Pig.

Don't look at me like that

As the pig slowly bled out, Alex Girl and I sipped our coffee and contemplated our mortality. We woke up just before four am to the screaming of my alarm and what turned out to be the screaming of my host family’s pig. The sounds erupting from next door were enough to convince anyone that the pig must have known it’s end was eminent. If you are lucky enough to have never been anywhere near a pig, let me explain something. Pigs are very skittish creatures, always in fear. Perhaps this has been genetically ingrained into their DNA, because they inherently know that they are delicious.  If you approach a pig it may just snort and turn away, but try to touch it and things quickly get out of hand. Even if you are just moving the creature from one place to another, it will make such screaming noises as you have never heard. I could be wrong, but that is not what I remember Wilber sounding like in Charlotte’s Web.

The other white meat

I have watched grown men spend the greater part of an afternoon unsuccessfully trying to capture a pig gone rogue. Pigs are crafty and surprisingly mobile. Movies make pigs out to seem as though they are innocent bystanders in the farm life ecosystem. I do not believe this for a second. You can tell just by looking into their eyes that they are trying to (usually unsuccessfully) hatch some kind of plot. Speaking of their eyes, pig eyes give me the heebie-jeebies. They look a little too much like human eyes. It is unnerving.

So far it may sound as though I have something against these animals, but that is far from the truth, really I just don’t want to ever have to look them in the eye. Perhaps it is my own guilt, my own knowing of what is to become of these animals that makes it so difficult for me to look them in the eye. But seeing as I do not have the same troubles with cows or chickens, I find it hard to believe that that is the reason. I will have to contemplate this more.

Meow-Meow wants some pork

By the time Alex and I had risen from bed, made some coffee and tossed on some clothes, my host dad (Orlando) and his cousin (Ariel) had the pig in a makeshift rope harness in the front yard. Ariel tested the sharpness of the recently honed kitchen knife on his thumb as Orlando pulled over an old semi truck tire that would be used as a makeshift butcher’s block. Alex and I stood in the peanut gallery, close enough to see what was going on but far enough away to not be in anyone’s way. As we were watching the two men position the pig so Orlando was sitting on top of it, I told Alex about the revealing new information I had recently learned about Ariel. According to my host mom, Ariel loves to kill. He is blood thirsty, so whenever someone needs something killed, Ariel is the one they call. Unwanted puppies? Check. Cute fluffy rabbits? Check. Pig ready for dinner? Super check. I felt as though I had gained an entirely new view of Ariel, who comes across as a friendly, though introverted kind of guy.

The knife was ready, and so were the men. So the carotid artery was found and the pig was killed. It took about twenty minuets for the pig to completely bleed out, and it put up a hell of a struggle trying to save it’s own life. But in the end, as it seized one last time, Orlando confirmed the pig’s inevitable death.

Pork- It's what's for dinner

My host family purchased the pig from someone who told them that it was pregnant. They do not have a lot, so it was a good investment. Unfortunately after waiting almost nine months, and no adorable litter of piglets popped out they decided it was time to eat her. Orlando took this opportunity to invite anyone who had ever paid him a favor for dinner. Many people came and went though out the afternoon, eating and drinking, joking around and discussing this year’s corn crop.  This is where Orlando is in his element. He loves being the one that is providing the good time and good food.

The day wound down as the afternoon rains arrived. I am not sure I have ever seen my Salvadoran family as content as they were that afternoon. It always amazes me when something as simple as a pig can boost the self worth of a family and bring together a community.

Combatting Litter, One Chip Bag at a Time

Alex Boy teaching us the ways of chip bag wallets

Salvadorans have a junk food addiction. Much like in the States, chips and soda are not only common here, they are a huge problem that lead to diabetes, gastritis and obesity. The chips down here are almost exclusively made by a company called Diana. So if you want chips, people here will ask if they can have some Diana's. Alternatively they are called churros. You can buy a bag of Diana's for as little as 10 cents at any tienda in the country. There are probably about 50 flavors, and that is not an exaggeration. The other thing about Diana's is that each bag comes with about 5 chips in it. I mean, for 10 cents what do you really expect? So people will eat 5, 6, 7 or more bags in a sitting because it does not seem like they are eating very much. But of course, it adds up.

A small sampling of the variety of chips we have down here

Another issue with Diana's is that because they are so cheap, people with very little money will buy Diana's and try to fill up on them. This is a dangerous road to go down. We all know the empty fullness that chips can leave us with. And lets not even get started on the severe lack of nutritional value they have. I mean imagine letting your child eat chips for dinner every night. Often people down here do not consider what kind of health problems this could lead to down the road. Or maybe they do know, but they just do not care.

Ivania being a hand model for me

Enough though about the downside of chip eating. When Alex Boy, a volunteer who lives up the road from me (and should not be confused with Alex Girl), came for my Fiestas Patronales my host mom saw his chip bag wallet and was obsessed. Melida was even more obsessed when she learned that Alex had made the bag himself. He promised to teach us both to make them. So fast forward a couple of months and Melida, her daughters and myself are obsessed with making these wallets and bags and coin purses. Whenever we are out walking somewhere we always are scouring the roads for discarded chip bags. They are everywhere because Salvadorians, for the most part, love to litter. So we take advantage of the terrible ways of the country (excessive chip eating, littering) and collect the bags. Sometimes we only find one or two, but other times we come home with 50.

Once the bags are collected, we clean them and cut them into strips. They are then folded with a same sized strip of paper inside and connected to a chain of similarly folded strips. Once the chain is the length you want the bag to be, you connect the two ends to make a ring. Then you start again. When the bag reaches the desired height you stop and sew the rings together, close it at the bottom and attach a zipper. 

These bags are very inexpensive to make, but other volunteers that have community members make and sell them for a pretty nice profit. The bags go for anywhere between $5 and $10, depending on size. They can be custom ordered by size and color preference (mulit-colored, only one type of chip bag, silver). We are now taking orders!

Please note the left hand only nail polish. This is so her teachers won't see that she has her nails are illegally painted when they are saying their version of the pledge of allegiance

The beginnings of a line

A few completed rings

What it will look like once it is sewn together :)

GAD to the Bone

Ice breaker

As I have mentioned several times on this blog, I am a member and current president of a Peace Corps group called Gender and Development (GAD). GAD El Salvador does not have a shiny history of changing lives and getting people to thing about gender equality. I am not really sure why other than it can be very hard to get anything done in this country, especially when every volunteer has their own agendas and their own communities. But slowly GAD is getting better. We have had some really energetic members in the past administration and in this one as well. The first real event that GAD put on was a musical which was put on by a group of Salvadoran university students. They traveled the country putting on the play for volunteers and groups of their kids.  I wrote about the GAD musical in a previous post, which you can read about here.

Since volunteers serve two year terms, people are always coming and going from the committees. When I came into GAD I was just a pawn in the game. Now that I have some more say and power, we are becoming slightly more organized. We are trying to make GAD a place where volunteers want to be and where kids can have open discussions about gender norms and inequities.

Whole Group

This past weekend GAD put on a youth camp, maybe it's first camp ever. It was a huge success! Six volunteers brought 20 kids on Friday to the capital where we met up and had lunch. For some of the kids it was the first time leaving their communities. Some had never seen an escalator before, others had never seen a flushing toilet. (Can you imagine that? Being 16 years old and never having seen a flushing toilet?) We rented a bus and were picked up and driven to Suchitoto, a small town about an hour outside of the capital. The location we chose for the camp is called Centro de Arte para La Paz, or The Art Center for Peace. When we arrived they had everything ready for us. There were about 10 dormitory style rooms with bunk beds and bathrooms. The kids were split into the rooms based on community and gender (we want to get rid of gender norms, not create babies people!). After the kids dropped their bags off in their rooms, we met up in the main conference room to welcome everyone and start on a series of ice breakers.

Kids with their babies

The first real activity of the weekend started after ice breakers and lasted though Sunday morning. Each kid was given an egg and it was explained that the egg represented a baby. For the rest of the weekend they had to take care of their egg as though it were a real child. They had to carry the egg with them everywhere we went and if they were caught without it, points were deducted until they went and got it. I did random egg checks and they would win points if they had their egg during a check. They could also win points if they decorated their egg, presented it to me with a name and if they babysat the egg of someone else they would be paid in the other persons points. We did this activity to help teach the kids about the responsibility of being a parent. Most of the kids did a really great job. One kid who was very young (12) abandoned his baby for an entire day, so we deducted all of his points. A few of the others dropped their eggs and if that happened they were also out of the game as that represented their baby dying due to negligence. It was impressive how into the game the kids were.

This is my baby. She is a pageant princess!

Maybe I am not ready to be a mom yet??

Saturday was a full day of interactive presentations that covered a range of topics. Each of the volunteers present gave a couple of presentations or led a couple of activities through out the weekend. We did several presentations educating about HIV/AIDS, we did a proper condom use presentation and we talked about the double standard for women and men regarding relationships and sex. We had a career panel made up of professionals from Suchitoto and Peace Corps come and talk about their jobs. This was so the kids could see different types of jobs that they might not get introduced to in normal life. We had a police officer, a woman who works at a hotel, a woman who owns an artisan shop and two staff from Peace Corps. In reality, most of these kids will end up working in the corn fields or taking care of their kids and home. I was happy they got to hear from the Salvadoran professionals and get a different perspective. The panel had a lot of really great things to say and had a lot of great advice for the kids. Even if one kid took something away from the talk, I think it will have been a success.

Figuring out what exactly HIV/ AIDS stands for

Figuring out how you can and cannot contract HIV

All of the volunteers that made the camp happen

Another part of the camp that was a huge success was the question box we put out. On the first day of the camp we explained that if any of them had questions about anything that they were too embarrassed to ask in front of the whole group they could write it down and we would go over it at the end of the camp. So Saturday night we sat down with all of the kids and went over the questions and answered them. The questions were really good, no one put anything inappropriate or fake into the box which surprised me. All of the questions were legitimate, and I felt so proud that we were able to help these kids get a better grip on some taboo topics that they might not get proper information on otherwise. After we answered the questions in the box, we split into boys and girls and we opened up the floor for more questions that they might be embarrassed to ask in front of the opposite sex. The girls had great questions, and according to the guy volunteers, the boys in the group also did.     

Beautiful Church in Suchitoto

Kids at Papa Johns before the camp started

Getting to know each other a little bit better

We also made time to do some fun activities. We tye-dyed shirts, took a walk into the center of town and had some hang out time. The kids did not want to leave the camp and that, for me, was the biggest indicator that the camp was a hit. Hopefully some of them took a few new pieces of information and perspectives
away from the experience. If not, they all at least know how to use a flushing toilet now. :D

Beautiful overlook

Getting the t-shirts ready

Tye-dying

Finished product!

Where the camp was held

Beautiful rainbow!

"In this house, we want a life free of violence against women" This is spray painted all over the town, pretty awesome.

Dulces: This Post is Almost One Year Old

Enough sugar? Never

A couple times a year, the US Embassy invites Peace Corps volunteers to come and sell goods that our community members make. My host mom, Melida, makes the best candies. They just melt in your mouth. I asked Melida if she would be game to make a bunch of sweets for me to sell at the Embassy, she said yes. So I decided to take advantage of the craft fair the Embassy held the day after Thanksgiving, and we got to work making candies.

Melida putting the coconut into the molino

We (I use this term quite loosely, it was mostly Melida and other women in my community)  made three types of sweets. We made dulce de leche, leche de burro and dulce de coco. So milk candy, milk of donkey and coconut candy. (No we did not actually use donkey milk, I'm not even sure if that exists.) We did it all in one day, one very long day. I went to town to get the ingredients, which included 10lbs of sugar(!), cinnamon, fresh milk, coconut meat and a bi-product of making sugar, called dulce de moliendo. I have never seen this in the states, but basically when sugar cane is being boiled to extract the sugar, a film forms on the top and when collected, creates this dulce de moliendo. It is almost like a thick, hard caramel.

Coconut coming out

The candy making started at 1:00 and ended at 9pm. As I have mentioned before, Salvadorans love all things that contain obscene amounts of sugar. So it should come as no surprise that their homemade sweets are mostly sugar. My favorite sweet is the Dulce de Leche. It is sugary and kind of creamy with a hint of cinnamon.

Quality testing 

 

The day after Thanksgiving I headed to the Embassy to sell. Mostly Salvadoran staff working at the embassy and small children loved and bought the dulces. Some American staff tried them, but like many adult Americans, they did not particularly care for them. Too sweet. No problem though, there was plenty of profit regardless of the lack of American enthusiasm for cavities.

Coconut meat and sugar 

 

 

Dulce de Coco

Women from the community making the dulces

Beginnings of Leche de Burro

Leche de Burro simmering

Leche de Burro

Dulce de Coco

Dulce de Leche in the beginning stages

Niña Dora giving me a sassy look while stirring

Mold for the Dulce de Leche

More quality testing... very important

Pouring the Dulce de Leche into the mold

Finished and cut Dulce de Leche

Had to hang the dulces from rope in my house so they would not get attacked by ants

 

Piles of dulces for sale