Sunday, April 20, 2008
- Hot. Need to get Mom and Dad to mail down my little thermometer thing so I can actually describe this in numbers.
- Slept in til 7:30am, took a nice long time washing up and getting dressed, washed a big load of clothes, stripped and flipped my mattress, went to mass with Tomasa, Lupe, and Monica.
- My big accomplishment of the day was getting a bunch of oranges down from the tree all by myself using the net-on-a-really-long-pole thing, then squeezing them all, straining the juice, and adding just a little bit of sugar and water to make a pretty delicious “fresco.” No one else seemed impressed, but I was pretty proud of myself.
- Had some lunch, my obligatory nap in the hammock, then typed up some journal. Dinner, shower, arrange mosquito net, fold laundry, phone call from Mom and Dad, Bible, bed.
New Words:
(ecclesiastical) robe = sotana
Saturday, April 19, 2008
- Was rather proud of myself for getting up at 4:50am this morning, except that’s about the time that Gilma usually gets up, and this morning she got up at 3am, so I still look pretty lazy in comparison. The special occasion was an all-day outing with the Catholics to a gold mine and then the Laguna de Alegría. The padre came and picked up the little group from my house and next door (me, Gilma, Mito, Gloria, Gabi, and María Inez) just after 5:30am and dropped us off in San Marcos, where there was already a bus waiting. Even so, I had enough time to learn that the batteries I’d bought for my camera not long ago were already dead. I went and bought some more (for $0.60, which seemed a more reasonable price), took four pictures, and then my camera started turning off every time I went to take another one. Will buy some more of the more expensive batteries and if that doesn’t fix the problem I might have to start using my nice camera, which still makes me pretty nervous.
- We eventually got on the bus (which was manufactured in Conway, Arkansas) and set off around 6:20am, picking up three more buses in Tierra Blanca. It’s very strange to be in a foreign country, get on a bus, and then all of a sudden feel like you’re back in sixth grade going on a field trip or in marching band headed to an away game. A lot of the old American school buses have been repainted and heavily modified, but this one was still pretty similar to the buses in good ole Prince William County except for the addition of some large speakers (gotta have those same 20 songs playing over and over again), a handrail running the length of the ceiling, some F.C. Barcelona stickers, and “Jenifer Yamileth” (apparently the bus’s name) across the rear-view mirror. At least it didn’t have one of those “only God knows if I will return” stickers or garlic hanging above the door, both of which always freak me out a little. Gilma had packed a bunch of pupusas, so I had my first of many, stayed awake through Usulután, fell asleep, woke up briefly as we passed through Jucuapa (pretty and noticeably trash-free), then fell asleep again until we got to Chapeltique. We’d already made some tight turns going through these towns, but at least the roads had been paved – not so the rest of the way to Potosí, where this mine is located (and which I can’t find on my map). So we bumped and jostled the rest of the way (possibly passing through Ciudad Barrios, where Romero was born) on this rocky road, even fording a few small rivers. Seeing as how our driver got his bus to do things I previously thought only a 4-wheel-drive could do, I don’t think Prince William County would ever have to cancel school again because of dangerous road conditions if they just hired all Salvadoran drivers.
- It felt like we’d come a really long way when we finally got off the bus around 9:30am, but I think we were only about 55 miles or so away from San Marcos – El Salvador is a pretty tiny country, after all. The sun hit with full force as we got off the buses and I was glad to see that plenty of other people were sweating profusely as well. We set off on a small path up a pretty steep hill, stopped briefly at the crumbling walls of what apparently used to be part of the processing area of the mine, then climbed even further up the hill until we came across a blocked-up cave that led to the series of underground tunnels. One of the nuns told us not to sit down because there’s some kind of nasty worm that burrows into your skin in the hills in this area…
- It wasn’t all that great as mine tours go, but that wasn’t really the point. We eventually all wandered back down the hill (I had to pee in a small ravine and wondered why Salvadorans never seem to have to use the bathroom), where we bought bags of water and watermelon. I talked to a guy (priest?) named Milton who’s hoping to get a scholarship to go to a community college in El Paso and asked me if it was scary riding in airplanes. I probably sounded like a snob when I said it was exciting the first time but got boring after a while. Then everyone got back on the buses, where we sat and sweated for a while before we actually took off back down the bumpy road to the next stop in…
- Chapeltique, which I hadn’t realized was on the itinerary. We got out at the “Centro Cultural Monseñor Romero” (are there any cultural centers that aren’t named after him?), where we used the bathrooms (so the Salvadorans do have to pee, but apparently only when there’s a bathroom available) and then had a bit of a meeting about how the Canadian company Pacific Rim is trying to re-open this mine, among others, telling the local people that it will provide much-needed jobs and revenue but failing to mention that those jobs will dwindle from 200 to 50 as machines take over the work and that most of the profits will go to the company rather than to the community. Not to mention the huge environmental risks – it apparently takes 20 tons of earth to produce 1 ounce of gold, the mine would use the same amount of water in 1 hour that a Salvadoran family would use in 20 years, and there are plenty of scary heavy metals like mercury and arsenic involved. Of course, all this information is not completely objective (the priests organized the whole outing as a sort of anti-mining trip), but a lot of it supposedly comes from Pacific Rim’s own data. Overall, I do feel like it’s a classic case of a powerful first-world company trying to exploit third-world resources at the expense of the local people. I will be very impressed if they can actually prevent the mine from re-opening.
- After this meeting there was another period of generally waiting around. I treated myself to an ice cream cone ($0.25, sold by a kid who looked like he was about 10 years old) and then a “minuta” (sort of like a snow cone with really thick syrup) and tried to stay in the shade but not get on the hot bus. After everyone regrouped, we set off again, this time towards the Laguna de Alegría, which is a small lake inside the crater of a volcano. The bus had to contend with crazy bumpy roads again, this time while driving up a mountain. The view was quite nice – coffee plantations to one side and clouds and small towns to the other, and we eventually arrived safely despite the smell of burning oil and the lack of guard rails. The lake was indeed quite pretty, but I was happier to see a small outhouse, as I think the “minuta” had done something funny to my stomach (note to self: make sure to bring toilet paper in the future). I spent a while in there, then walked around the lake’s perimeter (which involved scrambling over some pretty large rocks, which many of the Salvadoran girls did in their cheap little ballet flats). I wish I could have taken a few pictures of the clouds dropping in on this little green lake tucked away high up in the mountains, but alas, it still refused to work. Apparently the purpose of this leg of the journey was to show everyone how pretty nature can be. I’m sure everyone enjoyed the view (and the fact that it was a few degrees cooler), but there were also plenty of people who whipped out their empty water (and soda and liquor) bottles and went about collecting the sulfur-heavy mud at the lake’s edge. Apparently they’ll take it home to spread on arms or legs, as it had some sort of medicinal properties. After a while at the lake, we all piled back on the buses, I ate a few more pupusas and a couple of tortillas with lime and salt, then fell asleep most of the way back to San Marcos.
- The padre gave us a ride home then stayed to visit with Lupe. I promptly showered off a full day’s worth of sweat then actually had a little bit of a conversation with the padre (how he came to work here, the “Comunidades Eclesiales de Base”) before turning in for the night, pretty exhausted after a day of mostly sitting on my butt.
Friday, April 18, 2008
- After two days of a “norte” wind cooling things off a bit, it was back to being pretty hot today.
- Stopped in San Marcos and got a rack for my bike, which I’ve been wanting to do pretty much since I got it. They were all out of rear racks to I got one in front. It’s short and cute and I think I’ll actually like being able to see what I’m carrying on it (as opposed to when my entire purse fell out of my basket in DC).
- Rather boring day in the office – got caught up on data entry, then took inventory to compare it with my numbers and of course there are plenty that don’t match up. Some of that might be because I was going off of Balbino’s chicken-scratch writing without him being there to interpret it for me. He really should be the one keeping track of his own inventory anyways, but I don’t feel like I’m in any position to tell him to shape up, and he’s generally fun to hang out with so I don’t want to screw that up. Plus it’s not like I’m really overworked at this point.
- Used both Nohé’s and Estela’s computers today and think I might take mine in on Monday, although I only have bubble wrap to protect it in transit…
- Looks like I really am going to be going to Costa Rica with this guy Graham sometime next week. This trip is definitely not going to be well planned out ahead of time.
- Don Roberto showed me his six bullet wounds from the war and told me about the piece of shrapnel that’s still lodged in his head somewhere. Also, some kid from Paty’s school got stabbed on a bus in a cell-phone robbery. Am hoping that any new scars I have when I leave El Salvador are just from me being clumsy as opposed to the more violent variety…
- Helped seal some bags of cashews to take on the outing tomorrow, ate a bunch of under-quality ones, walked my bike home with Loli and Gilma as Loli’s bike had a flat tire (am just counting the days until my first of many flats). Then exercises, shower, dinner, journal, Bible, bed.
New Words:
shrapnel = metralla
to stab = apuñalar (but Gilma says “pullar?”)
Thursday, April 17, 2008
- Something bit me on the lip last night, so it looked like I got a really lopsided collagen injection this morning.
- The computer I usually use crashed in the middle of a spreadsheet. Not even a blue screen of death, but a black one. It had said “hard drive failure imminent” pretty much every time I’d booted it up, but I’d been hoping it was just kidding. Luckily, Nohé’s computer was free and I was able to retrieve almost everything between my memory stick (thanks, Dad!) and emails attachments I’d sent to Armando. But I needed to go through and change all the file names and date formats anyway, so that took a while. Not sure if that computer can be salvaged or what I’m going to do when Nohé need his computer or if I should start thinking about taking my computer into the office…
- In the afternoon, Armando decided to go to Nueva Esperanza and Las Mesas again (despite having been to both yesterday). At least this trip involved paying the storekeepers a little bit, which is something I hadn’t seen yet. From what I overheard, it seems that both stores made about $900 since they were last paid (2 or 3 months) and the ladies got paid 3% of that – about $27. Makes my $50/month spending money look pretty good.
- Armando annoyed me quite a bit today (although not more than usual, I suppose). He wants me to help keep all these records but then rushes me around, yelling out numbers and throwing stuff in the truck before I can write it down. He also had me print off a bunch of forms from C.R. and then dumped them in my lap on his way to take a phone call and never looked at them. It’s like he just does everything on a whim without really thinking it through (or telling me what he’s thinking, in the even that he is), whereas I think this whole project would work much better if we could establish some sort of regular system.
- Armando wanted to catch a bus to San Salvador at 4:30, so I also left the office around then. Started out on a jog and decided I was too tired for that, so went on a short bike ride instead. Then exercises, shower, little bit of laundry, tortillas, dinner. Read some more articles out of the American Jewish World Service handbook that Robyn gave (lent?) me – really fascinating stuff about priorities of giving (i.e. family vs. strangers), the human tendency to be more moved by individual tragedies that genocides, the moral obligation of those who have enough to meet their basic needs to give (even if it’s more than their “fair share”) to aid organizations that save lives (this particular article started with an example from Central Station). All good stuff. Will see if I can find some help in there to answer some more of my quarter-life crisis questions – what would an equitable, sustainable lifestyle on a global scale look like? How do you decide which luxuries are more morally defensible (i.e. is buying a Hummer any worse than taking a technically unnecessary family vacation to the beach?)?
- Have killed at least five mosquitoes today – Ha!
- Journal, Bible, bed.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
- Looked up this permaculture farm in Nicaragua where I might be going soon on my way to Costa Rica (at least I think it’s the same farm – Project Bona Fide) and had the sudden desire to apply for an internship there and learn all about permaculture. Then I looked up WWOOF (World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms?) and decided I also want to spend a while traveling around working on organic farms and that I also want to be a farmer when I grow up (some of the hosts’ descriptions sound amazingly idyllic). Then I looked up the grad programs at SIT and American University and also want to do one of those… And thus began another episode of my quarter-life crisis, where I get all antsy trying to figure out what I want my “grown-up” life to be like and worrying about how I’m eve going to fit in all the stuff I want to do and see and learn. I know that I don’t have to do it all before I have kids and that I need to just take it all one step at a time, but sometimes I just get so excited by all the possibilities… Seeing as how I also have some moments of really powerful nostalgia, I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have done and seen and learned so many amazing things already, not to mention that I have enough control over my life to even consider some of these things as possibilities. I’m sure a lot of other 25-year-olds throughout the world are just worried about putting food on the table and will never have the chance to travel very far from their homes.
- Despite calling this whole thing a “crisis,” I was in a remarkably good mood all morning and felt more energetic than I have in a while. If I ever have this meeting with Estela & co. I think I will ask if there’s any way I can get involved with the agriculture projects here (to see if I really like farming as much as I like the idea). Went to lunch with Robyn and Carmen, who didn’t seem as cold as usual.
- Helped Balbino package up some beans, which helped calm me down, then Armando arrived having finally bought some products from San Salvador. So I whipped out my arsenal of lists as we unloaded the truck and then loaded it up again to go to El Mono, Las Mesas, and Nueva Esperanza. I really think it would have been better to do the deliveries tomorrow, as the gas use would be the same and we wouldn’t have had to rush as much (at least as much as Salvadorans rush – there was a little mango break in Las Mesas). But Armando insisted on doing it all today and I didn’t get home til 7:30pm. He hit on Gilma again when they dropped me off (I had been driving). Then shower, dinner, journal, Bible, Bed.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
- Went to C. Romero this morning with Balbino to collect the rest of the stuff that’s been sitting there for over a month – apparently Toya decided not to work in the store after all, so I’m not sure if we’re going to worry about re-opening it or not. Then spent most of the rest of the day doing the assorted paperwork (counting it all, noting that it left C.R. and entered San Nicolás, that there were a few products here and there that seem to have gone missing, then entering all of that into the computer). Speaking of things going missing, I couldn’t find my pencil sharpener yesterday. For some reason, I decided to see what was in the small zippered pocket of my backpack that I never use, and lo and behold, there it was along with a small eraser and my little wallet that has my driver’s license, debit card, and a copy of my passport. I hadn’t even realized that wallet was “missing.” I thought it was a bit strange that those things seemed to have moved themselves but wasn’t too worried about it until I realized that I’d had a $5 phone card in the wallet… So I told Gilma about it and she said she’d have a talk with some mischievous little girls when she got home. If they say they didn’t do it then I won’t know what to think. (Also, both Robyn’s camera and MP3 player have apparently disappeared recently).
- Biked home, did my exercises, showered and shaved, Sulma came over for some more help with English homework and taught me some football words, dinner, brush teeth, journal (no earthquakes tonight), guidebook, Bible book, bed.
New Words:
soccer = fútbol
goal = gol
goal (physical) = portería
forward = delantero
midfielder = bolante/ bolantía (con V?)
defense = defense
goalkeeper = portero
field = cancha
ball = pelota
to kick = pegar/ dar la pelota con pie
referee = árbito
coach = entrenador
season = temporada
foul = falta
free kick = tiro libre
penalty kick = pénalty
dribble = driblar?
captain = capitán
armband? = bincha
? = saque de mano
? = tiro de puerta
corner kick = tiro de esquina
eject = expulsar (3 amarillas o 1 roja)
warned? = amonestado (2 amarillas)
Monday, April 14, 2008
- Was in a pretty good mood today, despite nothing particularly good happening. Spent the morning catching up on emails and uploading blog/photos/videos, then went to lunch with Robyn and David. Juan Luna joined us and we talked about Robyn’s recent trip to Costa Rica (monkeys!) and about a permaculture farm in Nicaragua that I might go visit with this guy Graham (friend of a former volunteer) and which might be the same one Juan Luna has been to. Then I went on a little shopping trip on the lower level of the Mercado – got some deodorant ($3 – eek!), a razor, and a sheet of wrapping paper to cover my cardboard “drawers.” Then back to the office, where Armando showed up long enough to hand me the keys to the Kia – Balbino and I headed to Ciudad Romero to pick up the weevily beans and rice, then went to Nueva Esperanza to collect money. Nothing special there, but we were both in good moods and there was a Red Hot Chili Peppers song on the radio on the way back that I could sing along to, so it was a fun afternoon.
- Finished up some quick inventory, decided not to wait for Gilma, bike home, went for a jog (accompanied part of the way by a friendly middle-aged guy on a bike who at one point asked me how much I weigh – you wouldn’t get that in the US!) and was glad that my knee held up the whole way. Then shower, washed my sweaty shorts and bra, dinner, talked with Mom and Dad (who have a dysfunctional phone card). Noticed the rocking chair was rocking a bit from side to side just after I sat down to write my journal and realized it was probably a very small earthquake – weird. Little bit of magazine reading, then Bible and bed.
New Words:
shudder = estremecerse
band-aid = cura
budget = presupuesto
pliegue = pleat
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