They live!

Well it has almost been a week since we brought the baby chickens back to my community. Everything went swimmingly the day I went to pick them up. I meet the man from the ministry of agriculture in the morning and with only a slight delay and two other errands he needed to run we got to the meeting point with the delivery car a few minutes before they did. We loaded the 500 one day old chickens into the cab of the truck and started home (after of course paying some bills for a friend of the driver). Every time we went over a little bump or went around a corner there would be a chorus of peeping from the birds. We distributed the 500 birds between 23 families and today we vaccinate them for the first time, and I have only heard of one dying so far. Which actually might not be a good thing since I was calculating that at least 15% would die, hopefully there will be enough food to keep them alive until they start laying eggs!

Chickens

Well I got 3 minutes to tell it all.

Tomorrow the chicken project starts for real.

500 baby chicks will be arriving.

I just finished buying the stuff to make heat lamps for all of the little preciouses.

The most optimistice estimate I have heard is half will die. I hope not. I could look like the gingo I am if that happens.

What's more? Somone stole 600 dollars from my house that was for the project. Luckily we have enough to make it through until Feb, hopefully we will have figured something out by then.

WOO!

BRO Camp

Part of being poor, is staying put. When you have limited resources traveling is pretty low priority. If you don’t travel then you probably also always sleep in your own house. Last February me and two other PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) were in a gym getting huge and talking about the value of camps that PCVs occasionally put together to take kids out of their communities for a few days and teach them a thing or two while giving them an experience to spend their first night out of the community (not all have never left but the majority). The female volunteers have been holding a girls camp several times a year called ‘GLOW’ camp and we decided we should have a BRO camp to teach about Machismo, what it means to be a man, and STDs. We applied to one NGO for funds and were rejected, but then we applied for VAST funds and were awarded 1000 dollars to hold a camp. VAST funds are allotted to fight HIV/AIDS and all we had to do was teach a little more AIDS education than we had originally planned. We invited a total of 8 PCVs to attend from all sides of the country and to bring 4 boys between the ages 13-16. Together there were 40 of us. This was the 4th camp I have been to. We held it in the workers center on Lago Coatepeque (which is amazing) for two nights three days. In addition to all the educative material was included a mini soccer tournament, bonfire with S’mores, and just lots of fun. The boys were all amazingly well behaved; I can not convey how good these kids are especially the boys I brought. I was so proud of how well they handled everything including the guest speaker (a man who has been living with HIV for 10 months) and one of their parents got all choked up when I told her how proud she should be of her son.

Where Does Meat Come From

I was wondering what this entry would be about all week, but Saturday the topic become as obvious as…something quite obvious.

Don Oscar has papers to live in the United States; he came back to home to my site once last year when his mother died and came back in July this year for the one year anniversary of his mothers death-which is something of a celebration here.

Since he has been back he has told me several times that he would be killing a cow and wanted me to be there to eat it, and I wanted to be there for the whole things; Part of my reason for going was just to get a little closer to the food chain. Last week he told me that ‘this Saturday without doubt we will be killing it.” I was skeptical, but when the day came around…the cow was killed.

I think it’s safe to say I have changed a lot since I have been here. The first time I saw a chicken killed it made me think. When I saw a rabbit get dressed I felt a little wheezy so I was dubious about what my reaction would be to seeing a cow that weighs several hundred pounds getting killed would be.

There are a few people in the town that always do the killing and dressing of animals. ‘Napo’ tied up the cow in front of an audience of mostly kids less than 10. Once on the ground he sharpened his knife said ‘forgive me lord’ then made a hole in its neck and let it bleed to death. The last minute of the cow’s life was the hardest to watch, it mooed very loudly and with anthropomorphizing it too much it seemed scared. When it mooed loudly (sounded more like a scream then a moo) blood flowed more rapidly from the hole in its neck. I’m sure there are more humane was of killing a cow now. Its eyes seemed to change color and it died. Then two grown men, a teenager and myself started to peel the leather off the meat. That was really the only thing I could help with. I was expecting to be much more disgusted than I was. The skin is very tough and we sharpened our knives every few minutes. After it was flayed they worked for about 2 hours getting all the meat off and left the guts and skin for the vultures and dogs.

I was excited to eat grass feed beef, but they cooked it so much I couldn’t taste much more than a normal steak. So did I think about becoming a vegetarian while we were cutting it? For a few seconds I did but it just didn’t seem like a big deal killing it. Maybe it was the presence of kids the whole time who watched with interest at times boredom at others, but I never really felt anything more than a mild sense of gratitude for the meat the cow had given us. Or maybe I’m just a hardened killer now.

Return

It has been a while I know.

There is a host of reasons why I have not written any new updates in a longtime. I apologize.

What I have been up to.

The main thing I have been working on is a chicken project. A Salvadorian NGO came to my town last November to give a 3 week workshop on how to raise chickens. It was 3 hours a day for three weeks. I attended the whole thing; we learned about better chicken nutrition, vaccinations, and shelter. At the end of the workshop though nothing was given to the 25 participants (all women, mostly all mothers) apart from a diploma. So I started raising chickens on my own (in hopes to better understand the process and share with the community) 30 Hy-Line Browns a breed that has been bred to lay an alarming amount of eggs (1 a day for 14 months) while at somewhat contradictory to the rules of nature bred to not have any nesting instinct (which is counter productive for maxim production of eggs because chickens will sit on egg (whether or not they are there) instead of eating). I applied for a grant from an NGO in the states called Mothers to Mothers. I won the full amount of the grant, so every participant will receive the basic materials to build a chicken coop, vaccinate their chickens, and properly ailment them until they start laying eggs. However I will be using a different breed of chickens that are duel purpose (eggs and meat).

Raising chickens is a funny experience. It takes not more than 20 minutes a day to take care of them and each chicken can produce about a dollar of profit a month (not bad when the national income average is 4-5 dollars a day). My favorite part has been a fence I made. I cut down branches of a tree that is particularly nutritious for chickens and planted them a few inches apart for a coral in theory they start growing and put out new branches and leaves which can be cut and thrown into the chicken pen. Of all the branches about 50-60% have started growing.

Recently I have also started (and almost finished) a world map mural at the school. It’s a pretty typical Peace Corps project. I was inspired to do it after I had a group of teenagers over to my house to watch Saving Private Ryan and I asked them if they could find any of the countries named in the movie-they could not even find El Salvador save one kid. So now at the school is an almost complete 6ftx12ft map of the world.

I can’t stand teaching English. Something about it gets my goat. But people kept asking me for them so I started my Trojan Horse English Club. I teach 20 minutes of English then 20 minutes of whatever I feel like (health lectures, or last week I just played Beethoven’s 5th symphony for 20 minutes ( I was surprised how much they liked it)). Then 20 more minutes of English.

Sorry for my lapse I will try to keep up to date from now on. Two a month will be my goal. Hold me to it.

-Matt

Pale Blue Dot

A atom fuses to an other-a massive quantity of energy is released. Blinding light, incinerating heat is flung trembling, straining, and exploding into the vacuous universe. A tiny fraction of that light and heat strikes, and enters what is simultaneously an insignificant pale blue dot, and what is the most important place that has ever existed. A small part of that tiny fraction of energy enters the atmosphere and a minuet piece of the small part of that original tiny fraction lands here in El Salvador striking blades of grass in the clay. Triggering the ancient and yet trendy new phenomenon of photosynthesis. A big cow takes a bite and masticates it for minute; hours later-splat! The cow gifts the world a patty.

I had been wondering the streets picking up all the 'freebie' patties and putting them in my neighbor's wheelbarrow in the area around the watering hole with slow progress. Meandering up a short trail toward one of Chepe's pastures when five of the kids from the town (10-16 years old) come bounding up the trail and demanded I take a different side trail. By now I have learned that the locals always know best, so I follow them and within 15 seconds we were in cow pie heaven. Their interrogation of what I was doing with a wheelbarrow full of crap before deciding to help without verbal deliberation was surprisingly brief and non judgmental

“what are you doing with all that poop?”

“This is typical cuisine in America. I'm eating it for diner!” I say with energy to get a reaction. Some of the kids in the street laugh and others make grossed out faces and roll their heads backwards. “No but really I'm collecting food for my worm farm.”

“Really? What do you want to grow worms for?”

“For my chickens to eat. To augment their protein. Worms are pure protein.”

The kids that were helping me collect the manure took control of the wheelbarrow and the responsibility of filling it and I became more of their helper than the other way around (I did manage to hang on to the shovel though). The kids all had two sticks and would pick up the patties and drop them into the wheelbarrow. Once it was full we headed back to my house. Stopping on the short walk back to explain what we were doing twice to people in the street.

The month before I got a handful of worms from the Peace Corps office and placed them into two tomato crates full of manure to reproduce and after a month I was told there would be many more. So I had lined two more tomato crates (wooden boxes) with plastic, and when we got back I started to fill them up half way. I was spilling some of the manure because the shovel was too big or the boxes were to small and one of the older kids Louis said “it would be easier with your hands. Put them in two bags”

“What?” I say. He points to an empty shopping bag I had on my table and asks for an other I get a bunch I have been saving for no real purpose out and several of the kids make gloves out of them. I follow their lead and soon we are all moving the crap with our makeshift gloves. Once the boxes are half full with the fresh poo I take some handfuls out of the the older boxes, to transfer some worms. I spread out some handfuls of it on the ground to show them the worms. In the manure of the older boxes there was an exciting range of sizes of worms. Little baby worms and full grown fat ones. All were carefully places in their new homes.

NOTE*
All hands were thourghly washed afterwards!

Take that swine.

I open my eyes. I can see things in my room-it must be daylight. Un-tuck the yellow mosquito net, slide out. I put my flip flops on and tuck the net back in. Check the time on my cell phone dangling and recharging in the only place in the house with spotty receptions-6:17. Open the heavy metal door to the world. My chicken coop is some 30 metes away from my door, and begin to greet my chickens I fondly call 'my ladies'-I'm stopped dead in my tracks. A gigantic disgusting pig is has moved the rocks around the base and is half way into the coop. This swine was gigantic I swear if you painted it with an argyle pattern and put some cushions on it, it could have been confused for a sofa. In my boxers and flip flops only I began running towards this 300lbs monster. I could throw a rock at it and it would run away but I need to teach it a lesson. I grab a 3 foot stick with the thickness of my forearm. The pig's 'pork-sense' goes off and realizes an enrages confused gringo is running towards it and tries to escape but I am upon it before it can fully withdraw. I let the stick rain down onto it's back with full force literally splintering the stick on it's back (i think this has a lot to do with the stick being half way rotten). The disgusting beast of yore let's out an equally disgusting roar and withdraws. It looks at me for a second. From smashing my stick on it's back I am bent over somewhat and alarmingly close to eye level and would have dorked my shorts realizing I just attacked an animal that must weigh almost twice as much as me, but it flees into woods. I stand up and examine the damage to the coop and push a chicken that's trying to escape with my foot. I hear what could be an other pig, looking up I see a 9 year old boy who bore witness to it all, he had a slight grin. “Pig was messing with my chickens.” I say as someone who just had an incredibly private moment intruded on and tries to act like nothing happened. he nodded in agreement, and watched more a minute as I made makeshift repairs so 'my ladies' couldn't escape while I searched for much bigger rocks to surround the base. I try to remember how this mess with the chickens started.

Season 3 Episode 9

I'm jumping rope, watching episode 9 of season 3 of 'The Wire' on my laptop and listening to it from my Boise speakers that my sister just brought me from home. If you're scratching your head a little right now, you have reason to. However I would just like to assure you that I am in fact, in the Peace Corps. McKnowlty is doing something ballsy and I am just staring to work up a sweat. The sound cuts out on the speakers, the computer switches to battery power, and the one bare fluorescent bulb shuts off.

“jumping tortillas.” I say to myself in frustration. Power outages are not uncommon, however this would be the first during the dry season. While no rain, today has been exceptionally blustery. Once I thought the power had gone out for the whole town so I light a candle and did whatever for an hour or so before I realized there were lights on at school and the two neighboring houses I can see from mine. I walked over and found that the extension cord that I run from my neighbors house to my own had slipped lose. Thinking a repeat incident might have a occurred I walk my sweaty campo nalgas over to Dora's house to check on the cord. I ask if they're lights are gone as well. I'm assured that they are and that a large amate tree has fallen on the power line outside of Lilian's house.

“I do not believe we will have power again today. Maybe tomorrow morning.” Says I.

“No. They won't fix the power until tomorrow, maybe in the morning.” Dora says emphatically as to correct a grave error. I sputter a little trying to explain that's was I said, or at least tried to say. But just nod and say “yea, tomorrow we'll have lights.”

I walk back to my house, grab my towel, plastic shopping bag with grimy bar of soap and handmade shampoo. Head back to Dora's house to take a shower. Dora's house is 200ft away from mine (I know this because of the extension I had to make to get electricity). When I say take a shower I mean take a damn shower. Dora's house is the first one to connect to the big tank that the water comes from, so for some reason she almost always has running water while our neighbors have it twice a week. Running water means a shower. The only one I've seen or heard off in the town that works. I mentioned it was blustery, I just reiterate that fact because it was super blustery. And although it's not really that cold maybe (60 degrees maybe) everyone asks me if I'm cold, and I shamefully admit I am. On the walk back to my house from my shower I walk passed the porch where Dora, two of her kids and two kids in general are sitting, I start to pretend to cry and shake in the cold. I get a cheap laugh out of the kids and Dora smiles but then asks "why are you crying,?" I can't tell if she can tell I'm joking or not so I just say “I'm super duper cold”

As I'm turning the key to my house, on my ratty blue sting keychain/neckless I hear a chainsaw kick up and a round of screeches (not too unlike a cowboy holler but higher pitched and shorter) not too far from my house, presumable in the street. I get dressed and go to investigate what the big 'to-do' is. On either side of the street is a bus waiting to pass, with a market car behind one of the buses. And in between them laying on the ground is a giant amate tree, and a crowd of people going to town on it. I see three people standing on it and swinging axes at it, Chepito with his gigantic change saw, and a score of men with machetes taking care of the smaller pieces. Probably a sixth of the town has showed up to watch the tree get taken apart. I start taking pictures. The town 'mute' (who actually really just is deaf) starts throwing gang signs and wants me to take his picture. I oblige him. Although El Salvador does have a gang problem him throwing those signs is like me when I was ten throwing the Wu-Tang. It lasted about an hour and half before enough was cleared away so the vehicles could pass. People were giving advice to Chepe on where to best use his chainsaw, with firm gestures and demonstrating with their hands the angles that needed to be cut to fell the rest of the tree. Twice people came up to me to point out how well the community worked together. One made a somewhat more dubious comparison and said “we are like the European towns. See how we work together?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well they are united in Europe, just like here.”

“it seems so.” He gives me a half suspicious glance and walks away to further mutilate the fallen tree.
The high-lite was when they tied rope around some of the larger pieces (several hundred pounds) attached the other end to the trapped buses and broke them off the tree well some reverse action on the part of the buses and dragged them a ways so they could be flipped off the road.

About as interesting as “the wire”.