One Month In

Grant it September is a short one, only thirty days, it is still hard to believe that I have been in site (now over) one whole month. All things considered, I feel like I have been doing pretty well adjusting, assimilating and building confianza (trust, friendship) in my community. Below is a run down of the events and details of my life, and if there are some things I have already shared with you either via letters, emails, or phone calls, to borrow a phrase from my Grammy D, it bears repeating.

Home Life
I am lucky to have a very generous sized room, complete with tiled floor, wardrobe, and full size bed (covered by a mosquito net, naturally) all to myself. Thankfully there is a window in the room as well to keep it cool and fresco during the warm days (which are everyday), and often sweaty nights. Due to my many mosquito friends who happen to love my A+ sweet blood, I had to get crafty with screening techniques for the window. What I ended up doing was buying mosquito netting at a fabric store with the smallest screen hole size I could find, that just happened to be my favorite color, blue, and I rigged it up with two nails and a lot of packing tape. Duct tape would have been my first choice, but you make due with what you have. As for its structural soundness, to date it is still up and has only required a few minor repairs. Aren’t you so proud of me, Dad?

In the room outside of mine, I have a large desk that my host parents moved from their room of the house for me to work on. It’s a great big work space, and as any desk does, it is quickly becoming buried in my notebooks, papers, charla (lecture/workshop) supplies, and drawings the kids make with me. It’s great to have a designated workspace with room to spread out. The funniest thing on my desk, though, is the candle I have incase the electricity goes out (which it has once, for over just 48 hours). For those of you good Catholics, or even the cafeteria variety and disillusioned, just think prayer candles in the back of the church. You know, the ones that cost $3 donation to light. I bought mine at the grocery store and it has a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe with the words “La Fe”, or Faith, on it. So, yes, it’s a little strange, but it suits its purpose rather nicely.

As far as cooking goes, my host grandmother, Mama Chila (she‘s amazing and pretty much my best friend), has done the majority, but I have begun to cook more consistently for myself. I use the table top gas burners we have and usually stir-fry up some fresh veggies that I eat with tortillas. The tortillas here aren’t what we think of in the traditional sense of thin, flat flour tortillas in the States. These tortillas are made from freshly milled corn and are about ¼ inch thick and 5 inches in diameter, cooked on an iron over a wood burning stove. When they are made with the fresh corn masa (dough) they really are delicious. A lot of my diet, though, consists of red beans and eggs. One great thing about the food is that at the market all the fresh veggies and fruits are pretty cheap. Just as an example, I bought five fresh avocados for a dollar and six large plantains for another. Pretty sweet deal, I think. And, being a person who gets on a “kick” and likes to eat the same thing for a while then change, it’s great that most crops are only around for a bit while they are in season, and then they aren’t available any more it’s on to the next crop.

This past Sunday, my younger host sister Leslie, host cousins Helen and Katy, and I made Corn Flake treats. I couldn’t find Rice Krispies in my local grocery store (and by local I mean the one in the nearest city that takes 45 minutes by bus to get to, also where the outdoor market is), so we made due with Corn Flakes; they turned out more like Christmas Wreaths (one of my favorite holiday treats) but were delicious nonetheless. We don’t have a gas oven, just a wood burning one, but we don’t have enough fire wood to heat it right now, so we had to make something that didn’t require baking. (If anyone has any good non-bake recipes, please send them my way!) The girls loved the whole thing and we ate it all up by the end of the afternoon.

As many of you know, I have a pretty strong obsession and love for toilets since arriving here in ES. I, however, don’t have a toilet at my home here, but rather a latrine. This is a fact of life in the developing world that I have come to accept: toilets aren’t that important when you need to meet other, more important needs, such as making sure there is food on the table and clean water to drink. Furthermore, I am very lucky to even have a latrine as around 30% of the homes within my community lack them. Besides, I think I would get lonely without my little lizard friend who lives in my latrine and that I have named Lorenzo who accompanies me. Accordingly to meet the needs of my community, I am planning on one of my first projects being latrine building, so if anyone is interested in coming down to visit, I sure would love if you came down during construction time. The more manpower, the betterJ

With regards to my host family, I really don’t think I could have gotten any luckier. For those of you who have lived with me, you know I love my space and like the opportunity to separate myself from others, especially while working. For my host family’s schedule, this works out perfectly. My host family has another, very modest home in a sort of suburban development outside of the city where my host father has his accounting practice, where my host sister Leslie goes to school and about 20 minutes from where my host sister Xenia attends university. They live there most of the time and come up to the house where I am living every Saturday night to Sunday evening, and occasionally one night during the week. Basically, I have a host family and people to spend time with on the weekend when I am not working and usually don’t have anything to do, and during the week when I am occupied and often look forward to quiet evenings alone, I have that luxury. Also, during the week I always have Mama Chila who is there to make me smile, give me a hug, and make sure I have eaten my daily quota of tortillas, as well as Soyla (my host cousin), Yefri, Rolvin, and Katy (my host little cousins). Yefri is three and Katy is seven and we like to color and play playdoh. Teaching the concept of playdoh was a little difficult at first as they just wanted to eat it (not really a big deal as I made Mrs. Sherman’s homemade playdoh recipe from Salem Nursery School and I am sure I ate it myself), but eventually we got a hang of it and it’s great fun. Yefri really hadn’t done much “educational play” before I got here, so it’s been really awesome to watch him learn as he plays. In these four short weeks alone, he has learned how to hold a crayon, is starting to learn colors, has improved motor skills, and his imagination is great.

Work Life
I suppose technically my entire life here is considered my “work” as I am a PCV 24/7/365, but most of it’s too much fun to really be considered work. Sure it’s challenging when I just can’t produce the word I want to use, when I have no freaking clue what is being said to me and I am up to my calves in mud and cow poop, but at the end of the day it’s all pretty funny, I remember where I am, how lucky I am to be here, and this is just all part of my life as a PCV.

So during my first two months of service, before I return to San Vicente for my second round of training in November more specifically geared toward agriculture (I am really excited for this; we get to attend the agricultural college and will receive intense practical training), I am focused on completing a community needs-based assessment and diagnostic. That’s just a really fancy way of saying I am trying to figure out what the community needs and wants in terms of projects, trainings and programs. To do this, I have been conducting house visits where I basically show up, tell a little bit about myself, try to get to know those I am visiting, and conduct a survey gauging knowledge and interest levels about various themes, such as composting and crop diversification. I also chat with my community members about their needs, the needs they perceive the community has, and other various project ideas they may have and may want to pursue while I am here. Based on the 65 visits that I have completed to date, one of the most pressing projects, as I have mentioned, is latrine building and there is significant interest in bringing computers to the school. It’s hard to imagine a school without computers, but when the amount of discretionary funding the school receives per pupil is $15 per year and only about 120 students, there are far more important things to spend that $1800 on. In addition to the ideas I have been collecting from my community members, I am also observing tons of potential project ideas that I scribble in the margins of my interview notes. I have begun to compile a list of these project ideas and have taped it up in my room, directly in my line of vision near my doorway, so I am forced to look at them everyday, multiple times a day.

In addition to my house visits, I have gone to various agencies in the main city and made some contacts for potential project collaboration and support. From the mayor’s office to the sugar mill to the police station, I have met some very great contacts and people that will help me to get things rolling. I am quickly learning that being a PCV means being a catalyst, an organizer and a jack of all trades. All the puzzle pieces of development are here and at our disposal, we just need figure out which way is up and put them all together.

On October 21st, my boss Rolando will be coming to visit my site and observe my first asemblea general that I will be leading. Here I will present a little more information about myself, give a brief explanation of the history of the Peace Corps, and present the findings of my community diagnostic. I am very excited to present my findings to the community, selecting the projects we want to pursue and getting starts on my first project with my community.

Social Life
Living in a small caserio, I have quickly reconfigured my definition of a social life from dinners and drinks with friends, to any event that gets me out of the house with people I can converse with. For me, my main social activity, and the one I enjoy the most, is playing soccer with the girls of my caserio. The first time we headed out to the cancha (field) to play, about 12 girls between the ages of 7 and 13 came out to play. By the second time we went to play, our numbers have grown to near 30, and the boys caught word of our play and wanted to join in. The thing with boys and girls playing soccer together, it ends up being a boys’ game with girls jogging back and forth, just hoping to get a chance to kick the ball once or twice. Because our numbers have grown so quickly and have remained so strong, I am starting to make a soccer schedule, where the younger girls have the field for a period of time, followed by the older girls, and lastly the boys. What I would really love to do in the long run is officially establish teams and play against other teams from other communities. I have a couple PC friends within 10km from my caserio, and I hope I can convince them to start teams in their sites as well. We would then be able to easily travel to each others’ sites and have matches with our teams. We’ll see how it goes- keep your fingers crossed it works out.

As far as friends my own age goes, my host sister Xenia is who I hang out with the most. Last weekend we went to visit the department capital of Santa Ana, had great conversation over coffee and went to a fair in the main park of the city. There I bought a lovely indigo dyed dress that I am just waiting to wear. It’s not really something I can pull off in my daily wardrobe, but is perfect for when I eventually get myself to the beach. Also, this past week I have begun running in the mornings with my new friend Jilma, who is 24. She works as a police officer with the PNC, Policia Nacional Civil, in San Salvador. It’s nice to have someone to consistently run with, seeing as it’s not really socially acceptable for me to go out running alone.

About once a week I get a chance to meet up with at least one of my PC friends, usually the ones who live closest to me, for lunch or a visit to the market. About every three weeks I get to meet up with my other friends who live farther away in the capital where we take full advantage of our pool privileges at the Sheraton and our drastically increased food options such as sushi, bagels, and believe it or not, there is a chicken wing place called Buffalo Wings ES, sort of in the style of Buffalo Wild Wings. I have yet to visit, but hope to get the opportunity the next time I am in the capital in a week or so to celebrate October birthdays.

Life in site does get lonely at times, but I am making friends, ever slowly but surely. Also, letters and emails from home continue to brighten my days. A special thanks goes out to Aunt Lynn for one of my first letters received at my new mailing address, and to Mom and Dad for my first package that I received on my one month anniversary in site. A special Happy 12th Birthday goes out to Cousin John- I can’t believe how old you are!

As always, I hope all is well back state side. I can’t wait to hear from you all soon!