First Post From El Salvador: I'm ALIVE!

My first post as an “official” Peace Corps Trainee:

Well, let’s just say that it started out not so well, when I arrived in Washington and they didn’t have my name on the list of early arrivals – thus they didn’t have my hotel room and wanted me to pay for one. Yeah right! So I went to my friend Dena’s house in Annapolis, which worked out better anyways. (Again, thank you Dena).

In Washington, we had what is called Staging where I met the other 23 people in my group, did some orientation meetings and activities, learned about Peace Corps and the PC goals, our own goals and aspirations for volunteer work, safety, etc. We also got to meet our country director and the program directors for Rural Health and Youth Development and they were able to answer some unanswered questions, especially about training, which was good to find out since my expectations of training were different.

I think my training group is awesome – great dynamic and a good mix of people from all different parts of the country (although it seems like there are quite a few from the mid-west) and different backgrounds. We have one married couple in our group, but they’re young so they’re awesome. The average age of our group is about 24 or 25 I’d say – the youngest is I think 21 and the oldest no older than 30, so we’re a pretty young group, but that is typical of El Salvador.

So last week we went from snow in Washington to hotness in San Vicente, El Salvador. It was one crazy day, and it sure as hell was long. When we arrived in San Vicente we had some meetings, met the staff, I had my Spanish placement interview, and eventually we had dinner. The training center is in downtown San Vicente. It’s an old house, two stories with a beautiful patio and backyard – and real toilets.

That night we stayed in a hotel and I roomed with Missy, who is a really cool chica. The next morning however wasn’t so awesome because as I was showering this huge roach crawled on my foot. I was like what the hell is that – I looked down and just screamed. I had to wipe all the soap off myself and rinse my hair in the sink – I couldn’t even get back in the shower.

The second night a pupusera came to the training center to make us all pupusas – mmm…yummy. The word pupusa comes from a nahuatl (Indigenous tongue) word, “pupushahua” that means filled tortilla. A pupusa is like a Mexican gordita but a little heavier, and made differently. It’s a small tortilla filled with different things like: beans, cheese, pork, or squash and served with curtido, kinda like a cabbage salad with vinegar dressing. Anyways, they’re tasty and I made two. It went a lot better than when I tried to learn how o make gorditas in Mexico. That night we also watched El Salvador kick ass against Belice. It was so funny because Missy, Aaron, Dan, Kevin, Mike, and I watched it in this “bar” that was at the “hotel” and every time someone made a bad play the guys in the bar would all yell: “puta! puta!” It was hilarious, especially when one guy stomped around the room yelling it.

Friday was THE day – the day we went to our families. How is works is the training group got split into groups of three or four and placed in rural villages around San Vicente. In my cantón, La Virgen, are Kevin and Ginger. We live about a 20-minute bus ride from the training center in San Vicente and right off the PanAmérica Hwy. Kevin is from Menlo Park and Ginger from Tennessee. Anyways, man was I scared to meet my family; even as I walked down the path into my family’s lot I was telling Kevin that I really didn’t think I was ready for this. But my family is awesome!

We live in what I like to call a compound because there are four cinder- block “houses” in the compound and a chicken coop. I have my own little house, which is a little scary but I’m getting used to it. I live with Niña Consuelo and three of her children – Idalia, Alberto, and Iris. Idalia has a nine-year-old daughter named Leslye, who is very smart and we have taken a liking to one another. Iris has a four-year-old son named Daniel, who is so so adorable. Alberto is married to Cecilia and has two kids, but I think they are in transition and about to all move to our compound. Consuelo also has another daughter named Esmeralda who lives across the street and has two daughters, Rebecca and Nemesis (4), who are at our place a lot. We also have three dogs, an occasional anorexic cat and about 20 chickens and 4-5 roosters. One of the roosters is huge and mad vicious and it has a gimp leg, but it still manages to hobble around and jump on top of the hens at which my sister, Leslye, tells me: “Es cómo ponen huevos.” (That’s how they make eggs).

On Saturday, the Rural Health trainees went to visit a fellow volunteer, Jaime, in Monte Fresca, about an hour and a half southeast of San Vicente. She was doing a trash campaign with the school kids so we walked around picking up trash. El Salvador doesn’t have a regular trash pick-up in areas outside of the biggest cities, so people just throw it on the floor and/or burn it, which is really bad because they burn plastics too. I picked up stuff like old shoes, a dead watch, a nail polish bottle, a battery, and tons of plastic bottles and trash. Later we ate lunch that was provided by the local women’s group. Jaime is pretty lucky with her site because she has electricity, running water that is chlorinated and potable, and there is a river that runs through the town where people swim, wash their clothes, and where weekend tourists come.

Saturday afternoon, when I returned home, Leslye, Daniel, Rebecca and Nemi all ran to meet me at the gate, give me a hug and then ask me to teach them ballet. So I gave a small ballet lesson in the common area of my house with music and everything. And later they wanted to do some aerobics, so we did that too – it was hilarious. I love these kids; they are so hilarious.

So my living situation…I mentioned I live in a cinder block “house.” Really it’s a room with a partition for two rooms. I have a bed with mosquito net, a chair and a table. The latrine is my toilet. It’s a cement toilet seat if you will - like a small cubicle. And at night about 10-12 roaches are waiting for you on the “toilet” seat. Actually last night was the first time I was able to use the latrine after dark because of the roaches. I was able to fight back the urge to throw-up and managed to chase them all away. Man, my first night here I held my pee till I got to the training center the next morning because I refused to go in there. My bathing quarters are on the porch of Idalia’s house where la pila, or cement tub, of water is. I bathe at night so I can turn the lights off and bathe in the nude without others seeing. Much better than trying to bathe with clothes on – I don’t even see how you could get clean.

Last scary bug story” I saw my first scorpion. My first night with my family…it was on my mosquito net. I tried to get it off, but it didn’t work, so finally I called Idalia over to help me out.

So despite my extreme fear of all the bugs, and my not feeling well on Sunday, things are going well and coming slowly but surely.

Training is as follows: Tuesdays and Fridays in the training center in San Vicente and the rest of the days our Spanish teacher comes to my house and teaches Ginger, Kevin and I. Yesterday was our first lesson and it went well – we are all at the intermedio alto level. And our first project is to go talk with the director of the nearest medical clinic.

Well, that’s all for now. Hopefully I can post more often now that I am settled. <3