Hello Everyone! I´m finally in my site! Yipee! This past week has really flown by. (I hope they are not all like this because I would like to sit back and relax a little bit!)
I arrived at my site on Sunday, December 1st. They told us during training that the first couple weeks are the hardest so to avoid feeling depressed I immediatly started walking around my community visiting people. Apparently I stay at people´s houses for way to long because there are only 40 houses in my community and I´m still not done visiting them all. I harvested beans with a farmer on morning, dug an abonera (compost pit) in my yard another morning, had some kids over to color, played a little football, held a community meeting, etc. I have also been dipping my toes into the surrounding communities to see what resources are available around my site. But here are some of the highlights of the things I have experienced so far, and naturally, one of them involves insects.
Centro Juvenil: During the war, the vast majority of the people living in my area of Morazan fled the country for Honduras. The war lasted for 11 years so many Salvadoran children were born and raised in Honduras. When they returned after the war, they had nowhere to live. They founded a colonia named Segundo Montes that incorporates 5 caserios of returned refugees. The colonia was self sustaining with industry, farming, schools, and jobs for all. But after awhile, things fell apart. The youth had nothing to do and no job prospects so drugs and gangs became an attractive option. A German man named Rudy was living in one of the caserios of Segundo Montes and after several years of observing what was happening to the community, he founded a community center that includes a church, a senior center, a youth center, and a library! This was in 2002. The Centro Juvenil is most impressive. They have a computer lab with internet access and computer classes (I´m there right now), art classes, music lessons in both rock music and folk music, modern and folk dance lessons, sports clubs and tournaments, a cinema… You name it, they´ve got it. They have a scolarship program that helps kids through bacherato (high school) and university as well. There are dormitories for students whose homes are far away and they are working on a health clinic as we speak. It´s incredible and its all FREE! Everything is funded by agencies in Germany and the EEU.
Escuela del Campo el Arado: While the clinic is incredible, it´s not in my community. But, we do have something else that is really amazing. Every Saturday from 8am to 12pm La Fundacion de Segundo Montes sends agricultural extension agents to my community to provide training in various agricultural themes. They lecture for a bit and then we actually do what they lectured on. For example, one week they constructed semilleras to protect their seedlings, last week we learned how to reproduce the beneficial microorganisms that live in the soil, and this week we are going to make aboneras (compost pits). One of the farmers in my community is providing a plot of land for experimentation and every student in the school is responsible for one row in the field. There is an equal number of men and women in the group and we even have a couple teens who are participating. I´m very excited about this. They´ve made it very easy for me to identify my community leaders and technical help.
Cosas Religiosas: Every night during the month of December until Navidad we have Pastoreles in my community. This involves taking dolls of Joseph and Maria from one house to the next to reenact their search for a safe place to birth Jesus. Every night we sing religious songs, recite the rosary, and have cookies and coffee. The best part for me personally is seeing the diferent nativity scenes that people construct out of twigs, rocks, or what have you. They are pretty amazing!
Another religious thing I attended during my first week was a 9th Night ceremony. When a Catholic person dies here in El Salvador, the family opens the doors of their house every night for 9 nights after the death. Every night they pray the rosary, sing, and serve food to visitors, usually tomales, cafe, and pan dulce. The 9th night is the final night. TONS of people come, they pray the rosary three times, have a mass in the house, serve lots of food, and have a candle vigil. It´s a really beautiful way to celebrate a person´s life and from what I have heard, it makes the grieving process a little less lonely.
ADNA: ADNA (I´m not sure if I have the acronym right) is a traveling health clinic that visits my site once a month. They have a medical doctor, a dentist, and a couple nurses who give charlas on various health related topics while the patients wait for their appointments. When the clinic is over for the day, they give the charla materials to the Health Commity in my community who then repeats the charla to all the community members who did not attend the clinic. This month´s topic is Planificacion de Partos or planning for the birth of your child. It is the nurses´hope that this charla will convince women to birth their children in hospitals and while I whole heartedly support this message, I´m not so sure how well it will go over considering every woman in my community who has children gave birth to these children in their homes. We´ll see how it goes.
Guerradoras: One day I came home to find my house covered in ants from floor to ceiling. There were also various scorions, spiders, and salamanders scuddeling across the floor. I ran to my neighbors because I didn´t know what to do and they assured me that this situation was actually to my benefit. The ants are called Guerradoras (fighters) and they eat scorpions, cockroaches, salamanders, other ants, rats, etc. They enter the house during the day and leave by nightfall. I returned to my house and sat at my hamock, watching the little buggers and sure enough, they left by 6pm. The next few nights I had 5 scorpions in my house which I killed. The Guerradoras returned a second time and I haven´t had any problems with scorpions again. Thank You Guerradoras!
Well, it´s time to scrounge up some food and meet more people. Take care everyone! Until next time…
