Dad In The Savior

Just in case any of you readers out there were unaware, my Dad is awesome. He decided that he wanted to make a second trip down here to El Salvador. This is, in terms of parents visiting their kids in El Salvador a minor miracle. I have heard stories of families that refuse to come down or change their plans at the last moment for a more tropical/ resort like option. Parents who have revamped their wills before making the trip. Or parents who come down, but cannot tough it out in our living situations and give up after one night. These stories are endless.

Host family and Dad in the corn fields

My family were troopers when then came down for a week last year, and my Dad was a rock star when he came down this year for ten days. He told me that he wanted to live the life I live down here in rural El Salvador. In order to really get a sense of that you need to spend consecutive nights in my site. He arrived the day after Christmas and we stayed in my site for six nights in a row. Folks that is a lot of time for people from the first world, but my Dad is a champ and did not complain once. In fact he embraced the life, taking bucket baths (or not depending on what the day dictated), visiting houses with me, helping organize my wacky stove project, reading an entire book, getting his hair cut and slicked back in town, visiting the my host family's corn fields playing with Bella, improving his Spanish skills and trying new foods (like armadillo).

Bonding

The week kicked off when I surprised him the airport in San Salvador. I had told him that I would arrange for a taxi to pick him up and take him to a mall in San Sal, where I would be waiting with the car we had rented. Instead I had the car rental guy pick me up in San Sal and drop the car and I off at the airport. Surprise accomplished. We immediately took off for my community in northern Santa Ana, a department on the western side of the country. The next days were relaxed with a bit of work thrown in. I cannot express how helpful it was to have my Dad around ready to spring into action the moment I mentioned I needed to purchase and get materials delivered for my stove project. We ate with families in my community, and the food was good. No repeats of last years atol. Gracias a Dios.

Bella took to my Dad instantly, which was great since I had recently decided that I wanted to take Bella home with me at the end of my service. We figured out that the easiest course of action would probably be for Bella to go home with him, now. There is a lot of paperwork that needs to get done in order to send a pet internationally, and there are a lot of variables. You need to present her vaccination record, a clean bill of health from a vet and paperwork from the department of agriculture. (Did I mention that all of these papers are only good for 10 days?) Also you must have a kennel that is the correct size for the dog, a water bowl and something for her to lie on. The most unpredictable part of it all is the weather. If it is too hot or too cold in any of the locations that the dog will be (departure, layovers or arriving cities) on the day that the dog is supposed to fly, they can tell you then and there that you are out of luck and you must go home and try again another day.

Ataco

Dad and I also spent our first New Years in El Salvador. Last year I went home for the holidays and missed it. This year I got to experience both Christmas and New Years here. New Years is very much like Christmas down here. The day is just like any other day, but the real celebration is at night (just like in the US). There were more firecrackers than any community should legally be aloud to have. We ate dinner over at Melida and Orlando's house, baked chicken, rice and coleslaw. Yum. Also because a couple days before Orlando had figured out that my Dad had never tried Armadillo, Orlando cooked some up special. Lucky Dad. Neither of us made it to midnight (I mean common it is almost 5 hours past my bedtime!), but that was ok. I did wake up to the sound of thousands of firecrackers going off at once when the clock hit midnight, and again around two am when there was a bolo in the street yelling for my host dad to come out. (I asked him about it the next day and he told me that he did eventually go out, but only to throw a bucket of water on the guy and tell him to go home.)  

Getting ready

After spending six consecutive nights in my site, Dad and I packed up the car and headed down to Ataco in the department of Ahauchapán. We spent the day wandering in and out of all of the artsy shops and having lunch at a little French restaurant. Ataco will always be one of my favorite places in El Salvador. They have great coffee and art. That coupled with the cool climate and laid back vibe is all anyone could ask for. The next morning we headed out to travel to the town of Suchitoto in the department of Cuscatlán. On our way through San Salvador, we stopped at the necessary places to make sure we had all of the paperwork necessary for Bella's rapidly approaching departure.

The afternoon we had in Suchitoto was beautiful. The town is known for its quaint town square, cobble stone roads and artisan shops. This is the town where I held my GAD camp back in September. We stayed in this awesome hotel called Los Almendros. We spent the afternoon shopping in town, swimming in the hotel's pool, reading and catching up on the internet. We ate at the hotel's restaurant and afterwards found a small revolutionary themed bar I had heard about. Pretty cool.

The next morning we left Suchitoto and headed back to my community for one last night. Bella was thrilled to see us as we drove up. We had one last dinner with my host family that night. They were dealing with the passing of one of their close friends due to a tragic construction accident, so the mood was heavy and nostalgic. But when I offered to take a rain check on the dinner so they could spend time with family, Melida told me that we were family and they wanted us there.

At the airport!

The last day we woke up early and packed up the car with all of my Dad's belongings, souvenirs and of course Bella and we traveled to the airport. Gracias a Dios there were no problems getting Bella checked in. So I said farewell to my Dad and my pup and I headed back to site. They did not have any issues going home, except that after being trapped in her kennel for hours upon hours, Bella decided to pee in the middle of the customs baggage claim. Don't worry Dad cleaned it up.

So now Bella is a spoiled American dog. She has been groomed at Petsmart. I mean how much more spoiled can you get? Also it could not have worked out better with my parents current dog CJ, they are best friends now.

All in all my Dad's trip was a huge success. Turns out he is the exception not the rule, but I already knew that.

Stove Project: Part One

Brick delivery!

About eight months ago I decided I wanted to take on a popular project: fuel efficient, less smoke producing, permanent  stoves. They are actually pretty bad ass. I visited a fellow volunteers site and saw her project and how people in her community were clamoring for these stoves. She could not get the funds fast enough to hand out these stoves. That coupled with watching Melida and her girls breathing in black smoke produced from their current stove was enough to motivate me to start the solicitation process to bring this project to my community. If only I had known what lay ahead of me.

Cement

The first step is to solicit the NGO, Trees Water People, as they are the ones who supply the training and the more expensive materials. So I wrote up the solicitude (in Spanish), got it signed by all of the members of my communities council and submitted it to TWP. After I got confirmation from them that I would be able to get the materials for the 30 stoves that my community wanted to build, I applied for a grant with ECPA (Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas). The grant was approved through a branch of Peace Corps El Salvador that deals directly with ECPA. This is where I received the majority of the funds for the materials that TWP were not providing. I received those funds in August.

Pile of sand and barrel of molasses

The steps mentioned above were the easy part. It has been more than a struggle to find a mason that needed work, to purchase all of the materials necessary and to get Trees Water People to come out to bring me the rest of the materials and train my mason. All of that has taken six months. Oy. I have been simultaneously stressed out and very calm about how all of this was going to go down.  Here is a brief run down of how it all went and the lessons I have learned to date:

I have really great, supportive friends. They have been so helpful and understanding in my quest to find the best materials for the lowest prices. They have gone house to house with me in search of a suitable mason. They have brought materials to my house in their cars. That part has been awesome.

Put Dad to work on his trip down here

Some of the materials needed for the project were a bit hard to find. For example the chimneys are concrete tubes with a 4in diameter. These are not stocked in most hardware stores, you have to call ahead and have them ordered. Bricks and sand must be ordered and delivered to the house. The sand was especially hard to get a hold of. The company said they would deliver it one day and it did not actually show up until three days later. Another challenge was the getting the molasses that is mixed in and used to hold some of the materials together. There are only a couple of places that sell this molasses, I needed a giant barrel to hold it all in, and it has to be transferred in a truck that does not have a downward swinging door to the pickup bed.

Very specific sized, hard to find tubes for the chimneys

And then there were Trees, Water People. They have been less than helpful through out this whole process. They told me that in order for them to come out a train my mason on how to make these stoves and make the example stove, I needed to collect the names and identification numbers of all of the people who were going to want a stove in my community. So I took one of my host sisters and went house to house. I got all of the information I needed and I scanned it and e-mailed it all in. They said ok, but it was going to have to wait. They were busy this week, and next week they had another training and the week after was Christmas and the week after that was New Years, but call us after the new year and we will see what we can schedule. Ugh. New Years came and went, and I dropped my Dad and Bella off at the airport. On my way home, I was with another volunteer and she gets a text from the main guy at TWP. I was starting to think this guy was avoiding me. So then and there I called him.

That phone call and the others that I had with this guy over the next few days grew more and more heated. He said he wanted to do the training in a different volunteers site. I knew for a fact that this volunteer solicited for this project after me and that she had not collected any of the materials for the stoves yet. I confirmed this with her and I called TWP back. I told them that I was ready. I had a family who had everything ready to go right then. He relented and said he would come and do the training in my site. But he told me that he would only bring the materials for the one stove. That I did not understand, I mean I thought the whole point of my getting the list of community members together was so that he could bring me enough materials for many stoves. He said this trip was just to do the example stove. I thought I might cry. This project was never going to get started, let alone finished before my service came to an end.

Will this project ever finish? Only time will tell! Stay tuned for parts 2 through 1,000!

Santa Baby

Sparklers!

I have a little catching up to do on here. I keep coming up with topics to write about, but more and more events keep occurring. Then I feel overwhelmed and I do not know where to start, so I just don't. I don't write and weeks go by, and more blog worthy events happen etc. It is a vicious cycle. So I am going to start off slowly and try to catch up on all of the happenings down here in The Savior.

Christmas was a couple of weeks ago, but it was my first Christmas away from home. Last year I flew to Florida for the holidays with my family so I did not get to experience a Salvadoran Christmas or New Years. This year, it was a hard decision not to be home, but I decided to stay and celebrate with my Salvadoran family. As it turns out Christmas, which is celebrated on the December 24th, is much like any other day here. My host dad, Orlando, got up and went to work in the fields. All stores in town are open. Presents are not common. ( I am sure this is for a number of reasons including that most rural families cannot afford them.)

Dirt Fight!

I got up on the 24th and did some yard work. Later in the day I had some dirt delivered and got my garden started. (Which I have been trying to get going for about a year.) Melida, my host mom, decided this would be a great opportunity to tackle me into the giant pile of dirt in my yard. That is the story of the Christmas Dirt Fight of 2012. I may need to make this a yearly tradition...

Cojete anyone?

                                                                       The evening of the 24th is when most of the festive activities take place. Most families make a baked chicken and either eat it in a really delicious sauce or in a sandwich with coleslaw and said delicious sauce. My host family decided to switch it up a little this year and we had grilled beef, rice and pico de gallo. Pretty delicious. The other big part of a Salvadoran Christmas is firecrackers, or cojetes. I set off almost two hundred firecrackers that night. Thank goodness Orlando is such an entrepreneur and decided to sell firecrackers in the front yard all night.

Jossline is my Christmas present this year :)

                                                                          It is also tradition to stay up until midnight on the 24th. At midnight everyone lights off hundreds of fireworks all at once. Unfortunately this year I was fighting some flu like symptoms so after my firecracker rampage, I crashed and decided to call it a night. It was already 2.5 hours past my bed time at this point. 10:30 is late. So I headed to bed, but was rudely awakened at midnight with all of El Salvador lighting off firecrackers at once.

Melida getting a little too into the Christmas spirit.

 The 25th of December was just another day down here. I cleaned up my house in preparation of picking up my Dad the next day. Orlando and I went and purchased giant chickens to eat on New Years. I did have a great time catching up with my parents and my best friend, Ali. As I am wrapping up my service down here and I cannot help but wonder where I will be for Christmas next year...

I hope you all had a great holiday season!