The First Month

10/7/10
I have been here three weeks, but it feels like a lot longer. My days are filled with reading, studying Spanish, visiting houses and playing soccer with the kids in the street. I have gotten more used to not accomplishing very much, since my real goals are to meet people and gain their trust and improve my Spanish. I have visited 50 houses now, and I have noticed that people seem more and more friendly. This may because they have heard of my visits and are expecting my and generally know who I am and why I am here. Most people are hard pressed to think of any problems in the community when I ask them, even though I can see many problems from my perspective, they don’t seem too worried about them. The main problems I see are the terrible road conditions, lack of a health clinic, and lack of a garbage pickup service.
I plan to talk to the mayor about getting the garbage pick-up service going again. It ran before but stopped since people would not bring their garbage to the street, but would just throw it down the mountain like they usually do. I am going to start coaching the kids soccer team next week, we will see how that goes since I still can’t understand most of what they say.
I travel to the other side of the country (nine hours by a series of busses) to meet up with other volunteers for a night of American fun and to play on the Peace Corps soccer team the next day. It turned out to be really fun; it was good to know that I can compete with the adults here. They have much more skill and better footwork, but I can just bowl people over, so it evens out.

8/11/10
We had a regional meeting the on Friday which is where the 20 or so volunteers in this department and the neighboring one get together to share what we hae been up to and try to collaborate and share resources. (The departments in El Salvador are like states, there are 13 or so). I got to meet a bunch of volunteers who have been here anywhere from 6 months to nearly 3 years, and who have sites close by. It was also nice to catch up with the three girls I was in training with who are now in my region. I am finding out that there are a lot of NGOs that provide money and resources if you apply and qualify for them. For example, one NGO will come to your site for a multiday workshop that teaches vocational skills to kids such as sewing or woodworking for free. The catch is you have to have an organized group that is willing to learn. (easier said than done.) There are a lot of opportunities for grants from the states too, but often they require a lot of paperwork and are competitive.
I feel like I am beginning to bond more with my host family and to a lesser degree the community as a whole. I played in a soccer match yesterday that was very official with jerseys and teams from different towns. I didn’t do anything spectacular, but didn’t embarrass myself either, so that’s a win in my book. Everyone is getting more used to me being around, and I am feeling more comfortable here too, so things are looking up in the cultural adaptation department.
Also, I will coach the kids soccer team for the first time on Wednesday, we’ll see if I can lead a group of rambunctious kids with broken Spanish

The volunteer that I am replacing left today, after our 3.5 week overlap period where I tried to extract as much information and advice out of him as possible. He’s heading back to Massachusetts to eventually attend medical school. I’m on my own now, no more English speaking and no more easy explanations of things about the community. It was really nice to have someone around to share my feelings with and just talk things over with. Although I had just known him for three weeks, I felt kind of sad when he left; we had become best friends by cultural default. We had a nice goodbye dinner for him and everyone said a few words about the good work he did and the friendships he built. Their sincere gratitude was so heartfelt that it strengthen my resolve to do my best here to improve their lives in whatever ways I can.