Just what I needed

Yesterday was Dia de la Maestra in El Salvador. I guess I'm technically a teacher for 1 hour every Thursday. I didn't think that would count for much, but then two of my students showed up at my house to invite me to come to the school at noon.

Now, I honestly forgot that it was teacher's day. I thought this was some meeting, or maybe the CDE (school board) was going to ask me when I'd get that shipment of soccer balls I promised to donate 2 months ago...

But no! It was a party! And I had to keep blinking so I wouldn't cry. My students couldn't have known how terrible this month has been for me. English class is one of the few things I really like, so I've always been pretty upbeat with them. I was so honored to be included in their celebration. This was JUST what I needed to get me over the dip (Thanks Jodi!).

Here are some highlights:

You like me! You really, really like me!

Drag was a popular option for the dances. We watched 4 choreographed dances and they were all great! 

I live in a very conservative community (think the town in Footloose), so I was fairly surprised by all the dancing. I think me and the other teacher's need to do a dance for student's day in July! 

THREE MEATS

Watching over my cake, giving me the creeps. 

The teachers!

The Stigma

June is the never ending month. I'm ready to get June 2014 done and over with because it's been the hardest time of my service. At the 11 month mark, I've had a lot of "Do I really want to do this for another 16 months" thoughts running through my head. Everything hit me hard and suddenly. Host family troubles, work troubles, trouble all around the country, and an overwhelming dose of culturesickness. I've had mini-melt downs before, but this time was certainly more intense. It seemed to me that if I was going to ET, it'd be now. RIGHT now. The stars were aligned and I had some serious decisions to be making.

I spent a lot of time reading blog posts from PCVs who Early Terminated. Why did they do it? How far along did they make it? Did they make the right choice? How do you KNOW it's the right choice? They all seem like fairly well-adjusted and happy people. Would I be happy if I left El Salvador and my PC family behind?

I checked out the PC manual on Early Termination and I couldn't get over the wording:

"A resignation is a decision made by a V/T that he/she no longer wishes to continue in Peace Corps service." 

No longer wishes. It comes down to the whims of my wishes whether or not to continue with service? The thing is I wish for running water, but I don't always get it. I wish for community partners to collaborate with me, but most of the time that's a bad idea. And I wish that the gangs in El Salvador would stop killing people, but that one isn't being granted either.

Early Termination is what happens when you've used up all your wishes and still, nothing changes.

Given the year of wishes I've made, do I still wish to continue with Peace Corps service? Well, yeah. I do. It's been my goal to be an RPCV for a long time. I didn't take the decision to apply lightly. I had to defend myself to a lot of people, mostly family members, that this is a worthwhile experience and the Peace Corps is a positive force for good. I've even had to convince myself at times that the small relationships I'm making in El Salvador are powerful and inspiring. (For the record- they are.) I've put a lot of time and effort into getting myself here, I definitely don't wish to quit before my service is served.

The truth of the matter is that Early Terminating is stigmatized in the Peace Corps world. It's a quiet, underbelly kind of stigma that no one really talks about but everyone knows. Don't get me wrong- no one, especially not a fellow PCV, would criticize someone's decision to ET. Only you know what's best for you, stigma be damned.

But for obsessive achievaholics like myself, the shame of leaving early is always pulsing in the back of my mind. It takes up the majority of the right column in my ET pro/con list, often disguised in different forms. Disappointment that I couldn’t “make it" and Won’t feel like a real RPCV are just two examples.

If I really wanted to go home, I would've been on a plane within days. PC staff is ready with support and a plane ticket to any PCV who makes the call. No judgement, no last ditch efforts to get you to stay. Just a ticket home.

After multiple pro/con lists, long distance calls, and panic attacks, I made the decision to stay. I thought it was weird that out of all those blogs that showed up in the Google search "Peace Corps Volunteer Early Termination," not a single one was from a PCV who seriously considered Early Terminating but stayed. I want to add this post into the mix. Ask me in 16 months if I think I made the right choice.

Maybe we don't talk about it, the stigma of ETing, because after you decide to stay things get a lot better. I mean, common guys, we have a graph about this. They don't call it the "Mid-Service Crisis" for nothin'. I feel like that's a cop out, though. Not talking about ETing just contributes to the sense of "false advertising" that trails the Peace Corps.

The entire month of June sure felt like a crisis, but in 5, 10, 50 years when I look back on this time it won't be because of my total breakdown. Nah, that part sucked. Instead, I'll look back on the great turning point of my service.

My diary/work journal. I keep general notes on every day of my service. I looked back and loved this entry so much. It's totally cool to talk to your future/past self right? 

Home life

Well, it can't be avoided any more. I'm having some serious troubles with my host site. I can be an incredibly emotional person (remember when I cried all over the Director of Peace Corps?), but I also try to counter that with cold hard logic.

After three sets of pro/con lists and talking it over with multiple people, I think I've finally narrowed down the source of what's making me feel so blue. My Project Manager is so kind and helpful, and she's going to take some steps with me to make it better.

If that's too cryptic for you, too bad. I do try to keep some things confidential while still updating the world with the goings ons in my life. The whole idea of this blog was to focus on culture and share El Salvador with my friends and family back home. Nah, I'm not having another blog crisis, but I do want to keep Third Goal in sight. After all, it'd be nice to win a trip to headquarters in Washington D. C.! (Check out some past Blog It Home winners here.)

That being said, I had a crazy experience yesterday. I was getting ready to leave for the day, packing my water bottles and snacks, when all of a sudden I hear this weird noise. It's kind of like what a lawn mower sounds like, but moving faster than a lawn mower could. The 8 year old boy I live with starts screaming and jumping around and at this point I run outside to see what's happening. And I run into a wall of ghosty white smoke.

Fumigation. The entire community, homes and along the roads, was engulfed in bug killing (and probably carcinogenic) smoke.

I freak out because, well, it's creepy and smells terrible. I run over to my host parent's house to ask if I should close the house up or if we should move to avoid breathing this stuff in. My host sister just kind of laughs. "They spray inside the house, too."

The smoke rising up through the roof of my neighbor's house.

I had a meeting with the health promotor later in the day. What's up with the fumigation!? It's part of the government's aggressive tactics to kill mosquitos and stop the spread of dengue. Some of you might be familiar with dengue. I've managed to stay dengue free for 11 months! Woo! But many a PCES volunteer have fallen victim to the fever. I guess I should be happy that my community is getting the ghosty makeover, but it still gives me the heeby jeebies. My bed sheets and towels smell like strong chemicals :(

The best news is, I'm assuming the fumes killed my little scorpion friend I shared on Facebook a few nights ago. Aw, shucks.

R.I.P. Scorpy

English muffins and culturesickness

I woke up today feeling awfully homesick. Not necessarily homesick for home, though I did miss celebrating my lovely sister's 16th birthday. No, I was homesick for my culture. Culturesick? Sounds about right.

I think other PCVs will agree when I say that the months fly by, but the days are excruciatingly slow. Not everyday, obviously. Somedays I'm so busy I collapse as soon as I get home and I don't have time to reflect or complain about the power being out (again). But there are slow days, and they make me feel especially culturesick. Maybe it's because on slow days I do have time to internalize what's going on around me, and I don't like it.

I know it's childish, but on these days I feel like every flaw, hardship, and annoyance of living in rural El Salvador is a personal slight against me and my American-ness.

Sometimes it's just the giant spider living in my shower head or the wall shaking ranchera music at 5am that makes me feel completely inadequate, like campo life is spitting in my face. No one cares about my thoughts, or my feelings, or my sleep schedule. I'm the outsider who needs to fit in here, and if I can't take it I could go back where I come from!

Some of these slights are more real than perceived. Like after a meeting when my counterpart said that if I was expecting to work with a partner I should have gotten married. Or when I was called a bruja by young children when I set the minimum age for an art class at 12 years old. And how about that time I was told that I'm less of a woman because I used a machine to wash my clothes? That one hurt right in the feminism.

I do work hard to understand and integrate into my host culture, but sometimes it's just too much. The slights I feel for being an outsider are too real and they hurt. I wake up culturesick for America where independence, structure, and gender equality are treasured norms. For where I feel comfortable and understood. (Or at the very least, I'm not called a witch.)

So what do I do when I'm feeling culturesick? I make comfort food. I make... English muffins.

I endured quite a few more slights during the process of making these English muffins. No one thought I knew what I was doing, that I couldn't possibly be capable of making bread without at least 1lb of sugar, and I didn't want to listen to their sage advice regarding vegetable oil and kneading. I made them anyways, and they were the best damn things I'd eaten in weeks. The women in my host family even reluctantly admitted that yes, they were tasty (Score one for Second Goal!).

I might not always love this culture or strive to be pura salvadoreña, but I do appreciate the challenge of fitting in. Because that's what Peace Corps is- the challenge to change. Today was slow and I felt culturesick, but I'm also aware that in 16 months I'll be able to live my privileged and free American life again. This time, though, I'll have a greater understanding of what it's like to feel completely on the outside in a culture that doesn't totally accept you (or how you cook.) And THAT ladies and gentlemen will not only make me a better person, but a better American as well.

English muffins might not completely bridge the culture gap, but it's a delicious and buttery start.

I went to the big city to buy real butter specifically for making these English muffins. Absolutely worth it. 

Incredibly delicious butter fried muffins cooling on a tortilla toaster. 

Aysel liked pan inglaterra! (Only I would get photobombed by a chicken.) 

I love you, English muffins. 

More PCV Visits

I've been on a PCV visiting roll lately! This week I visited PCVs Amanda and Emily in northern Morazán. We didn't get to Amanda's site until late in the afternoon, but it was a welcome sight to see her clean, flea free pet dogs. They even had flea collars! We had a nice dinner with her host mom and set off the next morning to Emily's site about an hours walk away. (Keep in mind that 1 hour mountainous walk = 3 hours normal walking.) Leo, an artist from my community, is building a table and chairs from bamboo for a project Emily and Amanda are collaborating on. The idea is to have kids find new and creative uses for bamboo through a multi-school competition. Leo and I are currently working on a grant to buy art supplies for a drawing and painting class, so it really helped to spend the day together and learn about the grant Em & Amanda are writing. Today we have our first meeting with the kids in the community, wish me luck!

Pearla, my favorite.

This ugly Chihuahua was not.  

Amanda, pointing out that the little houses in the distance is our destination. 

Bamboozle!

Teamwork makes the dream work.  

Leo and an almost finished table! 

Emily, me and Amanda with the bamboo table

Aysel Learns English Part II

Back by popular demand! The much anticipated follow up to "Hello" is Please and Thank You! 

I'd like to thank the Academy, and the English language. Thank you!

Rainy season

We've officially hit rainy season here in El Salvador. May was a smattering of storms and clouds, but June is sure to bring daily downpours and of course, mold.

But I'm ok with it. I'm known around PCES as The Girl Who Rain Dances. Throughout the dry season I experienced what true thirst is and how this dusty mountainside lives without access to water. I'm honestly dreading December when the skies start to dry up again. If I take away anything from my PC service, it will be a profound appreciation for clean drinking water.

I've celebrated the onset of rainy season by relaxing. I've maxed out several data plans FaceTiming with my family and listening to the greatest team in hockey advance in post-season (Gimme a win tonight, Hawks!). I also spent the majority of yesterday hanging out with my host family. I colored with Aysel, watched the now ex-president's farewell rant on public access TV with my host dad, and ate tamales with Ive. I also earned the nick name Tamale Ale because I gorged myself on 8 tamales. So much for that post-USA-visit diet...

I justify the lazy time to myself because I had a heck of a week. After the sneak attack ADESCO meeting on Tuesday, I took it upon myself to invite all of the women of my casario to participate in electing a taller. Talleres (pronounced thai-airs) are essentially workshops. Cuidad Mujer, the NGO we're soliciting to lead the taller, gave us three options: bread making, food preparation, cosmetology, and sewing. I think they're all great opportunities for the women in my community and wanted to make sure everyone got a say.

Well the thing is, I live on a densely populated mountainside. To invite one vecina, you need to invite the other, and the other. You'd think the neighbor could just share the info next door, but it's really important in Salvadoran culture to be personally invited. It's a sign of respect and most people can't read, so you can't just leave an invite. Up the mountain, down the mountain. Side step the cows and hurdle the poop. It took me 6 exhausting hours and I still missed some women.

But wow, was I surprised. The women showed up! Like, 23 women! That's a pretty decent turn out.

I'm especially proud of my new friend Lorena who was the first to arrive. She's a young woman who lives with her husband and daughter in a bamboo and mud shack built on to the side of the mountain. She has the most gorgeous view of the valley, hands down. She's also never been invited to anything before in her life. It makes sense now that she was terrified of this clumsy gringa climbing her way up the boulders to her house. People just don't make the effort. Her coming to the meeting is a direct consequence of me visiting her, and that makes me feel like it all paid off.

The meeting itself went well, even though my counterpart backed out and left me to lead the whole thing by myself. Just me with 23 women + all their wiggly, whiney small children. I'm proud that I pulled it off and we had a nice, clean voting process (sewing won). But I did have a moment with my counterpart afterwards. Words were exchanged, and let's just say that was the last time I lead a meeting for the ADESCO. I work with the ADESCO, not for them. Explaining my role in the community is an on-going process.

And now we wait to see if our request is granted and we're sponsored for a taller. I'm lead to believe the microfinance insitution pulls some weight with the NGO, so our chances are good. Either way, I foresee more days of invitations in the future.