So we´ve been really busy the last few days (weeks?), but not particularly doing anything productive. The PST (pre-service training) has been incredibly overwhelmed with mostly pointless information about very specific scenarios that apply to only a few people in our group. However, this weekend we had our Immersion Weekend, so I wanted to post about that before the details slip away.
Another trainee, Emily, and I were placed with a current volunteer in the northwest corner of the country in Cuiyuscat, Metapán, Santa Ana. We arrived Thursday morning after an eventless bus ride from San Vicente and began the trek to his site. Apparently, a flatbed truck runs between his site and Metapán (the larger city in the area) once a day. It leaves his site at 6am and returns around 12pm, so if he misses either, he has to hitchhike. We caught the flatbed as it was returning to his site, but the drive was still 45 minutes or so. That trek should be cut down a bit once they finish paving a highway through the area that will connect with the rest of the country.
His site is actually pretty nice. His house isn´t exactly the best, but he makes it work. The town somehow has paved roads and a tremendously large catholic church (donated by some german ngo), but the majority of the town doesn´t have constantly running water. Priorities, I guess.
Our first full day (friday) we awoke fairly early to, with a family he particularly likes, milk cows (yep, drank directly from the bucket) and then hike 45 minutes uphill in the beating sun (the temperature isn´t necessarily that bad - lack of shade is horrible) to a molienda. Apparently February is one of the harvest months for caña (sugar cane), so during February the molienda is in full operation. The molienda is essentially a cane press combined with a huge earth-stove that dehydrates the cane sap to something like molasses (sp) combined with Wether´s Originals. Pretty awesome process; very incredible outcome. It´s not pure sugar, but it´s not sappy. It has the texture of fudge and can be used in coffee, pastries, etc as a sweetener.
....the bus is coming soon! I´ll finish this later.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The past few days have been very interesting. The first wave of sickness has passed through our group, so the stress levels for everyone, i think, have been elevated a bit. We´re not exactly sure what happened, but everyone within our Cañas group was sick by the end of Thursday. Sam (a neighbor trainee who essentially sleeps with the pigs) awoke early Thursday morning with everything coming up while I awoke early Thursday morning with everything going down. By 10am, Peace Corps decided that Sam needed to be sent to San Salvador to stay in a hotel just in case he needed to go to the hospital for IVs. By 2ish, the lab had returned my results for me to find out that I somehow contracted amoebas (as my Trainee instructors put it, I am not the first and certainly not the last to become pregnant with amoebas - they are waterborne, so somehow I consumed water from the pila *** ). That afternoon, during our return bus trip to Cañas, Emily, who had been feeling nauseous all day, threw up on the bus - also not uncommon haha. Current volunteers who sat for a panel of questions notified us that during their training, not a single trainee graduated to the status of volunteer without a similar incident on the bus - so that should provide many interesting stories haha.
Today, Saturday, we rode via micro (pronounced mee-croh) to a current volunteer´s site. As the pavement slowly turned to dust, a silly grin across everyone´s face asked the question ´What in the WORLD have I gotten myself into?´ Humor is a wonderful cure for such cases, so we joked about how wonderfully content the hogs looked rolling around in the mud. Also that, as volunteers, we really don´t demand that much - just running water, electricity, internet access, wood floors, and laundry service haha. Just kidding. Well nevermind, we really did joke about it, but it just became much more real today. Another group, still unknown why, was taken to the beach today. I feel that they may have seriously missed out on an opportunity to experience what a site might be like. The volunteer had recently set up a chicken shack for egg production to demonstrate the effectiveness of using a shack instead of free roaming chickens (contains egg production, allows for easier vaccination, etc). His house was a nice cinderblock structure with metal sheeting for a roof (very sturdy and weather proof). He had connected power to his neighbor and just paid when the electricity went over the allowed subsidized amount. The one thing that I took out of the experience that I really would like to mention when sites are being decided: I really would like to be in a larger town. I don´t need water, internet, etc., I simply thrive off of human activity. I like knowing that I have close neighbors or that certain spots in town will always have people to converse with, etc. Isolation will be a difficult thing to cope with.
I do believe that about sums up the past few days (class was obviously involved, ZZzzz). Until later, Cuidale (take care of yourself).
***a pila is a large concrete cistern. water runs to the town 3-4 days/week so they have to collect the water for dry days. also, the pila contains many small fish to 1) clean the siding of algae 2) keep the water moving 3) eat the mosquito larvae is hopes of preventing dengue and malaria (effectiveness yet to be determined). We are NOT supposed to drink from these as they have maaaany foreign objects that our bodies are not yet accustomed to. So somewhere that theory fell apart and I contracted amoebas.
The past few days have been very interesting. The first wave of sickness has passed through our group, so the stress levels for everyone, i think, have been elevated a bit. We´re not exactly sure what happened, but everyone within our Cañas group was sick by the end of Thursday. Sam (a neighbor trainee who essentially sleeps with the pigs) awoke early Thursday morning with everything coming up while I awoke early Thursday morning with everything going down. By 10am, Peace Corps decided that Sam needed to be sent to San Salvador to stay in a hotel just in case he needed to go to the hospital for IVs. By 2ish, the lab had returned my results for me to find out that I somehow contracted amoebas (as my Trainee instructors put it, I am not the first and certainly not the last to become pregnant with amoebas - they are waterborne, so somehow I consumed water from the pila *** ). That afternoon, during our return bus trip to Cañas, Emily, who had been feeling nauseous all day, threw up on the bus - also not uncommon haha. Current volunteers who sat for a panel of questions notified us that during their training, not a single trainee graduated to the status of volunteer without a similar incident on the bus - so that should provide many interesting stories haha.
Today, Saturday, we rode via micro (pronounced mee-croh) to a current volunteer´s site. As the pavement slowly turned to dust, a silly grin across everyone´s face asked the question ´What in the WORLD have I gotten myself into?´ Humor is a wonderful cure for such cases, so we joked about how wonderfully content the hogs looked rolling around in the mud. Also that, as volunteers, we really don´t demand that much - just running water, electricity, internet access, wood floors, and laundry service haha. Just kidding. Well nevermind, we really did joke about it, but it just became much more real today. Another group, still unknown why, was taken to the beach today. I feel that they may have seriously missed out on an opportunity to experience what a site might be like. The volunteer had recently set up a chicken shack for egg production to demonstrate the effectiveness of using a shack instead of free roaming chickens (contains egg production, allows for easier vaccination, etc). His house was a nice cinderblock structure with metal sheeting for a roof (very sturdy and weather proof). He had connected power to his neighbor and just paid when the electricity went over the allowed subsidized amount. The one thing that I took out of the experience that I really would like to mention when sites are being decided: I really would like to be in a larger town. I don´t need water, internet, etc., I simply thrive off of human activity. I like knowing that I have close neighbors or that certain spots in town will always have people to converse with, etc. Isolation will be a difficult thing to cope with.
I do believe that about sums up the past few days (class was obviously involved, ZZzzz). Until later, Cuidale (take care of yourself).
***a pila is a large concrete cistern. water runs to the town 3-4 days/week so they have to collect the water for dry days. also, the pila contains many small fish to 1) clean the siding of algae 2) keep the water moving 3) eat the mosquito larvae is hopes of preventing dengue and malaria (effectiveness yet to be determined). We are NOT supposed to drink from these as they have maaaany foreign objects that our bodies are not yet accustomed to. So somewhere that theory fell apart and I contracted amoebas.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Buenas!
So, I finally have access to the internet. Let´s see. Today is Tuesday, so that means we have been with out host families for 4 nights now. I am in a town called Cañas just outside of San Vicente with the family Ramos Serrano. The first night definitely took me by surprise. I essentially commandeered (i hope that´s a word - my english is slipping already) the room of my eldest host sister. So right, I have a host brother (24) and three sisters (23, 18, 13). It´s a very interesting situation. This isn´t going to be in coherent order, just as it pops into my head:
- The house was built in pieces, meaning that additions aren´t really connected except by metal roofing.
- I sleep under a yellow mosquito net to prevent Chinche (carries the disease Chagas), mosquites, cockroaches, scorpions, etc from biting me.
- Just outback, are two small cinderblock (sp) buildings. One is the bucket shower, the other the latrine. The latrine is pretty ingenious as far as i am concerned. Most latrines have a large pit, while this latrine has a small receptacle that is connected, via small piping, to the large pit. Entonces, it is a hand-flushed latrine. Once yu finish, pour water to flush.
- Our family has 3 dogs (5 on a bad day), a rooster, about 10 hens, 4 cows
- The entire diet revolves around cornmeal and beans. Also, guajada (unpasteurized milk - very delicious and probably not great for the digestive tract) is served with almost every meal. Aguacate (avocado), Mamay (an orange-like fruit), guayaba (guava), guisquil (some green veggie) are also readily available. oh and banana haha
....i will have to finish this post later. Back to safety class (don´t want dengue, chagas, malaria, rabies, or to be robbed on the bus!)
So, I finally have access to the internet. Let´s see. Today is Tuesday, so that means we have been with out host families for 4 nights now. I am in a town called Cañas just outside of San Vicente with the family Ramos Serrano. The first night definitely took me by surprise. I essentially commandeered (i hope that´s a word - my english is slipping already) the room of my eldest host sister. So right, I have a host brother (24) and three sisters (23, 18, 13). It´s a very interesting situation. This isn´t going to be in coherent order, just as it pops into my head:
- The house was built in pieces, meaning that additions aren´t really connected except by metal roofing.
- I sleep under a yellow mosquito net to prevent Chinche (carries the disease Chagas), mosquites, cockroaches, scorpions, etc from biting me.
- Just outback, are two small cinderblock (sp) buildings. One is the bucket shower, the other the latrine. The latrine is pretty ingenious as far as i am concerned. Most latrines have a large pit, while this latrine has a small receptacle that is connected, via small piping, to the large pit. Entonces, it is a hand-flushed latrine. Once yu finish, pour water to flush.
- Our family has 3 dogs (5 on a bad day), a rooster, about 10 hens, 4 cows
- The entire diet revolves around cornmeal and beans. Also, guajada (unpasteurized milk - very delicious and probably not great for the digestive tract) is served with almost every meal. Aguacate (avocado), Mamay (an orange-like fruit), guayaba (guava), guisquil (some green veggie) are also readily available. oh and banana haha
....i will have to finish this post later. Back to safety class (don´t want dengue, chagas, malaria, rabies, or to be robbed on the bus!)
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