I really do work, I promise

As promised, a post about what I do that resembles work here in El Salvador.

One of Peace Corps goals in its mission statement is to promote cross-cultural understanding. There is a large emphasis placed on just being there, in the community, developing relationships and understanding what it's like to be Salvadoran and providing Salvadorans with a glimpse into what it's like to be American. This means, I can call it working when I play soccer, hang out in front of my house chatting, or eat dinner with my neighbors. As nice as that is, I feel a definite pressure (not sure if it's from myself or from others) to "make a difference."

So what am I doing to make a difference? The most exciting (and most difficult) project I'm working on right now is a panaderia (bakery) for my community. At least two times a day, trucks come through the community selling bread, never lacking business. It would make sense that we bake our own bread and keep our money within the community. Unfortunately, starting a panederia is turning out to be more difficult than I had anticipated. I am writing a grant proposal to USAID to provide us with about 2000 dollars which will buy ovens, mixers, and pans. The grant stipulates that the community must contribute 25% of the total cost (labor, location, materials, etc. count), so I am also working to organize some fundraisers so we can meet that 25%. The exciting part is that an NGO offered to provide bread-making workshops for women in our community. I went to one of the workshops on Tuesday, and it was a blast to see the enthusiasm they had for making the bread---and it was pretty damn good bread too. Hopefully this project will pan out (pun intended) in the next 2 months.

A smaller, but currently much more enjoyable project that I'm working on is teaching English in the school to kindergarten through 3rd grade. I don't have a curriculum I'm following, so pretty much I just wing it and teach basic vocab, but I always do it in the form of some sort of game: simon says, competitions, 'head, shoulders, knees, and toes' etc. The kids as well as the teachers love having a break from their normal methods of teaching (lots of writing on the board and copying word for word into notebooks).

Finally, we recently held a vote to elect what essentially is a student council that will also work in the community. Our first meeting is going to be this week, and I'm hoping to organize social projects as well as fun activities for the youth in the community through this group. We've talked about planning trips, having cleaning campaigns, and working on a library. It's a great group of kids, and I look forward to working with them.

Well that's all I feel like writing about work. I worry is sounds a bit bland, but it's actually a blast--maybe just a bit indescribable. Love to all.

Just one more...

I promised last time no more soccer posts until I write about my work, but this story is a little too ridiculous to not tell. It's short.

Our last game of the season, two weeks ago, was meaningless for us, but very important for our opponent. A win or tie for them would save them from relegation. But if our oppenent, 'Team A', lost, then another team, 'Team B', would be saved from relegation. Before the game, representatives from both Team A and Team B approached us. Team A was willing to offer 100 dollars if we would agree, before kick-off, that we were going to throw the game. Team B, knowing this might happen, had sent a representative to match any offers Team A might give us for us to win the game. So we could have decided to take a sure thing (100 dollars from Team A to lose the game) or to play to win, rejecting Team A's offer, but still receiving 100 dollars from Team B if we were victorious. I'm proud to say, our team decided to play to win.

Unfortunately, the ref was very obviously paid off by Team A. He called a decent game until we went up 1-0. All of a sudden, every call was against us, and a clear goal was called back by some phantom foul. Finally, a PK was called against us (another phantom call) and the game ended a 1-1 tie.

Salvadoran soccer, gotta love it.

Hold onto your hats...

…because this post is going to be a long one.

We’ll start with soccer. Today is the last game of the season, and my team has saved itself from relegation. We are currently in the third division and we will continue there. The way the Salvadoran professional league works, is there are 5 divisions, and the top team from each division moves up and the bottom team drops down a division. For a while were tied with three other teams for the bottom spot in our division, but we fought our way back in the last four games and are now assured to stay put in the third division. Second division gets publicized in newspapers and some games are shown on TV, so maybe we’ll win third division next season and move up, but I’m not counting on it.

Last week we had an away game against our cross town rival. Not only that, but our goalie and another player from last year had switched to their team in the off-season. This was a big game and we needed a good result to not be relegated. We had beaten them earlier in the season, so they were playing for pride. We brought two big trucks of supporters, and they had a bunch of fans as well. The field is completely surrounded by a chain link fence that is only about 3 yards beyond the boundaries. People lined up around the entire perimeter of the field pressed up against the fence—many of whom were drunk and belligerent. This scene would have scared me shitless 8 months ago when I first arrived here in El Salvador; last week, it made me as excited about soccer as I have been since college.

The game was a blast and I played phenomenally. Some highlights:

Our goalie, trying to stop their first goal, dove into the post headfirst. When people helped him up, he promptly stumbled backwards and crumpled to the ground. After a few minutes, people sat him up again and his eyes started to wobble and go back in his head like he was going to pass out again. 5 minutes later, he got up, ran a sprint to show he was okay, and played the rest of the game. This never would have happened in the U.S.

About 15 minutes later, I beat a defender and was taken down by another one right outside of the penalty box. We scored on the ensuing free kick. In the second half, I scored the go-ahead goal with a shot from about 15 yards out. The crowd went nuts.

With about 10 minutes left in the game, they were correctly awarded a penalty kick, but my team was certain we were being cheated by the ref (which is always the case if a penalty kick is called against us.) One of our fans/coaches came onto the field to pull back some of our players, but couldn’t restrain from calling the player who used to play for my community a traitor, which started a bit of pushing, but was quickly broken up. They scored to tie it 2-2 with only 10 minutes left. Two minutes later, their goalie came out to collect a ball coming into the box. When he hit the ground, the ball squirted loose, was collected by our player, and put in for the go-ahead goal. The ref, however, admitted he did not see the play, and asked the goalie what happened. Of course the goalie said he was kicked (which he was not, I was right there) and the ref called ‘no goal.’ Both teams went nuts, fans came onto the field, and the game was ended as a 2-2 tie with about 7 minutes left still to play. Even I yelled a bit at the ref, which made me feel like an asshole later.

One would have to be masochistic to want to be a ref in El Salvador. They work by themselves, no lines-men, and are verbally abused no matter how good or bad they are and usually by both teams. They are generally terrible, but nevertheless, they are working in extremely difficult conditions. It seemed like a perfect formula for violence—booze, tons of emotion, a lot of testosterone—but there was never even a hint of violence. Even when people were yelling at the ref, they were not threatening. The pushing match earlier in the game was quickly broken up by both sides. Leaving, opposing fans and players shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. It was fun.

I was going to write about other happenings, but this has already gotten too long. Later in the week maybe I’ll write a bit about work. I promise, I actually am doing some work.

Love to all.