Busy Week

The THIRD tarantula that has invaded my space. This one came crawling out from underneath the bed on a night when there was no electricity! Thank god my friend was there to kill the stupid thing. They are HUGE!!!!!!

A gigundo cockroach squished DEAD! MUAHAHAHAHAHA

And the scorpion squished DEAD! Yeah that's right.

One of the many scorpions I have come upon in my room.




My teenie-bopper moment with Axe Bahia


Me with the futbol team! Go team. Oh we won last week and we're playing again on Sunday!




Okay so I forgot to mention this in my other blog but a week ago Monday, in the evening I went to the ADESCO to judge some paintings for a contest and I forgot my keys in my house. I realized once we were leaving the ADESCO so the doctor, the two licenciadas, Grisleda, another woman from the ADESCO and one of the policemen that works in my community all came to my house to see how we could get in. Well we did that the option of just breaking the lock that was on the door, but instead we tried to get the keys out. I always hang my keys on a nail by the door and since there is a space in between the walls and the ceiling, we lifted up Rocio and here stick a piece of wire through the space to unhook the keys. Well they fell on the floor but then we didn’t have anything long enough to get them and drag them under the door. So we go to the other side of the house where the roof is a little lower and the policeman and the doctor lift a few tiles off the roof, stick in the metal bar and un hook the window. God I felt like an idiot but it was really funny trying to get the keys out.
Practice makes perfect!I don’t know if I mentioned this in my previous blog entry but last week, for four days, I was at an HIV/AIDS training sponsored by the Peace Corps with about 25 other volunteers and counterparts from their communities. I invited two young women to come along, one is my friend Tania and the super awesome and active youth from my community and the other, named Eugenia, works in maternal and children’s health here in the community as part of the Ministry of Health. The training took place in San Miguel, the second or third largest city in the country. We had a variety of speeches and interactive learning opportunities and then one day we split up in to groups and went to local schools to give a three hour workshop on HIV/AIDS. It was really fun. There was a male youth, another volunteer, a doctor and a science teacher in my group and we have a presentation to a group of 30 students in 6th-9th grades. It was really fun. I have a speech about how HIV is transmitted, and just as important, how it ISN’T transmitted. We also did all these interactive, game type of activities to get the kids up and moving and npt just sitting there bored and being lectured at. At the HIV charla...the Super Condom station.
Me and the guy in our group, Samuel, we did the condom station, called “Super Condom.” And yes we taught kids the proper use of a condom and we practiced on a cucumber. It was hilarious. But most of the kids were cool about it. It was a long and tiresome, but very fulfilling and rewarding week. And I can’t wait to get started on HIV/AIDS training here in my community.

Last Saturday, there was a beach event put on my an organization that does work with the youth in the region of the peninsula, so me and 11 other youth from my community and about 60 youth from other communities went to the beach, had lunch and just hung out all day. It was fun.
The restaurant and hostels!

Okay, so there is a huge project just finishing up in my community. An NGO, that actually gets funds from the states, sponsored a project to build a restaurant, hostels and a new ADESCO office here in the community, to be managed by the youth. Well the project has officially ended and we had to do the presentation of the end of the project, but of course the restaurant and the site wasn’t finished yet. So I helped for two three really long days to help get everything ready. We had to level the group outside the restaurant (with all manual tools), lay brick down on the floor of the restaurant, put up palm and a bunch of other things. So Tuesday night we were there working until 9:30pm and I thought I was gonna die. I haven’t done that much physical labor in a while. But it was goo for me even though my leg is still killing and my hands are peeling and have blisters from cementing the bricks. But all in all it was really fun working with everyone and even more so that everything paid off in the end. The place looked great, although it is still lacking a lot of work.
Carrying the turtles to the shoreline.

So yesterday a bunch of people from all these different organizations and the local schools, even the news station came out. There was a presentation of the project and then we went to the beach to liberate baby turtles that had just hatched. OMG it was the most beautiful thing ever. First of all the turtles are so adorable, tiny and black as black can be. They are so beautiful. With kids from the school we liberated 700 baby turtles and watched until they all got taken out to sea by the waves. It’s such a crazy thing how these tiny creatures are expected to fend for themselves from the second they come into the world.
The event.

So here’s how it works, the mama turtle comes to the beach at night (turtle season is june-october) to lay her eggs. She crawls up the sand, digs a hole and lays anywhere from 75-200 eggs. Since turtle eggs sell really well here, tons of people are at the beach at night to wait and find a turtle, wait till she lays her eggs and leaves and then dig up the eggs and sell them. The vivero
But what the ADESCO has done is built a vivero where the tortugueros can sell the eggs, the eggs are then reburied and monitored and then the turtles are liberated when they’re born. But these poor little babies they just get swept away by the waves and a great number don’t even make it that first day…they get crushed by the waves or eaten by predators. But those that do survive will eventually come back to this beach to lay their eggs. It’s so miraculous. And it really is like Crush says in Finding Nemo: “Coo-ku-ka-chu and they find their way back to the big bad blue.” That movie is so spot on with how turtles are. And I so wish I had the movie here to watch it.

This Saturday is El Salvador’s Independence Day so all this week at the school they have been doing presentations and let me tell you that the national anthem of El Salvador is so so beautiful. Saturday there are going to have a parade with a band and another presentation…I’m looking forward to it cuz I think it’ss be fun.

Other than that I am getting eaten alive by motherfucking mosquitoes. This is just out of control. Well, until next time. Hope you enjoy all the photos. Leave me a post.

Me holding a baby turtle. Oh how I wanted to take it home with me.
A tub full of beautiful baby turtles
Freed turtles!