vivero

A tip to anyone who might be a future Peace Corps Volunteer. When you schedule a meeting for whatever reason, it is almost always more advantageous to have it at someone else's house. Invite ten people and for whatever reason sometimes no one will show up to a meeting, or maybe one or two; however if you schedule the meeting at someone else's house you are way more likely to have at least that person be there plus the one two or three that might have showed up anyway. Also by having it at someone else's house that person will be more likely to remind other people of the meeting and encourage them to go and actually want them to go. Sometimes two or three is enough where one or two is not.

I showed up at Alberto's house at 3. I take the required seat and we talk for a minute about the project we are about to start. He is a big big man but moves in the tattered hammock as it were a part of his body that allows him to hang not but 3 inches above the earthen floor. It's a few minutes after 3.
“Ah the thing is where is everyone else?” Alberto says to me.
“I think Rudy and Edgar are at their houses I'll go get them.” I stand up to go, their houses are within shouting distance so it's no big deal.
“But Don Mateo. We need a saw and I don't have one.” He looks at me with complete sincerity, with the hidden message 'an other day'
“Well do you know someone who has one cause I bet we can find one?”
“No I don't.”
“Ok well I'll ask the guys at the Amate tree.” Alberto swiveled back around in the hammock towards the tv.

“Cousin!” I say outside of Rudy's house. He starts laughing and comes out.
“Cousin! You ready?” He says back. Rudy is a little older than me and wears a Yankees hat.
“Let'g go Alberto's waiting at his house.” I notice some old boards with thin film of old cement on them. “can we use these? And do you have a saw?”
He rubs his chin and looks at the ground. “Yea, we'll take the boards but I don't have a saw.”
“Ok, I'll ask under the Amate.” I walk over to the Amate tree where lots of the men from the community are lounging. There are about 12 guys sitting around or laying around on the rocks from my age to old guys.
“Hey does anyone have a saw, or know where we can borrow one?” They all look towards one in other in confusion and all claim to not have one. I felt a little like Hansel asking the crazy witch in the ginger bread house to borrow a cup of sugar; I was somewhat sure that everyone or at least every other person would have one since so much stuff in the community is made from wood. But I guess a lot of people just use a machete where I would try to use a saw. After a little discussion Juan Pablo was fingered as having one. So I walked over to his house and he happily lent it to me, I walked back to Alberto's house passing by the Amate waving the saw in the air. It was under the same amate tree in June I proposed the project of starting a fruit tree nursery, it went over pretty well—who doesn't like fruit? In August the Fruit Tree Committee and I went in for training on how to start a tree nursery at the Army nursery in San Vicente.

So why does the Army have nursery? El Salvador borrowed a lot of money during the civil war, as part of the debt forgiveness program El Salvador must reforest a certain percentage of the country (98% of it being deforested at the time). The soldier in charge of the nursery was completely hospitable and taught us what we needed to know more or less, and gifted us with 500 plastic bags for planting trees. We decided as a committee to keep it simple and start with only one kind of tree and the next year expand. So our goal for this year is to grow 500 papaya tree, gift one or two trees to every house and sell the rest for a quarter or two to have money to expand the nursery the next year and maybe treat the committee to something for their work. The first step is to make a seed tray, which is what we need the saw for.

Although it was just the three of us making this seed tray it felt great to be building something useful. After fiddling around and deciding how to make it we started cutting the wood, they used a range of baffling techniques to measure and build. After a few minutes of cutting with Juan Pablo's saw Alberto started on about how the saw wasn't sharp enough. “Chepe! Bring me your saw!” He bellowed. His neighbor came out of his house with a hand saw that looked much newer and handed it to Alberto over the barbwire fence, and Alberto started sawing away much faster. I almost don't even bat an eye at stuff like that anymore, what are you gonna do?

After about an hour the seed tray was done. It's not the prettiest thing in the world but to me it's a yacht.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

About four years ago the town I live in had a new school built. In the compound in one of the two buildings that contains classrooms there is one room that has a padlock and is not used as a teaching space. Inside on the floor are sacs of rice, condensed milk, and sugar. On the ceiling are two massive air conditioners. I'm fairly sure these are the only air conditioners within an hour and a half, and if not they are definitely belonging to a group smaller than a dozen. This room was built with the exclusive purpose of housing computers, the school has solicited several government organizations and one NGO but still remains forsaken.

A Peace Corps volunteer in a different part of the country is organizing a large shipment of computers from an NGO in the states (around 400), and all the other volunteers in country who are interested in computers for the schools in their communities are collaborating with him. The principle and I decided we could probably manage to raise half the money for the computers and get the other half from the mayors office. One of theses computers costs 86.25 including shipping. One of the comities that was formed at the general assembly was to raise the money for those computers. That's 258.75 in two months—trickier than it seems. A day of working in the corn fields will get you four dollars, a bus driver makes ten dollars a day, and people who work in stores in San Vicente make 3.50 a day. During the second training one of the technical sessions we had was learning how to make shampoo.

“It won't pass.” Julio said looking right at me. A man in his earlier sixties, button up shirt, and an almost clean shave were in not for one hair that in the middle of his check that is almost half an inch long now. “It won't pass.” He says again continuing his forlorn gaze, his brow furrowed and holding his hands completive covered with shampoo slowly dripping into a large bowl full of shampoo that we made the day before. The shampoo continues to slime from his hands and he stares me right in the eyes and says again “it won't pass. It's too thick.” and just looks at me mouth agape I stare right back at his extremely troubled face, I suppress laughter and try to stay calm; I wanted to laugh because how seriously he was taking the shampoo too thick and also because I didn't want to completely disappoint everyone. “I see that.” More time passes of us doing the same thing until he says it again “okay, I said. Maybe we added too much salt. We can add some more water and it might make it less thick. Or what do you want to do?”

He touched the surface of the shampoo gingerly and again and tries pouring it into the bottle again, but it just won't pass. “It will not pass.”

The other group who is also trying to fill up that bottles from an other batch made the day before is having the same problem, as Julio stated the shampoo won't pass into the shampoo bottles. He cleans off his hands and picks up one of the instruction sheets, and goes over every possible step out loud emphasizing quantities and verbs; he asks everyone if the read allowed step had been completed properly, and if so, did we do it exactly as the sheet instructs. While he is rereading the instructions out loud an other member of the computer committee has added water and the shampoo passes. However a little too much water was added it passes too quickly and we fill 20% more bottles than the recipe is suppose to make. Which turns out to be a happy mistake because out customers were equally happy with the new batch.

Although the storm is coming, the tide is already turning.

I am moving to a small house by myself in Sept; the house is an interesting place. So quiet and loud, the roof makes a constant ticking sound I think that comes from it contracting or expanding under the heat of the sun; like your car in the driveway. Under a light rain makes a pleasant sound and under a heavy rain make an equally unpleasant sound. Made of cinder block with the tin roof, lacks electricity, water, and a complete floor (all cement but parts rock like icebergs protrude several inches). I can pass electricity with an extension from the land ladies house but water I will have to walk the 200 ft everyday. In a red plastic chair directly in the center, I sit in the cold-gray heat of the house fiddling with an old shop light trying to fix it. The house is void of all direct light and noise other than the ticking and the neighbors regeaton in the distance. I sit in the gray working to erase it, or at least make it a few shades lighter. The house seems to be empty but the longer I spent in there tinkering the more I realized it is a silent battle ground. A scorpion the size of half a PB and J sandwich, surveys the smooth surfaces of the slanting ceiling; silently sitting passing time until it is that to strike. I stand on a stack of plastic chairs to pass a electric cord from the one large room to one of two smaller side rooms a grass hopper as big as the other half of the PB and J sandwich catches my eye as it boldly stays put as I pass the cord centimeters away from it. I openly express to myself a desire to see the two halves meet. A prodigiously sized lizard sneaks over the wall and under the ceiling. In the same small room to which I am passing the cord lives a small host of bats, maybe twelve. They fly in circles around the room and into the larger room on and off the whole time I am there. I have been assured however that the bats are easily made to vacate by use of smoke “they just hate it” my future lady easily convinced me. So bats, scorpions, lizards, giant crickets? The thing you have to remember is that all these neat “throw ins” are pretty much par for the course anywhere in the boondocks, in fact my least favorite 'throw ins' are rats and I have yet to see one in my hopefully not so gray future. However my current house is quite comfortable in the way of water, electricity, and furniture: a lack of funds will leave me in the plastic chairs for a bit. So what does this palace cost? 30 bones a month. By the time I move in I will have been living under the direct care of a family for 7 months, and I truly loved my time with my families and will continue passing time with them while here. However I look forward to being the only one with veto power in my living space, possibly for the first time.

PS

I am also unreasonable excited about buying beans from one of the many farmers here. They're only 7 dollars for 20lbs that like 10,000 beans for a damn dollar!11!!!!one!!

Engrish

Gray cinder blocks twelve feet high create a wall. Conspicuous as a girl playing Magic: The Gathering the lifeless wall cradles a compound of five blue and white buildings that make up the school; two bathrooms, a kitchen and two long buildings with 4 class rooms in each. Standing in classroom seven, the English teacher hands me a book that say “English” on the cover right above the American flag which colonizes the rest of the free space on the cover. Having recently celebrated the Forth of July I think 'take that red coats!'. He opens to a bookmarked page and explains why he has trouble teaching English. A few years ago the ministry of education decided that all schools needed to teach English to receive money...that's all. So the English teacher who was trained to teach social studies now needs to teach a language he has never received training for in order for the school to receive money.

He drags his finger down the page to 'Exercise G' in the stretched open book, he tells me that this is the lesson for the day; one sentence is the 'instructions' for the lesson, one sentence is the lesson and is complemented by a list of nine nouns. A worn lined notebook full of his own notes and explanations of each of the lessons is also quickly opened, and forced to the page with his explanation of the lesson d'jour. It is clear from the absolutely full pages of his writing in the notebook this guy is trying his hardest to understand and teach everything in the English book.

He translates the 'lesson sentence' in Spanish but translates 'building' as a noun and not a verb and says he doesn't understand the sentence. I explain the difference and he seems like I have just validated myself as a teacher of English and asks me if I want to teach the class alone. I'm somewhat baffled by how to teach the lesson but I agree, and ask if everyone in the class is present, he nods. I look out at the sea of five students who have made it to ninth grade (the last grade available).
“Good afternoon!” I say with vigor.
They smile and giggle a little and look around at each other.
“Good afternoon?” I repeat.
“Good after...'you don't know the significance of 'good afternoon'?” I ask the class, they shake their heads no. I lead them a little and they get it but I have small hope for my lesson that is about to follow.

I reread the two sentences in the book under “Exercise G: Word Substitution” and I write the lesson sentence on the white board, while thinking about how to teach this enigma of a lesson. A...r...e...y...o...u...i...n...t...e...r...e...s...t...e...d...i...n...b...u...i...l...d...i...n...g...a...c...o...s...m...e...t...i...c...s...f...a...c...t...o...r...y...? “Are you interested in building a cosmetics factory?” Was to be my first English lesson in El Salvador, a sentence that I'm sure has never been uttered in this country outside of a 9th grade class. I reread the instructions to get some kind of idea how this is a lesson and how I should teach it to the students and how I should include them in the class; alas the one sentence instructions says “Substitute the word 'cosmetics' with one of the seven nouns” which all make equally bizarre factories like 'contact lens' or 'puppet'.

“Are you interested in building a puppet factory?”
“Yes. Yes I am extremely interested in building a puppet factory with you. Unequivocally yes, I am interested in building a damn puppet factory. But why stop there? Are you interested in building a contact lens factory? Because I don't know about you, but I my friend have the means.”

I say the sentence out loud “Are you interested in building a cosmetics factory?”

Blank stares.

“Are YOU inTERESTED...in BUILDING a COSMETICS FACTORY?!”

Blank stares. I encourage them to say the sentence in chorus with me. The first time I say it mostly alone again. It seems to me they are not interested in building a cosmetics factory. After a few tries they all are saying it in unison, more or less true to how this monstrosity of a sentence should be pronounced. I am confident if an English speaker heard this sentence come out of their mouths no matter the context they would assume an error.

“Who knows what this sentence means in Spanish?” I ask with little hope of getting an answer.

“It means 'are you interested in something a cosmetics factory.” A fifteen year old girl responds. I was somewhat dumbstruck and congratulated her hardily, made sure everyone understood the significance then had each of the five students repeat the sentence out loud with a different word where 'cosmetics' was. Although I had a difficult time explaining what a puppet was as I don't know the word in Spanish is. So I just said it's a doll that pretends to talk, I can only imagine what they thought I meant. After extensive coaxing the get the students to try reading the sentence to the class with the new word they all did it successfully. Around the time the second round of factories was being read a woman came into the class room with a large basket on her head, and an pink apron with white lace around the edges and many pockets for money, she placed her basket on a desk and the kids got up from their desks to get some 'atol' a creamy warm pudding like snack she was selling for a quarter. The real teacher just sat and watched and quietly mouthed the sentences as they were read aloud and reacted to the women selling atol as he would have to the clock moving its minute hand. I stood mouth agape watching how they acted like nothing was weird about this. She asked if I wanted some, I said in my best Spanish “no.”

meet

Standing in the dusty street, facing the lion's share of the town's adults I drew breath and addressed the crowd sitting on half painted rocks under the 'amate tree'. A week had passed since the end of the second training period. Second training was geared more toward learning technical information that could be applied in the towns where volunteers live. Three days had passed since I met with six members of the 'directive' where I presented five ideas to them and they chose the three they liked the most, and each of the projects chosen was accompanied with a member to lead it. The directive is eleven people in the town most directly involved in the towns development and the government. Long sleeves and pants donned to garnish respect but invite much more sweat than respect. Screaming children, animals, people standing around joking, ranchero music, and other meeting goers battled for attention as well. I introduced myself, hopping the gesture was not necessary seeing how I've been to every house in the town at least once. “Today, we make committees for projects. The directive has thus started committees, but each committee has a need for five or six more members from the town. Leader of group, going to present the idea.” Then the members of the directive representing each project explains it to the general assembly, in good Spanish. While presenting the projects the president of the directive is standing behind me with his back facing the crowd joking with someone, I can count maybe a dozen people who are consistently paying attention to the presenter. The second presenter frequently reminded everyone to pay attention, especially when an suv pulled up idling loudly behind him and the driver chatted with the president of the directive and a few others. The members of the directive on the third project were not prepared at the meeting so I presented it to the assembly, while I was doing so a town drunk who resembles Bilbo Baggens and an Ewalk staggered up to me shook my hand and started explaining something about a small banana tree he had once seen; I grabbed that little bear's shoulders and said as through my teeth 'later', he stumbled away and I continued. After all three idea had been presented we begun the rather sloppy process of getting twelve to sixteen people from the audience to sign up for one of the committees. The representatives from the three committees quickly recruited those most willing and then browbeat a few more to complete the committees. The hope was that these committees will be sufficiently more agile and more self managing then the larger assembly general...vamos a ver.

Guyler Gets a Job!

Waking up at five in the morning is my habit. Doing so Monday of the past week was no more difficult than other days, in fact it was easier. The daily activities of the men in the town were somewhat obscure to me as I have not been to the fields to work; experiencing what farm work was like here in the boondocks of El Salvador had been tickling my interest for some time. What else had been tickling me (although not my interest but my sense of manliness) was the constant assumption of my inability to do hard work, so I also felt the need to prove my physical strength the way I imagine most brash ruggedly hansom young men need to as well J. When I told people in the village I would be going to the field I received skeptical looks, and questions like ‘you can?’ So at five I sprung out of bed and began the morning rituals, keeping my eye on the kitchen to see if we were going to get breakfast. Although I have been living in this house for eight weeks I never noticed if the men get breakfast before they go to the fields. As we got closer to being ready it seemed certain there would be none, so I stuffed two granola-ish bars into my pocket and waited outside. JP (the father of the host family) gave me a looking over and told me to put on long sleeves, an unpleasantry due to the heat here I was hoping to avoid.

I suppose he knew I didn’t have any work clothes so led me back into the house and gave me a fetching tan long sleeve shirt to don, that had a patch on the right breast pocket that said “TruGreen”. I remember seeing those trucks in the states, after they visit your house they leave tiny flags around the grass informing all literal animals of the marvelous transaction that has occurred; an exchange of all tactile functions to purely a visual function. Donning my new finery I sling my gallon of water of my shoulder, attire my head with a hat, stuff my work gloves in my pocket, JP hands me my cuma, and we are off on the morning commute. On the way out of town we stop by ‘a store’ (someone’s living room) and JP picks up twenty five cents worth smokes for the day (4). We walk along the street for a while and everyone we pass (a substantial number considering the time), takes a quick look at me, smiles, and makes a comment about how it’s good I’m working, and ask when I will work for them. A trail spikes off to the right and we begin what will be a half hour hike up a small mountain to get to their field. On the way there, a parade of leaf cutter ants crossed the road. I had seen them on TV before! A thick line of them marched to a plant designated for food, or was returning to the nest with their prize on their back like a small sail boat with green sails. I stop to take a picture. JP seems somewhat amused that I think it’s interesting, and tells me what they call them. Several locations along the trail have remarkable vistas. Of the valley below with its picturesque patchwork green farms, meandering river, low clouds tucked in the valley hiding the base of the volcano in the distance. The family field has a perfect view of this.

The field itself seems as much rock as soil. We put our water in the shade of a boulder. JP pulls a file out of his pocket and starts sharpening the cumas. I smash my two granola-ish bars in my mouth. It’s still cool out but I’m sweating none the less. Once they are sharper he unceremoniously hands me back my cuma gives me no instruction on what to do and starts working. The area we are working in is to be where the beans are planted, and it is alarmingly steep. While standing on the hill I reach my arm forward with the cuma the end of it touches the ground; I estimate how steep it is 45 degrees? 50? 60? I look over at JP to get an idea of what I am supposed to be doing. All it seems to be is slashing the bottom of the plants in front of him with he cuma and tossing them behind him and advancing upward or to the side. I give it a go. Difficulties include; thorny plants, woody plants with stems up to half inch thick, and constantly being afraid of falling backwards and tumbling to a certain hospital visit. It’s not particularly hard or easy, but to be fast? Experience is required. After half an hour JP’s son (Alfredo) could be heard singing Ranchero music wonderfully loud coming up the trail to joins us. The side of the hill protects from the sun for quite a while. After an hour and half of chopping, Alfredo’s wife can be seen walking towards us.
I take my cue and walk up to the small flat area where she is heading. “Breakfast” they both start saying. In the two months I’ve lived there I never noticed that she comes all the way up here everyday with breakfast! Breakfast goes for about an hour (unusually long as I learned from later days), it’s the same food I get at the house—beans, eggs, and tortillas. JP sharpens my cuma again and it’s back to work.

By its rustic appearance I doubt how sharp it could be and rub my gloved thumb down the blade, I don’t know what I was hoping to learn by rubbing my leather clad thumb over the blade, but I can deliver to you the facts of what I did learn.

Fact 1- It is sharp.

Fact 2- I am an idiot.

Fact 3-It’s sharp enough to cut through leather.

Fact 3.5- It is sharp enough to cut through leather and my thumb.

That would be too much if they knew what a stupid thing I just did. Pretending nothing was wrong I let my wound weep and dye the thumb of the glove; later I would tell them a thorn went all the way through the glove. They seemed pleased with that explanation as it made their work seems harder.
The day got hotter, the work got harder, the Matt got slower. Despite frequent sharpening I slowed to close to what seemed like half the pace of Alfredo and JP, and was quite pleased when they called it a day 12pm. Despite my pleasure with the day ending early, the length of the work day came as a mild shock, it did not quite fit in with me preconception of the poor working endless hours. But it makes sense, they own their land (they don’t actually but they use it, and no one bothers them about it (they call themselves ‘colonist’)), they’re self employed and apparently they make enough to get by without working late into the unbearable heat that comes around one o’clock so why should they? Self employed people get to make that choice.
We make our way back and I almost finish off the gallon of water I brought. On the road back to the town my soiled appearance and cuma in hand tells people what I’ve been up to. Although I did probably slightly more than half the work of either JP or Alfonso they tell everyone “Works, hard! Like a professional. Seems like he has done it forever.” Even though I know it’s not quite the truth I’m happy to have others believe it.

Alfredo and I. (I don't think he is reallythat short)

Simply Cashews.

When I was doing my census the other day a family gave me some hot cashews they had just cooked. They were a little burned, and some were still soft, but boy were they good! They informed me that they had just picked them from their cashew tree, and cooked them. I made up my mind to collect as many as I could. I asked my counterpart and my host brother if they would like to go collect wild cashews and they were up for it, and knew a great spot to go look. The next day we set off for the hills!


This is my host brother.

Two marañóns and one stash.

These are marañóns (or cashew fruit I suppose), and the little nub on top is the cashew. Before I came here I had now idea there was a whole fruit attached to these little wonders. I had so much hope that this would be one of the best fruits I’ve ever eaten; it’s super soft, has no seed inside, and looks like something from Willy Wonka’s health food store. Alas the flavor of the cashew fruit is something like old strawberries, and is not too tasty—in other words the only one of my friends who would like this fruit is Joe. I don’t really like them but I still eat them because I just want them to be good so badly!

The spot we went to go looking for cashews is not more then 15 minute walk from the ‘center of town’ and there are hundreds of cashew trees here. We scour the ground beneath the trees for the seeds or shake the trees and pull the seeds off the fallen fruit. After an hour and a half we filled this bag, about 18-20 lbs I’m told.

I was expecting to toast them in a little pan and from them to shrink and change color to look like a cashew but they lit a fire and just threw them in. The burn wonderfully fast and seem to spray flame.

After they are done cooking they look like this.

Then we smash them with a hammer and get this tasty morsel.

i visit your house

I stand in the street a second looking around; tiny beads of sweat are forming on my forehead in the sun. I see some rocks, I see some trash, I see some dust, I see a pig, I see no gate. I start moving again as to seem like I know what I am doing but it’s probably having the opposite effect. Just about every house here has a barbed wire fence or a stone wall around it; in both cases the walls presumably serve to keep cows out, to mark territory, and make me looks silly when I want to visit—because that’s all they do. Eventually I find a place where the rock wall looks a bit little lower and cross. Clipboard in hand, t-shirt is tucked into my pants, the pig eyes me suspiciously, I pass into the doorway. “Hello! How are we?” I say standing the doorway. “Good, good. How are you? Come inside.” Say’s a women of abut 50. It’s dark inside, there are no windows. In 5th grade Mr. K talked about how in the original space shuttle designs there were no windows, because they were structurally unsound—when the primary building materials for your house are wood and earth I wonder if it’s for the same reason. A plastic chair is quickly put in front of me and the seat whipped by her hand “sit, sit.” I sit. She sits. Her chair is a rainbow colored hammock tinted with shades of time (or dust (most likely dust)). Behind her is a similar hammock, the hammock is taut with the burden of a person who’s face I can’t see.
“How are we?” I say again.
“Good, very good. How are you?”
“Good as well.” I start nodding my head.
“It’s hot today.”
“It’s always hot here, but at least it’s cooler that San Vicente, that place is like an oven!”
“Yes.” She says like a guess. My Spanish was bad or she doesn’t really think San Vicente is that much hotter than here, both are true.
“So does your family farm?” She nods her head.
“What do you grow there?” I squish my face to try to act I don’t know what the answer could possibly be I try to say the answer in my head the same time she says it out loud—beans and corn.
“Beans and corn. So are you just passing by here?” She asks. A kid runs in the house and jumps on her, the hammock rocks slightly. She gently embraces her without ever looking away from me.
“No, I am going to be living here for two years.” I’m not sure if she meant her house or the town. I opt for the later because then I can lead into the census.
“Two years!! Here!?” Eyes wide.
“Mmmmhm. Two years here. I will be working with the ADESCO and other groups. But in the next month I am only conducting this census.” I wiggle the clipboard. “It’s mostly to get to know the people here and learn what things I can help with the most than. Do you have a little time to answer some questions?’ She nods her head. I fill in the date and ask who the boss of the family is. The child in the hammock gets up and chases a dog out of the house.
“Him.” She says as he points to the weight in the hammock behind her.
“His name?” I ask. She tells me. “His age?” I ask. She tells me. “He is a farmer?” I ask. She nods. “What is his level of education?” I ask.
“What?”
“What grade has he completed?” I ask.
“2nd, but he didn’t learn anything.” She says laughing. I laugh a little at the expense of the man sleeping in the hammock.
We go through these questions for all 8 people who live in the house. I get to the part of the survey about what the walls, roof, and floor are made of. The floor is made of uneven dirt, check, the walls are made of mud, circle, and the roof is made of clay tiles, check; I mark this all down on the survey. I have to actual look around now, in the beginning a floor made of dirt would stand out. Now it’s as common as a houseplant in the states. I go through the survey asking questions about personal health, illness and ask them what they know about certain subjects, like AIDS. The whole time chickens walk in and out of the house with as much attention given to them as a breeze—but greatly less appreciated by me. The survey takes about 15-20 minutes depending on how many people live in the house; halfway through this one the same kid turns on the T.V. and watches a soap opera for the rest of my time there. Once the survey is over I put the clipboard down and try to just talk for an other 15-20 minutes, sometimes it lasts much longer other times the people seem to be busy and I leave right away. Or if the person thinks I’m speaking partially speaking in English when I’m giving them my best Spanish; with that being said keep in mind this is my version of what I said and what she said to the best of my ability, but what was really said I might not ever really be known.

I like calling my dad's house Sunday morning, I can imagine it so well. The smell, the colors. I know he and Anne will be sitting at the dining room table with newspapers spread across it. In the center is a glass plate—a bear claw, an apple turnover, salt stick. Rests on the island in the kitchen, a brown bag with a few bagels inside. A silver thermos decanter of coffee. Dad takes a sip of coffee while peering over the cup still reading, the phone rings dad gets a look that something mildly unpleasant has occurred and looks over his shoulder at the phone, Anne's already up, answers.

“Hello?”

“Hi Anne” A short moment goes by where she doesn't know who's calling. I feel a certain self-righteousness about having to state who's calling so I don't say anything I feel my voice should be recognized and it is.

“Matt! Oh hi! How are you? What are you doing?”

“Oh, I'm just standing on a dusty rock, and callin yous guys. I'm doing good but it's already hot.”

“Oh, cool you-”

“No, it's hot!”

“Haha! Right, hot.”

“Are you guys sitting around drinking coffee and eating Black Sheep? And reading the newspaper?”

“We're not quite there yet your father just went out with Hannah to get some food. Hannah, John, Nate, and Josh are here so they kept us up last night so we got a late start today; but they should be back soon.”

I know if I were in Amherst they would be stopping by my apartment about this time, and I would be getting into the backseat of the gold Ford Focus, I know it probably doesn't have the bike rack on it this time of year but I can't get it off it in my mind.

“Well how about you call back in 20 minutes when they're back and we can talk more then?”

“Tell Dad he should call me back. He can figure out how to call me in an other country.” I say mostly joke.

“Haha, it costs us abou-”

“No, I'm just kidding it's cheap for me to call. I'll call back in half an hour.”

“Okie dok. We'll be waiting Bub-bye.”

“Bub-bye”

I hang up the phone and out of the corner of my eye see a foot and a half long lizard sun bathing a mans length away, it turns it head and looks past me.

Offical

One moment I am a Peace Corps Trainee in the US Embassy, I take an oath with my right hand in the air to defend the constitution of the United States of America from all enemies domestic and foreign, the next I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer. Smiling with 100% of myself as that split second passed transforming me into an official volunteer—I guess that was pride. Next moment I’m covered in sweet and butt is sore and I’m in a half awake trance in the bus to my home for the next two years. Red dust has created a fine film on seat since I got on; I know there’s probably a similar layer of dust in my lungs. My site is the last stop on the bus, every time the bus stops a little town to let people off I anxiously look around to see if everyone’s getting off or there’s more to go. Finally the bus crests a small hill and I can see where the road stops. Clay tile roofs, look pleasantly nestled together in a small fold. There is a large tree on a hill with lots of blue and white painted rocks where older men are sitting. The bus finally gets to the end of the road, I look around to make sure everyone is getting off but they’re not really. I ask what town this is and it is the right one, so I slowly stand up pick up my large bag and I walk off the bus and step into my home for the next two years—looking back it happened in slow motion. I start to ask someone if they know were Nina Pule lives, but I see my counter part as I ask and he shows me the way. As we walk over to her house I spy the view from the side of the mountain—picturesque. A large river meanders through the patchwork farms, and passes through a range of mountains the other side of which is almost all haze but I can make out land. To the west the sun sets enormous and red between two folds of a mountain and just to the South is a volcano. One of those moments that you can feel the gravity of while it’s happening—the first time you met your college roommate, yeah like that.

A Renegade Without Parasites (so far)

I got my sight assignment! I will be spending the next two years of my life in a town called "The Renegade" I don't know what else I need to say except the next town over is called "The Tick" Although a little late here are some pictures of the town and I'm living in now for training.




my abode for one more week. front.

and back


host mother, host sister, host sister's friend





host mother and host nephew.



My training community crew + a Salvadorean; all riding in a 'moto-taxi'

Baggie Time

(Phone Rings)

El Salvador: Hello?

China: Yo El Salvador, it's China. What's up dude?

El Salvador: Nothin, just chillin eating some pupusas. What's up with you bro?

China: Nuttin, kickin it. Hey dude, you wanna 50,000,000,000 baggies?

El Salvador: Mmmmm, barely. What kind?

China: The black kind with handles. And I'll throw in 10,000,000,000 clear ones without handles.

El Salvador: Mmmm.

China: Come on! You can put drinks in the clear ones, and every single Salvadorian can have a stash of the black ones.

El Salvador: Mmmm. I dunno.

China: Come on!!!!!

El Salvador: Mmmmm, phsssyea.

China: 60 billion coming your way. Thanks bro you're really helpin me out.

El Salvador: No problem bro, anytime.

I´m pretty sure this is how international trading works. Everyone who sells anything here uses the same black plastic bags. El Salvador has so many more uses for the plastic bag than we do in the states; the first time I bought a coke and the vendor poured it into a plastic bag and put a straw in the bag--I was completely baffled, I was sure I had done something wrong. Turns out pouring a coke into a bag here is just par for the course, so the vendor can return the glass bottles for the deposit.

Me enjoying a coke in a bag!


Me enjoying a bag of water. As you can see a bag of water here is
on par with bottled water but cost a great deal less (ten cents) and
at least 3 times as refreshing.

Transportation ES

March 1, 2009 Day 26

I was returning to San Vicente from the Northeast corner of El Salvador. I arrived to the terminal around 11 am. The terminal in Metapan is large slopping dirt parking lot with a dozen or so buses coming and going, most of which are old school buses. The buses are airbrush painted flashy colors and with a wide range of bizarre imagery ranging from Spiderwebs to Jesus on the cross. As I walk into the terminal people immediately approach me and touch my shoulder asking where I'm going and gently try to push me onto their buses. I find my bus and let myself be pushed on, the bus has had all the seat removed at some point and had different larger seats put back in and closer together so my knees are pressing two inches into the seat in front of me.

The insides of the buses here have a stunningly bizarre range of icons as well. Every bus here has some reference to religion and some kind of cartoon character, and usually a display of allegiance to a certain soccer team. This bus has an Aryan looking Jesus with an realistic amount of blood dripping down his face while gazing off in the distance and staring at a Whinney the Pooh Sticker in which Whinnie is depicted as a cowboy armed to the teeth with little hearts and flowers for pistols. The bus doesn't fill all the way up so I don't have anyone pressing right into me giving me sweat stains in places that just don't make sense, it's still early and not too hot. This bus is not a deluxe so it cost 50 cents less but doesn't have AC and makes more stops. While the bus was idling in the lot, hosts of people walk through the isle selling whatever; plastic bags full of water for a dime, peeled unripe mangoes, candy, french fries, ice cream, but nothing too abstract this time. The vendors are not only at the terminals they also get on the bus at any stop and run through selling there goods, it´s actually really nice to grab a cold bag of water in the middle of a trip. The bus starts rolling and all the vendors hop off and the boot leg Daddy Yankee music video collection starts playing. The cobrador walks buy and I pay him the 1.75 for the 2 hour bus ride, after everyone has paid he returns to his post yelling out the door of the bus telling anyone who looks like they could conceivably be waiting for a bus where it is going. The cobrador is a job that there is no word for in English and I hope there never is but I suppose a good translation would be 'bus guy'; public transportation (in my opinion) simply does not need a high pressure salesman. In the smaller cities they put barely any pressure potential customers, they just say where the bus is going, but in San Salvador there is nothing the cobrador's want more than your 20 cents to ride their bus. I can't speak for other people but when I'm waiting at the bus stop I'm rarely thinking “just give me one reason why I shouldn't go home, just try me. Push me, we'll see who goes where.”

I arrive in San Salvador at the West Terminal and need to get to the East Terminal to transfer to an other bus. When I walk off the bus there are 6 or 7 guys saying “taxi! Taxi! You need a taxi?” to everyone who gets off, I walk right by them but one guy knows that I secretly do want to take a taxi and keeps following me and saying it like we are sharing a secret, “Taxi. Taxi? You need a taxi right?” I start to smile cause he convinced me that I do want to take a taxi, I negotiate him down to a reasonable price and were off to his cab.

The taxis are pretty standard here. As we approach his taxi I make sure to get a good look at the license plate, if the first letter is an 'A' it's a real taxi, if it's something else it's a 'pirate taxi'. From my understanding they function just like regular taxis but are more likely to rob you or pull something fishy. The taxi takes about 5 minutes to get to the other terminal where a public bus takes an 40 minutes to an hour. He lets me off at the entrance to the East Terminal. This terminal is more like a shanty town then any bus terminal I've ever seen, all the buildings are made of corrugated metal and are full of people selling the same stuff, and there is a swarm of people moving around selling things and more people moving people onto buses. People start to approach me again, this time there is a large man with a mustache who from 50 feet away spots my glimmering white skin me and starts yelling in English “where are you going?! You! Where are you going!?” and he tries to shove me on a bus that's not even his, I ask how much it is and the driver says it´s 5 dollars, and for a one hour bus ride that's like someone in the states charging you 25 dollars to get on a public bus, I disrespectfully refuse and get off. My mustached friend slams me on a regular bus that's only “.75 cents maybe.” This bus was awful it was packed tight, people standing next to me rubbing against my shoulders the whole way. I was pleased when I finally got off at the junction, and took my last means of transportation of the day, a 'pick-up'.

The pick-up here is a legitimate form of public transportation, it's just a pick-up truck with a metal cage welded to the bed so people can hang on as it goes up the curvy mountain roads, the pick up is full too but it's only a 10 minute ride so I sucked it up and packed in! The cobrador hangs off the side and wiggles his way up the side on the outside of the cab to collect the 20 cents from the passengers most crammed, an act that would looks like suicide in the states. Ten minutes later I'm safe, sweaty, and 'home'.

The Legend of the One-Eyed Opossum

February 22, 2009 Day 19

About a week ago I went to the back yard to tend to some business. It was night, I had my headlamp on and before I could take care of anything I saw a fairly large opossum in the very back part of the backyard, near the chicken coop. I went inside and tried explaining what I saw using the word I knew for opossum but I just got blank stares. Then I said there was an animal like huge rat with a white face and they knew what I meant and everyone got up from the living and ran outside carrying a host weapons, but it was gone.

I was expecting a round of jokes about me once we were back inside, but apparently others have seen the opossum before. Veronica said she had seen a big one in the back yard and it only had one eye and it had tried to eat the chickens. Then there was much debriefing about the nature of opossums; if they were edible, if they always tried to eat chickens, if so how big did they have to be? It was basically decided possums were the only tangible threat to their chicken supply. I said something about wanting opossum pupusas (a stuffed tortilla), and everyday since someone has told me to kill the opossum so we could have some pupusas or made a joke about me being a fierce possum warrior. Two days during that week someone would see it and everyone would run outside to get it...last night it was got.

There had already been one possum sighting that night with no success so I already had my headlamp on, and was falling asleep on the hammock when an hour after the first sighting there was a volley of cries about the possum I ran outside and Ricky (the 14 year old who had dengue (who is better now)) was a few seconds in front of me and grabbed the machete and I grabbed a large club. Before I even shinned the light on it Rickey had nearly cut the opossum in half with one stroke. It was writhing and gnashing it's jaws and everybody watched in the dark. I felt bad for it and bashed its head with my club a few times-- it stopped writhing.

I was inside myself watching it die. I didn't feel bad for it or sorry we had killed it; it was just a little stunning, I had never seen a mammal killed in front of me.

The mood was surprisingly merry after the beasts unmaking, and I ran inside and took this picture. I was staring at it and trying to figure out what I was looking, when the mother asked if I still wanted to eat it and a shook my head and she started laughing. Ricky picked it up by the tail with a rag and it spun around and that it was—only one eye! It was somewhat baffling that it only had one eye, I cant understand the significance of only having one eye. So I was expecting that we were going to eat it anyway but then Ricky just tossed it over the brick wall into the neighbors yard and everyone started laughing—to be fair the neighbors backyard seems more like woods than a back yard.

Sazon

February 15, 2009 Day 12

Well I've been with my host family for more than a week now, and I completed the first week of Spanish class. Class is in the house of one of the other volunteers in my town, we arrive at 8 and do work until 12 at which time we return home for lunch (which is frequently hot soup), then go back for more class at 1:15 and either practice Spanish, attend some other class or presentation the Peace Corps tells us to. I've found all the language training (and other training) to be very effective and have been impressed with their programs.

The hardest part of the training is we have to organize some kind of youth project in our community after Spanish class and field trips. It's hard because only one person in are group (of four) is proficient at Spanish, I just sound like a caveman. But were making progress, we introduced ourselves to two youth groups yesterday. Both groups are church related, one was an Evangelical youth group and the other was the Catholic youth group. I'm not really sure what they do outside of church at the moment because both meetings were really just mass aimed at a younger audience (12-20ish) but as of now the groups had no projects they were working on or really had plans to do, but we are meeting everyone who is interested tomorrow.

Today I woke up really late by Salvadorian standards (800) and was questioned why I woke up so late. One of the kids here in the house had dengue fever and has been sleeping on the couch in the living room for the last two days with a wet cloth on his head. He had a temperature of 104 yesterday and was at the hospital for a while, but they said he will be fine. So in the morning I was told I was going to the scrubland with Marta and Veronica to get the kid some medicine, they said it was far and I should bring some water. I thought this was a little strange since there is a pharmacy up the street. We walked to a little village about 1 mile from my town, and I asked what we were doing again. This time I thought they said we were going to get some warmer water for the kid to take a bath in because the water at our house was too cold, but I was strictly wrong about what we were doing. We went to Marta's house and she had a little tree that had some fruit I've never seen or herd of before, it was super weird. It had the texture of raw meat, and the flavor of old strawberries, fresh pineapple and perhaps peach. We left Marta's house and borrowed a huge bamboo pole from her neighbor and we started walking down a dusty trail near some cane fields to knock green mangoes off trees, and collect some little flowers from trees to eat with eggs. Let me explain something about fruit in El Salvador, they have four words to describe different levels of ripeness. A word for unripe, almost ripe, ripe, and too ripe. And they eat the fruit at all stages. At all stages they put salt on the fruit. The green mangoes (once peeled) aren't bad but all the other unripe fruit I've tried is just too sour. It makes sense in a country where there is always lots of fruit, might as well eat the unripe once since when they are ripe there are so many that all can't be eaten.

El Salvador

Well I´ve been putting this off for a while. I keep goining back and forth about what to write so I´ll just start.

I got dropped off at a hotel in DC last week and meet all the other volunteers. I was very suprised when I saw the range of places where everyone was from within the States, I guess I secretly thought everybody would be from New England. Of all the things I speculated that I would learn, learning about Americans was not one of them (at least not until I returned).

We checked into the hotel at 2pm and checkedout at 2am, and were in El Salvador by 2pm. My assignent is Rural Health Facilitator by the way. As the plane was landing I was looking out at the country I was panicing a little and kept asking myself what the heck I was doing, and what did I hope to accomplish. That was definitly my lowest point so far, but when we arrived at the Peace Corps compound in San Salvador there was the entire staff cheering to welcome us and I felt much better.

There was a lot of flip chart paper, eating, and shots the first two days. Those first two days we (the trainees) stayed in a hotel in San Vincente, and got to know each other. And by Friday we were with our host families in smaller towns within a hald hour drive to San Vicente, whom we will stay with for 8 weeks. My family is great, I will learn Spanish very quickly there. They love to grill me when I make mistakes, but they don´t do it too often and when they do it´s in a loving way. Their food is super good! The chicken and eggs are the best, but everything else is really good too.

I made a bet with an other volunteer that I would kill and eat chicken before him at the hotel in DC-I think I will win tomorrow.

The town takes about 10 minutes to walk all the way across so it´s pretty big. There is a nice park in the center where the dogs hang out-oh yeah. There are sooo many dogs here the live in the street and howl terribly at night. There are lots of vistas where I can see for miles. Most of the stores here are in the front part of someones house so their living room might be the same as the store. All the houses have electricity and many nice things, and there running water one day a week.

The average day is 4 hours of language training, lunch, comunitty activities/language, then home for dinner and to talk to the family.

All in all everything here is great. The other trainees are awsome, and El Salvador had the lowest drop out rate of any of the 70 countries Peace Corps is in two years ago, and was in the lowest five last year.

Ciao for now,
Mateo

the only thing i would like is a splle chek!