Big Ed

My buddy from college, Eddie, flew in from Costa Rica to visit me last Wednesday. Since he wanted a taste of Peace Corps life, I put him to work immediately. The first three days he was here, we prepared for my first youth group meeting. This meant walking door to door through my community inviting kids to the meeting, buying ingredients to make pizza at the meeting, and lying on the hammock. Though that last one may not seem like a necessary chore to prepare for a youth group meeting, I have found that here in El Salvador, it is absolutely necessary to lie on the hammock in preparing for anything. And this meant buying a second hammock--one for him and one for me.

Eddie has been admired by numerous local women--his tall stature and blonde locks do him quite well here. He has also been recruited to play soccer professionally on my team. In fact, because I am recovering from a pulled groin, it was suggested that we replace my picture with his on my player's card so he can play the next game as me. I'm not going to lie, I was a bit insulted by this:)

Big Ed and I also celebrated Thanksgiving together (though a day late) and traveled to an island for two nights, and a Peace Corps party in the capital. But alas, all of these stories will have to wait for another entry in a few days.

Hope all is well.

Happenings 2...

I am writing here from the capital where I have been since Sunday evening (today is Tuesday) and will be until tomorrow. On Sunday, I went to my first (maybe ever?) Catholic mass. I had been feeling a little bit sick the night before, but I figured nothing God wouldn't be able to cure for me. About midway through the service I started feeling a nauseous (sp?) and decided it was a good idea not to puke inside of a house of the holy. I stood up and walked out the side door, got very dizzy, and promptly passed out against the wall of the church. Thankfully, my neighbor was out there making pupusas, noticed me quite quickly, and caught me and brought me over to a chair. After sitting for a while, I was able to regain my bearings and went home to rest. Later that day, I came into the capital where I have been ever since having tests and doctor's appointments. I have felt fine ever since Monday, but it's good to get everything checked out. I think it was just a virus that, combined with heat and a bit of sleep deprivation, got the best of me. Or it could have been the holy spirit that moved me. One of the two.

Another story...the best player on our soccer team can no longer play with us (at least not in the home games) because he stole someone's cell phone who lives in our community (the player lives in a different community), and will either be arrested or beat up if they see him.

I'm sure there's something else to write about, but my mind is drawing a blank, so I think I'm going to go eat at Quizno's and catch a movie--wait, am I in El Salvador? Gotta love globalization!!!

Happenings...

A few random anecdotes (not at all in any sort of chronological order)

Earlier this week, after playing soccer, I came home and went out back to shower. It was already dark, so I didn't bother wearing shorts and instead wrapped myself in my towel. Well, about halfway through my shower, I heard 'Buenas Noches.' I looked over to see an elderly woman with a plate of food standing by my back door. Not knowing what to do, I turned off the shower, wrapped myself in my towel, and with soap still dripping down my body, stepped out to talk with her. Of course this made for quite an awkward moment, but also a pretty nice one. She told me that she lives close and that she thought I might like some dinner. It's nice to be so well-taken care of here.

A couple of weeks ago, after a soccer game, I hung out in front of my neighbor's house with a few of my teammates and a few other guys as they all drank 'guaro' (moonshine) and made dirty jokes. I learned at least 10 different synonyms for various parts of the female anatomy--and most of them are the names of local food. Very educational.----That same night, I was asked how many women I would be bringing back to my house since I live alone. In this country, almost no one lives alone, and the fact that I do, in these guys' eyes, means I can have women over whenever I want. I told them I already have a girlfriend, at which point they very sincerely promised me that they would not tell my girlfriend, so it's really no problem. I explained to them, it's not a matter of her finding out, but rather I don't want to cheat on her. This, they could not understand and it got awkwardly quiet for a little bit. With nothing left to say I lifted my glass of water to their bottles of guaro and toasted 'salud.' Much hair-rustling and back-slapping ensued, and all was right with the world again. Ahhh, the boys.

Last month, as I mentioned in my blog, I was in charge of taking pictures for the independence day celebrations here. Independence Day, for the high school girls, becomes an excuse to wear short, cheerleading-type skirts as they march down the street in the parade. Actually, I'm not sure if it is an excuse for them to wear those skirts as much as it is an excuse for the men in charge to make them wear those skirts. Regardless, I think 50% of the male attendence at the parades can be attributed to girls in short skirts. Being in charge of taking pictures, then, becomes a precarious position for me. I know the girls want to see themselves in photos, but at the same time, I don't want to be associated with the men who came only to stare at the girls. I ended up taking very few photos of the cheerleaders. Well, of course, when we got the photos developed and I was about to show them to the teachers, a couple of the women teachers were teasing me saying 'Let's see how many photos Michael took of the cheerleaders.' Feeling pretty proud of myself at this moment, I was thinking 'Yes, let's see.' Well, after showing the photos, the same women teachers started teasing me saying 'So you don't like Latina women do you?' I guess that situation was one I just couldn't win.

Peace and love to all.

Soccer with the SWAT team

This past weekend, as the title suggests, I played soccer against the Salvadoran SWAT team. A couple of volunteers randomly met the sargent of the SWAT team and got to talking about soccer. They mentioned we have a Peace Corps team, and the sargent mentioned they have an 'Elite Forces Team'. The Peace Corps team is open to any volunteer who wants to show up and run around a bit, so of course we are not very good. However, considering whom we were going to be playing against, we put together our own elite, invite-only team.

So on a very rainy Saturday, I took a bus to Estadio Cuscatlan in the capital. Here, I met up with the rest of my team and we waited to get picked up by the po-po and transported to the game (we didn't get to play in the stadium, unfortunately.) After about 30 minutes of waiting, up rolls three police pick-up trucks, and one dark SUV with darkly tinted windows. I hopped in the back of one of the pick-ups, and we were off. After driving about 15 minutes, I realized that even though all of the officers were dressed in soccer shorts and t-shirts, they were all still packing heat...either carrying their guns nonchalantly, or they were strapped to their inner-leg. I started to wonder if they would be playing with their guns, then I started to think maybe we should make sure they win.

We got to the field (read mudpit) and there were about 15 guys dressed to play, and another 10 in full uniform which includes a huge, militaristic-looking gun in their hands and another, normal handgun at their hip. After lots of jokes, lots of pictures, and lots of goals, we won 7-3 and they did not shoot us--I would say that makes it a success.

Now, seriously, these guys were really cool. Very friendly, interested in what we were doing, and good hosts. They are the ones who do raids on gang houses, and when you see pictures in the paper of arrests, they are holding the criminal and they are wearing black ski masks so they don't have to worry about retribution. Kind of a weird experience talking to people whose lives are full of violence and danger...they are soldiers basically, and they way they can compartmentalize their work from their lives is amazing to me.

Pictures of Indepenence Day

September 15 here is independence day (although there are festivities throughout the month of September.) The following pictures are of the parade through Ozatlan--the capital of my municipality. All of the schools within the municipality were invited to participate in the parade. The picture I took were all of the school in my community.






The little kids in the above pictures were banging on the drums in the below picture...pretty cute I thought

A few pictures of my house and a story

I played in my first official soccer game with my town team this past weekend. It was an away game, which means about 30 of us pile into two small pick-up trucks to drive about half an hour up the volcano to a town called California. The whole way, the guys were making catcalls and pretty crude comments to any female that was unfortunate enough to be walking on the road at the time. I know, sounds like these guys are assholes, but it's really a cultural thing and the girls are used to it, so who are we to judge. Actually, the guys are all really cool.

We lost the game 5-4 and I only played the first half (pretty poorly at that) and my ankle is still not quite right. But all of that is unimportant. The important part is the pre-game rituals. We went through a pretty intense warm-up and then were checked-in by the ref. After check-ins, we ran onto the field in a single file line led by the keeper. Everyone, including myself, reached down to touch the field and then cross themself upon entering the field. The keeper then ran into the center circle, and we split of forming a circle around him, where he then punted the ball into the air and we all clapped. After that, we walked to the corner, all took a knee, and prayed. They were all mumbling some prayer I wouldn't have known in Spanish or English, so I started mumbling the only prayer I knew (thanks to Dayspring Preschool):

Thank you god, for the stars and moon
for the rain and sunny weather.
Thank you god, for this our food
and that we are together.
Amen.

It's a pretty short prayer, so I had to repeat it a few times, but it got the job done. Then, when the whistle blew, we all crossed ourselves one more time and began playing. After being an Evangelical Christian during training, I think it's now safe to say I'm a full-blooded Catholic. God Bless you all.




My house...


My pila and shower in the back



My latrine (which so far is still cockroach free)


My weight made of steel, cement, and milk cans (yeah, i know, I'm a badass)

And most importantly, my hammock

Pictures

At Swearing in with my host Mom and her son (she gave me that tie, so I had to wear it...i wanted to go sleazy and have the shirt unbuttoned some and a gold chain glistening amidst my chest hair.) And they are both around 6 feet tall as you can tell...I sprouted to about 6'4''