PC: Pre-service Training Week One
We packed in the Peace Corps vehicles after our final sessions at Centro Loyola, ready to meet our host families in Nuevo Cuscatlan, San Antonio and Siete de Marzo the afternoon of July 26. Our Language and Cultural Facilitators (LCFs) dropped us off and introduced us to our families, then we were left on our own to settle in. My family runs a restaurant that expands back into a house. The restaurant is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday for dinner, and it has a little tienda window that is open all the time for people who need things like juice or toilet paper or snacks. People are constantly coming and going, but generally I live with my host mom (and the dad wanders through sometimes), her son (in his forties) and his wife (in her thirties, maybe) and their daughter (one and three months), a woman who makes the pupusas, and a teenager who helps out with the restaurant and around the house every day (neither of whom technically live here, but they come before I get up and leave after I go to sleep so I count them too), and at least one grandson who I think maybe lives in the back with his grandpa but I'm not sure.
I came on a Friday, so everyone was busy all evening with restaurant business, taking orders, making pupusas, tacos and burritos, delivering food and cleaning up. That first night I went to bed early after a bit of conversation with the family and slept like a rock. We were up early, and after a bucket bath and a breakfast of pureed beans, crema and some sort of salty hard cheese, I headed to the training center with niña Ana (don't ask me why they say niña instead of doña as a sign of respect) to meet up with my Spanish group to make a community map. I was pretty sick on the way there, but since Ana saw me she now is careful to avoid giving me pretty much any dairy, which is a definite plus. It was awesome to walk around town with our host moms because they all loved chatting with each other and gave us good advice about places to avoid around town (namely the two bars because of the drunks and the soccer fields because of the marijuana) and together with our LCF got us a tour of some of the important buildings around town.
We toured the Municipal clinic and the Catholic church, and walked into some English classes and learned about the current projects (dying clothes and making candles for export) in the Artisan workshop. When I got home, Roberto and Marcos got really into the project and together made a bigger, more detailed version of my little sketch map, identifying pretty much every building in town and most of their owners. I was impressed. It's not a big town, but basically every family supports themselves with a little shop of some kind. The English teacher asked me to help out in his class, so I spent an hour talking in English to a group that ranged from absolute beginners to intermediate speakers. I found out that all the English classes are free, as are many of the other exercise and artisan classes around town. The new mayor has done wonders for this town. I spent the rest of the day hanging out with the other two in my Spanish group, wandering around town, getting ice cream and playing cards.
Sunday was a free day so mostly I talked to Marcos and Roberto and Ana about life in El Salvador, life in the US (Roberto lived in Boston for many years), Salvadoran slang, the mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlan, and festival days. I spent the afternoon learning card games from two other trainees and got roped into pizza dinner at their house. Pizza included cheese, green peppers, three different types of ham, baby shrimp and something kind of like pizza sauce to dip it all in. The family expected the three of us to finish an extra large pizza on our own. We left about four slices, and they were terribly disappointed in us. The hardest thing about adjusting to life in El Salvador right now is the food. I like the food, but it is all heavy and usually fried, every meal includes at least two tortillas and beans and rice (basically a meal on their own) and it is a serious offense to leave anything on your plate. Also, for some reason fresh fruits and veggies are not a normal thing. I am working on getting my portions down to kiddie size and my foods without any salt, but it takes some convincing.
Monday was a San Salvador day. We got our Salvadoran identity cards and toured the awesome Peace Corps office (which we are never allowed to visit, since San Salvador is off-limits), then sat down to a few sessions outlining our ten weeks of pre-service training. We have lots of directed and self-directed community activities to complete over our ten weeks, as well as language and cultural training, periodic assessment interviews and presentations, technical training, and required journal entries. It all looks interesting and challenging. I'm excited to get started on our community contact activities and the technical training so we can better interact with local groups and work with them on projects. New cellphones in hand courtesy of the Tigo representative (well, actually old trainee phones with new SIM cards), we all piled back in the van just as a downpour started. I took advantage of the evening to read the material on my USB drive, finish a few pending forms, and make a list of all our assignments for the ten weeks. We also found the wifi password for the neighbor's internet, so now I have wifi most nights.
Tuesday we had group sessions on maintaining mental and emotional health, review of our first few days with our host families, our core strengths, and cross-cultural behaviors and values. Working as a group we identified signs of stress and ways to transition with minimum stress. As a group we decided that good coping mechanisms are: meet people, make friends, get involved, keep and open mind and an open heart, ask questions, focus on the future and envision success, put things in perspective, gratitude, sleep well, eat healthy, exercise, be proactive and prepared, focus on breathing, do what you enjoy, observe others and learn from them, make lists and goals, reward yourself, vent sometimes to a friend, support each other, and dance! The core strengths session was interesting, since we talked about our core strengths and those most prevalent and least prevalent in our group of trainees. We talked through how we could use each of our strengths throughout training and during our service to better serve. As a group, our strongest characteristics were Love of Learning, Humor, Curiosity, Love, Kindness, Judgement, and Zest. If you're interested in your strengths, make a free account here and check it out. Love of Learning and Humor for sure are in abundance in our group, so it's always fun to meet up and share ideas.
Wednesday was our first Spanish class. Nothing much to report, other than that we have regular interviews with community members to better our Spanish skills and hopefully help us make community contacts once we reach our permanent site. It poured all afternoon and evening and I was in no mood to do work, so I hung out with the family and watched Anacondas (which I don't recommend, but it was funny to watch with them because they kept telling me everything that would happen. Also, the anacondas live in Indonesia - in case you're wondering, anacondas only live in South America, but reticulated pythons do live in Southeast Asia. Clearly accuracy wasn't what they were going for in this movie). I did a little research, and anacondas are terrifying - they get big enough to eat jaguars and cows. Reticulated pythons can eat animals up to their own weight, and though they can get to be longer than anacondas, they weigh significantly less. I think snakes are fascinating and generally beautiful, but only from a distance. It's the fact that I can't tell which are poisonous that is scary (and that the poisonous ones can strike faster than I can react and could kill me). Anyway, enough about snakes. I took my malaria pills with fresco de arrayán, a fruit that tastes kind of like a mix between a lemon and a kiwi but makes fantastic juice.
Thursday we were back to group sessions after a night of weird, malaria-pill induced dreams and an upset stomach to start the day because of the same. We received our debit cards and learned the difference between pit latrines and composting latrines (don't be fooled by the name, you can't actually use the waste for compost because it has too much bacteria), and learned not enough about dengue to make anyone feel even vaguely comfortable being in El Salvador surrounded by mosquitos. Every five years or so El Salvador has another dengue epidemic and this should be the year, and it's overdue for an earthquake too. Sometimes it makes you wish Peace Corps would be upfront about the realities of some countries (not that I wouldn't have accepted, but it would suck to get dengue). On that cheerful note, I headed off with some of the group to play some volleyball in Siete de marzo. The six of us were joined by uncountable kids all standing in a circle setting the ball to on another. I made it home just before the rain (though I missed mass, so maybe I'll check it out next Tuesday just to see what's up), had a simple dinner of rice and meat and plátanos, then spent the next few hours quizzing my host family about the history of Nuevo Cuscatlán and the local myths.
In class Friday we went over our interviews and learned a ton of Salvadoran slang, which I cannot remember for the life of me. The Chilean words keep coming out instead. Over the weekend we are supposed to ask our host families about their family story and prepare a thirty minute presentation on the Salvadoran Civil War and another on a wartime event in American history. I'm also learning about neoliberalism with regards to El Salvador. On the fun side (not that I don't like having history assignments), I'm going with my host family to market on Saturday and playing sports with all the kids. A big group of trainees came to my restaurant for dinner, and I got a fantastic burrito courtesy of Yvonne while we all chatted about life so far and compared turkey calls (who needs a rooster when you have turkeys?).
Saturday morning I woke early to go to market in Santa Tecla with Marcos and Roberto. It is a mad crush of humanity, but exhilarating at the same time. All the colors and crazy fruits and veggies and huge hunks of meat hanging off hooks had me turning left and right to take it all in. It reminds me some of the Chilean open-air markets, but with a gazillion more people and largely unidentifiable produce. Roberto bought some fruits for me to try - nances (gross), jocotes (leaves my mouth weirdly dry, but I like them), mamones (weird and delicious), anona (no idea as of yet since it wasn't quite ripe) and arrayanes (makes the best juice ever and reminds me of a mix between a lemon and a kiwi) - and mangoes, papayas and a melon in addition to his normal restaurant purchases. I finished David Levithan's Every Day over lunch, then walked to Siete de Marzo for a game (or three or four) of volleyball with some of the other trainees and tons of host siblings ranging in age from about six to about thirty-five. Somehow no one managed to bring a camera to the court, so it's a no go for pictures on that one. I arrived home to the bustle of opening the restaurant, did some homework, then was treated to another fantastic burrito while I played with the puppy and chatted with Marcos.
I came on a Friday, so everyone was busy all evening with restaurant business, taking orders, making pupusas, tacos and burritos, delivering food and cleaning up. That first night I went to bed early after a bit of conversation with the family and slept like a rock. We were up early, and after a bucket bath and a breakfast of pureed beans, crema and some sort of salty hard cheese, I headed to the training center with niña Ana (don't ask me why they say niña instead of doña as a sign of respect) to meet up with my Spanish group to make a community map. I was pretty sick on the way there, but since Ana saw me she now is careful to avoid giving me pretty much any dairy, which is a definite plus. It was awesome to walk around town with our host moms because they all loved chatting with each other and gave us good advice about places to avoid around town (namely the two bars because of the drunks and the soccer fields because of the marijuana) and together with our LCF got us a tour of some of the important buildings around town.
We toured the Municipal clinic and the Catholic church, and walked into some English classes and learned about the current projects (dying clothes and making candles for export) in the Artisan workshop. When I got home, Roberto and Marcos got really into the project and together made a bigger, more detailed version of my little sketch map, identifying pretty much every building in town and most of their owners. I was impressed. It's not a big town, but basically every family supports themselves with a little shop of some kind. The English teacher asked me to help out in his class, so I spent an hour talking in English to a group that ranged from absolute beginners to intermediate speakers. I found out that all the English classes are free, as are many of the other exercise and artisan classes around town. The new mayor has done wonders for this town. I spent the rest of the day hanging out with the other two in my Spanish group, wandering around town, getting ice cream and playing cards.
Monday was a San Salvador day. We got our Salvadoran identity cards and toured the awesome Peace Corps office (which we are never allowed to visit, since San Salvador is off-limits), then sat down to a few sessions outlining our ten weeks of pre-service training. We have lots of directed and self-directed community activities to complete over our ten weeks, as well as language and cultural training, periodic assessment interviews and presentations, technical training, and required journal entries. It all looks interesting and challenging. I'm excited to get started on our community contact activities and the technical training so we can better interact with local groups and work with them on projects. New cellphones in hand courtesy of the Tigo representative (well, actually old trainee phones with new SIM cards), we all piled back in the van just as a downpour started. I took advantage of the evening to read the material on my USB drive, finish a few pending forms, and make a list of all our assignments for the ten weeks. We also found the wifi password for the neighbor's internet, so now I have wifi most nights.
Tuesday we had group sessions on maintaining mental and emotional health, review of our first few days with our host families, our core strengths, and cross-cultural behaviors and values. Working as a group we identified signs of stress and ways to transition with minimum stress. As a group we decided that good coping mechanisms are: meet people, make friends, get involved, keep and open mind and an open heart, ask questions, focus on the future and envision success, put things in perspective, gratitude, sleep well, eat healthy, exercise, be proactive and prepared, focus on breathing, do what you enjoy, observe others and learn from them, make lists and goals, reward yourself, vent sometimes to a friend, support each other, and dance! The core strengths session was interesting, since we talked about our core strengths and those most prevalent and least prevalent in our group of trainees. We talked through how we could use each of our strengths throughout training and during our service to better serve. As a group, our strongest characteristics were Love of Learning, Humor, Curiosity, Love, Kindness, Judgement, and Zest. If you're interested in your strengths, make a free account here and check it out. Love of Learning and Humor for sure are in abundance in our group, so it's always fun to meet up and share ideas.
Wednesday was our first Spanish class. Nothing much to report, other than that we have regular interviews with community members to better our Spanish skills and hopefully help us make community contacts once we reach our permanent site. It poured all afternoon and evening and I was in no mood to do work, so I hung out with the family and watched Anacondas (which I don't recommend, but it was funny to watch with them because they kept telling me everything that would happen. Also, the anacondas live in Indonesia - in case you're wondering, anacondas only live in South America, but reticulated pythons do live in Southeast Asia. Clearly accuracy wasn't what they were going for in this movie). I did a little research, and anacondas are terrifying - they get big enough to eat jaguars and cows. Reticulated pythons can eat animals up to their own weight, and though they can get to be longer than anacondas, they weigh significantly less. I think snakes are fascinating and generally beautiful, but only from a distance. It's the fact that I can't tell which are poisonous that is scary (and that the poisonous ones can strike faster than I can react and could kill me). Anyway, enough about snakes. I took my malaria pills with fresco de arrayán, a fruit that tastes kind of like a mix between a lemon and a kiwi but makes fantastic juice.
Thursday we were back to group sessions after a night of weird, malaria-pill induced dreams and an upset stomach to start the day because of the same. We received our debit cards and learned the difference between pit latrines and composting latrines (don't be fooled by the name, you can't actually use the waste for compost because it has too much bacteria), and learned not enough about dengue to make anyone feel even vaguely comfortable being in El Salvador surrounded by mosquitos. Every five years or so El Salvador has another dengue epidemic and this should be the year, and it's overdue for an earthquake too. Sometimes it makes you wish Peace Corps would be upfront about the realities of some countries (not that I wouldn't have accepted, but it would suck to get dengue). On that cheerful note, I headed off with some of the group to play some volleyball in Siete de marzo. The six of us were joined by uncountable kids all standing in a circle setting the ball to on another. I made it home just before the rain (though I missed mass, so maybe I'll check it out next Tuesday just to see what's up), had a simple dinner of rice and meat and plátanos, then spent the next few hours quizzing my host family about the history of Nuevo Cuscatlán and the local myths.
In class Friday we went over our interviews and learned a ton of Salvadoran slang, which I cannot remember for the life of me. The Chilean words keep coming out instead. Over the weekend we are supposed to ask our host families about their family story and prepare a thirty minute presentation on the Salvadoran Civil War and another on a wartime event in American history. I'm also learning about neoliberalism with regards to El Salvador. On the fun side (not that I don't like having history assignments), I'm going with my host family to market on Saturday and playing sports with all the kids. A big group of trainees came to my restaurant for dinner, and I got a fantastic burrito courtesy of Yvonne while we all chatted about life so far and compared turkey calls (who needs a rooster when you have turkeys?).
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