Adios El Carrizal

COSed

Today.

Genero en el Sistema Educativa

Gender camp for teachers, school directors and expectional youth!

Coffee Season

Cocinas

Last months work! Rocket stoves (cocinas moviles) won first prize at a sustainable engineering competition. Stoves are easy to build, no tech skills required, use all local materials, and are portable. They conserve approx. 70% of firewood decreasing deforestation and wood-smoke contamination. And the folks in my community love them. Total cost: app. $9 per stove. Sustainable without NGO or outside support or finances.

The Esteli model.

kids are awesome.

women's work. :)

Juguetes

Too many depressing stories. So prefer free toys.

Visiting Louise

Arboles Citricos

To raise money Adilio put together an orange tree vivero and had the youth group cover the cost of grafting. Fewer of the trees "pegared" (accepted the graft) so instead each yg member got a tree to take home.

Alison's Wedding!

Nanolandia and El Patito Feo

And, to be fair, the things I have gotten WAY too used to:

1. Living in a real community.

2. Pupusas and panes rellenos.

3. My fabulous host family.

4. The mountains.

5. Beautiful kids, everywhere.

6. Fresh oranges, pineapple, mamones, jacotes, mangos, anonas, japote and maranon japones.

7. Time. Time to read and read and watch dvds and play with kids and sit still.

8. Escaping to San Salvador, appreciating bad tv and American food.

9. That feeling when projects work out, or close friends decide to go on to college.

10. Taking 8 people out to dinner for $7.30.

11. Being told I am amazing and wonderful and will be missed like crazy, by amazing wonderful people who I will miss like crazy when I leave.

12. Recognizing (for the first time) that I am lucky as hell to be an American.

?Ya se acostumbro aqui? (Are you used to this yet?)

Lately it feels like everyone's favorite question is "Ya se acostumbro aqui?" or Are you used to this yet? A question which could be asked a thousand times with a thousand different answers. I wonder, so after almost two yars in rural El Salvador what exactly have I gotten used to by now?

Things to which I am not...and after almost two years might not ever be "acostumbrado":

1. Sweating while sitting still.

2. The puddle in my house every time it rains.

3. Maggots in the bean soup.

4. Teachers walking out and socializing during class.

5. Families of 10 living on $3 a day.

6. Watching men drink themselves disabled.

7. Having pregnancy, particularly teen pregnancy referred to as a "problema de mujeres"

8. The bus driver taking a lunch break half-way home

9. Two flavors: sweet and salty.

10. Being referred to with the following terms: mamacita, gringita, munecita, preciosa.

11. Having a bolo explain the has the right to hit on me because, "Yo hombre, Usted mujer."

12. Having a mother with 2 fabulous kids ask the following question:
Her: "Is it true that you can't punish your own children in the US? that they check kids for
marks?"
Me:"Marks? Isn't leaving marks extreme enough to warrant intervention?"
Her: "Well, kids have delicate skin, sometimes just one cinchazo (belt whip) can leave a bruise."

13. The time it takes to cook and clean and wash. The fact that men never help.

14. The massive school band learning to play the drums and trumpet in the tiny courtyard.

15. Being so far away.

Gautemala Half-Marathon

Drove up to Coban, Guatemala with Petrona, a friend from my site and two Peace Corps friends for a brief vacation and a chance to relive my running dreams in a very painful half-marathon. If I do that again, training will be part of the picture, but the trip was amazing.