almost done with training

It’s finally here! The swearing in is tomorrow and the next day we all travel to our sites. I found out that my site is in one of the most beautiful and coldest regions of the country (I got really lucky with this one). There is a tourist town nearby with paintballing and go-carts. Not what you expect in rural El Salvador, but surprises have become the norm. I will be replacing a volunteer who will go back to the States in the middle of October, so there will be a month overlap so he can show me around and help me set up. I have heard that he works with intensively with the local school teaching environmental education and also coaches a youth soccer team, which I am eager to take over. It’s a little sad to leave my family here since it feels like we were just becoming close and I was part of the family, however I will return in two months for our second round of training that lasts two weeks. I will be living with a host family in my new site too, hopefully everything will work out well. I can’t say much now, but I’m sure next week I will have a lot more to tell everyone.

Una Semana mas

One more week of training left, I’m ready to stop talking about it and get down to the business of volunteering. We had our final Spanish class yesterday, and I feel like I have made a lot of progress. I am able to write out pretty much what I want to say, but using things in a conversation in a timely manner is a different story altogether. I have my second Spanish interviews today, which will tell me how much I have improved. The PC encourages everyone to make it to Intermediate, but if I don’t it just means I will have to come back for a couple of extra class days in two months. Once training is over we are sent to our sites and are on our own for towo months until there is a second training phase that lasts for two weeks. Our focus in the first two to six months is to meet as many people and build “confianza” which means build relationships and trust so later the people will want to work with you on projects.
As an Environmental Education volunteer I have heard that our group has one of the most structured programs, in that we are given a book of environmental lesson and should give then over time to the local school we are assigned to. This is a base for our work, and then we are free to work on anything else that our community wants or that we want to do. I don’t have many plans yet, except maybe a gardening and composting project, as everyone seems to do these and are fairly easy and effective.
I don’t know if I have described my daily life so I will here;
6:00 Get up (never thought this would happen)
6:00-7 Get ready, shower from a bucket, have breakfast made for me, get dressed)
7-8 Work on homework or projects or read in English (my guilty pleasure)
8-12 Spanish class with three other trainees and our teacher in an extra room in my house
12-1 Lunch with Spanish teacher
1-4 More class
4-7 Work on projects, investigate community in areas like healthcare, water, holidays, school system, flora and fauna, beliefs ect. Sometimes play soccer or Frisbee with the kids
7-730 Eat dinner
7:30 -9 Work on homework or projects, read, listen to music
9 – go to bed (earliest since I was about 8 years old, but I’m exhausted by then)

This one is of my birthday fiesta with my family

Salvadoran Backflip

This is part of my house during a fiesta for mt now nine year old host-sister.

Kudos to Katie for the Costa del sol pics.

This one speaks for itself.

The family I stayed with during Immersion Days

Training here is winding down gracias a Dios. We have our swearing in a week from Thursday where we actually become PC Volunteers instead of trainees. I’m really looking forward to being in my site and getting to know people. They have been keeping us incredible busy here with classes, projects and other activities. Once we are in our sites we get to completely set our own schedule and do whatever we want whenever we want. I find out which town my site this Thursday, which is probably the biggest thing that I have ever left to chance in my entire life since I will be spending two entire years. They have been emphasizing to us the importance of building relationship our first few months in our sites. This involves meeting everyone, participating in local activities and building trust. I am really excited to do this since I my only responsibility is to hang out with everyone. Sounds like the worlds best job to me.
Life here has been good, I have given up trying to learn Spanish quickly and have resigned myself to a more “slow and steady wins the race” approach, which has relieved some of the stress I was feeling. I can get my basic point across usually but still get very lost in most conversations. My go-to Spanish words are bastante which means plenty or enough (I have heard this when I asked how many kids someone has), quisas which means maybe and va a llover which means it is going to rain, which is almost always the case here and can serve as a great conversation in itself.
We had a free weekend for the first time last weekend and most of us pooled money to rent an enormous house on the beach complete with hammocks, a pool, patio-bar, and general awesome tourist amenities. We finally got to drink a bit and hang out and speak English and get to know each other better. The house was right on a beautiful beach and was basically a slice of paradise to relax in. It was a very much needed vacation.
We have been meeting with a group of kids for the last few weeks trying to get them to do a community project of some sort, and they decided to do a community clean-up today. However, none of them actually showed up this morning. The other gringos seemed a bit surprised, but I knew that the last thing kids probably want to do on Saturday is clean up trash in the mud. We’re going to try again Monday morning.
Even though my malaria medicine gives me strange dreams, its usually stranger when I wake up and remember what I’m doing and where I am.