swine flu, funerals, and host siblings

So ever since I've gotten back from the U.S., schools have been canceled in the whole country because of the threat of swine flu. I'm no expert or anything, but I think the reaction may be a little overblown since there haven't been that many deaths from swine flu here and I'm not sure how canceling school is going to prevent any more, especially since most places of work are still open for business as usual.
What this means is that the past week has been pretty slow. Even though I don't teach every day in the schools, a lot of my projects are nonetheless reliant on working there. For example, I am trying to get a computer project up and running in several schools. Peace Corps has a partnership with an NGO in the U.S. that will supply us with used computers for schools for $110 each, a great deal. But in order to organize the fundraising, I need to be meeting with the school directors and teachers. Same thing for the recycling project I want to kick off or the excursion I'm planning.

Though I'm looking forward to getting back to work next week, this time off has been nice in other ways. My host sisters have been back from the capital, which has been great. Carmen is 24 and studying business at the university there and her sister Reyna is 27 and a practicing lawyer. As you can guess, they are pretty different than most people here, even though they both lived here until they graduated from high school.

The family is really interesting because there are a total of 9 kids, 7 of whom are in the U.S. As they have so much money coming from the U.S. they are considered one of the better-off families here. But instead of wasting their remittances on fancy clothes and cell phones, their mom made a special effort to send her daughters to university, allowing them to become the professionals they now are. She, on the other hand, is barely literate.

The gap between generations is obviously huge, but even between the siblings their lives have been so different. I just got a chance to meet Luis, one of the eldest siblings, who is back here for a funeral. He left for the U.S. in 1988, during the civil war here when he was only 15 years old. He was not an economic immigrant, but a political refugee, forced to leave because the army was kidnapping young boys and making them fight. He left when the family was still dirt poor and went to the U.S. without speaking any English and with no immediate family. He's worked hard there over the past 20 years and now is the foreman for a construction company in the D.C. area. He has not forgotten his home, however, and frequently visits. He's the one who bought Carmen and Reyna the home they live in in San Salvador and the car they drive. As their father died ten years ago, he is like their surrogate dad. By his character, I can immediately tell he is a mix of the two cultures. He carries himself different and is more polite and formal than a lot of the guys here. It's so interesting talking to him and thinking about the America he lives in versus the one that I live in. Being here has truly expanded my perspective on my own country.

Oh and I forget to mention the funeral he is back here for is the uncle of the family. He was murdered two days ago in the early morning at his cow corral. Apparently, a woman from the next town over had him killed over a land dispute. As I have talked to Selena, my teacher from high school, there is a a profound lack of constructive engagement of conflict here, a probable effect of the civil war. It's so tragic how quickly people resort to violence.

I have been to more funerals here than I have been to in my whole life in the U.S. This man, Oscar, was a prominent man in the community and people have come from all over to attend the funeral. Both nights for the last two nights my host family has been out until 1am in front of the deceased house, drinking coffee, eating cookies, and praying over the body. Outside the house a ton of people sit and gossip, it's like a community gathering. Today the will bury the body in the graveyard. As this family is better off, they were able to afford a nicer coffin and a professional videotape of the event. The cameraman was there last night filming the people and the grieving family as they wailed over the open casket, screaming "why are there such bad people in the world? these people don't have the right to exist! my brother was a good man! a good man!" The whole experience was so different than what we do in the U.S.

random glimpse of life

last night i promised my old host siblings (the ones who i lived with before) that I would come over and make crepes with them, one of our favorite activities that I introduced them to when I lived there. I brought over the peanut butter and nutella i had bought in San Salvador a couple weeks earlier, my carton of long-life milk, and some flour and bananas I bought in the market that day (wednesday is market day in my town). The kids collected eggs from their chickens and we set about to mix it all together in their blender when the power went out thanks to the big thunderstorm that had come in. I tried mixing the flour in with the milk and eggs but unfortunately my hand-mixing skills were not good enough to get rid of the clumps. Luckily my old host mom had a solution. She found the little strainer they use to make coffee and I slowly powered the flour into the eggs, milk and sugar as she mixed it in with her expert hand. This was of course all done by candlelight, since the power did not come back on all night.
About 45 minutes later it was all smoothly beat together and we heated the skillet over the gas stove. I made my host sister Aminta help me flip the crepes - her hands are hardened to the heat due to years of making tortillas. The rest of them were eagerly awaiting the crepes and expertly spread the nutella, chocolate and bananas over the crepes before they rolled them up and devoured them.
Anyways, I realized I just wanted to record more of the little experiences I have here every day, instead of the only writing the major events, as these are what keeps the glue of my days together.

home

culture shock?

As most of you know, since I probably saw you in person, I was just in the U.S. for 11 blissful days of vacation. This was my first time back to Seattle since I've been here, and was very different than my trip to New York- I had just gotten back to my site when jonathan stopped by for a two day visit (why not?) on his way back from Panama, which helped delay the in-site blues, but now he's left again this morning and there's no denying it, vacation is over. It's not like my life is very hard, it's not, and I do enjoy it on the whole and I am so happy to be here, but coming back from home this time has been very, very difficult. I didn't really have culture shock on the way there, it was more just culture appreciation, thinking things like "oh my God, how amazing it to have your own apartment with a TV with English shows on it?" or "how fun is it to live in a city with friends and go out to restaurants that serve really good food?" and simply revelling in the fact that it was sunny outside and you could see beautiful mountains and i was not sweating and did not have a terrible headache for being in direct sunlight for more than five minutes. And it's not that i really mind taking a bucket bath, or being constantly bitten by mosquitoes, or constantly being the center of attention while walking down the street, or having my kitchen covered in flies, or having to sweep my floor every five seconds because the roof sheds dirt and leaks water. All of those things on their own are actually fine and I feel like a big baby complaining about them, but the problem is that when you come back to it all at once after being home and so happy and loved, it's hard. And it's especially hard when you feel lonely because your boyfriend just left this morning. And the answer is of course to put myself out there and go over to friends' houses and reintegrate myself in the community, not run away to Sensunte on a whim so I can use the internet and feel connected to the world (which is of course what I did). The problem is precisely that the longer I am away from my community the less I am part of it and the less I am part of it the less I feel like I belong there and the more I want to be away from it. Tomorrow I will start my reintegration project, it's decided. But for the moment I will round out my day by daydreaming on the micro ride back about all the beauty that I saw this time in America. The spectacular landscape, the wonderful, amazing friends I have that welcomed me back with open arms even if i've been out from their lives for the past year and a half, my special family, and the sense of peace and ease which seems to surround life there and is so absent from life here. I know that once I go back I will inevitably forget all those things and be stressed there in different ways but perhaps javascript:void(0)of equal level to the stress i feel here, but for the moment, I just want to record what a paradise home seems like to me. I was sad to realize that I wont be able to go home again before finishing the Peace Corps in April, but to be honest, I am not sure I could handle the transition again. America in all her glory indeed.

Girls Camps!

I'm so sorry it's been so long since I've posted. This past month has been pretty crazy. I just got back from Guatemala, where I was in Antigua with my mom, my sister, dafna's mom Michal, and Jonathan. Let me just say Antigua is one of the coolest places I've been. Maybe I'm just saying that because I've been in El Salvador for too long, but I was so impressed with the beautiful old buildings from the 1500 and 1600s and how well perserved, clean, and friendly the town was. Not to mention the millions of little restaurants and stores. There is really no place that comes close to that here, and it was a wonderful vacation.

Before Antigua, I was busy with the two girls' camps that I put on with 13 other female Peace Corps volunteers from my group. I started planning this project back in January when things were slow and I was trying to think what I could do. I talked to a friend of mine from my town who had attended a camp with the previous volunteer here. Though almost 2.5 years had passed, she remembered every detail of the camp, including the names of the other volunteers who had participated and all the talks she had received. I decided that I really wanted to give the opportunity for more youth to attend these camps.

The group of volunteers before me had recently put on a gender-focused camp and I found out that there was money available from Peace Corps to do a camp with that theme. I invited all the interested female volunteers in my group to come to a meeting to see if there was interest. Thirteen other volunteers showed up and over the course of the next 5 months we began to put together the camp. It was a lot of fun to do a project with the other volunteers, since we haven't done this kind of thing all together since training.

When the dates of the camps finally arrived, I was nervous how everything would turn out. I say camps because we did two, one in the east and one in the west. Each volunteer would bring girls to only one camp, depending on which was closer, though all volunteers were required to attend both camps. Every volunteer was also responsible for leading a talk or activity, which included: self-esteem, creative thinking, HIV/AIDS, sexual health, gender stereotypes, body image, dance, self-defense, and jewelry making. Dividing it up like that made it so that it was not too much work for any one person.

I'm running out of time, but to sum it up the camp was a huge success. For all 5 girls that I brought, it was the first time they'd spent a night away from their families. For many, it was the first night outside their community ever. They were like sponges, the experience was so unique for them. They participated in all the activities with enthusiasm and awe. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I've done in the Peace Corps.

abba

Abba's visit

Last weekend my dad came to visit. It was only when he arrived that I realized how strange it was that I’ve been living in this country for over a year (longer than I’ve lived anywhere continuously since I was 15 years old) and that neither of my parents have been here yet. Though he was really only here for a very short time (not even four days), it meant a lot to me to have him here. In that short time, we managed to fit a lot in – beach, city and of course my site. We only spent the day here in my site, but it was interesting to see the community through his eyes.

By showing someone else where I live and work, it gives me ownership and appreciation over this crazy life experience that I often take for granted. Moreover, it touched me to see how my dad seemed really proud of what I was doing and respected me for it. He often describes these sort of adventures as “goofing off” (Elian is “goofing off in Barcelona,” etc.) and for that reason I had it in my head that that was the conclusion he would come to about my current situation. I do after all have electricity and running water and I have not yet managed to build a bridge or enact some other concrete change, which sometimes makes me wonder if I am just goofing off. Instead, for the short time he was here, my dad was very interested in learning about this country, this community and my life amidst it all. For someone who is not the most social person and speaks no spanish, he sat very patiently as we did the obligatory house visits and even treated my counterpart and his wife to dinner. It was funny because for the first time in my life people said my dad and I looked identical, “like two drops of water” – I am not sure if this is a commentary on my deteriorating looks or just that all white people look the same to them! Just kidding Abba :)

One of the insights into my town my father had that I keep thinking about is how much it is a community in transition. My town (like most other Salvadoran rural towns) is caught between the poverty of their past and the legacy of the Civil War and the riches that emigration and remittances have brought and these two worlds are caught in almost every aspect of the community where one sees mud huts next to fancy, newly built, modern houses, kids without shoes playing with kids with video phones, and oxen pulling carts behind the latest Toyota Hilux pick-up truck.

Indeed, the place I’m writing this piece in is the perfect illustration. I’m in the new house I just moved into, a grand (for rural Salvadoran standards) compound, with three large rooms around an open yard. One of the rooms (not mine) even has air conditioning and there is even a laundry machine (the first I’ve seen in my town), though my new host mother, Teodora, doesn’t know how to use it. At the same time the house shows signs of the poverty she just managed to escape. There are chickens and a cow, flies everywhere, there is still an outhouse, and my host mom often cooks over an open flame instead of the stove. Not to mention my host mom and her sister and brother-in-law are all illiterate. Moreover, she lives in this grand house all by herself, as seven of her nine children now live in the United States (with varying levels of legality), and the remaining two are studying at the university in San Salvador. Indeed, she actually left for the U.S. the day after I moved; lucky enough to actually get a visa, she is off for two months to visit her very pregnant daughter and take care of the baby after the birth.

My host mother left the house in the care of her sister and brother-in-law. Unlike Teodora, this couple is childless and has thus been unable to tap in to the gold rush of the post-war emigration. They live now as Teodora once lived, poor and in a rural community. They are so sweet though and I can tell are at once delighted and baffled at my existence in their world. The little old woman shyly peeked in to my room today and looked in awe over all my things that I had; though all my stuff fits in several big suitcases it far outweighs the little backpacks she and her husband brought along for their two month stay here. I say old because she seems that way, but she is probably in her late 50s. As a side note, beside just saying how alike my dad and I were, everyone kept commenting on how young he looked! But they really do have a point, people here look and act decades older than their American cohort.

I remember thinking before I left for Peace Corps that I probably wouldn’t change much over the course of my time here. I thought since I had previously had opportunities to travel and be exposed to different lives, I kind of “got” how the rest of the world worked. And maybe I haven’t changed fundamentally as a person, but the world I know now is truly different than what I knew before. The experience of living in this community, knowing these people from a world so different than mine, is something I never could have been exposed to in this way outside of this program. Though I miss the U.S. more than ever, I am grateful for the opportunity I have had to learn so much about this little corner of the earth, and through the close study of this tiny community understand so much more about the world at large and my place in it.