Yes, I’m still alive…

6-15-10

Alright, I realize I haven’t posted in three weeks or something like that, and I’m sure you’re all dying for a new installment of my El Sal adventures.  Sorry.  Truthfully, now that I’m back in training, I’ve had a lot less time to write hilariously witty accounts of my life here.  I’ve actually done a lot in the last few weeks, but in the interests of page space, I’ll try to be concise.

May 25:  My host mother and I (my Salvadoran counterpart) traveled from Chalatenango to Costa del Sol in La Paz for an HIV/AIDS workshop.  It took us six hours and four buses – and out of the two of us, my host mother was infinitely more nervous.  She crossed herself when we left the bus station in San Salvador.  I reminded her that if we were going to be robbed, they’d focus on the rich gringa.  She felt better.

That evening: The hotel, Bahia del Sol, looked pretty and expensive – until we discovered that the roofs leaked and there were rats in the walls.  We were not impressed.  The Peace Corps security office sent us an email telling us that a tropical storm was on the way and that we should avoid coastal areas. 

May 26-28: HIV/AIDS workshop.  The highlights: learned the “correct” way to put on a condom using a wooden dildo that my counterpart was holding (fairly awkward), did a charla on HIV/AIDS for 20 Salvadoran teenagers (they corrected me a lot on my Spanish), gained five pounds eating the delicious food at the hotel, gave my counterpart her first taste of margarita…and then her first taste of pina colada, swam in the ocean, got caught in the rain (a lot), ran out of dry/clean clothes the third day, and got to go on a boat (and got caught in the rain again).

May29 and 30:  We didn’t have to be in our training communities until Sunday the 30th, so we decided to do an overnight in San Salvador.  Tropical Storm Agatha touched down on Saturday night in Guatemala, so the Peace Corps decided to keep us in San Salvador for an extra night, which was awesome.  I had sushi for dinner at the Intercontinental Real Hotel, which I’ll never get to actually be a guest in, because it’s a ridiculously expensive place made for wealthy tourists and visiting diplomats.  But the sushi is legit, so good stuff there.

May 31: They got us up to leave San Salvador by 6:30 so we could be in San Vicente for PST2 (Pre-service Training 2) by 8 am.  It wasn’t raining as heavily anymore, but they still decided that we couldn’t go back to our training communities, because of the risk of mudslides.  There are only two accomodations in San Vicente: the OEF, a nice hotel which the US military currently has booked out for the next three months, and the Parque Central, which I affectionately like to term “the two-bit whorehouse”.  Actually, I take that back.  The Parque Central besmirches the good name of two-bit whorehouses everywhere.  There was green mold growing in the toilets, cockroaches coming out of the shower drains, water leaking from the toilet bowl (but not running out of the showerhead), mildewed pillows, stained sheets, and a general layer of grime covering everything.  When our boss tried to check us in, they asked us if he would like a room for the hour, or the night.  Since my skin crawled just being in the room, I tried to drink my way to a state of non-revulsion with a bottle of cheap Chilean wine that cost me $6 at the local Super Selectos.  That backfired on me, as I ended up spending a generous portion of the night much closer to fuzzy green toilet than I would have liked.  The next morning, since the water wasn’t running, I had to wait until lunchtime to wash the Pargue Central stink off me in one of the training center’s showers.  Praise be, they let us go back to our training communities that night.  The Parque Central has since been declared “unsuitable for Peace Corps volunteer occupation”.

June 1-5: Training.  Lots of technical charlas.  Kind of boring.

June 5-7: Training in San Salvador.  Still a little boring, but at least we got to hang out in San Sal.  I saw a couple of movies (in English), went out for more sushi, and bought some new clothes, since a fair amount of mine have been stretched, worn, torn, and mildewed beyond wearing in the last four months.

June 8: We visited Gabe, a volunteer up north in Santa Ana.  He showed us how to make homemade aloe vera shampoo (which we all got a bottle of), and then told us about his rabbit project.  He taught a number of families in his community how to raise, breed, and care for rabbits.  He used grant money to give three rabbits and materials for cages to each family that had been trained.  We got to see his own rabbit farm, and then we got to kill and eat three of his rabbits.  I didn’t strike the mortal blow on any of them, but I feel I helped kill them with my complicity.  Like the Romans.  And Jesus.  Or whatever.  I know that the killing, gutting, and skinning should have freaked me out, but it didn’t.  What can I say?  Slap a little BBQ sauce on those babies, and they taste just like barbecue chicken.  And I love me some barbecue chicken.

June 9-11:  More training.  Still kind of boring.  Important for my future work, but not important enough for me to enumerate here and now.

June 12:  Our last free time before the end of training.  A few of us decided to go to El Tunco, the beach that we went to during our first round of training.  I only got to spend about 30 hours there, but I was sure to take advantage of it.  I spent the majority of those hours sipping rum out of a coconut.  Seriously.  They served their rum in coconuts.  It was pretty awesome.

The last couple have days have been spent in Spanish classes.  It’s called our “Spanish Reconnect”.  You stay longer depending on your level of Spanish at the end of PST1.  Some really fluent volunteers don’t have to stay at all.  Most of the volunteers are staying until tomorrow.  Me?  I get to stay until Saturday.  Since apparently my Spanish is still more or less the same level as a small child, or a brain-damaged adult.

And that brings us more or less up to speed.  I’m going to be returning to my site on Saturday, the 19th, and then hopefully moving into my new house and starting some actual work.  So we’ll see how that goes.