their mouths shut. You didn't support anyone, or you supported whoever was asking you who you supported.

Right now, the gangs get their money from extortions, and collecting "rent". They collect rent from everyone - the little tienda on the corner, to the big supermarkets in the city; sweet little grandma sitting on the corner, to juan fulano executive. If you don't pay up, you won't be able to rely on that gang for "protection". Of course, it will be that same gang that will come and rob you, or shoot the place up. But people pay and stay mum about the whole thing. There are anonymous tip lines and special police divisions just to deal with extortions, but people won't report. They are afraid that someone will find out they told, and then they will really get it. So they pay and the money keeps coming in and the gangs keep working.

But times are changing. While some people probably think that young adults put way to much personal information online, there is still a certain anonymity to be found. And young salvadorans are realizing this. I was recently talking with some university students. They are fed up with the corruption in the public university system, and they are planning on making a facebook page and encouraging people to post comments and pictures detailing the corruption that they have seen so that something can be done. It's not exactly related to gangs, but it's a great first start for people in this country to feel comfortable with telling someone else when they've seen something outside the law.
Here's to hope and change!

photos!!!

the dinner I write about in the next post. The Banyan Tree for light reading, On Food and Cooking for urgent food questions, cell phone awaiting texts from my salvo boyfriend... just kidding...I swear! wine bottle candle holder for the inevitable power outages, water bottle for the all important hydration and the awesome (albiet half-eaten, sorry!) pizza.

some awesome bread that I made. yes it's braided! one is roasted garlic, sun-dried tomato and basil, and the other one is cinnamon sugar. I would have put raisins in the last one, but I didn't have any. Oh well, next time.

the beautiful cocina that I talk about. Thanks mom and dad!

an embarrassingly awful picture. but the only one I had to show how much Monkey has grown. She's definitely still the runt of the litter. We ran into one of her brothers on the street, and he's bigger than she.

caramel corn. "woooow, it's sticky!"

hanging up hammocks for all my guests to sleep on. We tried this one without any extra rope, just hooked the loops on the hammock into the hooks in the wall and we got the tautest hammock in the world! We were joking around that you could make hammock bunk beds that way. If a lot of friends (like more than 7) ever came to visit, we'll have to! (Actually, no, really bad idea. Because the hammock is so taut, there's really no give in it and as you can see no side protection. One roll and you're on the ground. About 5 feet down!)

this country is definitely helping me get over my bug "problem" but I'm sorry, there is no need for scorpions. Yes, it's dead. And I know I don't have the world's largest feet or anything, but...heeeey buddy!

this little guy was one of my favorites. I think I mentioned him in an earlier post, but here he is. Instead of a costume during the eco-parade, he just carried a plant. Awesome!

the desfile (parade) ecologica. most of the girls dressed up as fairies and princesses, but most of the guys got the animals. However, they looked like walking pinatas! (blogger won't let me put the ~ over the n... sorry!)

cooking in the campo

I have not felt this satisfied from a meal in a while. Actually, that’s a lie. Just last week the fajitas were pretty much amazing. But this meal was something different all together. Griddle top pizza with fresh tomatoes, and basil. So anyway, I have rediscovered my passion for cooking. Cooking has always been an important part of who I am - working in kitchens since I was 14 and going out to eat at awesome restaurants will do that to you. Living in Fain B senior year really solidified my love of good food, well prepared, and then shared with friends and family. And then I came to El Salvador. And things changed.

I guess I felt that I needed to fully immerse myself in the culture here to truly adapt and appreciate it. And that included food. Well, for two months in my training community and somewhat living with my host family here in SAS I ate like a Salvadoran. And for a while it was nice - new flavors, new vegetables and new cooking styles. But then it got old. Because honestly, who can eat greasy, salty carbs for more than 6 months? So now I'm ready to eat like I used to.

Since I’ve been living on my own, I have of course been cooking for myself, but I have kept it fairly simple – scrambled eggs with various veggies. Beans and rice with various veggies. Stir frys. And the occasional pupusa. They really are tasty, but I mostly eat them for the awesome coleslaw (curtido) that comes with them.

So I was eating what I wanted to eat, but not getting crazy. And then I visited Alicea. A good friend from college and a fellow PCV here in El Salvador, she and I have a similar love of good food done well. (Read her blog here.) And I was reintroduced to really good cooking. To familiar cooking done in unfamiliar ways, using unfamiliar spices and utensils. And I was inspired; encouraged to go out and get my cooking on! I am lucky to have access to a really good market as well as supermarket in San Miguel, but I, being my frugal self, have not splurged for the goodies that could make really awesome meals. Until now.

Just last week I had some fellow volunteers visit to help out with an event as well as enjoy our fiestas. (Kind of like “Celebrate Wherever” in the states where rides and food stands and music stages are set up in the park and people come to hang out. Kind of.) So I planned menus to feed everyone. And we rocked out fajitas, caramel corn, chef salads, deluxe oatmeal pancakes (with strawberries, coconut and almonds) and a baller chocolate cake. And it was beautiful!

I have had the gas cocina (stove, range thingy...) with plancha (griddle) since mom and dad came and bought it as a house warming gift, but sadly I hadn’t really “christened” it. Well, not anymore. My most recent creation is a griddle top pizza. I do have a toaster oven, but I didn’t feel like using it (my electricity bill shoots up when I use it…from 5 dollars to almost 7! (I know, you all who are paying real bills are playing the world’s smallest violin right now, but hey, that’s a big chunk of change for me!)

So as I read On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (full of tasty tidbits about the history/chemistry of beer, cookies, pastas, sauces and everything else) my pizza dough was rising. When it had risen a bit, I kneaded in garlic, and herbs. Then I heated up the plancha and put on the dough. Turned it over once and then placed my cheese, tomatoes, broccoli, and basil on top. Didn’t get to fully melt the cheese, the griddle was too hot, but next time, I’ll time it all better. But a tasty result none the less.

So now I'm all gung-ho on the cooking and baking. Food has always been important to me, especially good, well executed meals, but I have remembered this passion and it is helping me focus. I can work hard during the day knowing that a tasty, comforting meal is waiting for me - though I have to prepare it first. But I enjoy the cooking and preparing almost as much as the eating. I would now like to share my cooking with my neighbors and friends here. One of the goals of Peace Corps is an exchange of American culture to the host country. And as another one of my posts mentions, it’s kind of hard to define American culture. However, I think one of our biggest offerings is the incredible diversity of awesome food that we have. So maybe I’ll start cooking classes, or just keep making great food and hope the smells waft out and convince people to stop on by.

homesickness

Do you get homesick? I’m often asked that in Spanish and English by people here and friends and family back in the states. I have to admit (sorry mom and dad!) that: no, not really. Let me be clear. While I miss my family and friends and think about them often, I don’t get homesick. Or not normally.
I have been living away from home since I was 14, only spending summers and vacations with my parents. Also, home, has been a fairly fluid thing for me, (living in 6 different states over 22 years does that to you) so homesickness is not really something I’ve had to deal with here. However, I have realized that there are definitely things about the states that I have come to appreciate more fully be being away from them. So if I’m homesick for anything, it’s the following things. (Family and friends are of course an unspoken addition to this list.)

Anonymity. I don’t like to be in front of lots of people. I don’t think of myself as an attention seeker. I’d rather be in the back of the crowd observing everyone else. In this country I am a spectacle. And I don’t like it. Sometimes I wish that I could just be one of the crowd.
Example: Here in El Salvador lots of businesses hire MCs and DJs to hawk their products outside of their stores with loud speakers, music and running commentary of the goods or specials. But often it turns into commentary of the people on the street. If they are interesting enough to comment about. Which usually includes me. Yesterday walking through the parking lot of MetroCentro (the mall here in San Miguel that I probably talk about way to often) and around San Miguel I got called out by no fewer than three of these people. *person rattling off in Spanish suddenly switches to broken English* “hello my American friend and welcome to Metro Centro” or “hello chelita (little light – skin color – one), buy something?” And everyone around can hear and can identify me as the object or subject of the message. I wish I could just be anonymous. In the states, I am. And I miss it.

Quickness/efficiency. While I do enjoy the more laid back attitude here and I sometimes become overwhelmed and frustrated by the speed of things back in the states, there is definitely something to be said for speed. I have been without water for a week now and it will in all likelihood be at least 3 more days before we get water. During Hurricane Agatha that came through May 28th-30th, the river that runs through our town flooded and with it took some houses. In addition, mud and water got into the pumping room and equipment of our water system. Which means the whole system had to be flushed and cleaned out. Or something like that. Anyway, what it has meant for me is that since Sunday the 30th I have had no water. Luckily I have plenty of water to drink but during the rains that weekend, my clothes got pretty damp and I already had about a weeks worth of dirty clothes. Combine that with more dirty clothes, fewer showers as I try to save what little water I have and it means that Carol is extra dirty and smelly. Not fun. Now some people in SAS have pumps and wells. They have been the lucky ones. The rest of us have had to go to those people’s houses (I finally did some laundry today at a neighbor’s house), or go to the river, or haul water from somewhere else or buy it. Now I realize that for some Peace Corps volunteers, or maybe people in the states even, this is a reality and therefore I shouldn’t be complaining. And I’m trying not too. What I am commenting on however, is that there is a solution to this problem and it has taken more than a week to fix. I think people in the states would be up in arms on day number 2 or 3. And something would have happened a lot faster. But that is not the case here. And I wish it were.

Peace and quiet. The level of noise in this country is unbelievable. Whether it’s from the blasting radios, the blaring car horns, the noisy animals and children, the rumble of cars and buses, or the fiesta going on down the street, there is all told very little quiet in this country. Sure you can go out to the country and experience a little more peace and quiet, but you still get animals, and radios, and cars. In the states, even in cities, your houses are well insulated and you can call the police on your neighbors if they get too loud and there are rules for how loud buses and cars can be. No such luck here. I forget who suggested that I call the cops on my neighbors. But I almost laughed in their face. Sorry. Not gonna work here.

Littering is a quasi sin. I think in the states most people have it ingrained in their mind that you just don’t litter. You wait until you find a trash can and you throw your trash away. Now, I understand that in this country, disposable products are a new phenomenon and therefore people that litter are just doing so out of habit, when “trash” was all organic. Fast food came wrapped in corn husks, or banana leaves, or paper. But not now. And it’s tough to change habits. I know. But it still bugs me how nonchalantly mother and child, student and professor, vendor and shopper will throw their trash on the ground, out the window of a bus or in a ravine. Yesterday on the bus I finally did what I’ve been working up the nerve to do. The women in front of me moved to throw her trash out the window and I stuck my hand out and grabbed the trash from her hand. The woman turned around and she and her grandson were very surprised. I just looked at both of them, shook my head and put the trash in my purse to throw away when I got off the bus. Now, I understand that trashcans are not common place in this country, but they do exist. You just have to want to carry your garbage around in your pocket or purse until you find one. And in the states I think for most people this is the norm. And I miss that.

So, it probably looks like I’ve compiled a list of “reasons why I’m not happy here”. And that’s not the case. There are plenty of things that I like about being here, it’s just that every once and a while I’m reminded about good things in the states as well.