PC: Pre-Service Training Week Four (part 1)

Sunday was the much-anticipated fourth annual Festival de Elote (Corn Fest) hosted by the Catholic Church in Nuevo Cuscatlán. I let myself sleep in and after a fitting breakfast of rigua de elote (corn mash wrapped in banana leaves grilled on a fire-heated griddle - some have cheese and other fillings, but mine was just corn) I met up with some other volunteers to explore the corn offerings in the church's basketball court. The court was like an oven because every seller lit a bonfire to cook their food - atol de elote (sweet thick corn drink), nuegados (fried yuca mash covered in honey), tamales (I think they were just corn, not filled, but I'm not sure), elotes locos (corn on the cob covered with mayonnaise, ketchup, something like worchestershire sauce called salsa negra, and grated cheese), licuados (blended, iced, flavored milk or fruit), fried yuca, fried corn mash (the same masa they use for the riguas and tamales), pupusas, and riguas. Outside a few of the local artisan groups were selling jewelry, ornaments, clothes and natural tie-dyes. Mass was in the morning, and the afternoon was dedicated to the Reina de Maiz competition.

We have been hearing all about the mayor and all of his projects, and we finally saw him in person at the coronation ceremony. Some of the others took pictures with him, but I was curious to hear him speak. He is well-spoken and seems pretty smart and almost shy (I don't know if it's shy or awkward, but neither seem particularly likely in a politician). I can't for the life of me remember what he said apart from welcoming us to the festival and thanking everyone for supporting community events, but he said it well. The outfits were intense for the festival, and the voting was determined by who could convince the community to buy the most votes. It made me laugh when they thanked everyone for buying votes, because it sounded so corrupt. It was really interesting and cool that they made a big deal about transparency and showing everyone the three rounds of voting results and the checks made for each of the votes and the totals for each of the contestants. That's something we keep bringing up to help improve organizations. You go Nayib - transparency and free classes and corn festivals and lots of good things for Nuevo Cuscatlán.

Sunday night I did my write-ups for Spanish class and prepared my presentation on Fascism and Peronism. Given the length of my presentation/chat with Vicky on Monday, I probably did more research than was necessary, but I kept finding new things I knew nothing about and wanted to learn everything. Though I doubt it was a sustainable system, Peronism had many positive points and did wonders for social programs in Argentina. Wednesday we present on ancient El Salvador - not nearly as fun as government and politics.

As soon as I walked in the door after finishing my work, Roberto cornered me into another three hour conversation. I suppose "cornered" isn't really the right word because I'm always up for a good chat with Roberto. He has tons of stories, and this time he got to talking about life experience and how people interact and integrate based on their experience and that sometimes things are once in a lifetime. For him, the once in a lifetime were the insane rock concerts he had the opportunity to attend in the United States. Anyway, we talked a lot about happiness and how people get sucked into life in the United States and and trapped in their obsession with money. Evidently it is positively sinful that I do not call my family every day to keep my parents informed of my every emotion, but I don't see the point when I'm fine and happy and writing up my days on the blog. Doesn't it make the blog more fun to read if you don't know my every move before you read it?  We also talked about the switch from the colon to the dollar and how it completely screwed people over because everything cost more but wages didn't rise. Lots of Salvadorans never come back to their families because they get caught up with money and "things" in the United States. People here might make $6/day, while in the US they could be making $20/hour. It's hard to give that up, but the question is after fulfilling basic needs, does money actually make you happier? Roberto said no, and set a date to come back to El Salvador and his family. He stuck to the date and is happy here with his family building his restaurant from the ground up.

Monday we presented on political systems in the morning, and in the afternoon we had another failed attempt at meeting with the women's artisan group. By 4 pm we only had three women (the meeting was supposed to start at 2 pm). We did set a date for learning to tie-dye with one of the women, then set one final date for a last chance meeting with the women's group. If we don't get enough participation, we will have to find another group to work with. Adjusting to meetings here is frustrating because in the United States we value time and showing up on time is merely common courtesy. Here people show up an hour late if at all.

Tuesday morning we had sessions with Clelia (Appreciative Planning & Action Model) and Jenny (Designing & Facilitating Training) in the morning, and a reflection activity in the afternoon. All of our sessions have been based on the 4MAT model. That means each session goes like this - motivation (dinamica, drawing on previous knowledge, asking what we know about the topic), information (give new info), practice (apply what we just learned in small groups), information (more new info), practice (small groups), application (discuss how this will help in our site), and assessment (making sure we actually learned all the material). I know it's not the greatest for everyone, but I like taking the session information and having to work out how it would work in the real world right away so that the activity sticks in my head. It's not so good for the history sessions, but for all the models it's helpful.

I don't know if I liked the afternoon activity or not, but it was valuable to see how my peers see me. For this activity for each person we wrote 1) appreciation 2) strengths 3) weaknesses 4) a difficult situation the person responded well to. I could say that I don't care what others think of me, but that's blatantly untrue. I think we have an awesome group and I want to be seen well by my peers, so I will keep in mind the suggestions they gave and abide by them. I already knew that I sometimes mumble in Spanish (it's frustrating when your thoughts go faster than your brain can figure out how to say it). My peers also suggested I be more aware of how others work and learn, be more compassionate/sensitive, and temper myself (try to be more mellow, less direct I think). I can agree with those and will check myself often. We are all works in progress and I'm sure these two years will change us all, but we are in it together and I want these budding friendships to strengthen during our time in El Salvador. On swim team we used to do "nice sheets" right before the conference meet, and this was similar but the same as comparing the problem-based analysis with the appreciative inquiry model, I tend to focus more on the negative than the positive. The nice sheets were an opportunity for everyone on the team to wish each other well, remember a good time with each teammate and identify their strengths. It would be nice to do the same, compile it and print a sheet for each person to send off with each of us to our sites just as a reminder of what we do well while we're struggling in our new communities.

Wednesday was a session with Clelia on understanding our counterparts and their thought process - basically be aware that their priorities and their culture are not the same as ours and maintain clear and open communication. With Irma we went over dental health - brush your teeth and floss - and nutrition - try your best to maintain a balanced diet with less carbs and sugar than the typical salvadoran.

The afternoon was taken up by preparation for Immersion Days, in which we stay with another volunteer for three days to understand more about life in the campo, ask any questions we may have, and see what projects the volunteers are working on. I have reservations about Immersion Days, but I am focusing on not judging too quickly and living day by day.

Part 2 will be written post-Immersion Days when I get back on Sunday afternoon.