EDogBlog

Living life as a Peace Corps municipal development volunteer in El Salvador from 06.2006 to 08.2008. Please note that the contents of this website are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

One plus month at site

Back in May I attended the St. A´s 2006 graduation, and I think I paid more attention to their ceremony than my own in ´05 because something the commencement speaker said really struck me and continues to do so now. Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, spoke of the three types of work that exist in the world; the first being where you are told both what to do and how to do it, the second where you are told what to do, but minimally how to do it, and the third being the "self-assigned task." This type of work requires thatyou alone decide what to do and how to go about accomplishing it, and according to Gioia is the toughest, most challenging, yet most rewarding type of work. He commented to the graduates thatthey would most likely spend the next five years in category one and two type jobs, but that they should eventually strive to solely fulfill self-assigned tasks. Sitting in Dana Center listening to that speech two weeks prior to PC departure, I remember feeling partly proud that I was already about to embark on two years of only self-assigned tasks, and partly overwhelmed that I´ve missed four of my five transition years working my way up to such a state. Now almost four months later, my entire working life depends on projects I seek out and then plan out, as is the very nature of grassroots development. Fellow volunteers in El Salvador and around the world experience the same thing, and I wnder if they find it as challenging as I do.

Gioia was right; it ain´t easy. It´s not so hard coming up with projects to do - that´s been relatively simple. I want to finish painting the world map that I started on the school wall with the seventh, eighth and ninth graders, and then when they return from school vacation in January, I want to start up an ecology club with them, clean up the river and start a recycling program in the school. I want to continue traveling to all the canton towns and schools and do a census on who´s walls are crumbling down, who needs access to water, and who wants more classrooms, computer labs, modernized bathrooms and recreation areas. Then, I want to solicit NGOs here and across the Americas for the funding to build. I also want to get to the bottom of things in the Alcaldia, get someone to be straight with me and figure out why, if our municipio receives a hefty amount of cash each month from the national government, we´re still supposedly broke and can´t currently work on any projects to benefit the town. I´m happy for the mayor´s latest project; I run around the state-of-the-art soccer field on the track every morning, often times use the public restrooms there. I just don´t get why we have that stellar field when it still takes two hours to travel 10 km to the canton because the roads are in crap condition and there are no bridges.

So now you have it, a wish list of all kinds of self-assigned tasks to last two years. I´m not entirely sure how to go about accomplishing any of these projects, aside from the world map project which simply requires paint and a whole lot of energetic kids. I have much to learn about how to safely, correctly, efficiently go about accomplishing anything from a census to an infrastructure project, but I imagine that that´s why I´m here and that I´ll figure it out as I go along, with the help of staff and other volunteers who have experience of course. For now I´m attending a lot of meetings, visiting as many places in the municipal area as I can and teaching two english classes. Speaking of, I´m scoffing much less at the english class thing at the moment, because for now it´s the one time a week I can feel completely confident, competent and as though I have something to offer people where I´m actually more of an expert than they are. If anything, six weeks into my site I´m learning much more from the Salvadorans than I´m sure they´re learing from me, which is entirely fine but hopefully will balance out a bit more as time goes on.

Besides seeking out work (and how to do it) I´ve been traveling a bit to play soccer and visit other volunteers in the capital and making plans to move into my own house. Sometime in October I´ll be moving into a small, three room home behind the house of a family I´ve grown close to here in the center of town. It´s not much, but it does have an updated bathroom (with a toilet AND a shower), newly brightly-painted walls, and a sweet patio area to hang my hammock. Oh, and the biggest, ugliest turkey-type monster thing protecting it from intruders (and me, until I can make friends with it and prove to it that I belong there). It will be bittersweet to leave my current host family but I know I´ll be back to visit them often - they live just up the street.

I did manage to have another interesting few days last week. I fell one morning while jogging on the track and skinned my knees pretty badly. About seven other people were out walking or jogging as well and of course everybody stopped and stared when I yelled "oh shit!" and hit the ground. The only person who didn´t seem to notice was my friend Melvin who was running half a lap ahead of me, but as I hobbled home I heard him come tearing up after me on his bike, shouting things like "the guy in the red shirt told me you fell!" and "we have to take you to the hospital right now!" Needless to say I´m fine, just a bit scraped up. If anything my dignity took a greater fall: two days after the incident I listened to a recap of the whole thing over the town intercom system from our local radio DJ. Just in case anyone missed it firsthand or didn´t catch it through the grapevine, the whole town had the opportunity to know what the Norteameriana did.

A couple days later I tried to travel to a fellow volunteer´s site to meet up with a few others and stay the night. Matt´s site and mine are 12 km apart, but due to unreliable bus schedules, broken down buses and a horribly unpaved road, I started out at 3:00pm waiting for a bus in Chapeltique and made it to the site BETWEEN Matt and I by 5:30, a grant total of 8km distance. I found out once I arrived there that I´d missed the last bus to Matt´s site, and had planned to walk the remaining 4 km until a fellow passenger told me it would be dangerous. Instead she took me to the mayor´s house in the hopes that he´d drive me the rest of the way. He wans´t there when we arrived, but his wife was and so was her grandchild´s birthday party (complete with Spanish-dubbed Barney tunes and a piñata). She assured me that he´d be back soon and would give me a ride, so I sat there in the house eating birthday cake as it got darker and darker. The mayor never showed up but Matt did - he´d gotten a ride in to come collect me. We started the walk back to his site and made it about 5 minutes before a pick-up came by and gave us a lift, gracias a Dios. 4 km is nothing in a car and we made it by 6:30pm all in one piece, but I´ll never forget how long it took to travel just 12 km. Next time I´m leaving at 7:00am.

I suppose that´s it for now, there´s not much exciting to report but hopefully that will change as time goes on, work continues and I travel a bit more. I hope everyone at home is doing well! Thank you so much to Mom and Sarah for the packages! Mom, the newspapers from home and the Halloween candy are carrying me through some long, lonely hours and Sarah, I don´t know what´s better - the talking Napoleon Dynamite card, the fire-breathing wind-up nun or the grow-a-mobster. Thank you to Carrie, Ann, Steph, Margaret and KK for the letters and for the countless emails! A shout out to my lovely messed up friends at home, who cut out a picture of my head, taped it to a pen and brought me to Lisa´s wedding. I feel like I was there with you guys, thanks! And the pictures are fantastic. A special thanks to Sr. Dorothy for collaborating with Mercy and collecting boxes of school supplies, personal hygiene items and clothing to send to El Salvador! The children of Chapeltique will benefit greatly from your generousity and hard work, and I appreciate it with all my heart. Best of luck to Joe, somewhere in southern Africa doing crazy things. Aaron, thanks so much for the postcard! (i.e. first piece of mail ever sent between Morocco and El Salvador). It´s great to hear that work is getting more stable and that you´re happy in your new place. Maybe my mom can send you some proscuitto rolls so that you have something to eat with your pasta. To you and all other PCVs, continue to take care and best of luck at your site.

I´m thinking of and missing everyone at home, hope to hear from you all soon!

Love,
Erin

P.S. Stolen from Matt´s blog:
This is a free way to send text messages to my phone from a computer -

Go to the following link: http://www.tigo.com.sv/Envio_de_Mensajes.php
Select the number 503 next to the word cel.
Then enter my number(7892 4191).
In the section labeled De: (enter your name).
Then click the button labled Invitar o Adicionar Numbero.
The last step is to start texting.