365 Days And Counting

It's official people. I have been living in my little community in El Salvador, The Savior, for one whole year. It is crazy how time slips away. Almost every volunteer I have spoken to says that the second year flies by. And I believe it. I feel like I blinked and the last 14 months passed by. I went through two months of training, my census, more training, I got chickens and a dog, my family visited, I tried out a women's group, I had an embassy Thanksgiving, I went home for the holidays, I basked in the glory of the dry season, I enjoyed the beginning of my second mango season, I watched many of my friends leave the country early, saw Peace Corps totally restructure its program and now I am here. One year in. My bosses are visiting me tomorrow for my 'year in site visit'. It is hard to believe that this time last year I was just arriving to my community, figuring everything out. It is actually a little scary when I think about it. In 11 months and 3 weeks I am going to go back to Florida. Then what? I will be 25 and jobless. It might seem silly, but 25 seems like such a huge milestone. My Dad always says that your 20s are for doing everything you can. Do everything, go everywhere, see it all. Game on.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programing:
Sometimes I am overwhelmed by how nice people in my community are. The other day I returned from a couple days in the capital. While I was away there was a heavy rain storm. (A storm that has left an absurd amount of humidity and don't even get me started on the fact that it is supposed to be the dry season right now.) This rain storm eroded a bunch of dirt from my downward sloped front yard and made a mud block in front of my gate. So when I returned I was unable to enter through my gate. As I approached my gate and came to this realization a neighbor of mine was out. I commented to him on my inability to enter, but decided to just walk around to my host families house. Our yards are connected, so it is not a problem. I got to my house and put my bags down. Then I heard something so I went out on my porch and saw my neighbor, who had seen me unable to enter through my gate, digging out the blocked area. It only took him a few minutes to clear the area, but it meant so much to me. If he had not cleared it I would have probably avoided clearing it for at least a week and just used my host families entrance any time I needed to leave. It's the little things.

Speaking of little things, when I was in San Salvador this week I stopped at the grocery store. The grocery stores are way fancier in the capital and have a larger variety of goods. I had not planned on buying anything specific, but when I came across a bag of brussel sprouts I could not say no. I truly believe my Mom must be the best mom ever because everyone in my family loves brussel sprouts. So I bought them and had them for dinner tonight. It was fantastic. (I also purchased two Dr Peppers. Also fantastic.)

A couple of weeks ago were the elections for mayor here in El Salvador. The elections were all over the country, and due to past unrest during election time, Peace Corps put its volunteers on standfast for a few days while the elections took place. There are five main political parties (ARENA, FMLN, GANA, PDC, and PCN). There were signs for each party littering the streets of every city, pueblo, canton and casarillo. Most signs consisted of a photo of the person running and the name of the party with a huge X through it. For the longest time I thought each of the signs had been vandalized by someone who disliked that party. But I did think it was strange that these ne'er-do-wells took the time to X out every single sign in the county. But what do I know about Salvadorian politics? Maybe this is a problem that comes up every year. I eventually figured out that the X through the party name is how voting is conducted. Voting is still conducted on paper down here. So when you get your ballot you mark your vote with an X through the party you are voting for. Too confusing for me.

Baby pig! We named him Pumpkin. 

Neri, Joelle and I at a new restaurant in Metapan.
(Please ignore my terrible bangs.)