Youth Funness and Birthdays

Ok, so I’m not going to go into very much detail on this, but the day after I wrote my last blog, my boss called me into her office to tell me that she had made the decision along with the director of Peace Corps El Salvador to take me out of my community. Like I mentioned in the last blog entry, there were lots of comments surrounded by the fact that I have a boyfriend, so much so that someone (an asshole obviously) from the community called my boss to tell her about the rumors going on. So based on that and the fact that my reputation and the reputation of Peace Corps has been altered, they want to take me out of my site. Yeah I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what you get working for a bureaucratic government volunteer agency. My community doesn’t want me to leave and they have ultimately opted for trying every possible way of keeping me here rather than just getting a new volunteer. My boss has come out to talk to the community and hopefully the country director will come out as well. It doesn’t look hopeful, but we have to try. Sorry this doesn’t have much detail but I’m sick of talking about this topic and shouldn’t really put that much detail on the web.

Anyways, in the meantime I’m still living and working in my community like normal. The circus came to town, so that was fun. I went a couple of nights. It was a pretty ghetto circus and the first time I entered the tent I was kind of scared…the bleachers were made of small planks of wood that looked like they were going to fall apart any minute. Yikes. They had some comedy acts, which were actually really funny. A supposed transvestite that danced. But I don’t believe she was a transvestite…she really looked like a woman, but who knows. The funny thing is this kid from the community started dating her, and his family has outraged….i mean outraged to the extent that they tied him up to drag him back to the house…well that’s what people said. I’m sure it’s a little exaggerated, but also not too far from the truth since this is a machista and homophobic country. But it was nice going to the circus…having something to do at night and having some good laughs.

THE CHURCH IN ALEGRIA

I’ve been working a lot with the youth group. The weekend of April 26-27th seven youth and I went to a youth camp with about 80 other youth from different municipalities close by. The camp was sponsored by SACDEL, the organization that works with our youth group and helps us fund activities and projects. The camp was held in Alegria, a very beautiful pueblo on the side of a volcano…it has such a nice climate. It was a nice change from the burning fires of hell in my community…haha. The camp was in celebratioin of International Youth Service Week. We watched the movie Crash and talked about racism. In the morning we did an activity about what qualities a youth volunteer should have. We watched a performance of young child and youth playing the violin and then we went out into the community to invite the members to a party in the park. Alegria is very beautiful…it has a lot of tourism so it’s clean, it has tons of private flower nurseries (since the climate is so nice) and it has a crater lagoon at the top of the volcano, but unfortunately we didn’t get up to see it. But since the community is built into the side of the volcano, it has some nasty uphill climbs…man my calves hurt after that weekend.
In the afternoon, the youth held a party in the park and a bunch of local children came to participate.
We had face painting, piñatas, music, folkloric dancing (tradition dancing), a drumming group came and there were also dancers on stilts. Also, we let off about 4 small hot air balloons. It was pretty cool.

ONE OF THE FLOWER NURSERIES












Last weekend was a four day weekend and once again we went on a youth event with SACDEL. This time I went with 15 youth from my community and we went to Jiquilisco, our municipality. In continuation of the International Week of Youth Volunteerism we painted the electrical posts and did a trash pick-up. I went to paint the posts, which I thought was super fun. In the afternoon we had a party like we did in Alegria but this time we started with a march down the main street in to town. We had face painting, hot air balloons, folkloric dancing, a farce beauty contest with guys dressed up as girls (hilarious). It was a lot of fun.





This past weekend we also celebrated two birthdays…the birthday of Roberto Carlos, Tania and Alfredo’s youngest brother. We bought him this sweet car that is launched off a platform by water pressure. You have to pump the water into the car, release a latch and then the car goes shooting forward while you get sprayed by water…it’s pretty cool. Alfredo, Tania and I tried it out before we wrapped it up and gave it to Roberto Carlos…haha.

We also celebrated the birthday of my grandma…Mama Nena. I bought her a birthday cake and we set it up as a surprise. She was really happy.

So that’s about all that has been going on. I’m working with the ADESCO right now trying to solicit a project, and it’s really frustrating because they don’t dedicate time to writing the proposal; like they expect me to do it all. I really want the project to pass, but not if no one is willing to work on it and put their time and effort into it. But hopefully it will work out.

Dude, a guy form my community drowned last night in the bay. His name was Arena (well his nickname. i never knew his real name). He was like the town crazy man. Apparently he used to be normal, but when his wife left him he took to drinking and i think he drank so much that he turned a little crazy. He wasn't violent or anything. He would do odd jobs around town...pick and sell fruit. He would sing to people in the streets, me included, and run laps around the futbol field in his underwear. He was cheery but really just a weird guy. Aorund 7pm last night they found him floating face down in the bay and kind of maneuvered his body toward the shore and waited for the police to come. Around 11pm the equivalent of the coroner's office arrived and took notes. He was wounded on his right eye. People think he either jumped into the water in a shallow part and hit his head or he fell from a tree cuz he liked to cimb trees. It was really sad. He was weird and all but everyone kind of had a special place in their heart for him. He kind of scared me but he gifted me fruit sometimes.