Friday, March 19, 2010

My Site

We finally found out our sites. Mine is called Palomilla del Gualcho in the municipio (municipal area) of Nueva Granada in the department Usulutan. We graduate in one week, and by next Saturday, we will be in our sites. I also created a shutterfly account. The address is http://erikpeacecorps.shutterfly.com

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Firsts

It seems like I have already had my fair share of new experiences; I think most of my fellow aspirantes (trainees) would vote me the most (un)lucky of the group. Let me share a few:

- A few nights ago, I had my first true run-in with scorpions. Around 12:30 I woke up and, without thinking, sat upright. After 5-10 seconds I realized that something was crawling on my back, so I naturally flicked the creature and reached for my headlamp. Just in time, I saw a scorpion crawling over the edge of my bed. Also naturally, I spent the next 45 minutes searching every corner of my room. It stung me two times on my back while I was sleeping. The morning before, I awoke to a much larger scorpion hanging out on top of my mosquito net.... Who knows what's going on?

- Saturday night, just before I fell asleep, a very significant tremor shook my bed (well I guess my whole room) for 30-45 seconds.

- After counting my sicknesses so far, I realized that I have already had churria (GI problems) 3 different times, a cold, a scorpion bite in a little more than a month... but who's counting.

- The other day we visited an NGO called MOJE. The organization works with youths between 16-18 y.o. to provide an alternative to gang activity. Ceramics, woodworking, etc are their focus, and after they graduate, most youths open an artisan shop. Quite an awesome experience...

We have a really busy two weeks coming up. This weekend, Peace Corps and Jika (Japanese equivalent) have rented the national futbol stadium to play a round-robin tournament among the volunteers. We've been told that even a visit to the stadium is a life wish for many Salvadorans, so we are all really excited for the trip. This coming Thursday we officially find out our site assignments, and next weekend we 'graduate' from trainee to volunteer. Everyone seems pretty excited... really antsy I suppose. I think we're all ready to be in our sites where life is a little bit slower and relaxed.... I hope everyone is doing well!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Current news

So I was slightly sick again - not really news at this point. It certainly says something when it is relieving to realize that I only had food poisoning and not some other nasty thing inside of my gut (no amoebas this time). I think it is very interesting that everytime I´ve had a stomach issue, my host mom immediately tries to figure out what I ate outside of the house. That piece of food is almost always the culprit haha.

This past weekend we had a free weekend so a small group of us went down to a beach called Costa del Sol. The town mostly subsists off of fishing and there really isn´t any tourism, so we didn´t see another gringo while we were there. That was refreshing, and the waves were pretty awesome for esurfiar, so I feel a bit more rejuvenated.

Last night, while I was making one of my many visits to the latrine, I realized that a cow of my family was having a baby. That was certainly an experience. My host father stayed up til 5:30 or so taking care of the mother once she had finished giving birth. So I think that brings the grand total up to 6 (we somehow acquired another one recently - not sure how haha)

Today we had our final site interviews, so they pretty much told us everything about our site but the name. Flat, dry, hot, dusty.... but a good cancha (soccer field) and a lake. Very strong cell phone reception, but no running water. I pulled the department name out of Carlos: Usulutan (if anyone cares to look that up on the map). It´s southeast El Salvador. I believe that most of the other trainees from this group will be northwest, so I guess I will get to know volunteers from other training groups.

Hasta luego y ¡que le vaya bien!