My girl

Everybody who's talked to me in the last year and a half knows that I'm head over heels for my girl Aysel. We've been spending a lot of quality time together around the house. Since she knows how to handle my iPad better than most adults, I let her go wild with the apps and camera. (Too bad I haven't had enough time or strong enough internet to update my apps so they tend to spontaneously shut down.) Sometimes I snap some adorable pics, too.

We like to draw together. 

On paper as big as her.

Who needs snow when you've got corn husks!?

Workin hard or hardly workin, Aysel?

Yesterday I went to the Ciudad Mujer inauguration and it was... typical. Very hot, lots of prom dresses, some woman shoved me into the curb and I got sick from the comedor food. Although the organization is technically separate from a political party the guest speakers definitely trumped up the party who largely supports them, which left me feeling awkward per usual. I genuinely do appreciate what the organization stands for and how they provide cancer screenings and reproductive health information to rural women, but of course there's got to be some political component and that may complicate things for an apolitical volunteer like me. For example, even though my three host sisters gladly participated in the sewing workshop in October they refused to come to the inauguration because they don't support the political party that supports Ciudad Mujer. I came home to a hail storm of who went from the community and who they told people to vote for and did I give a speech? (They clearly misunderstood the amount of people at the inauguration. For once I was just a nobody getting pushed around and having my seat stolen just like the rest of 'em.)

It's all very complicated and I'll be happy when the mid-term elections are finally over in March.

And for some reason the women of my casario were directed to sit in the ONE ROW that was in the gap between canopy tents where the sun was beating down. I sat for a whole 10 minutes then was overcome with a "Oh hell no" attitude and moved to a row more in the shade. I tried to convince the women I was with to move with me to the dark side, but it's typical here to only accept what is given to you so they stayed put and tried shielding themselves from the sun for the next 3 hours.

Too many people. This isn't even half. 

It was absolutely ridiculous trying to find our bus afterwards, just like the other 8,000 women who attended. That's when I was shoved out of some woman's way into oncoming traffic and hit the curb. I shouted a variety of expletives in English, my native tongue that's adapt to swearing, and I think that's about when my women's group gave up hope of leaving and congregated on the road partition. When we did finally meet up with our bus an hour later we were exhausted, sun burnt, and defeated.

I took some much needed alone time when I got home to think. When I look at Aysel I sometimes feel like I want to adopt her and take her to the US where I could give her a good education and recreation and libraries and all the amazing opportunities I had as a kid. But that's crazy. She has a loving family who would never let her go and I don't truly want a 3 year old kid. However, I think Aysel is only ever going to have those things if a million little changes happen across the country at the personal, community, and institutional levels. I have no idea if that'll happen in her lifetime.

I think the goals that Ciudad Mujer have are important and start conversations with women who don't tend to think critically about their lives' obstacles and opportunities. They have their work cut out for them. I hope that someday this country will be a safer and brighter place for all little girls, but especially my girl Aysel.

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 :)

Women, credit, and fiscal responsibility

Peace Corps really likes to push working with women. Which is great, I'm all for women. Especially if it means I can help them gain some financial independence and self-esteem.

FUNDESA is an amazing organization that reached out to my community's women's group about starting a grupo de ahorro. Women often get rejected for loans because they have little to no income, formal work experience, reading or writing ability, etc. Oh, and sexism is a problem, too. Savings groups help women put away small amounts of money like a savings account, but when one woman has an emergency and needs a loan she can ask the group to give her a credit from the total savings in the caja. The FUNDESA promotora visits every week for eight weeks to help establish the group's administration and elect internal rules. We're on week three and it's going very well.

I'm excited because money management is a huge part of my PC service. I'm piloting a fiscal responsibility class for youth in my community and I plan to tailor some of those lessons for the women's savings group. Fiscal responsibility, described as "living within your means, regardless of the level of those means," is hard, especially when you're trying to live on a few dollars a day. But the women genuinely want to learn how to use their money wisely so they can help their children make better choices in the future. Isn't that amazing!?

I'm so fortunate to have grown up with fiscally responsible parents. I have no idea how they managed to put themselves through college, all while working full-time jobs and raising the world's most perfect little angel. I'm assuming it had something to do with a lot of hard work and Republican bootstrap mumbo-gumbo. I love my parents from the bottom of my heart and I am so proud of them. Now I get to carry on the economic privilege they invested in me by living in a very poor developing nation! (Ok, that one mighta sent mom over the edge. Sorry!)

I accepted the role as Community Organization and Economic Development PCV thinking I'd use my PR background for the CO in COED. I'm finding out that I can do the ED half, too, and I can see the coveted change all PCVs yearn for in the women of this savings group. I gotta say, it looks pretty good:

The treasurer, promotora, and secretary leading the group in deciding the minimum savings required per week. They voted on $.50. 

The first woman to put savings in the caja! Woo!

Swearing to abide by the internal rules they voted on so the group can be successful. 

What's cookin' good lookin'

Last Saturday I cooked chilate and nuegalos with the woman's group in my site. Chilate is a corn based drink and nuegalos are like deep fried yucca puffs with honey. Everything turned out delicious and now I know how to make something new for you all when I get back to Chicago!

Prep work: cutting up yucca so we can mix it with fresh corn kernels to make the 'mash." 

So much yucca!

Mixin' the yucca shavings with the corn. 

Adding fresh cheese into the mix. 

Squishing it all together. 

Carrying the yucca/corn/cheese mix on my head in the salvadorena way. On to the molino!

Pouring in the mix to make mash. 

Everyone in town pays a couple bucks to use this molino. It's the cleanest one I've seen here!

We made a ton of mash!

Deep fry that mash!

just to give you an idea of how much smoke there was in the kitchen. Respiratory infections are common among women here. 

Stirring the chilate.

Raw and fried nuegalos. 

Pour in some honey, and presto! 

I forgot to take a picture of the chilate, and I also forgot to taste it. My host mom was so excited I brought home chilate that I gave her the bag!