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

Here We Go One More Time

 I know that my first shot at being a dog mom kind of failed. But I am not easily dissuaded from such things. I know that Hoja was out of control for a couple of reasons. First of all she was out of her mind crazy. Second of all she and I had totally different ideas of the right way to behave. I wanted to enroll her in Chelsea's Mock Petsmart classes and have her behave like a dog in the states. You know, calm and obedient. She had different ideas. Hoja and I ended up parting ways after she crossed some pretty significant lines with my host family. All of this happened and ended by the middle of last November. It has now been almost a year. That is hard to believe.

So I had given up on being a dog mom for the moment. It just was not the time. But then in mid-June things changed. I had seen this little rat of a dog around my neighborhood for a couple of weeks. She was completely malnourished. Matted in mud, covered in wounds and in a loosing battle with scabies and parasites I decided I needed to try to at least give this dog a proper bath and meal. I had no intentions of anything else. But after I found out that her 'owners' had intentions to kill her because they had mistreated her and she ended up in her sad state, and after she slept for about a week straight on my porch, I knew there was no going back. I was a dog mom once again.

So this is Bella. (Pronounced Beya) It means beauty in Spanish. It was meant to be an ironic name since she was so ugly when she came to live with me. But it was also meant to be encouragement to her. I figured if I called her Bella enough, she might just live up to her name. She has made a full recovery in the span of two and a half months. Her scabies is gone. She lost all of her fur and grew in a new, beautiful and thick coat of fur. She could now be described as a little chunky.  

The photo above was when I tried to feed her a hard boiled egg. She failed at eating it. Bella loves all types of fruit, but especially mangos. During mango season I would come home and there would be 5 or 6 mango seeds and skins on my porch. That is a lot of mangos for a human to eat, let alone a little dog! Bella is still a puppy for sure. She has one baby tooth left and is growing. But since she is a mutt and I have no idea who her parents were, I do not know how big she will get. I think she will stay pretty small. Which is just fine by me. :) Also she can already sit on command and shake. My host family things this is fantastic, they have never seen a dog that could shake hands. haha We are still working on waiting and laying down. But poco a poco we are making progress.

 Bella is now super beautiful and so well behaved. I would like to think it is my excellent training skills, but I think she is just too afraid that I will kick her out to do anything too extreme. Some times when I pick up my broom or I walk towards her too quickly she will run away or flinch like she thinks I am going to beat her. It is so sad. She is so starved for love and positive attention. It is lucky for her that I have plenty of it.

Toddlers in Tiaras

I have a back up of stories and pictures to share with you all! I am going to split them up into two posts, for your reading enjoyment of course. Get excited there are some good ones this time. haha 

Sara on the way up to her site

An example of the fuel efficient stoves

They grow a lot of cabbage in her community

So high up we are in the clouds!

A few weeks ago I went to visit a fellow volunteer, Sara. She lives in the department of Chalatanago, near the town of La Palma. Sara lives at the highest point in El Salvador. Which is fitting because she is over 6 feet tall. Salvadorians always say 'La mas alta en la mas alta', which translates to 'the highest at the highest'. haha Sara has a new puppy, named Osa, she is adorable and we played with her a lot. Sara found Osa down by the river that runs through her town. Someone had just thrown her away, and Sara came upon her and rescued her. (Pay attention, this is a reoccurring theme). Sara is working on a fuel efficient stove project with her community, so we walked around to a bunch of the houses that have the new stoves so I could get a better feel for how the project works. I am also working on getting this project to my community. All in all it was a good trip. Her site is much cooler than mine is. We heated up water for our bucket baths, which is something that I have never once considered doing for my bucket baths at home. It is just too hot where I am.

What is wrong with this picture?

At an overlook in the clouds

Three weeks ago the fiestas partonales began in my community. At last year's events, I had budgeted poorly. (You can revisit that here...) Needless to say it was not nearly as fun as I know it could have been. The main goal of the fiestas is to raise money for the church, so almost everything cost money. Games, food, raffles and church services make up the week. There are pupusas, pasteles (a very close relative to enchiladas)  and bagged cucumber and watermelon for sale every night. Along with an hour long church service, the week nights are pretty calm. People from neighboring communities are bussed in for the evening and it is generally a good time. 

Trying to win a madrina's kiss

Waiting for their turn

This was one of the madrinas... 

The last day of the fiestas is the biggest deal. There are a ton of games, more people are bussed in and there is an event called Carrera de Cinta. This is how it is set up. There are a bunch of men that show up on horses and the goal is to get a small stick (that they are holding) through a small quarter sized ring hanging off of a piece of tape hanging on a line. The riders must gallop at full speed and try to get their stick through the ring. Now the prize for doing this is you get a kiss, gift and sash from a 'madrina', which translates to godmother but in this sense it is more like a fairy godmother. Most of the girls were in their late teens, but there were some like the little gem to the left. Looks like stage moms are cross cultural. Another of the events is called the Arco de Noe, Noah's Ark. There is a huge pile of goodies ranging from bags of corn and beans to chickens, to candy and instant coffee, it is all laid out on a table. The way it works is you pay a quarter and pick a slip of paper out of a bucket. On the slip of paper is your prize. Everybody is a winner! Pretty straight forward. It is terribly addicting, and I ended up spending like $3 there over the course of the day. I mostly won these terrible candies that I dislike, but on my last go I ended up winning a watermelon.

Band that played good music, too bad nobody wanted to dance

Ring toss

Another volunteer, Alex, who lives near by came to my towns fiestas

My host mom, slacking off

My Salvadorian family

I won a watermelon at El Arco de Noe