Salvy wedding
Better than beans
christmas feast
Monday, December 27, 2010
Salvadoran Christmas
It didn’t start off well. I woke up to a small stick of dynamite exploding outside my door. I burst out of my room, all excited to be able to say “Feliz Navidad” instead of the usual boring “buenas diaz”. I was disappointed to not be met with the same gusto. Everyone barely seemed aware it was Christmas, even after talking it up for weeks. Breakfast was beans and tortillas. So was lunch. No rice or eggs (yes they do excite me when served). After a couple of calls back to the states, I was about to chalk this one up to another terrible Christmas in a foreign county. However, this one had nothing on my Christmas two years ago in some god-forsaken village in northern Burkina Faso. Then I was in a hot, dirty desert town, sick, alone, no French, no one knew it was Christmas because they’re Muslim, and I spent the night in a sleeping bag at a bus station. There really is no going down from that low.
This Christmas surprised me though. My host brothers suggested we play chess, which is always a good time, watching them squirm in their seats with anxiety as they lose pieces is hilarious. I also figured out a way to install a pull-up bar, so now I do my favorite exercise from back home. Eventually people started gathering at our house, a border-line festive atmosphere developed. Dinner was a specially roasted chicken, which was actually very tasty. It was also used to make chicken and vegetable sandwiches which were passed around and enjoyed by all. I should note that this day was punctuated by ear-splitting fireworks that people set off all the time everywhere, with no effects except for being LOUD. All I want for Christmas is to keep my eardrum intact.
Most of the men find Christmas as an excuse to get rip-roaring drunk on very cheap liquor and beer. This motivates them to engage me in nonsensical and never ending conversation. Usually I have to escape to my room, but it being Christmas I decided to stick it out and celebrate with everyone. Hours of repetitive, stupid conversations ensued, the entertainment of the evening was watching the Gringo talk to the drunks about the 3.5 words of English they know. Actually this resulted in some shared deep belly laugh about what comes out of these guys mouths, so felt like I was bonding with people and had a pretty good time.
That was all on the 24th, which is when Christmas is celebrated here, so today was more uneventful. I did attend my first Salvadoran Wedding, which was kind of fun. The groom was a friend of mine who is only 19, and its still bizarre when people younger than me get married. The church had a no walls, a dirt floor and blown out speakers, but the ceremony took place like any other, just with a couple hours of hymn singing beforehand.
It didn’t start off well. I woke up to a small stick of dynamite exploding outside my door. I burst out of my room, all excited to be able to say “Feliz Navidad” instead of the usual boring “buenas diaz”. I was disappointed to not be met with the same gusto. Everyone barely seemed aware it was Christmas, even after talking it up for weeks. Breakfast was beans and tortillas. So was lunch. No rice or eggs (yes they do excite me when served). After a couple of calls back to the states, I was about to chalk this one up to another terrible Christmas in a foreign county. However, this one had nothing on my Christmas two years ago in some god-forsaken village in northern Burkina Faso. Then I was in a hot, dirty desert town, sick, alone, no French, no one knew it was Christmas because they’re Muslim, and I spent the night in a sleeping bag at a bus station. There really is no going down from that low.
This Christmas surprised me though. My host brothers suggested we play chess, which is always a good time, watching them squirm in their seats with anxiety as they lose pieces is hilarious. I also figured out a way to install a pull-up bar, so now I do my favorite exercise from back home. Eventually people started gathering at our house, a border-line festive atmosphere developed. Dinner was a specially roasted chicken, which was actually very tasty. It was also used to make chicken and vegetable sandwiches which were passed around and enjoyed by all. I should note that this day was punctuated by ear-splitting fireworks that people set off all the time everywhere, with no effects except for being LOUD. All I want for Christmas is to keep my eardrum intact.
Most of the men find Christmas as an excuse to get rip-roaring drunk on very cheap liquor and beer. This motivates them to engage me in nonsensical and never ending conversation. Usually I have to escape to my room, but it being Christmas I decided to stick it out and celebrate with everyone. Hours of repetitive, stupid conversations ensued, the entertainment of the evening was watching the Gringo talk to the drunks about the 3.5 words of English they know. Actually this resulted in some shared deep belly laugh about what comes out of these guys mouths, so felt like I was bonding with people and had a pretty good time.
That was all on the 24th, which is when Christmas is celebrated here, so today was more uneventful. I did attend my first Salvadoran Wedding, which was kind of fun. The groom was a friend of mine who is only 19, and its still bizarre when people younger than me get married. The church had a no walls, a dirt floor and blown out speakers, but the ceremony took place like any other, just with a couple hours of hymn singing beforehand.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Christmas is coming right up, it will be interesting to see what actually happens here. Some people say gifts are given, but I’m not sure. Everyone tells me that there will be more fireworks than normal (great) and asks me if I will drink beer with them. Although drinking here in my site has a certain appeal and may help me bond with my host brothers, word of it would inevitably get out and may cause some of the more conservative people in the community to think less of me and therefore lower my effectiveness as a volunteer. The big day here is Christmas Eve instead of Christmas day, I’m not really sure why. I may stay here for New Years Eve or I may leave to party with other volunteers.
I’m excited to say I’m coming back for a nine day visit to visit my mom and sister back in Arcata. Although part of me wants to be the bad ass traveler that doesn’t come home for two years, I am looking forward to some family time and all the comforts of home. I also think it will give me a chance to step back and look at the big picture of what I am doing and give me some perspective. When I stayed in Ghana for ten months without coming home I started going a little loco by the end, so maybe this will take some of the pressure off. I will be back the Jan 18th thru the 27th, if anyone is around during that time in Humboldt, hit me up!
I got to do two really fun things this past weekend, the first was releasing baby sea turtles into the ocean at a beach call Barra de Santiago. Me and 4 friends stayed in a hotel on the beach and got to “help” (actually watch) as about 80 one day old sea turtles were placed on the beach to scurry their way to the water. A local NGO collects the eggs that the sea turtles lay on the beach and hatches them since leaving them on the beach makes them vulnerable to predators (including hungry humans). After they hatch, it is important to place the turtles on the beach so they somehow can get a sense enough of it to come back to the same spot to lay their eggs. It was really special event to be present for.
The other fun thing was the Peace Corps Volunteers played a series a soccer games against the JIKA team. JIKA is the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps, with Volunteers serving for two years in various sites in the country and doing development work. There are only about 40 or so of them, but rumor has it they are much better funded. Our men’s teams lost a close 1-2 game, but our women crushed in 10-0 blowout. Afterword we got to meet them over snacks and drinks and find out which of them worked near our sites. Most of them spoke good Spanish, so we were able to communicate, albeit in neither of our native tongues. That was definitely something new.
On the work front, I’ve started selling the cooking stoves that use less wood and produce less smoke. I made up some flyers and scheduled for the company to come out to demonstrate how the stoves work. I’ve been going door to door telling people about the stoves and the demonstration. A lot of people seem interested, so I end up taking a lot of orders. This is a little intimidating since for every order I take I have to find $22 in a timely manner to subsidize cost. It will be time to try my hand at grant writing.
I’m excited to say I’m coming back for a nine day visit to visit my mom and sister back in Arcata. Although part of me wants to be the bad ass traveler that doesn’t come home for two years, I am looking forward to some family time and all the comforts of home. I also think it will give me a chance to step back and look at the big picture of what I am doing and give me some perspective. When I stayed in Ghana for ten months without coming home I started going a little loco by the end, so maybe this will take some of the pressure off. I will be back the Jan 18th thru the 27th, if anyone is around during that time in Humboldt, hit me up!
I got to do two really fun things this past weekend, the first was releasing baby sea turtles into the ocean at a beach call Barra de Santiago. Me and 4 friends stayed in a hotel on the beach and got to “help” (actually watch) as about 80 one day old sea turtles were placed on the beach to scurry their way to the water. A local NGO collects the eggs that the sea turtles lay on the beach and hatches them since leaving them on the beach makes them vulnerable to predators (including hungry humans). After they hatch, it is important to place the turtles on the beach so they somehow can get a sense enough of it to come back to the same spot to lay their eggs. It was really special event to be present for.
The other fun thing was the Peace Corps Volunteers played a series a soccer games against the JIKA team. JIKA is the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps, with Volunteers serving for two years in various sites in the country and doing development work. There are only about 40 or so of them, but rumor has it they are much better funded. Our men’s teams lost a close 1-2 game, but our women crushed in 10-0 blowout. Afterword we got to meet them over snacks and drinks and find out which of them worked near our sites. Most of them spoke good Spanish, so we were able to communicate, albeit in neither of our native tongues. That was definitely something new.
On the work front, I’ve started selling the cooking stoves that use less wood and produce less smoke. I made up some flyers and scheduled for the company to come out to demonstrate how the stoves work. I’ve been going door to door telling people about the stoves and the demonstration. A lot of people seem interested, so I end up taking a lot of orders. This is a little intimidating since for every order I take I have to find $22 in a timely manner to subsidize cost. It will be time to try my hand at grant writing.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
12/13/10
Today I went with 4 of my host brothers (there are five, plus one girl) to harvest coffee. The harvest season is from the end of November until the end of February and there are miles of coffee fields in every direction, so a lot of families work the harvest to make money. Everyone thought it was hilarious that I was going to do this, especially when I went into town to buy the large basket you need. We left the house at 5:30 this morning (it was dark and freezing still) and walked for an hour straight down the mountain until we meet with the other workers. We were divided into teams and assigned locations to work. I definitely got some funny looks being the whitest and tallest guy around. Coffee harvest involves tying a large basket to the front of your waist and just ripping beans of off the trees. There are trees every three feet or so and most are loaded with bright red or yellow beans. Sounds easy, but the catch is the trees are on steep slopes with loose dirt and sticks which you have to maneuver around on while not spilling your giant basket. I stumbled twice and spilled beans, losing about twenty minutes worth of work. I also got “stung” by some kind of caterpillar with venomous spikes. That one caught me by surprise. Overall, the work is fairly easy, just standing there plucking beans, trying not to fall down the hill. The kicker is however much you harvest you have to put in a giant sack and carry up the mountain. I made a trip with about 50 pounds and felt like I was going to pass out, plus girls younger than me were passing me with twice the weight. Salvadorans officially kick my ass in all forms of physical labor. After lugging that sack I didn’t pick with as much vigor, knowing I had to carry whatever I harvested. We picked for about six hours, with my total coming to about 70 pounds. This was also hilarious, since a minimum of 100 pounds is required to not be ridiculed. The hardest part of the day was the 2-hour walk back up the mountain, which nearly finished me.
Giant basket: $2.00
Harness: $.75
Total day’s pay earned from 70 pounds of beans harvested: $2.75
Breaking even and retiring from coffee picking: Priceless.
Makes minimum wage look pretty good huh? The pay is one dollar for every 25 pounds harvested. A really long, good day for an experienced picker might earn $8. What a different world.
Today I went with 4 of my host brothers (there are five, plus one girl) to harvest coffee. The harvest season is from the end of November until the end of February and there are miles of coffee fields in every direction, so a lot of families work the harvest to make money. Everyone thought it was hilarious that I was going to do this, especially when I went into town to buy the large basket you need. We left the house at 5:30 this morning (it was dark and freezing still) and walked for an hour straight down the mountain until we meet with the other workers. We were divided into teams and assigned locations to work. I definitely got some funny looks being the whitest and tallest guy around. Coffee harvest involves tying a large basket to the front of your waist and just ripping beans of off the trees. There are trees every three feet or so and most are loaded with bright red or yellow beans. Sounds easy, but the catch is the trees are on steep slopes with loose dirt and sticks which you have to maneuver around on while not spilling your giant basket. I stumbled twice and spilled beans, losing about twenty minutes worth of work. I also got “stung” by some kind of caterpillar with venomous spikes. That one caught me by surprise. Overall, the work is fairly easy, just standing there plucking beans, trying not to fall down the hill. The kicker is however much you harvest you have to put in a giant sack and carry up the mountain. I made a trip with about 50 pounds and felt like I was going to pass out, plus girls younger than me were passing me with twice the weight. Salvadorans officially kick my ass in all forms of physical labor. After lugging that sack I didn’t pick with as much vigor, knowing I had to carry whatever I harvested. We picked for about six hours, with my total coming to about 70 pounds. This was also hilarious, since a minimum of 100 pounds is required to not be ridiculed. The hardest part of the day was the 2-hour walk back up the mountain, which nearly finished me.
Giant basket: $2.00
Harness: $.75
Total day’s pay earned from 70 pounds of beans harvested: $2.75
Breaking even and retiring from coffee picking: Priceless.
Makes minimum wage look pretty good huh? The pay is one dollar for every 25 pounds harvested. A really long, good day for an experienced picker might earn $8. What a different world.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
12/7/10
Firework season is here. The stores stared selling them from little one cent poppers to one dollar dynamite sticks. These should not be legal. All they do is explode, no sparks or colors or shooting. They are sold to kids of all ages who just put them everywhere and light them. Sometimes when I’m sitting in my room what sounds like a sonic boom will occur right outside, making me jump about six feet high. It’s the kind of explosion that where you can feel the sound waves, it hits you in a blast.
Work is slow here (non-existent). School is out until late January and I don’t feel like I really know the people, languages, and needs of the community well enough to undertake any major projects that involve co-operation. So now I’m just studying and practicing Spanish, meeting and hanging out with people and generally making myself a presence in peoples lives.
Yesterday I was walking by a house when I heard the familiar shout “Don Nacho!!!” I stopped to see who it was (someone I had met but forgot his name) and ended up helping him install a gate to his yard. This time was filled with the usual casual conversation, which I want to share with you so you get a feeling for how my conversations go.
Dude: (something completely indecipherable) phone for five dollars?
Me: What?
Dude: sell the phone for five dollars
Me: What phone?
Dude: FIVE dollars. To sell.
Me: My phone? Or whose?
Dude: Five dollars. The phone.
Me: What phone?
Dude: Oh OK. (turns back to his work)
Me: WTF happened?
While this is happening I am creating and weighing various possibilities as to what he might be saying. Does he want to buy my phone? Is he selling me a phone? Is he asking how much mine cost? Am I expected to now sell my phone?
This is a typical failed conversation. Most are better than this, but when these utter disasters of communication occur I am left completely baffled and have to wonder whose fault it was, if anyone’s. I thought that my Spanish is good enough to have this kind of basic dialogue, but the local dialect is full of letters and whole words left unpronounced, as well as slang that does not exist in any dictionary.
After that he invited me to have lunch with him, and I mentioned that I was going to go to town to get a haircut. He said that he cuts lots of peoples hair and I must let him do mine, because “I will make you so handsome that you will be the champion of a mountain of young girls. It will be a very cold two years in your bed if you don’t find a girlfriend.” Indeed an offer I could not refuse. Haircuts here are infamously terrible, I have seen some infamous mullets, bowl cuts, and ridiculous gel-jobs. I now am the proud owner of some kind of bowl cut gone wrong, with the back and sides really short and an area on top three times as long. I’m to ashamed to post a picture, so just use your imagination. The good news is there is no one here to laugh, everyone else thinks its standard issue. I won’t be leaving to see other volunteers much in the near future, so I can give my hair some time to heal.
There have been some hilarious attempts to set me up with local women. People seem confused when I point out such minor flaws as “she has three kids” “she’s pregnant” or “she’s 15”. They just give me a look like “so what?”
More later….
Firework season is here. The stores stared selling them from little one cent poppers to one dollar dynamite sticks. These should not be legal. All they do is explode, no sparks or colors or shooting. They are sold to kids of all ages who just put them everywhere and light them. Sometimes when I’m sitting in my room what sounds like a sonic boom will occur right outside, making me jump about six feet high. It’s the kind of explosion that where you can feel the sound waves, it hits you in a blast.
Work is slow here (non-existent). School is out until late January and I don’t feel like I really know the people, languages, and needs of the community well enough to undertake any major projects that involve co-operation. So now I’m just studying and practicing Spanish, meeting and hanging out with people and generally making myself a presence in peoples lives.
Yesterday I was walking by a house when I heard the familiar shout “Don Nacho!!!” I stopped to see who it was (someone I had met but forgot his name) and ended up helping him install a gate to his yard. This time was filled with the usual casual conversation, which I want to share with you so you get a feeling for how my conversations go.
Dude: (something completely indecipherable) phone for five dollars?
Me: What?
Dude: sell the phone for five dollars
Me: What phone?
Dude: FIVE dollars. To sell.
Me: My phone? Or whose?
Dude: Five dollars. The phone.
Me: What phone?
Dude: Oh OK. (turns back to his work)
Me: WTF happened?
While this is happening I am creating and weighing various possibilities as to what he might be saying. Does he want to buy my phone? Is he selling me a phone? Is he asking how much mine cost? Am I expected to now sell my phone?
This is a typical failed conversation. Most are better than this, but when these utter disasters of communication occur I am left completely baffled and have to wonder whose fault it was, if anyone’s. I thought that my Spanish is good enough to have this kind of basic dialogue, but the local dialect is full of letters and whole words left unpronounced, as well as slang that does not exist in any dictionary.
After that he invited me to have lunch with him, and I mentioned that I was going to go to town to get a haircut. He said that he cuts lots of peoples hair and I must let him do mine, because “I will make you so handsome that you will be the champion of a mountain of young girls. It will be a very cold two years in your bed if you don’t find a girlfriend.” Indeed an offer I could not refuse. Haircuts here are infamously terrible, I have seen some infamous mullets, bowl cuts, and ridiculous gel-jobs. I now am the proud owner of some kind of bowl cut gone wrong, with the back and sides really short and an area on top three times as long. I’m to ashamed to post a picture, so just use your imagination. The good news is there is no one here to laugh, everyone else thinks its standard issue. I won’t be leaving to see other volunteers much in the near future, so I can give my hair some time to heal.
There have been some hilarious attempts to set me up with local women. People seem confused when I point out such minor flaws as “she has three kids” “she’s pregnant” or “she’s 15”. They just give me a look like “so what?”
More later….
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