Nathalia's Visit

I’m going to keep this post relatively short because Nathalia will be making her own post about her visit, and I also just posted a way too long post below.

As most of you know, Nathalia came out to visit me from the 21^st-29^th. It being holy week when she got here, I paid a guy in my community gas money to take me in his car to pick her up. On the way out there, I got to hear all about his courtship of his now wife, which was limited to 2 hours a week of supervised visits for the first few months. (Know that this is not normal. This man is a very religious Evangelical Christian. Very nice man, but also very, very religious.) I started getting very nervous about how to greet Nathalia. I decided on a firm handshake, but she blew it by hugging me and kissing me.

I’ll let her tell what we did during her visit. What she probably won’t say, due to modesty, is that my town absolutely loved her. Maybe more so than me. It was a blast having her here, and people are already asking me when she is coming back again, and why she doesn’t just move here. Yesterday, I had a lady in my community tell me she was upset with me because I didn’t introduce her to Nathalia. She then gave me a bag of mangos. I wonder what I would have gotten if I had introduced her.

Fiestas Patronales and Semana Santa

I recently learned that March, in my community, is the greatest month of the year. The main reason for this is we have our Fiestas Patronales in March. Every Catholic church in the country has a patron saint, and each patron saint has a time of the year in which they are celebrated. Our saint is San Jose, and our time of the year was from March 11^th-19^th. Most churches are located in pueblos, so Fiestas Patronales are generally big celebrations with tons of fireworks, dances in the evenings, contests, etc. Since our Fiestas were celebrated in our canton, things were on a much smaller scale, which to me, was a lot more fun.

Each day, from the 11^th-19^th, there were processions in the afternoons followed by mass. The processions start from a designated house, follow the main road through the canton, and end up at the church. At the front are four men carrying a statue on their shoulders as you would imagine an ancient Roman goddess to be carried. Behind them, everyone else follows, singing songs about Jesus and San Jose led by three women on a megaphone and a man accompanying them on the guitar. In the very back (where I usually hang out) are men with fireworks, shooting them off every 20 yards or so.

At mass, 75% of the people sit inside, and the remaining 25%, again mostly men and again including me, hang out outside, joking and talking about futbol and women. Throughout mass, fireworks are continually set off for emphasis during various parts of the sermon.

This is how things went the 11^th-18^th. The 19^th, being the last day, was different. The day’s events started with a procession at 4am (I did not attend) complete with singing and fireworks. Then, I assume everyone went back to bed until 2pm when the festivities at the church began again. The main attraction was the crowning of the reina (queen) of the Fiestas Patronales. The crowning of the reina is a common Salvadoran fundraiser where a number of candidates will sell votes (a quarter a piece), and the one who sells the most votes is queen. In all the crownings of reinas that I have seen, the candidates are young, attractive, single girls between 15 and 20 years old. For our Fiestas, the candidates were all women over 60. It was one of the neatest things I have seen since being here. They were all dressed up, people were cheering the hearts out for all of them, and there was nothing but smiles. The winner was hugged by everyone and received a scepter and a crown to wear while sitting up front in a seat of honor during mass.

After mass, was the final procession (this time at night) with a number of fireworks, and nearly the entire community walking. People kept talking about the torito (little bull) and asking me if I was going to manejar (drive) it. I wasn’t completely sure what they were asking me, but I assumed there was going to be some bull riding. I actually convinced myself that I’d give it a go, and was even kind of looking forward to it with some adrenaline pumping. When we arrived at the church, the announced it was time for the torito. Turns out, the torito is a bamboo structure that can be worn over someone’s head (think a Chinese dragon.) The torito is covered with sparklers, so when it is lit, sparks are shooting out all over. “That’s cool” I thought, “but I don’t see what all the fuss is about.” Ah, how naïve I was. As the sparklers burned down, they began to ignite fireworks that shot out in all directions from the torito. So, here you have someone running through a crowd of a couple hundred people (old women and young children included) with fireworks shooting off of it in all directions. It was nuts. I was crouched behind a wall laughing as the torito ran away from me, and praying as it was running towards me. 4 people were burned and it was not lamented or unexpected—just a risk of religion I guess.

Semana Santa, which starts the Monday before Easter and lasts for a week, was not nearly as exciting. Once the Fiestas ended, there were still daily masses, but not nearly as fun.

This month, I attended more Church than I have in years. And you know what, it was worth it. I’m willing to attend mass all year, crossing myself when I enter Church and the soccer field—basically, I’m willing to be Catholic—if it means I get to laugh at and hide from the torito again next year.

Panaderia

Over the last 4 weeks, about 10 women from my community have been going to the office of a local NGO to learn how to make bread. I went with them a couple of times, and it was a blast. They are very excited about making it. Even more than that, they were excited about how well it sold when they brought it back to the community. The most recent time, last Tuesday, we actually made a profit on what they made in their classes. Obviously you would expect this, but each previous time some of the batches didn't come out right so they couldn't be sold. Now that the classes are over, these women are going go to the NGO office every Tuesday to practice and bring back what they make to sell in the community.

Oh, and I had my doctor's appointment today; I have a brain and he says it's in working order.

My 4 Days in the Capital

Over the past few months I have been suffering from occasional dizzy spells, fainting on three of those occasions. The first time I fainted, I went into the capital for a consultation and blood work. Nothing was found, so we assumed I was probably just suffering from a virus or a bit of exhaustion. After fainting twice more, the Peace Corps Medical Office (PCMO) set up an appointment for me to see a neurologist. The neurologist recommended three tests, all of which I had done last Thursday.

The first test involved electrodes being hooked up on my chest and all over my head to monitor my brain function. I was told to lie down in a dimly lit room and close my eyes. After about 15 minutes, as I was falling asleep, a strobe light was turned on. I wonder if the technician, reading my brainwaves on the computer, could tell how much I wanted to take the strobe light and bash it against the wall.

The second test was a CAT scan. All that involved was me lying on a table that then moved so that my head was inside of the machine. 5 minutes into that, I was injected with something (I assume some sort of dye that shows up in the images) and 5 minutes later, I was done.

My third test was by far the weirdest. This time, I entered a room with two computers manned by a doctor and his assistant who had an inappropriately short skirt and equally inappropriately high heels. Still recovering from the dress code in this office, I was instructed to take off my shirt and shoes and lie down on the table. Again electrodes were connected to my head and chest. I was told to close my eyes, and the doctor began reading off numbers to his assistant. Then, with my eyes still closed, I was strapped into the table with two large velcro straps, one across my chest and the other across my legs. I'm definitely not a paranoid person, but I began to wonder why it was necessary to strap me in. Were they going to shock me so hard I would jump? Was I going to have a seizure? With my eyes still closed, I felt and heard the table begin to move, until it was perpendicular to the floor--eseentially standing me upright. More numbers being read, more data recorded, a few more tests, and I was done for the day. The doctor was out of the country, so I won't get the results until I meet with him sometime later this week.

Because I had a Peace Corps meeting Saturday, I stayed in the capital all day Friday. The capital is great for a day, but gets really boring really quickly. Don't get me wrong, I love having my Quizno's sub every chance I get (for lunch and dinner Thursday, and yes, the employees recognized I had come in twice that day), but San Salvador gets really old really quickly.

When there for medical or offical reasons, Peace Corps puts us up in one of two hotels. This means there are always other volunteers at these hotels. I have yet to meet a mean volunteer, but they definitely range from people I really enjoy hanging out with, to people who bore me a bit, to people who annoy the hell out of me. The fact that we have Peace Corps in common makes it difficult not to be social. So often, I am forced to have conversations with people I'm not very interested in for a lot longer than I would like.

My meeting Saturday went well, and my boss had us over for delicious lasagna, salad, and garlic bread Saturday night. 5 beers and I was done for the night. By Sunday morning I was exhausted and very happy to travel back to my site. Here I am, and life is good. Love to all.

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.