This is my life...

With my recent visitor, I was able to catch a glimpse of my life in El Salvador through his eyes. I was eased into my current situation through ten weeks of training, which, I think, led to me overlooking some of the drastic changes I have undergone. What follows is a brief list of things that constitute my daily life, that to him were surprising. I hope you will either excuse or enjoy my attempts at humor.

I have chickens in my backyard from 4am until 6pm. I also, periodically, have tarantulas. I have learned that chickens eat tarantulas.

My next door neighbor has a huge pig tied to a rope in her backyard. Pigs are the most disgusting animals I have ever seen. Don’t let Disney fool you with Babe the talking, sheep-herding pig or Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web. This pig can’t speak except to squeal for food, and even spiders are disgusted by it. Rather than Charlotte writing “Amazing pig” in her web, I woke up the other morning with a message in a freshly spun web saying “Aren’t you hungry for some bacon? Please butcher this nasty pig for its delicious meat.”

A recent soccer game was stopped twice: the first time to ask the opposing fans with machetes to scoot back from the field, and the second time to shoo two cows off the field. In their flight, the cows ran directly at my friend Eddie, providing entertainment for everyone.

In a more recent soccer game, a ball that was destined to roll out of bounds hit a chicken and remained in play.

Last week I was invited to go hunting for rabbits, iguanas, and armadillos with some folks from my community. The plan was to leave in the middle of the night—six of us with one gun—wearing long sleeves and long pants so that the spiders and scorpions wouldn’t bite or sting us. Unfortunately, our little safari never came through…maybe next time.

Eddie plans on bringing his favorite Salvadoran greeting back to the States in its translated form. If you do not know Eddie and get the privilege of meeting him, you will get to hear “Edward Johan Powers at your service.”

Bolos (read drunks) have an uncanny knack for finding gringos in a crowd. During an AIDS awareness day in another pueblo, Eddie was spotted by the local drunk. He sat, staring at Eddie for 15 minutes straight, opening and closing his mouth but saying nothing and blinking his eyes incessantly. He then, without warning, flopped to the ground for a 5 minute nap, woke up and continued staring at Eddie. This was repeated three times consecutively.

············································································

This is my second blog post of the day (a record for me) so make sure you scroll down to read the one below...it's the better of the two.

Big Ed's Post

So I asked my friend Eddie to write a post that I could put up on my blog...here it is in all it's unedited glory. (I'm actually reluctant to put it up, because I think he writes better than I do).
·······································································································································································

The most important thing to know is that the people in Mike`s town are all incredibly friendly and they all like Mike a lot. Especially the doctor in the nearby town who is shamelessly pursuing him. But, it is not only the females who are enamored with Mike. The old men who carry machetes at all times are thrilled when Mike stops to talk to them. As are the little kids. Some of the guys on the soccer team like nothing better than for Mike to join them as they sit around, drink some painfully strong alcohol, and tell jokes. Mike has become very adept at handling all these situations, courteous yet distant with the doctor, very complimentary towards the old men, and patient with the young ones who have a knack for coming over as soon as you settle in the hammock. Sitting and telling jokes with the guys from the team is endlessly amusing, yet much more difficult than it sounds. Mike manages quite well, but I somehow ended up hurting some feelings by not laughing hard enough at jokes I didn`t understand and by refusing my third helping of tomato-radish salad.

There are many things that Mike may have already mentioned that are worth mentioning again, mainly the soccer games. The fields are lined with a couple hundred men with machetes, vendors selling pupusas, little kids lighting off extremely loud fireworks, and usually some cows or horses. The quality of play is not of the highest level, but is more than made up for by the environment. The opportunity to play for Mike in one game was incredible, even though due to some questionable referring and poor finishing I was unable to forever cement myself in the town`s lore. Perhaps even more enjoyable than the game itself are the rides to the away games. Everyone piles into the back of the pick-up trucks, all the guys make kissy noises at the girls, and you are treated to some rather spectacular views of the volcanoes and the ocean. There really are few things better.

Another point worth reiterating is the merits of hammocks. The purchase of a second hammock was a much needed addition to Mike`s shack. If you do visit, though, make sure you get the old one as Mike has yet to master the skill of successfully hanging a hammock.

It is not all sunshine and daisies in El Salvador though. The roosters and cows have a tendency to start making lots of noise at about 4 in the morning, and the 6 am bus likes to honk its horn loudly.The buses have a tendency to get really crowded and are not made for people taller than 5`6. Fortunately, if you are tall and don`t have very good balance the old ladies will give up their seat for you. It is also very hot and there is a lot of dust. The dust gets all over your clothes and you have to wash them by hand which is not very fun. I would recommend having Mike wash them for you as he has mastered that skill.

The trip was really quite nice. If you want to pretend you are in the Peace Corps without actually having to do it for two years, I would go visit Mike. Especially, now that he has a second hammock.

Youth Group Pizza

As I mentioned in the last post, Eddie and I spent the first three days of his visit getting ready for a youth group meeting that I had planned for that Saturday. Getting ready basically consisted of going door to door to invite youth to the meeting. This actually turned out to be a pretty exhausting endeavor as my community is pretty spread out. But it also turned out to be worth it. That Saturday I had about 16 kids between the ages of 10 and 16 (or so) show up in my backyard for a meeting. We sat and talked for about 30 minutes about what sorts of things they are interested in (taking day-trips, english classes, ways to make money). After the meeting, we walked to a neighbor's house who owns an outdoor oven and we baked pizza. Now, the most complex pizza either Eddie or I have ever made consisted of Prego tomato sauce, Boboli pizza crust, already shredded mozzerella cheese, and already sliced pepperonis. This experience turned out to be a bit different.

The day before, Eddie and I bought a ton of flour, yeast, two kinds of Salvadoran cheese, tomato sauce, and salami (in place of pepperoni). That Saturday morning we woke up early to make the dough while leaving ample time for it to rise. We were a bit worried that that yeast we bought was really baking soda and that the dough would never rise. Actually, we had a friendly competition on whose dough would rise more, but then we forgot which was which after leaving it out to rise. Eddie claims he won, but I'm pretty sure I did. Fortunately, the dough did rise (at least a little bit) and we were ready to make our pizza. The kids loved spreading the sauce and adding mountains of salami. Then, after my neighbor hacked down a tree with his machete to use as fire wood for his outdoor woodburning oven, we were ready to cook. Having no idea how long to cook pizza in a woodburning, outdoor oven, we guessed about 10 minutes and amazingly enough, it came out great...'Mejor que Pizza Hut y Dominos' according to some.

It was actually quite fun to make, and it was nice having Eddie there to help me. The idea is to start making pizzas to sell to fans at the community soccer games as a way to fund our youth group. That is if I can get the kids not to eat it all first.