more semana santa

So not much has changed since the last time I posted. As the Holy Week has continued I must admit I have become a little less enthusiastic about the processions and church services as I realized that they were actually every day this week and the novelty wore off somewhat. Though I must say I did enjoy the quick church service yesterday morning where the priest blessed all the animals. There were dogs and parakeets in the church, it was really cute. Also Friday night there was a huge procession in the dark in honor of Jesus´ death. They carry a coffin around the town that is decorated with flashing christmas lights and fake flowers (see pictures). The youth of the town made ¨carpets¨ on the ground of various scenes of Jesus made out of salt and food coloring, they were actually very beautiful (see pictures).
It´s funny because today (Easter) there are actually no church services or processions at all, it´s not very important (for example, this internet cafe is open), unlike Good Friday (AKA Viernes Santo) when everything shuts down. Last night was the last major hurrah, all day everyone had been warning me and the other Peace Corps trainees that ¨we were going to stay up ALL night til one am!¨ so I was very curious what was going to happen. I asked Ernesto (the boy pictured earlier dressed as an apostle, a role he resumed several times over the week) and he said something about burning a jew, but I was sure I hadn´t understood correctly. In fact, that was indeed part of the party. After a beautiful ceremony in the church where everyone starts out in darkness and then lights their candles from the flame that the priest holds, to symbolize the resurrection of Jesus, there is a huge party in the church. At this party they burn effigies of the jews who killed Jesus, I wanted to protest that Jesus himself was a Jew, and no, we did not kill him, the Romans did, but I felt it may not be the best time to do so. In any case, I took some pictures for your enjoyment.

Otherwise, life here has been proceding as usual. As I think I mentioned earlier, for the first time, Peace Corps has decided that we the trainees should do a project in our host community as a sort of practice for what it will be like to be in the field and furthermore as a way to thank the host communities for having us all these years. I think it´s a great idea and have been really excited about it. After a somewhat rough start due to the fact that my group hadn´t quite understood what Peace Corps was asking us to do (we thought we were supposed to come up with the idea ourselves as opposed to having the youth do it) and having to learn to work with 5 other different people who had very different visions of what our meeting should look like, we ended up having a very succesful first meeting with the church´s youth group last Wednesday. We started with an icebreaker that I love (Honey I love you, will you please smile for me?) which got everyone laughing, which was great and then had some really productive small group discussions about what part of the town had needs and how what kind of projects could be done. There was somewhat of a consensus on needing to work in the park and we will be meeting this Thursday again to discuss what are the top priorities there. It was amazing to me how much more enthusiastic about the whole thing the young people where than I was expecting. I am used to dealing with American college students who wont attend anything that doesn´t have food or can´t be put on their resume, but these kids actually seemed really happy about being part of the project. I think some of it has to do with the fact that they are generally a little bored as there is not much to do and also maybe that people think that the gringos (us Americans) are cool and exciting and want to be involved with us. In any case, it made me feel really lucky to be working in an environment like this where people are responsive and motivated, I am continually grateful that I was placed in this country. The whole experience made me really happy to be here and to be a Peace Corps volunteer. I love organizing people and pushing projects forward, not to mention doing something that feels really meaningful. I feel so lucky to have this opportunity right out of college and not to be working in an entry level job that I would be really bad at since I am not detail-oriented. I am really happy that I made the decision to come here. It´s amazing to think that the US government is paying to me to be trained and work in international grassroots development.

What else, I am missing the other volunteers who are not in my town, but it was nice on Friday because a group of us from my town went to go visit our friends in the next towns over. The walk was about an hour each way, but it was so beautiful and we were rewarded by being able to eat in the delicious ice cream store they have in their town. They are further spoiled because they are all going to the beach today. I am very jealous, but will be able to go soon when we have our weekend off. I am planning on walking down to the river today instead, because it is so hot and am dying to go swimming finally! The whole situation is not helped by the fact that we have not had running water in our village for three days. The explanation being that the man who turns the pump on is on vacation! I have been learning to love the bucket bath, or at least to appreciate the cooling effect of cold water.

OK I should be getting back to my host family soon for lunch so I must run, but again, please do email me, I would love to hear from you all.