actividades

This past weekend we had our first fundraising activities for our project with the youth in our town (we have decided to paint the stairs in the park and need to fundraise to buy the paint and brushes, etc.). The first activity, organized by Maggie and Will in our group, was a movie night. We showed "Hot Shots," which was quite a hit wit the kids. We borrowed the projector from the school and the speakers from the leader of the youth group and set up the movie outside of the church. It worked out wonderfully, a ton of kids showed up. David and Stephanie and I made popcorn and sold coke in a plastic bag with a straw (that's how it's done here). We ended up making about $35 off of it, which was a great start.
On Saturday, we had our next activity which was "a venta" or sale, of food. We were planning on selling pasteles (fried dough stuffed with potatoes of chicken), enchiladas (not the mexican kind, here it means a fried dough with basically coleslaw, tomato sauce and cheese on top), and empanadas (fried plantain turnovers with cream inside) and also fresco de coco (a delicious coconut drink). We ended up being a little in over our head, buying all the ingredients and getting everything ready (including having to boil, wash, and mill the corn in order to make the dough) took forever, and because of our inexperience, we kept having to buy things we had forgotten (including a ridiculous amount of oil). We were apparently not getting the cheapest prices, because although we made about $25 off of it (which is a lot considering we were selling 3 enchiladas for a quarter), we ended up spending about $18, so it wasn't necessarily the most cost-effective activity, though it was a great experience. I got really good at forming the dough for the enchiladas and pasteles, which apparently means I can now get married according to all the Salvadoran women :). The best part was we got to spend the day with our host families who basically rescued us and pretty much took over the food making. We played music and all hung out while making the food, it ended up being really fun.
Our next activity is a rifa or raffle, where we will be raffling off an iron, tickets are 25 cents for anyone who is interested :). Apparently our fellow Peace Corps trainees in a neighboring town has made over $150 on their raffle of a blender, which I think it pretty amazing, so hopefully we will be able to make enough to make up the costs of the painting supplies!