Si Dios Le Permite

Death in El Salvador is, unfortunately common place. The Civil War that started it all started in 1979 and lasted until 1992. Upwards of 80,000 people died. Remember that El Salvador is roughly the size of Massachusetts. So consider if Massachusetts went to war within its self. Here is a brief history of the civil war that took place here:

 In 1980, El Salvador's civil war officially began.  The US government-supported Salvadoran military targeted anyone they suspected of supporting social and economic reform. Over the ensuing twelve years, thousands of victims died.  Some of the most notable were Archbishop Oscar Romero (shot to death 1980), four US church workers (raped and murdered 1980) and six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter (shot to death at home 1989).  The military death squads wiped-out entire villages believed to be assisting the guerrilla efforts.  In 1981, the military killed over 1,000 people in the village of El Mozote. (As a reference my community has about 850 people in it.)  The first reports of the attacks were denied by both El Salvador, but after the mass graves were uncovered, it was hard to deny what had taken place.

 The opposing side was lead by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition of five left-wing guerrilla groups. As the military defended their stand of killing any alleged rebels, the FMLN also worked to blow-up bridges, cut power lines, destroy coffee plantations and anything else to damage the economy that supported the government.  The FMLN murdered and kidnapped government officials.  The war eventually came to an end in 1990 with the establishment of a new civilian police force, some constitutional amendments and FMLN's was to be allowed to function as a political party in the nation's democratic process. The Peace Accords were not actually signed though until 1992.

During the Civil War here, many Salvadorians sought refuge in the United States. In order to protect themselves from violent gangs in the US, these guerrilla trained Salvadorans created a little gang called MS-13, you may have heard of them. They are quite violent and deal in all of the shady things you would expect them to deal in. As you would expect these violent gang members eventually started to get deported back to El Salvador where they pick thing right back up. There are now several gangs down here, M-13 being one of them. Since the war and then later the development of these gangs, El Salvador has known a lot of death. A few months ago El Salvador was ecstatic to announce its first murder free day in years. This was epic. However although the murder rate here seems to be going down, most people just assume that the murders are still happening, they are just going unreported. 

Ok, so that was a lot of history (most of which was gotten from Wikipedia), but I wanted to make sure you all understood a bit of the background of El Salvador's violent history. I also want to say that El Salvador is full of lovely people. Please do not get the wrong idea about this country, they have just been given the crap end of the stick too many times. Many Salvadorans are so used to this culture of people they love dying that they have developed sayings that are hard to ignore. The most prevalent saying being 'si Dios le permite', meaning 'if God allows it'. If you invite someone to a meeting or to dinner etc, many will respond with 'si Dios le permite'. Basically it is like saying if I don't die before then, I will go. That is some heavy stuff. I will also say that it can also be used as an excuse to get out of doing something or going somewhere, and that is just annoying.

Last Friday was the Day of the Dead in Central America. I went with my host family to a cemetery in the community above mine. We cleaned off and decorated the graves of my host mom, Melida's, father and grandmother. Her father asked to have pine needles sprinkled on his grave every year, so we did that on both of the graves and then decorated the tombstones with multicolored plastic flowers. The graveyard was full of people when we got there, all doing the same thing. There is no groundskeeper for the cemetery's down here, so it can get a bit sloppy looking if the families do not come and keep the area in order. Another interesting fact I learned while there was that you must pay the mayor's office every 5 years to keep your family interred. If you do not pay, they apparently have the right to come in and dig up the body of the family that did not pay so the spot can be used by someone else... Rough stuff right there. There was also a short mass in the cemetery. I was surprised to see that everyone I came across was generally in a happy, social mood. This was not a time for grieving over lost loved ones, it was a time to celebrate their lives and re-connect with friends. 

It amazes me how resilient this culture is. These people have been knocked down again and again, yet they keep moving forward the best they can.  I do not have any photos because I was unsure if it would be appropriate. Looking back I am sure it would have been fine, but I was not trying to be the crazy gringa in the cemetery taking pictures of everything.

Madness... In A Good Way

Rawr.

What do you get when you mix 30 kids, 3 chaperones, a broken down car, a zoo and and one of the most dangerous cities on earth? Madness, that's what. I woke up yesterday, after sleeping 12 hours straight, feeling like I got hit by a train. It is stressful being in charge of other people's children.

A lot of cotton candy was involved in this day.

This was the second excursion that my youth group went on. I met my kids at 6am and we walked up to the entrance of the community to meet the Alex with his kids and bus we hired to take us to San Salvador to go to the Zoo. After we picked up lunch for 35 people we hit the road. It is about a two hour drive to San Salvador. As we were arriving into the city, Natalie (the third volunteer involved in this project) called and told us that she and her kids were 30 minutes outside the city but were stuck in terrible traffic AND their transport had broken down. Poor girl, she has had such terrible luck with transport during this project. On our first excursion to the beach, the transport she had arranged canceled the night before the trip. She ended up finding new transport, but now on this second trip her transport broke down. So I took 22 kids to the Zoo and Alex went with our bus driver to go find Natalie and her kids.

Tired kids after the scavenger hunt.

I set down some guidelines for the kids. Pretty straight forward stuff, do not talk to strangers, do not leave the Zoo, do not touch or feed any of the animals etc. We had created an informational scavenger hunt for the kids to complete, but I did not want to start it without Natalie's kids, so I gave the kids that were with me an hour of free time to explore the Zoo. Luckily Alex was able to find Natalie and her kids pretty quickly. When they got to the Zoo, we broke the kids up into groups of three (one from each community) sent them off to complete the scavenger hunt. We gave them two hours to find the answers to 40 questions. A lot of the answers could be found by simply reading the plaques in front of each animal. But some of the more complicated or strange questions you had to examine the animals or ask Zoo staff for the answer. Example: How many toes does an ostrich have? What kind of food does a hippo eat? When looking at birds, which gender tends to be more colorful? We also told the kids that they needed to put the scientific name of each animal with each answer, that way we could ensure that they had actually visited the animals. I think the kids really enjoyed this part of the trip.

This was also there...

Castle and slide

After the Zoo, we gathered around and ate our lunch. We then headed to a small natural history museum, where we learned all about the topographical, animal and sedimentary history of El Salvador. There were lots of stuffed animals, fossils and maps for everyone to get a good sense of what our guide was talking about. Our guide was very well informed and kept the kids engaged, which might be a miracle since it was around 2:30 at this point and everyone was starting to fade. After our museum tour we headed over to this really cool park that was on the same property. We gave the kids an hour or so to blow off any extra steam they might have had. There as a really awesome slide that was connected to a castle type house. All of the kids loved it. And of course I had to take my own turn on the slide just to see what it was all about. Pretty awesome.

Oh yeah we did matching shirts!

We headed home around 4, which was a little later than we had wanted to get on the road, but the kids were having such a good time that it was hard to pull them away. We ended up hitting some traffic and did not actually make it home until 6:30. Parents were starting to get worried at that point, but we all made it back in one piece. Oh and Natalie's transport driver was able to get the car fixed while we were at the Zoo, so she was able to make it home safely as well. When we got to our community I asked my kids if they were exhausted and they replied that they were not tired, but were still having fun from the trip. I am going to count this as a success, even with the AM craziness. Two trips down, one to go!

One last thing: RAINY SEASON HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN DECLARED OVER. Halleluiah people, halleluiah. 

Facts Of My Current Life

1. I just used Fabreeze as perfume. Rainy season is upon us and it is not doing any favors for my clothes. Mildew is not a smell that suits me.

2. This is the current state of my shoes...

3. I was discussing dating prospects with another volunteer the other day. We both agreed that proximity to us is our current most attractive aspect in a guy. I realize how ridiculous this is, but it is where we are at right now.

4. I have 100 bottles of home made shampoo sitting on the floor of my house waiting to be labeled and sold. That is a lot of shampoo. The honey flavor makes my hair look fantastic.

5. Lest you think I am complaining about my life, my bangs have grown out! I no longer have to deal with them! Yay! And it only took nine months.

6. I went flower shopping a couple of weeks ago and bought some really beautiful flowers that are now hanging on my porch. Heaven forbid I could plant something in the ground that is not protected by a yard of chicken wire. Chickens eating everything in site is a definite downside of chick rearing.





7. I just had this super awesome dress made. 

Pay no mind to my hair please.

8. I found okra in the market yesterday! I repeat OKRA! Nom.

9. I am getting ready for my next excursion with my youth group. We are going to the Zoo and an environmental museum in San Salvador next Saturday. The kids seem pretty excited about going to the zoo, this will be all of their first trips to the zoo and to the capital.

10. I officially have less than five months left of my Peace Corps service... Where did the time go? I feel like yesterday I was leaving my Mom in the Panama City Beach airport to head off to staging and now I am thinking about what is next. Crazy

Giant Chihuahua or Miniature Doberman?

It has been four months since Bella came into my life. We are still getting along swimmingly. She has gotten so adorable! She is now all vaccinated up and loving life.

This was right after she came to live with me.

This was a couple of weeks ago, she has grown so much!

In my biggest Bella news, I just got  her fixed. She she has been such a trooper. There is a vet in my pueblo, so the plan was to get her fixed there. I made the appointment a couple of weeks before hand, but the day before her surgery I stopped by just to make sure everything was kosher for the next day. As it turns out they had run out of anesthesia... What kind of vet's office runs out of anesthesia you ask? The kind you do not want to be taking your dog to, that's what kind. Unfortunately I was having a freak out at this time about Bella getting pregnant because I think she is around the right age to get her first heat. I do not really wish to deal with puppies or with dogs in heat. So I called my good friend Neri and he found a recommendation for a good vet in the city of Santa Ana. 

Everything worked out great until I got her home from the surgery. The vet's office had not given me a cone to put around Bella's neck. So the morning after I brought her home, I noticed that one of her stitches had been pulled out. By that afternoon another one was missing. That is when my freak out started. I called my Dad who was super great and tried to coach me through some 9th grade geometry on how to make my own cone from an old cardboard box I had in the house. I failed. Totally my fault, geometry never was my thing. I should also mention that it was especially hot and humid that day and we had not had water running in about a week. I could not go into town to see if the vet there had a cone because I could not leave Bella alone for fear she would pull more stitches out. I could not bathe and cool off because there was no water. I could not control anything. It was after the failed cone attempt that the crying started. 

Poor Bella with a cone.

Not knowing what else to do, I called Neri and immediately broke down into tears again. I think that freaked him out as I am pretty sure crying girls do not call him very often. Also even if they do, I would bet that it is almost never about their dog. Any who, Neri saved the day again and brought me a cone from the vet's office. Bella was hesitant about the cone at first, but after a couple of days she became quite attached. She even growled at me when I tried to clean it. 

She looks like a vacuum when she eats with her cone on

All of her stitches are now out and she is healing quite nicely. I do not know how she is going to adapt to living outside again though. She has been quite spoiled with sleeping on the bed since her surgery. And yes I did wrap her in an ace bandage held together with barrettes, thank you for asking!

Spoiled pup!

Typical Day At The Office

Learning the dos and don'ts of turtle releasing

 The fog was thick and the full moon hung low in the sky as the 25 of us pulled away from the entrance of my community. Alex Boy brought his 13 kids, I had my nine, plus the driver on loan from the mayor's office. We were on our way to starting an adventure these kids would probably remember for the rest of their lives.

About two months ago I got together with two other volunteers, Alex Boy and Natalie, and we decided we wanted to do a joint project that included youth in our respective communities and was based on the environment. What we came up with was an environment based youth group. In each of our communities we have started youth groups that meet once a week, but there is a slight twist. We have planned three trips where all three of the communities will unite and participate in activities together. We applied for a grant to help fund everything, and just recently received the money to get the ball rolling.

 Bucket of baby sea turtles!

After several weeks of youth group meetings we had the first trip this past Saturday. Us three volunteers took 35 kids to the beach to release baby sea turtles. None of the kids in my youth group had ever been to the beach before. Since the beach is such a big part of American culture, it is hard to imagine a childhood without sand and waves. Needless to say my kids were blown away by every aspect of the beach, from the hotness of the sand to the immensity of the water.   

Getting ready to hand out the sea turtles!

We were collaborating on this project with an NGO called FUNZEL. This organization has seven beaches in El Salvador where they work to protect baby sea turtles. They were so helpful with our project. We did apply and receive grant money to help with the costs of this project, but it would have been almost impossible for this part of the project to have been as successful as it was without this NGO. They set us up with a member of the beach community where we were who collaborates with FUNZEL. This guy was awesome, he let us completely take over his beach front house, bathrooms, kitchen and pool.  Also the NGO did not charge us to participate. Usually they charge something like $5 a person for the experience (which if I were doing this on my own would be totally worth it), but since they know about the work Peace Corps does and since we agreed to have the kids do a trash clean up, we were not charged.  

Juan with a baby turtle

The NGO brought about 100 one day old sea turtles for us to release. We stood behind a rope in the sand and freed our little turtles to take their chances in the wild. As they clambered off towards their future I could not help but think what a tough life it will be for the little nuggets. Most of them will not make it. Many will be eaten by another animal, while some will be killed through more human methods such as pollution.

After we released the sea turtles, the kids broke into teams and we held a little competition to see who could collect the most trash on the beach. It was very impressive how motivated the kids got with the promise of a prize for the winner. We were able to collect a ton of trash, maybe the equivalent of ten of the big black trash bags.
 
After the trash pick up we headed down the beach a bit to visit a protected turtle nest. These eggs are guarded 24 hours a day by a guard hired by the NGO. Turtle egg theft is huge in El Salvador because there is a huge market of people who sell them for consumption. NGOs like FUNZEL are staging massive campaigns all over the country to promote the protection of these eggs. But unfortunately it is still common, a quick tour into just about any street market in El Salvador and you will surly find turtle eggs for sale.
  

The line we stood behind to release the turtles

 For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon the kids had free time to explore the beach and take advantage of the house/ pool that was generously being lent to us.

All alone in the great wide ocean

It was great to see the kids getting to know and working with people from other communities. It is our, the volunteers', hope that these kids will come away from this experience not only with more knowledge of their environment, but with some new experiences and lasting friendships. Our groups will continue to meet every week in our own communities, until our next excursion in late October. We will be headed to the Zoo in San Salvador next. Can't wait!   

Francisco and Ivania (my host sister) experiencing the beach for the first time

Trash clean up!

German (pronounced Herman) and Juan with their collected trash

It was a great day for the kids, but kind of stressful for the volunteers

My awesome youth group!