fiestas patronales! part 2

(read the post below first)
One of the many pilgrims to my town was my host mom from training, Nina Juanita! It was so wonderful to see her, she is such an amazing person. I was so touched because she introduced me to her friends as her "hija," or daughter :). She just came back from five months in the U.S., where she went to visit her son who is living illegally in Houston. When he picked her up from the airport, he told her he had a "surprise" waiting for her at home. When she got there there was a new woman holding a 3 month old baby girl - his wife and daughter! Of course, like almost all Salvadorans in the U.S., he had married a fellow Salvadoran. She spent the rest of her visit being the baby's nanny, but she sounded quite happy about it. It was great to reconnect with Juanita, and I felt proud to her show her my adopted community and the life I had built in El Salvador.

fiestas patronales!

So after almost a year in my site, I finally experienced our "fiestas patronales," which are the patron saint festivals. Every town has a patron saint, ours is the Virgin of Dolores, whose week is the week before Semana Santa (holy week).
Our patron saint festivals are a really big deal because the town is a pilgrimage site, and people come from all over the country (and even Guatemala and Honduras) to ask favors of the virgin. As the pictures above show, they wait for hours in lines to enter the church and pass in front of the virgin. The town changes completely in this week, and is full of a million food stands and really old rides (like the ferris wheel above) that are probably condemned in the U.S. and are now brought down to El Salvador to use in these festivals. They are terrifying to go on, not because the ride itself is scary, but because it really could fall apart at any minute. The whole thing is quite the event and it's amazing to see the town transform like this, and then just ask quickly all the vendors disappear and we are back to being the sleepy, little town in a forgotten corner of the country.

my art class

Here are some more pics for you to enjoy! They are from the art class I give on Saturday mornings to the kids from the town. Any donations of art supplies would be much appreciated :) (hint hint!).

elections! part dos

First of all, I'm so sorry for taking so long to update my blog. This past month has been a little crazy with three different visitors in four weeks (I'm not complaining! ) so I've had less time to sit down at the internet and record what's been going on.
The most important thing that has happened in this past month, and for that matter in the past twenty years since the Salvadoran Civil War, were the presidential elections here on March 15th.
For the first time in the history of El Salvador, the left wing has won a democratic election. This is an amazing step in the democratization of this country; it is so amazing that these two political parties were recently fighting a bloody civil war, which just ended in 1992, and are now able to have a peaceful election. It is an exciting time to be in this country.
Despite the legacy of the civil war, the new president, Mauricio Funes, was in a large part able to win because of his removal from the conflict. Whereas other left wing candidates have failed in the past because of their history in the guerrilla forces, Funes was a journalist and actually not even an FMLN party member until he received the nomination. In this way, he was able to stand as a moderate left wing leader, in the mold of Lula from Brazil, as opposed to Chavez.
This is not to say that this self-portrayal was accepted by the right wing. This campaign was particularly dirty and the right wing Arena party bombarded the airwaves with commercials trying to tie FMLN with Chavez. There were TV ads with clips of Chavez railing against the U.S., with the intention of showing what would happen in El Salvador if the left wing wins. Another interesting commercial came out after the election of Obama in the U.S., saying that just because he was left wing doesn't mean he would support the left wing here. It was funny because Funes tried to model himself after Obama, adopting the slogans of "change" and "hope" and the right wing put out another advertisement about how he is nothing like Obama because Obama went to Harvard and Funes doesn't have a college degree. I was like, "what about Obama going to Columbia???" :). But in all seriousness, like I've mentioned before, the U.S.-El Salvador relationship is extremely important to many people here, on both sides of the political spectrum. With over 2 million Salvadorans living in the U.S. and 17% of GDP coming remittances that these emigrants send back, no one wants to jeopardize their ties with the U.S. government.
As Peace Corps volunteers, we have to be neutral about politics here. A friend of mine asked me if this was hard to do, but the truth is, it feels natural. Though I am happy to see a peaceful democratic transition and excited to watch how this step in Salvadoran history, I also believe that this election cannot be understood without the context of the civil war and we as outsiders must be very careful about pronouncing judgments about people's political opinions. My town (and my department), actually voted overwhelmingly for the right wing Arena candidate. Even though my municipality is one of the poorest in the country, people here are still very loathe to vote for the left wing due to how much they suffered at the hand of the rebels. Though I am a left wing supporter in the U.S., I understand that the left here is quite different.
Above are some pictures of the ubiquitous election propaganda, which cover every lamp post, street barrier and house. These are actually my brother's pictures (you may recognize them from his blog!) since I haven't gotten around to taking any lately. Also, I uploaded a picture of the new president for you to enjoy.

recession special

First of all, I wanted to thank all of you who posted kind comments and wrote me emails about the girl who died in my town. It meant so much to me to hear from you and I have passed your prayers on to the girl's family. Unfortunately, I wasn't there for the girl's "reso," which is the recitation 10 days after her death, as I was just getting back from the United States, which is what I'm going to post about now.

I had it in my head that I wanted to avoid going back to the U.S. for a full year, just to see if I could, to experience what the world would be like without seeing the modern Rome for a full 12 months. But because of the LSAT date, I had to come back a little earlier than planned (March 9th would be a full year, but I came back February 5th), but it was nonetheless enough time to feel the distance and the full force of the duration elapsed since my departure.

For various reasons, I hadn't really had time or energy to think about the visit or prepare myself. For example while packing I realized that not only did I not have a single pair of real shoes (I only have the ballet flats style, flip flops and my running shoes), but I barely have any t-shirts or long sleeve shirts (I mostly wear tank tops here because of the heat). So when I arrived in New York wearing my ballet flats without socks and a t-shirt, the full force of the weather reminded me very quickly that I truly was not in El Salvador anymore. But in many ways I had anticipated the change in weather more than the million other differences that I had forgotten about. When I got to the airport, one of the first things that stood out dramatically was the diversity of the city. And really, there are few places more diverse than JFK. After a year of being the only person around me that looks different, of hardly seeing any faces that are not mestizo and hearing only Spanish, the assortment of languages and features that confronted me at the airport looked so beautiful to me, it actually brought tears to my eyes. This feeling didn't leave me the entire time I was in the city.

As I said to a few of you, coming back to New York this time was like seeing the city through new eyes. Everything was enchanting and amazing to me. Other things I couldn't stop noticing besides the diversity were how beautiful and stylish everyone looked and how many young people there were. To be fair, I was staying in Vivian's apartment in Union Square where the NYU students tilt the average of the population toward being young and stylish, but even up at dumpy Columbia I enjoyed observing the latest developments in fashion that have yet to wash up in El Salvador. I loved looking at all the people and how they put themselves together, how much thought and art they put into how they looked, even it did make me feel a little ashamed at my Peace Corps chic :). NY style can be quite artistic and enjoyable when you don't feel pressured to keep up with it yourself.

And I haven't even started to mention the food, ah the food. How much I have miss you Asian food. The first meal I went out for was Vietnamese food with my mom, and it was amazing. And I basically didn't stop eating Asian food the entire week I was there until I left, and I miss it already, ha. The variety of flavors and options available to you in New York was like a dream. Here the flavors are so limited, and there is no such thing as variety. I will be dreaming of those meals for weeks to come.

Generally speaking, it was also just wonderful to feel the rhythm of the city again, to walk through the streets in step with other people and feel like everyone is going somewhere doing something. Life can seem so slow here, it was exciting to be in a place where just being outside seems to give me energy.

And speaking of the people, seeing friends and family was the most important part of the trip (even beat out the food!). It was strange and wonderful to enter back into the reality of life in New York, the different priorities and perspective that everyone has there. As the title of this blog post demonstrates, life is different in New York these days. All the store shops advertise their "recession specials," there are many stories of people being laid off, and this year's Columbia grads are no longer being hired by the i-banking world. I was a little nervous to see what New York would look like post financial crisis; I had visions of i-bankers on the streets begging for change, abandoned, crumbling buildings, and empty restaurants. I was happy that that was decidedly not the case. Nonetheless, there did seem to be a more somber atmosphere in the city and everyone was talking about the changing economy.

Coming back to my site on Wednesday was hard. I didn't want to see anyone and only wanted to curl up in my room with my new DVDs and extend my post-NYC glow as long as possible before the heat sweated away any lingering aura of the world's best city. It's always a little difficult to come back here after being away, so I am not surprised at the culture shock, but I'm trying to ease myself back in and I am getting used to it again. To be fair, being in New York has also reminded me why I decided to leave and pursue something like the Peace Corps. Not for one moment did being back there make me doubt my decision. Indeed, it is only because I am here right now that I appreciated and savored every moment I was there. But that doesn't mean I don't want to go back to visit again soon...

sad news

Yesterday morning I went over to my friend Juani's house to learn how to make "arroz con leche." In the middle of washing dishes, Juani called me outside to peer over the neighbor's fence at the scandal that was erupting on the other side. One of the family's many children had just fallen out of a very tall mango tree, and the mother was carrying the girl back to her house. We rushed over to the neighbor's house, along with a large group of people who had just witnessed the accident. Juani started applying alcohol to the girl's stomach, which was hurting. I was relieved to see that she was moving and thus was not paralyzed and hadn't broken anything, meaning she was probably going to be fine. Nonetheless, I called the mayor, who rushed over and took her to the hospital right away.
The girl who fell was 13 years old and was part of a band of 4 sisters who are always out playing in the street and are quite out of control. Their hair is always unkempt and their clothes dirty and they always ask me for a quarter when they see me, but they are truly very sweet and always rush to give me hugs and yell "elli!" when I pass. I've made each of them little bracelets, and they constantly ask me for another one. The girl was the oldest of this band of sisters, and was probably a little slow. I remember she could never understand what I was saying and that her sisters called her "africana," which is slang for stupid here (a strangely racist term of which I'm not sure of the origins). She fell out a tree while trying to collect green mangos to sell. The reason why she and her sisters are always running wild is that they are part of a family of 12 children, the parents give them almost no supervision and they are extremely poor.
Anyways, after the girl was taken to the hospital, I finished my arroz con leche and left for the capital where I had planned a meeting that afternoon with fellow PC volunteers to organize a girls' camp this year. As I left I asked Juani to text me any updates of the girl's condition, confident she'd be fine. Juani walked out the door with me and immediately repeated the scandal to the neighbor across the street and I was amused at how quickly sensational stories spread from house to house in these small towns.
Later that day, after the meeting I got a text from Juani saying that there was something wrong with the girl's liver and they were taking her to Rosales, the hospital in San Salvador. I began to realize that the condition must be quite serious. An hour later, she wrote me to tell me the girl had passed away.
I was in shock and didn't know what to do. I called my friend Claudia, who had spent the past year in my town fulfilling her "service year" requirement to become a doctor. She knew the girl, because her aunt was their neighbor, and she was currently working at Rosales, the hospital where the girl had died. She agreed to go with me to the hospital to see if there was anything we could do to help the family.
Going to the hospital was quite overwhelming. Rosales is probably the best hospital in El Salvador, but it is so acutely under-staffed and under-funded. Patients are held in giant, dreary rooms, which smell bad and carry a strong air of sickness. There are so many grieving families who have obviously come from the countryside so far away.
I didn't know the elder brothers or sisters who were there, but identified them by their conversation about the girl. They were waiting beside her body, which was only covered by a sheet. I will never forget that girl's pale face, which I had just seen alive earlier that day. Her body was one of three on stretchers in the entryway, awaiting pick up. The elder siblings were waiting for their mother to arrive, who was en route with the mayor, who was not only driving her but had bought a coffin for the girl, who he hadn't even known. Though I've had problems with him in the past, the generosity the mayor showed yesterday is something I will always remember.
Finally the girl's mother and an older sister who I knew arrived to take her away. The whole thing was so sad, so tragic. It made me think a lot about death and the differences in the way people deal with it here and in the U.S. In America, death is such a foreign concept for a lot of us. When it happens, it comes as such an extreme shock; I think in some ways we believe ourselves immune to premature death. Here, death is more common, less unexpected. I've seen more funerals in the time I've been here than in my entire life in the United States. Funerals here are a lot less sad, sometimes they feel just like any other lively gathering of people with cake and coffee.
I didn't go back today for the funeral, but I did give the family some money to defray the costs, I didn't really know what else to do.
I can't stop thinking about that girl, and I wasn't sure if posting about it was a good idea, but I wanted to do something to perserve and share the memory of yesterday, a day I will never forget.

elecciones!

Yesterday came an event I have been anticipating since my first day in site - the mayoral elections. This year is especially important because the current mayor, who has been in charge for the past 18 years, has finally decided to step down. There were two major candidates, one from the right wing ARENA party (the woman pictures above), which has been in power basically since the end of the Civil War, and one from the left wing, FMLN party, who were the former guerrillas. FMLN's strong showing in this election was an interesting sign of the times, since this municipality has always been a stronghold of the right wing, owing to the fact that they suffered greatly at the hands of the guerrillas during the war, being situated as it was on the border of the army controlled-area and as such it was a frequent battleground during the war. Significantly, a lot of the FMLN supporters in the town were under 25, meaning that they themselves had not lived through the war. My host mother, who is now in her 70s, made it very clear to me that she could never vote for FMLN after what she had survived. I find this perspective very interesting as it's quite the opposite of what I was expecting to hear before I had come down here, since most of the history I had learned about El Salvador referred to the atrocities committed by the U.S.-backed military, not by the guerrillas.
To return to the elections, the candidate running for ARENA was unique for several reasons. First of all, she is a woman, which is quite unusual for a mayor in El Salvador. I remember hearing somewhere that of out of over 200 municipalities or so, only about 20 have female mayors. Secondly, she was actually the candidate in the previous election for PCN, which is a minor right wing party in this country, and lost by only 8 votes (which of course aroused suspicion). This time round, the ARENA party, who were her previous rivals, asked her to run on their ticket, which she agreed to do.
Anyways, I know you're all dying to know what happened, so the exciting news is that she in fact won. I am happy because I will be working with her come May 1st when she swears in as mayor and I think she will be an excellent counterpart. First of all, she has committed to including many women in her municipal council and furthermore, she seems like she has a lot of energy and excitement about working to improve the municipality, just like me :).
A word on the elections themselves: Above I've posted a few photos from the elections. You can see what the ballots look like - they're quite different from those in the U.S. as they don't have words, just the party symbol. This is to help people who are illiterate and helps explain why the parties here put so much effort into advertising their emblems. As Ben, my brother, noted when he was here, the three biggest "brands" in El Salvador are ARENA, FMLN, and Tigo (which is the biggest cell phone company); you see their symbols on every lamp post, car, and house.
Also, I have a picture of the election monitors, there is one of each different party in every voting room. Additionally, the table is manned by people from every party. Initially, I thought it was quite strange that the people handling the election were out-right partisans, but having one from every party does seem to balance itself out in some strange way. Besides, I don't think it would be possible to find enough dedicated, local volunteers who weren't involved in one political party or another, everyone seems to be caught up in it here.
Lastly, I wanted to say how smooth and uncorrupted the elections here were in comparison to what I saw in Guatemala last year when I was there with Charlie Clemens on the election observing trip. To be fair, I did hear of some scandals in neighboring towns, and the losing side was grumbling about vote-buying, but generally speaking, there was very little of that going on. The candidates did spend enormous amounts of money giving away food and paying for discos on the campaign trail, but the day of things were quite subdued, a huge change from the long food lines and craziness of Guatemala. So that I think is a good sign.
Oh and that last picture is of the voting center (AKA the local school), with some oxen passing in front of it, just to give you a little taste of the campo :).