Jump into Action: This is a Man's World But it Wouldn't be Nothing, Nothing Without a Woman or a Girl

RH for Rural Health. My camera is awesome and
so is my friend Alex who knows how
to take crazy pics like this.

I apologize for making you all wait to find out how my woman's group went last week. It got to the point where I just decided to wait till after this weeks meeting and update you on both. I literally cannot believe that a week has gone by so quickly. So I will give you all an update of both of my meetings and other random things that I know you care about. (Also sorry for the double negative in my title, if you have issues with it you can take it up with James Brown.)

Well folks, my first woman's group meeting was a success! 21 women showed up, which was a huge turn out. Honestly I told my self I would be happy if half that amount came. (Where I was planning on finding half a person is unknown.) My host mom kept telling me how excited she was because when the volunteer before me had a women's group, and there were only 8 women (on a good day) who would come. We started off by doing an ice breaker, or in Spanish dinamica. (Don't you just love how I slipped that word of the day in there?) Peace Corps LOVES dinamicas. During training, we must have done at least one dinamica everyday. I would just like to say, that dinamicas are awkward and usually embarrassing and gringos pretty much hate them. But here is the catch, Salvadorians *love* them. And when working in a culture where everyone has a lot of shame to speak out in front of people, an ice breaker is often what gets rid of a lot of that initial shyness. The dinamica I did was slightly risque, and the women loved it. It is called fruit salad and everyone goes around and says their name and favorite fruit. So for example, I said was 'Hi my name is Chelsea and I like melons'. The second time around you say 'Hi my name is Chelsea and the first thing I do when I get up in the morning is wash my melons...' Then you just wait for the hilarity of that to sink in, and every woman then has to insert their names and fruit into the formula. This is not usually how women talk down here, but the laughing was a nice release of energy and totally broke the awkwardness.

The rest of the meeting was spent working out some of the technicalities of the group. The women decided they wanted to meet every week, same time same place. Also I had them vote on some possible future meeting topics. What I have decided, based on their voting results, is to alternate weeks with healthy cooking classes/ nutrition and health lessons. I also want to throw in some random stuff like recycled jewelry and shampoo making. Everyone seemed very upbeat and excited.

Something I learned about some of the women in my community is that many are illiterate. I would say about 1/3 of the women who came to my group could not write their name on the sign in sheet I had out. I don't know why I am so shocked, the women who could not write their name were a little older, and grew up during a time when it was not common for girls to go to school. But still it really made me think. These women have never read a book. Ever. They have never signed their name or written a letter. I cannot imagine a life like that. My friend Joelle is trying to start a literacy movement in her site, but I just have this feeling that the women in my site would be resistant. My community is very set in its ways, and a project like that might not work, but I feel like even if I could get these people to write their names it would be a huge improvement on their lives. We will see.

My host dad, Orlando, and I were talking the other day and we started talking about old coins. I love to look at the dates on the coins down here. Because El Salvador uses the USD, the coins that are here are usually old or brand new. As it turns out Orlando has a coin collection. He brought it out and showed me this penny. It is from 1838! How crazy is that. He said he found it when he was living in Boston. Nuts.

Also This week I have been on what I call The Great Egg Quest. I am not looking for eggs, I am eating them. At the grocery store the smallest amount of eggs you can buy is 15. So I have to purchase my eggs in sets of 15. (My chickens are not laying eggs yet, they are still too young.) Last week at my women's group meeting two women each brought me 6 eggs. So I had 15 already and then I had another 12. Eggs are good for about a month, but something about having that many eggs makes me a little anxious. So I have been on an egg eating spree this week. Eggs for breakfast, eggs for lunch, eggs for dinner. I might be going slightly crazy.

Yesterday was spent in a whirl wind trying to get ready for today's meeting. I went into Metapan to get the ingredients for hummus and extra large paper for the meeting. I also spent roughly 4 hours of my day walking to every house in my community handing out invitations again. This is not something I enjoy people. It is hot here. Also my community is what my boss calls semi-mountainous, which basically is a nice way of saying there is no down hill in my community. It is up hill all ways. I was beat when I got home, no way I can do that every week. I am hoping people will start just remember to coming on their own.

The lovely ladies that came out in
the rain to the meeting today.

I wanted to take the second meeting and keep it pretty light and fun. I am trying to keep the women coming back. This week I decided to do a cooking class and nutrition lesson. We went over the food pyramid and made hummus. I was a little nervous, as this was the first content based meeting. I spoke a little fast, and the ladies did not care for the hummus, but hey live and learn. I feel happy that I exposed them to something none of them had ever tried before. And I am happy that so many women came out even though it was pouring. 12 women came, my host mom is hiding behind some people because she did not want her picture taken.

I was going to have the women vote on a president, vice president, treasure, etc. today but decided that the group is still a little unstable. So I think until a core group of women start showing every week, I will hold off. But I do think it is key to have them planning the meetings and events. I think it will make the group more sustainable. I know these women are capable of improving their lives, they just need a little push.

Today is also El Salvador independence day from Spain. They won their independence in 1821. That was a long time ago, it is amazing the after effects that the Spanish had on this small country that can still be seen today. The Spanish made it illegal to be an indigenous person, so everyone was forced to dress and act like the Spanish and switch from their native languages to Spanish. An interesting observation about El Salvador is that it has very little culture of its own. But from what I can see, this country is slowly but surly building up its own traditions, but the moving is slow. So everyone have a beer for El Salvador's independence today!

This week I am going to start a new part of my blog where I post submissions from friends. The general idea is to talk about the challenges of be a recently graduated person dealing with life in this economy, or anything they feel like writing about. I am not too strict. If you are reading this and want to submit a post, just leave me a comment or send me an e-mail.

Here are a couple of belated photos from my In Service training a couple of weeks ago.