Soccer and Stomach Bugs

Since returning to site from my holiday vacation, getting back into the swing of things with my community members has taken a bit longer than I anticipated. Of course I knew I would need a few days for myself to re-acclimate, I just didn’t expect my community would need time to re-acclimate to me, too. It’s sort of like my settling in period when I first arrived in September, just abbreviated. I’m finding myself explaining, again, why I am here, why I don’t have children, and why in God’s name I’m not married yet. (I’m already an old maid at 22.) I even had one woman say flat out that she never expected me to return. A little stunned by her statement, I had to laugh it off and give her a quick and witty reply, something like she couldn’t get rid of me that easily, hardy har har.

But, this time I knew the best ways to get myself an in, so I started with the skeleton key to opening the gates to all things community related: the kids.

Soccer

As I am sure you recall, way back in September I started playing soccer with the girls in my community in hopes of forming a competitive team I could travel with to play against other volunteers and their teams in their sites. Much to my dismay, however, the girls lost some steam and several became disinterested come the beginning of November, and my original twenty-five girls had dwindled down to a consistent group of ten. I sort of let the idea of a travel team go, but continued to play with my fútbol posse. They enjoy playing so much, and otherwise have no positive athletic outlet. (Trying to play with the boys in the schoolyard just doesn’t cut it in my book.)

These are the girls I returned to and started playing with nuevamente my first full day back in site. Led by one of my best friends, twelve year-old Nancy, fourteen girls came to our first play date on the field. I was so pleasantly surprised at the number that showed, but I was absolutely floored when they started asking about when we could start real practices again. They also were demanding to know when we could go play against “el equipo de la orta gringa”, my nearby PCV friend Bri, who is located no more than eight or nine kilometers away. So excited by their excitement, I explained to the girls that we need to get a consistent group of at least fifteen girls older than twelve to make the team work. The older girls Nancy, Jenny, Tati and Vanessa said they’d work on recruitment, and I said I’d work on uniforms. Keep your fingers crossed that my girls pull through and by next month we’ll be playing, and winning, our first official match.

By reenergizing with the girls (and the boys who follow to molestar, or annoy, and throw out poropos, catcalls- my absolute favorite ever received, “Hey baby I like yo face” in English) on the soccer field, the mothers became re-interested, as well. This week’s meeting of the women’s group directiva was a complete 180˙ transformation from last week. Last week the only two present were the president and vice president, and this week, five of seven members were there and filled with ideas. As I mentioned in last week’s post, I am initiating an efficient stove project in my community with the help of Stove Team International. The women were so interested in this project, they are going to co-sponsor the initiative with me. This will be their first community-wide initiative and I’m near certain we will be extremely successful!

I am still facing a bit of resistance in reanimating the ADESCO directiva. I have better luck moving a cow from the middle of the road (in case you didn’t know, that’s a very challenging task) than getting more than four of the eleven to attend the weekly meeting on Wednesdays. As my counterpart, Don Miguel, and I keep telling each other, we need to have patients as many people are out working during this time of year cutting sugar cane. Nonetheless, it’s frustrating when less than fifty percent of the leadership show up and all initiatives have been pushed back week after week. Without doubt, we will persevere through this rough patch in the road and get some excellent programs underway.

For those of you interested in how my latrine project is going, let’s just say it is in the very infancy of its process. I held a meeting in December about the types of latrines available, emphasizing the positive characteristics of composting latrines, but without much convincing. The majority of people within my community would far prefer having a traditional pit latrine. Currently I am seeking advice from my fellow PCVs who have done latrine projects in their sites, pricing materials and seeking potential funding sources. So, if anyone is aware of any NGO that has a giving zone in El Salvador or a giving priority of rural sanitation, please send the info my way.

Back on the topic of soccer, this past Sunday my fellow Peace Corps ladies and I were victorious, defeating the team from San Juan de Dios 5-3. This brings out record from the time I began playing in October to 2-2. Not so bad for a team that never practices and has a roster that is continually changing depending on PCV availability and travel feasibility.

I actually was only able to play one half because of some miscommunication regarding bus schedules. I was informed that the bus to Juayua, a very charming tourist friendly town, left from Santa Ana every hour. Following this information, I gave myself an extra hour and fifteen minutes of travel time; you never know where a glitch may show up in travel. As it turns out, on Sundays, the bus does not leave every hour on the hour, but rather every two and a half hours. When I arrived at the bus terminal in Santa Ana, I had just missed the previous bus’s departure by less than five minutes. For those of you who are quick with the math, that’s right, I had to wait an excruciatingly long two hours and twenty-five minutes until the next bus left. I ended up missing the group of PCVs who met in Juayua and bussed up, and I mean up one mile above sea level, to the site of our game’s hostess, Lauren. Luckily two of my friends were also late in their arrival, so I had two strapping young gentlemen to head to the game with.

After meeting up with Dylan and Joe, I called Lauren to ask her how she suggested we get up to her site. She said, simply ask the police, they know who she is, where she lives and they should be able to give us a lift, no problem. So, we dutifully did as instructed, went to the PNC station, asked for a ride and the PNC graciously granted our request.

When the three of us were in the car, a very nice new Ford Escape, we discussed how this exact situation would most certainly never occur in the United States. Just think, three foreigners walk into a police station and ask for a ride, in rather rough language, to their soccer game in a nearby community where their friend lives. That’s like a bad joke without a punch line. Luckily, Salvadoran police are far more accommodating than their US counterparts, and I was able to make it to the second half of my game.

Playing a mile above sea level with a significant wind factor made even just one half of play physically tiring. Clearly I had far too many Christmas cookies and pierogis while home. While I didn’t score a goal, I did have two really great breakaways and an assist to our team’s captain, Missy, who is by far our leading goal scorer. The boys’ PCV team went on to play after us as usual, and they, too, were victorious.

We returned down to Juayua in the back of a truck filled with none other than freshly picked coffee. After cleaning up at our very charming, and very cheap, hostel my fellow PCVs and I, between both teams and spectators there were over 25 of us, headed out for dinner. We ended up spending the rest of the night at a very charming café/bar that had such delicacies as hummus and tzatziki. Talk about a culinary treat. As always, it was great to get together, chat and simply enjoy each others’ company while swapping stories.

A little after midnight, my friend Dana and her visiting boyfriend, Buck, and I walked the quick block back to our hostel. There I settled in for a refreshing night’s sleep. Or so I thought…

Stomach Bugs

So much for that great night’s sleep. I was up at 2AM the next morning with all the tell tale symptoms of intestinal parasites. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but by 7:30AM I was ready and physically able to head into the Peace Corps office for a medical exam.

As always, our medical staff was amazing in quickly checking me out, sending me for the appropriate tests and treatments. As it turns out, I had amoeba eggs in my stomach, but no active amoebas which indicates that these little guys have been hanging out for quite a while. Maybe all my holiday weight gain wasn’t from all the food I ate, but rather from my millions of little stomach friends replication. Probably not, but it makes me feel better, haha.

Just like emotionally readjusting to life as a Peace Corps volunteer, my body needs to readjust as well. I need to remember to be extremely vigilant with cleaning my fruits and veggies with chlorinated bleach and sterilizing my water. Water sterilization has become infinitely simpler with one of my best Christmas gifts from Mom and Dad, a SteriPen. What this very cool contraption does is sterilizes the water, killing anything living, with a strong dose of ultraviolet light. I am unaware of the exact science behind it, but I am aware it keeps me in ample supply of clean water.

No worries, I am now one third through my treatment for my stomach friends, as I like to call them. As I keep telling my Mom, stomach parasites are a part of life here in El Salvador, just like having running water once every three days. It’s a reality that the people here deal with on a daily basis, but don’t have the luxury of going into the capital to their team of doctors and limitless medical resources to take care of whatever health issue may arise, like I do. I knew that serving in Peace Corps meant fully immersing myself in a different culture, taking in all the positive and negative aspects with the experience. Heck, not everyone can say they had parasites dormant in their stomachs for over a month now, can they? That’s something worth putting on a resume.

As I write this blog, an evangelical church service, known as a culto, is taking place outside of my house. The music is blaring, tongues are being spoken, and prayers are being shouted. To say the least, I have a few distractions, so I apologize if in some parts my writing makes no sense. Also, I have to apologize for how lame my last two blog entries have been. They reflect the slow, not so overwhelming, but always exciting, life I have been living the past two weeks.

In the weeks to come, I am sure to have some great new stories to share. I have some more soccer planned, my cocina demonstration with Stove Team International, and ASAPROSAR’s eyesight campaign all on tap, so something exciting in bound to develop. Please keep reading, and I will certainly keep writing.