When You Give A PCV Internet...

...all the unwritten blogging spews out at once.

The night is incredible tonight. Three stars wink clearly around the moon shrouded in a blanket of clouds. An incredible stillness has taken hold, a silence that isn’t really silent at all. Crickets chirp constantly and dogs tussle far in the distance, their barks echoing up the ridge. Spiders, if they made a sound, would rustle along the walls in search of smaller creatures to ensnare and devour. Even my computer makes a gentle hum as it fails to charge despite the green “charged” light glowing dully on the faulty cord in the darkness.

I have been wanting to write for a long time, but the words weren’t there, or my mind wasn’t ready, or I found my peace outside of words.

I paused in the final chapters of Snow Falling on Cedars with the overpowering urge to write. I am suspended waiting for Ishmael to perform one selfless act, for the jury to do the right thing, for the snowstorm to pass into island legend. I can’t bring myself to finish the final chapters; I don’t want the story to end, nor to find that prejudice outweighs justice.   

It has been ages since I last wrote anything or made a video. I had days when all I wanted to do was make a spontaneous video showing my sister all the fun things we made in arts and crafts, like a child, proudly displaying my cow pencil holder and my paper flowers. I wanted to cut together three minutes of puppies, but in so doing I could not capture the joy of being back with my old host family, of seeing my puppy grow, of the rightness of living in that house with that family. I wanted to write about learning everything from grant-writing to small business development to eco-stoves to youth camps. I wanted to laugh at making a fool of myself but still thankfully getting elected to a committee, about which I am incredibly excited. I wanted to geek out with someone about how much I enjoy Firefly. I wanted to watch the new Starkid musical with my sister then immediately go on a Very Potter Musical marathon just because we know how totally awesome it is, then reminisce about LeakyCon last summer.  I wanted to vent about losing my closest partner at site and all the amazing opportunities we will no longer share and the plans I now make on my own. 

Before PST2 I was drifting. I had no urge to continue my census or try to get a group started because I knew I would be leaving for three weeks and life in the campo would continue on as if I never existed. Entire days were lost reading, swimming alone in the river, doing laundry, or napping in the hammock. Internal guilt wasn’t strong enough to propel me to action, though it did result in five strict rules for life after PST2 which I wrote down and carry in my planner as a reminder not to take off my hat and don a cloak of idleness. (I do, by the way, adore my hat. It is a big motivating factor in my leaving the house even knowing that 90ºF is the daily low.) 

The week before PST2 I spent a magical weekend out of site with two other volunteers on the coast. We danced, shared stories, met interesting characters, trespassed, made friends, buried turtle eggs, smuggled pb&j’s, died laughing at pretend chinese, played volleyball on the beach, swam in various degrees of undress, stayed up entirely too late, paid it forward, and returned to site delightedly whole and sane. 

I was ready for direction, but unhappy at leaving my site when the bus arrived at the end of November. I knew I needed more training, but I couldn’t help but feel that I was setting myself back by leaving my community just when I could put names to faces. I had forgotten how much I love my Nuevo Cuscatlán family and how utterly at home I feel under their roof. A few hours was enough to return a sense of wellbeing, if not enough to return me to a training mindset.  I coasted lazily through Spanish, unruffled by the exiting DPT’s admonition that higher level Spanish PCVs learn less during their service because they think they know everything already so they don’t ask questions or try as hard. Maybe that’s true, but two days of drilling subjunctive wasn’t going to change anything. I am perfectly capable of asking my host family to correct my Spanish and I have an ever-growing list of new words. Every time I walk with my host brother I quiz him on English and he quizzes me on trees: conacaste, almendro, almendra, suncuya, ceiba, mango, naranjo, jocote, oreja de ternero, tuna, morro, coliguano, quebrachillo, nance, tempate, and a veritable forest of others.    

Spanish ended and we were dumped on host families at the US embassy for Thanksgiving. What was a dismaying first meeting turned out to be a great Thanksgiving with an RPCV now working for USAID, her two kids, two friends and three neighbors. Reverse culture shock rocked me as I walked into the shining embassy-paid house in a gated community complete with live-in maid, bathrooms attached to every room and two pet rabbits. The holiday was constantly punctuated with remarks about how “nice” the El Salvador post is. 

Despite my love for this country, I could not wrap my head around “nice.” They meant “nice” like a pool and a playplace for kids, proximity to work and big houses - USA nice. I wanted to say that people still live without electricity, without clean water, without toilets, not an hour from their cushy existence. It was irrelevant and snooty and old news to them. The whole world has those problems and they knew; they had been there. At least here wasn’t Cairo during the fall of the Egyptian government or Afghanistan in all-out war. The entire experience was surreal, from the hot showers to the cranberry sauce to the casual military banter to the explanation of security training for danger posts to the amazing stories of Peace Corps “back in the day.”

Photo Credit: Alex

I enjoyed Thanksgiving, but it was with relief that I returned to the bustle of a Friday night of pupusas, tacos and burritos at La Granjita. A day at the beach on Saturday was more than enough to get my ocean fix, though half the group spent the full weekend in Tunco. The next two weeks were a whirlwind of hour-long sessions, NGO visits, arts and crafts (pencil holders, bottle flowers, wall hangers, christmas cards, candles, natural tie-dyes, paper flowers and seed jewelry), peer-led sessions, and glazed eyes after lunch. In my free time I learned new games while pulling hundreds of gigbytes of movies and TV shows onto my external hard drive; I taught the kids in my house a number of bracelet designs; I accompanied my host dad to see his farm and drop off coffee and get supplies. We spent a Saturday showing our friendship in a friendly soccer tournament with the KOICA and JICA volunteers. Our team came in second place, though the fact that the teams were divided into men and women/children was galling. It was less that we wanted to join the men as that they relegated us to the kids league without even the option to prove our soccer skills. We also enjoyed a great BBQ planned and executed by Mario, who, on top of being a stand-up guy, is also a great cook. 

Getting our mock reporting forms and starting to fill mine out in the final days of training was deeply satisfying. I love order and structure, and a form that I must fill out every three months that requires me to keep track of my actions, activities, attendance, and difficulties is exactly what I want. 

Our final three days were spent in Perquín, Morazán cramming everything imaginable about business into too short a time. I enjoyed good food and full days and bought myself some tamarind jam for the road.  We visited an NGO in Gotera on our final day, which I’m sure was helpful for those living in Morazán but had little to do with my community in San Miguel. 

I was going to write and post during our days in Morazán, but my high plummeted into a low on the last night. Our final few minutes before boarding the bus back up to Perquín was a high - a written six-month plan and a heartfelt speech by our Project Manager. The last one in the cars, I didn’t snag a seat and I could feel my stomach rumbling uncomfortably as I drifted in and out of sleep lying in the floor in the back of the SUV on the ride back to Perquín. My mind was full. My head pounded and my stomach threatened rebellion. I felt selfish for missing my friend and not feeling social. My hard drive glitched and I gave the night up for a total loss. 

Lying in my bed awake, churning through my thoughts and shivering, I knew something was up. The last time I was freezing at night with my mind in a jumble in El Salvador, it turned out I had dengue. This time,  tests confirmed amoebas. One of the good things about Peace Corps here is that we have a great nurse and really strong meds. After two days back in site on my normal diet and daily pills, I was fighting fit. 

I’m back in my site again and on Friday I went to a posada, a pre-Christmas service centered around the Virgin Mary. Every night a group follows the virgin (a statue) to a new house and they have a service there, until on the Sunday before Christmas they all follow the virgin back up to the church where they have a Christmas service. There may be a re-enactment, but I’m not entirely clear on that part. I wasn’t terribly clear on what was going on during the service either, but I liked the feel of it and I think I will join them on their night march up to the church on Tuesday.

 Yesterday and the day before were festival days in Nuevo Eden de San Juan, so we went into town to watch bull riding and horse-showing, attend the dance, and buy far too many sweets. My 13-year-old host brother probably brought home 15 pounds of coconut blocks and other sweets that are essentially just colored sugar cut into blocks.

I have days of motivation and non-motivation, and it’s hard to just wander around talking to people every day without any plan for what to do in my community. To be totally honest, it makes me want to stay home and wash clothes and read (I finished Snow Falling on Cedars and moved on to Anthony Bordain’s Kitchen Confidential, which is an enormous change of pace and tone). I love going down to the river, and my host mom just got an oven, so once I buy butter we will make cookies. I enjoy the conversations I have with people, it just feels like I am going nowhere. It is all talk and no action. It hangs on my shoulders to schedule meetings and get groups together and I dropped the ball on that one, or rather I haven’t yet picked it up.   

Today I had a meeting with members of the ADESCO in which I hoped to explain everything I learned during PST2, convince them to make a calendar and keep an account book, and plan a General Assembly to elect a bookkeeper and maybe do a leadership talk. It went fairly well, but we have a long road ahead of us before we can get anything done. This came on the heels of two house visits, one to a woman I had been eying as a potential leader, and the other to an outgoing and intelligent 18-year-old looking for friendship and something productive to do. The first visit was exactly what I had hoped, and I think I have an ally for starting a women’s group in January. I just have to plan well on my end and I hope she will provide some much-needed support, energy, and honest opinions. To be perfectly honest I would love to send the other girl to college, but until I can figure out a scholarship system I content myself with attending church with her and plotting ways to get her involved in or in charge of something.

Christmas in El Salvador will be a new experience, but if nothing else I look forward to eating the turkey that has been my nemesis since I arrived. Although it ignores the rest of the family, it follows me around threatening to bite and gobbling menacingly. The evil bird has reached its final hour, and we will be feasting tomorrow.

Oh, and guess what? President Obama wrote us a letter.
So. Cool.

New Book Tally: 19

Book Tally: 24