Jan 5.
Happy New Year to everyone, 2011 arrived here in the midst of dangerous fireworks, tamales and drunks. Everyone lit off the dynamite sticks all day and night. These things are just a bunch of black powder and newspaper packed together and sold to eight year olds for a quarter. This leads to an entire country covered in newspaper and a ringing in my ears. At midnight I went to a spot on the mountain that overlooks the nearby midsize city of Ahuachapán, where the city was boiling over with fireworks. There were about 5 explosions per second coming from all over the city in different colors. All the country side all the way into Guatemala was also shooting them off, making an incredible exploding panorama.
I have confession to make. The title of this blog has proven very inaccurate. The one piece of mango I have tried here was absolutely terrible and I probably done a total of one hour of teaching because school has been out since November. So a much more accurate title would be eatin’ tortillas and sittin’ on my ass, but that just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Lately I’ve been continuing to sell the fuel efficient stoves, I’m up to 23, but coming up with the money to subsidize the price is not looking good, so I may have to pass the hat so to speak here in a few weeks to see if we can raise this money to get the stoves to the community. More info to follow. I have also been teaming up with the local health promoter to help him with his job and do house visits. Most communities here have a health promoter who does house visits to give vaccines, medicine, advice, chlorine to purify water, and other general health work. The guy we have here is around 30 and is becoming a good friend of mine. His Spanish is much clearer than most people’s too, which really helps us get along. I go to people’s houses and just kind of hang around while he does his job, but it is a good way for me to visit with people and learn more about the community.


1/9/10
I just finished reading Salem’s Lot by Stephen king, and today something happened that is straight out of a Stephen King novel. The family I live with, the Garcias, had three dogs up until about a month ago. One mama dog and her two male offspring, named tigre uno, tigre dos, and tigre tres, with the mother inexplicably being tigre tres. About a month ago I left for a couple days and when I got back the family told me that someone had fed the mama dog poison through the front gate and killed her. Actually, I found out that she was only missing, and this was their leading theory about what happened. No one had seen or heard from the dog in a month until someone found her head in a nearby grove of trees. We all went to verify this, and sure enough, the head of tigre tres. I can’t imagine who would cut off a dogs head, especially around here. It was a spooky sight, and got me thinking about the dark side of El Salvador that I have heard much about and felt its presence since I got here. Here is a list of reasons why I think this place has a dark side:
1. El Salvador has one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
2. Of the three people I have heard of dying since I’ve been here, all three were murders.
3. People are generally paranoid of bad people lurking about.
4. People are quick to blame any strange noises or occurrences on anonymous evildoers.
5. Ghosts and spirits are widely believed in.
This is all made doubly strange since on the surface everyone seems so friendly and generally happy. I guess I’m starting to see deeper into the culture, below the superficial appearance.