Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Did you know that chickens can climb trees?

I finally made it to my site in Ahuachapan! I think I am probably the envy of my group since I live in tropical paradise :). But in all seriousness: I am in a little farming community right near a little pueblo and about an hour to 45 min from the nearest Super Selectos. I live with a little abuelita, her husband, their son and their son's wife. And there's also the wife's mother who lives with us as well. They are the sweetest abuelo and abuela I could have asked for. I get along really well with the son and daughter as they are younger, about 30, and I have already played Battleship, Cribbage and UNO with them. They are helping me learn a lot of caliche and get the "lay of the land" in the community. My community is also super organized which makes everything a lot easier, especially since I showed up with a cast on my leg (which I JUST got off yesterday and it feels amazing! But more about that later). As such I have spent a lot of time observing, people watching and animal watching. This is how I found out that chickens are actually really adept tree climbers!
So while I have been trying to hobble to the nearest houses, the community has really rallied together and set up numerous reuniones so that I would be able to meet people in the community and visa versa. Already I have met leaders of the community, all the teachers and children in the school (the school director brought the entire school to my house :) ) and I have gone to misa and culto (culto is evangelical mass and if you've never been to one, I will take you. Its an experience).
The campo language was a little hard to get around at first but now I have become a little more fluent. Simply put: it is stating the obvious and affirming it. For example: I was washing my clothes yesterday next to my abuelita when she turned to me and said: "You are washing your clothes!" to which the only response could be, "yes, yes I am". It is hilarious and frustrating at times but I have come to love it and now I can say "ya estuvo" which means it is "done" and when asked how's its going, I now respond in the tradicional "por aqui" which loosely translates to "about, around, by here." I love my community and my host family and have already been involved in several cultural activities, one of which was killing a chicken yesterday. I felt that since I eat chicken almost every day and it comes fresh from my front yard/patio/whereever the chickens feel like grazing, that I should tke a moment to experience the whole process of how my food is made. So I watched my host sister select the fattest chicken, tie it upside down to a tree and slit its throat. Sorry if this is too graphic but that is how its done in El Sal which I think frankly is more humane than in the states. The only thing I would say is that it took THIS particular chicken a llooonnng time to die. But without going into details of it flopping around on the ground because we thought it was dead and thus cut it down from the tree, I watched a chicken killing. Then I helped to clean all the feathers off and cut it up into bits for soup. It was delicious.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Juramentacion!

Today I officially get sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer! I am really excited to finally be considered a real volunteer and not simply an aspirante. The swearing in ceremony is an official event where members from the embassy come and make us swear our loyalty to Peace Corps and the US of A. Then we get to have a fun party with our host families with a dinner including various comidas tipicas, etc. After the family dinner all the newly sworn in volunteers get to hang out at the Peace Corps office and then later at the hotel. Then, bright and early we get to get on a bus and head out to San Salvador to meet our guias communitarias or community guides who will help us negotiate and meet people in the community where we will be living for two years! My community guides are the school Director and my host dad :). I will really miss all my good friends in Peace Corps: Anna, Katherine, Esther, Jamie, Amy, David, and Jeff.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Peace Corps Haiku

By Sarah Sterling, Nicole Wooten and Katherine Plotnick

Sharing cultures; good.
Peace Corps homework, not so good.
Rice and beans and cheese.

Entonces, va pues.
Waking up to rooster calls.
Telenovelas.

Oh dios mio!
Gang members are on my bus!
Chichontepec, wow!

Playing with children,
Teaching English at my school,
and making shampoo.

Bring it back with me
These lessons learned in Peace Corps
Already miss it.

Friday, September 10, 2010

My Site






Yesterday I was assigned to be a Youth Development volunteer in the municipio de Ahuachapan which is in the Southwest region of El Salvador. It is one of the centers of artesenia in the country as well as the home of the Parque Nacional El Imposible. I am about 1.5 hours from the beach where I went for my free weekend. I will be in a small community living with a small host family and helping out in the local school. My site is a town of about 600 people and the school is grades Kinder to 6th with 150 students and 3 teachers. I am super excited and can't wait to get started! I will write more when I get there but so far this is what I know: in nearby Guaymango and Ataco there are ecological parks, a french restaurante where I can buy whole wheat bread and basil as well as a place that sells goat cheese!!!! Thus, I am psyched to be going to one of the most beautiful municipios in the country to work, play and live!