#Feria2015

It's that time of year again- time to celebrate the fiestas patronales and honor the Virgin Saint Lourdes! This week has been a whirlwind of vegetable oil, bailes, and light public nudity. Feria 2015 is definitely a step up from last year. I’ve been working with the fair committee since I got back in January to make this year the most impressive yet, and I’m proud to say we pulled off an amazing patron saint fair. 

My canton is made up of three casarios, and somehow we were able to claw our way through meetings and meetings with representatives from each casario until we found a nice balance in the program for all everyone to celebrate. I also added in the open house for my art class, which was a smashing success. 

This year I actually got to go to the fair. Like I explained last year, Evanglicals do not participate in the patron saint fair and so the new and confused Ale didn't participate much either. I went to the daytime events, but I definitely didn't go to the dance or leave the house early for the pre-dawn alboradas. It's a good thing that my new host family likes to party at all hours, because we were up at 4am for tamales and stayed out until midnight dancing. For the first time since I got here I experienced genuine fun in the campo. I had such an amazing time, and I got to spend a lot of time with people in the community that have been supportive and welcoming. 

I hope the bigger and better fair plans carry over for next year's patron saint fair. I might just have to make a trip back for it!

One track mind

Annnnd I'm back. I hate to neglect my blog, but I've had a one track mind lately and I think it's paid off.

Folks, it's official- I have completed the graduation requirements for my Master's degree in Politics and Government from Illinois State University! I started a Master's International program with the Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development the year before I left for PC and wrote my capstone while I was in El Salvador.

Me and my cousin walked in the same ceremony (she's in SpeechPath) back in May when I visited home. 

Unfortunately my capstone is a little disheartening. I conducted a case study that examines just how drastically my community's development organization or ADESCO (Asociaciones de Desarrollo Comunal) has fallen in the past two years that it's partnered with a certain microfinance institution. I had a really unique perspective in all of this because COED PCVs in El Salvador are placed specifically with ADESCOs to do trainings, help them manage projects, etc. I got placed with one that just happened to, well, suck.

The decline of my ADESCO affected me personally in a variety of ways. Remember when the ADESCO was fulfilling their expectations from the microfinance institution, but not really though, and left me to invite a group of women and conduct the meeting alone? Yeah, that's not cool. It's a constant process explaining my role to the community, but you'd think after SIX previous PCVs they'd get the gist. PCVs work with communities, but they don't work for them. This was just an example of how the "opportunities" the MFI brought in weren't actually what the ADESCO wanted, or they didn't want to work for them.

Whereas the actual case study might be repetitive (people are pretty fed up talking about it at this point), the research I do regarding ADESCOs is really informative. There are NO previous resources, not even governmental resources, that fully describe the history of ADESCOs, how to form one, what they do, what are the legal frameworks in place, and what laws protect the rights of ADESCOs. These are legal entities, with legal powers to solicit their own community development projects with the government, NGOs, international orgs, banks, etc. Imagine if Englewood could just be like, "Yeah, thanks for nothing City of Chicago. We're gonna work with the UN now." It's crazy! So interesting! And yet, no one really knows about it.

I also summarize a recent report that basically quantifies the lives of Salvadorans by their income, housing characteristics, education levels, etc. As it could be expected, rural areas of El Salvador are doing FAR WORSE than the urban areas, and living in the capital can nearly double your monthly earnings. A review of El Salvador wouldn't be complete without discussing gang violence and the influx of child immigrants, two things I've experienced very personally here. It felt a little silly trying to sum up all of these things and present the "situation" in full because, as it is anywhere in the world, the statistics don't always capture the real lives of its subjects.

So besides my capstone, what else have I been doing? Let's see.

Taking pictures of our cows.

Taking selfies with Aysel, who loves my iPad.

Laughing at the boys when they come back from the milpa. Darn tootin their gonna pick those beans!

Making riguas with my favorite family. 

Corn mash, salt, oil, sugar. Looks like pancakes. 

Served with a side of cuajada. So good!

And making tamales with maiz nuevo. I like to eat mine with honey and they think I'm crazy. 

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.

Busy days!

One thing I love about my community is that there is ALWAYS something to do. I'll look at my blank calendar on Sunday thinking, "Gee, I have a lot of free time." Then BOOM and now I have 15 meetings, intramurals, cooking, art, women's groups, ADESCOs, NGOs, this, that, and more! It's great and it's exhausting.

Today I ran around with the kids from my school for their annual intramural extravaganza. Of course, the boys play futbol and the girls either sit around or some play softball. They never mix and the girls never play futbol. Besides the gender divide, the kids really like having time out of class. And they're getting bastante time off! Three days this week are spent in the cancha playing sports and next week is Semana Santa, which is like spring break but with a lot more church.

Kenny and his friend. The mayor donated the uniforms for kindergarten. 

Two of my 9th grade englsih class students are in *love*

Finally got a pic of Kenny and David. So cute here, so loud when they're at home. 

Kids really wanted me to take a photo...

Me with my 9th graders. I asked the teacher next to me to take the photo, but he made a big deal about finishing his cortido and beans so he could be IN the photo. Guess I should work on my speaking skills some more.

Some girls playing softball. There were so many dust storms. Where's the RAIN!?!

Then I showered up and zoomed into town for a presentation from Asociacion PROESA. I'd like to think that my NGO b.s. meter is pretty accurate at this point, thanks to all the failed projects and false expectations previous NGOs have brought to my community. PROESA seems pretty OK to me. They work with the mayor's office to build capacity for production and local economic growth. I like their mission statement and their output goals are reasonable. They're going to start decentralized meetings across the municipality this month, focusing on the strengths of Osicala's producers (cafe, henequin, artesania, coopertivas, corte conffecion, etc) and how to improve their technical skills and organizational capacity.

I was feeling extra confident today and even read a paragraph of the powerpoint slide out loud when no one answered the presenter's plea for participation. I stumbled on a few words but everyone seemed impressed with the gringa's mad Spanish skills. I'm just here to make people smile :)

Big days

I have a horrible habit here of doing absolutely nothing for a whole day, then the next day I try to cram in everything I avoided. Yesterday I really shoved a lot of information gathering in one day, and I learned a lot about the community.

In the morning I went over to Ana's house (I mentioned her in a previous post) and I walked with her and her family to the Catholic church. Honestly, church is something I've been stealthily avoiding since I got to site. Yes, I know going to church is a great way to meet people and be seen in the community... but I just can't get over the whole 3-4 hour long commitment. I made an exception yesterday because the music group Bendición was crowning the queen of saint's day. Saint's day is a lot dia de los muertos, but a lot less fun. People typically clean up the grave sites of their loved ones and decorate the grave stone with flowers.

Bendición visited me in my second week to see if I can help them fund raise for new instruments. I asked them a million questions, most importantly "What have you done so far to raise money?" So they invited me to the crowning ceremony, which ended a contest similar to the one at corn fest where you buy votes and some girl ends up with a crown.

 The girl who won was 6 years old, and cranky. She didn't even care that she won! I think some of the teenagers were pissed about it. They asked me (as the honored guest) to put the sash on her. I tried making her smile, but this is all I got.

So happy. 

Then I visited with Otinia, talked about my big plans for my asamblea general coming up on Wednesday. This is basically a community meeting where I introduce myself and Peace Corps, why I'm here, what kind of projects I can do. It's kinda a big deal since first impressions matter so much. Also, I want to clear up any misinformaiton people have spun about PC. Some people have it in their minds that I'm their volunteer, that I'm here to do their work, and not work with any other part of the community. That doesn't sit well with me. It actually makes me incredibly uncomfortable and irritated. I just hope that my asamblea puts things into perspective.

Vaquito, the last PCV's dog who lives with Otinia. He follows me everywhere! 

I then posted up a handmade flier for my asamblea at the pupusaria. The pupusa lady hustled me for a higher priced pupusa- queso con lorocco- but I couldn't care less, I was so hungry. I scarfed down my pupusas then ran in the pouring rain to the ADESCO meeting in Hoja de Sal.

I learned a lot about their organization. Their sole purpose right now is to get the casario access to drinking water. There are about 10 members. Their first question, of course, is what can you do for us? I told them that I'm an open resource, I focus on capacity building, I'm a representative to NGOs, I can help organize the community. I got a lot of blank stares. I think they were waiting for me to say dinero or fondos. The meeting dragged on as 10 voices shared 10 opinions on what they need to do and what I can do and how we do that together...

After 3 hours, I broke. I told them that I'm not here to build water tanks with my bare hands, I'm here to get them ready to find organizations who can and want to build the water tank. But before we go around asking the municipality or NGOs, we have work we need to do. We need a name, we need a census, we need community support. We need to answer where you gonna build it, who's land is it, how many lives will be improve by access to clean water? I'm all for sunshine and rainbows, world peace and happiness, blablabla. But at my core I'm a businesswomen. I know there's a process to community development. Play by the rules, have the information ready, and you'll have a grant in your pocket by the end of the year.

That got some people on board. I think they started to see that after the water tank they'll want to fix the road, then get waste management, then a casa comunal, then, then, then! There's never really an end to what this community needs. I'm only here for 2 years, but with a strong administration and mission this ADESCO can get it all done. They just need to see the big picture.

Some of my closest friends still don't know what I'm doing here. I hope that rant gives you some idea. It's ambitious, but I love it.