Monday, December 20, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Little Things that Keep you from Pushing the ET Button
During Peace Corps service there are a lot of ups and downs. For example, just dealing with cultural differences can really make you long for the organized, reliable system we have back in the states. The biggest challenge for me has been adjusting to the concept of El Salvador time and the Dios Permite statement.
The El Salvador time is usually gringo time mas half an hour to an hour and a half (say the meeting was scheduled to happen at 1. That means you need to stick around to start your meeting until at least 1:30 but 2 is better). I am not trying to say that this happens only in El Salvador because it doesn’t, and there are times when I am ¨running late¨ and then don’t have to stress because I will arrive on time no matter what time I actually get there. The other phrase that I love here is Si dios permite which basically means, God Willing. This is used all the time for any engagement that requires a commitment. This is a sort of safety net to have just in case something comes up and you can´t make it to a meeting, etc. OR sometimes it is used just in case you don’t actually want to go to something as well. I hope I never use this phrase and it makes me want to grind my teeth every time I hear it.
BUT it is also helping me realize that as a people, United Stateseans are very very hung up on time. The clock controls our everyday activities and we are constantly trying to run around trying to do everything at the exact time it needs to be done. In this respect, I respect the El Salvadorean hora and I am coming to enjoy it and the way of life here much more than that in the states where you constantly have to be checking the time. Sometimes I don’t even know what day of the week it is, let alone what time. I think I am in for a rude awakening when I get back to the states in two years….
So like I was saying in the beginning, it’s the little things you have to focus on to keep going during Peace Corps. Sometimes its noticing how amazingly beautiful all the views are here on my walks around my community. Other times it is hanging out with my best friend (who happens to be 3 years old) and getting her to do our ¨secret handshake.¨ But every day I am able to find at least a couple things that make me stop and say ¨wow I can´t believe I get to live here for two some years¨ and ¨how crazy lucky I am to be here and have this experience.¨ This gets me through the 5 am wakeup call by the roosters, the constant mosquito bites and acne, the smell of burning trash, and other little things that can really tick me off when I am down. SO if you are thinking about joining Peace Corps, just know that you really need to hang on to the moments that take your breath away so you don’t ET (Early Termination) when you feel like you just can´t take it any longer.
The El Salvador time is usually gringo time mas half an hour to an hour and a half (say the meeting was scheduled to happen at 1. That means you need to stick around to start your meeting until at least 1:30 but 2 is better). I am not trying to say that this happens only in El Salvador because it doesn’t, and there are times when I am ¨running late¨ and then don’t have to stress because I will arrive on time no matter what time I actually get there. The other phrase that I love here is Si dios permite which basically means, God Willing. This is used all the time for any engagement that requires a commitment. This is a sort of safety net to have just in case something comes up and you can´t make it to a meeting, etc. OR sometimes it is used just in case you don’t actually want to go to something as well. I hope I never use this phrase and it makes me want to grind my teeth every time I hear it.
BUT it is also helping me realize that as a people, United Stateseans are very very hung up on time. The clock controls our everyday activities and we are constantly trying to run around trying to do everything at the exact time it needs to be done. In this respect, I respect the El Salvadorean hora and I am coming to enjoy it and the way of life here much more than that in the states where you constantly have to be checking the time. Sometimes I don’t even know what day of the week it is, let alone what time. I think I am in for a rude awakening when I get back to the states in two years….
So like I was saying in the beginning, it’s the little things you have to focus on to keep going during Peace Corps. Sometimes its noticing how amazingly beautiful all the views are here on my walks around my community. Other times it is hanging out with my best friend (who happens to be 3 years old) and getting her to do our ¨secret handshake.¨ But every day I am able to find at least a couple things that make me stop and say ¨wow I can´t believe I get to live here for two some years¨ and ¨how crazy lucky I am to be here and have this experience.¨ This gets me through the 5 am wakeup call by the roosters, the constant mosquito bites and acne, the smell of burning trash, and other little things that can really tick me off when I am down. SO if you are thinking about joining Peace Corps, just know that you really need to hang on to the moments that take your breath away so you don’t ET (Early Termination) when you feel like you just can´t take it any longer.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Dia en la Vida, Ode to a Pila
So I realized the other day that I haven´t written a whole lot about what life is actually like here in El Salvador, or at least what my daily routines are. So here we go:
I wake up about 6:30 to 7am every day to the sound of those horrible roosters crowing, a Peace Corps volunteer´s worst nightmare. There are some volunteers who were vegetarians when they came to El Salvador but they are leaving the country as proud chicken eaters for this and many other reasons. Chickens here are not like they are in the states at the tiny family farms and petting zoos. They are dirty, loud creatures that like to eat, poo and make a lot of noise. The only thing I remotely like about them is the fact that they have to sleep in high places at night and thus climb our one pine tree in my front yard…But I digress…
After waking up I feed my 3 cats which if I didn’t feed them they would probably still be living off tortillas like most domesticated animals here do although I am not quite sure how. They wait outside my door every morning and start to meow when they hear me undoing the locks to open the door. Then my host grandma/mom (she´s old and a grandmotherly figure so I really just saw she´s my grandma) asks me if I want her to heat me up a tortilla, which is Salvi code for do you want to have breakfast, because it is a literal sin to eat a meal without a tortilla. Even spaghetti has to be eaten with a tortilla. When I say yes, she brings out my holey (because she uses a twig to heat it over our wood fire), old, burnt tortilla (which I actually do like because it´s crispy) and my corn coffee. Yes, corn coffee. Even though I am surrounded by coffee plantations I drink ¨coffee¨ made from ground up toasted corn. Saying it´s coffee is like says tobacco leaves soaked in hot water is black tea. But it´s ok.
Then if it isn’t freezing and I have no immediate work to do I go and shower. Now showers here are not like the fancy shmanzy showers people have in the states or in Europe; I get to shower using a large sink and a bucket (thus the term used frequently in Peace Corps ¨bucket bath or shower¨). I dip my bucket into the large sink known here as a pila and then dump that water on my head. You fill the pila up with a faucet that sticks out over it and you have to twist the knob just right so it doesn’t squirt all over the place and get you, your towel and shower tote sopping wet. As risqué as this may sound, I and many volunteers actually prefer the bucket bath because when it is really cold here and raining as it is from about June to November, it´s nice to be able to take a breather between ice cold dumpings of water on your body. A regular shower would probably shock your body and give you brain freeze. I do have to admit though, on hot days there is nothing like a good, cold bucket bath to make you feel sane again.
I would like to take this time to give a sort of ode to the pila if you will bear with me for a moment. The pila here is probably the best invention since Coca cola and electricity (yes, in that order). The pila can come in many shapes and sizes from being a huge water tank that a whole community uses to a small sink-like thing that I use for my bucket showers. I have a pila for showering and then a different pila which is bigger for washing clothes and dishes. The bigger pila is like having a large, cement tub with really high sides and which is in between two slabs of concrete where you can scrub things by hand like clothes, sheets and god forbid, sleeping bags. That’s right, I wash all my clothes by hand and I´m proud of it. It´s actually kind of relaxing and I kind of look forward to having a nice load of dirty clothes to scrub and then throw on an old electrical wire to dry in the sun. I think that when I do move back to the states I will have a pila made for me for my house because I really can´t imagine living without one. And they´re super ecofriendly! It´s like a clothes washer and a dishwasher all in one and uses zero electricity and it´s meditative. I really don’t know why more people don’t have them.
After bathing or washing my clothes or sweeping and mopping my room (yes mom, I know you´re shocked) if school is in session, I usually make the five minute walk to school which usually takes me twice as long because I have to stop and say hi to everyone on the way. This is another thing I love about El Salvador, everyone loves to greet one another and it´s actually kind of rude if you pass someone without saying hello here. At the school I so far have just observed the teachers and done little ice breakers with the kids to get to know them better. Soon I will hopefully be teaching English and computer classes, and doing some art and environmental projects. I can´t wait for school to start in January because right now I don’t have that much to do. During vacation I usually just do house visits which are exactly like they sound: I go up to people´s front doors and they let me into their home and then we talk for at least 20 min about the weather, the harvest, their family, my family, religion, and the fact that I am not married yet and why is that? Then we go on to talk about the future: me with the work I´ll be doing in the schools and they telling me that I am going to marry an El Salvadorean and stay here forever. Then they give me free food (awesome) and I go on to the next house and the whole process is repeated. I seriously am not joking when I say I LOVE house visits. They´re like a confidence booster wrapped up with love in the form of food.
In the afternoon I have ¨gringa¨ time which can be nap time, reading or resting in the hammock, but either way its time just for me. Then I chill with my host family until dinner and then we (all 6 of us) watch our two favorite telenovelas (Llena de Amor and Soy tu Dueña) until it´s time for bed around 9pm. And that’s one day in a nutshell until I wake up to do it all over again!
I wake up about 6:30 to 7am every day to the sound of those horrible roosters crowing, a Peace Corps volunteer´s worst nightmare. There are some volunteers who were vegetarians when they came to El Salvador but they are leaving the country as proud chicken eaters for this and many other reasons. Chickens here are not like they are in the states at the tiny family farms and petting zoos. They are dirty, loud creatures that like to eat, poo and make a lot of noise. The only thing I remotely like about them is the fact that they have to sleep in high places at night and thus climb our one pine tree in my front yard…But I digress…
After waking up I feed my 3 cats which if I didn’t feed them they would probably still be living off tortillas like most domesticated animals here do although I am not quite sure how. They wait outside my door every morning and start to meow when they hear me undoing the locks to open the door. Then my host grandma/mom (she´s old and a grandmotherly figure so I really just saw she´s my grandma) asks me if I want her to heat me up a tortilla, which is Salvi code for do you want to have breakfast, because it is a literal sin to eat a meal without a tortilla. Even spaghetti has to be eaten with a tortilla. When I say yes, she brings out my holey (because she uses a twig to heat it over our wood fire), old, burnt tortilla (which I actually do like because it´s crispy) and my corn coffee. Yes, corn coffee. Even though I am surrounded by coffee plantations I drink ¨coffee¨ made from ground up toasted corn. Saying it´s coffee is like says tobacco leaves soaked in hot water is black tea. But it´s ok.
Then if it isn’t freezing and I have no immediate work to do I go and shower. Now showers here are not like the fancy shmanzy showers people have in the states or in Europe; I get to shower using a large sink and a bucket (thus the term used frequently in Peace Corps ¨bucket bath or shower¨). I dip my bucket into the large sink known here as a pila and then dump that water on my head. You fill the pila up with a faucet that sticks out over it and you have to twist the knob just right so it doesn’t squirt all over the place and get you, your towel and shower tote sopping wet. As risqué as this may sound, I and many volunteers actually prefer the bucket bath because when it is really cold here and raining as it is from about June to November, it´s nice to be able to take a breather between ice cold dumpings of water on your body. A regular shower would probably shock your body and give you brain freeze. I do have to admit though, on hot days there is nothing like a good, cold bucket bath to make you feel sane again.
I would like to take this time to give a sort of ode to the pila if you will bear with me for a moment. The pila here is probably the best invention since Coca cola and electricity (yes, in that order). The pila can come in many shapes and sizes from being a huge water tank that a whole community uses to a small sink-like thing that I use for my bucket showers. I have a pila for showering and then a different pila which is bigger for washing clothes and dishes. The bigger pila is like having a large, cement tub with really high sides and which is in between two slabs of concrete where you can scrub things by hand like clothes, sheets and god forbid, sleeping bags. That’s right, I wash all my clothes by hand and I´m proud of it. It´s actually kind of relaxing and I kind of look forward to having a nice load of dirty clothes to scrub and then throw on an old electrical wire to dry in the sun. I think that when I do move back to the states I will have a pila made for me for my house because I really can´t imagine living without one. And they´re super ecofriendly! It´s like a clothes washer and a dishwasher all in one and uses zero electricity and it´s meditative. I really don’t know why more people don’t have them.
After bathing or washing my clothes or sweeping and mopping my room (yes mom, I know you´re shocked) if school is in session, I usually make the five minute walk to school which usually takes me twice as long because I have to stop and say hi to everyone on the way. This is another thing I love about El Salvador, everyone loves to greet one another and it´s actually kind of rude if you pass someone without saying hello here. At the school I so far have just observed the teachers and done little ice breakers with the kids to get to know them better. Soon I will hopefully be teaching English and computer classes, and doing some art and environmental projects. I can´t wait for school to start in January because right now I don’t have that much to do. During vacation I usually just do house visits which are exactly like they sound: I go up to people´s front doors and they let me into their home and then we talk for at least 20 min about the weather, the harvest, their family, my family, religion, and the fact that I am not married yet and why is that? Then we go on to talk about the future: me with the work I´ll be doing in the schools and they telling me that I am going to marry an El Salvadorean and stay here forever. Then they give me free food (awesome) and I go on to the next house and the whole process is repeated. I seriously am not joking when I say I LOVE house visits. They´re like a confidence booster wrapped up with love in the form of food.
In the afternoon I have ¨gringa¨ time which can be nap time, reading or resting in the hammock, but either way its time just for me. Then I chill with my host family until dinner and then we (all 6 of us) watch our two favorite telenovelas (Llena de Amor and Soy tu Dueña) until it´s time for bed around 9pm. And that’s one day in a nutshell until I wake up to do it all over again!
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