Nate's El Salvador Extravaganza

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Siesta Synapse

Recently many new and interesting things have been happening. The last few weeks have been flying by. I seem too have much less time to do a mountain of tasks. I'm starting to get on top of it but I've come to realize that my trip will come to and end all too soon. Just about two more weeks until the trip comes, and just a Month until I fly home to the states.

When I'm in Suchi I never seem to have enough time. I've been working on many different projects where I need to use the internet. My projects are:

-Finding typing games on the internet to put on the El Bario Computers

-Emailing Trip participants about spanish level, hammocks, Architect work, questions etc.

-Constructing a list of good English Videos and games that I can send to students by internet.

-Emailing and starting my Project Apulo: Projector.

-Responding to emails and watching a few videos for for of course too

Its interesting because once I get to Suchi the hardest part is getting to the internet. Not because its far but just because I always run into old friends, new friends, or people I teach and we talk about when we'll have our next class or when they are going to come help in El Bario. So I guess I'm just too famous in Suchi cause I always run out of time. I never seem to have enough time to finish everything I want to on the internet. Oh and also I do like to talk to my parents every once in a while so that takes up a fair amount of time. Overall though I love everything I'm doing I just wish I had a little more time to focus on a few of them instead of getting side tracked by conversations but thats just how El Salvador is. Its a very friendly amazing place.

When I've been in El Bario my usual schedule is to come into Suchi in the morning to get some internet work done and then I meet up with Rosa the English teacher and we practice English while we are waiting for the bus. I've also been helping with the endless grading work that teachers do...

With Rosa I've brought in a few of my own strategies to teaching including a Vocabulary and Verbs page that they add to little by little in the back of their notebook. I like it because it helps with repetition and then they have a mini dictionary to use when they are doing their homework. I haven't had many classes in El Bario in the mornings but I've definitely been bonding with the local community much more in the past few weeks..

The Soccer team in El Bario is probly one of my closest communities... They enjoy my jokes and they are also really funny people as well. Last weekend we went to another community for my first away game with them. They said it was pretty far but I had no idea how far it actually was. They said meet at 1030 and it seemed like a pretty strict time. Wicho and I were there at 10:20 and.... we hung around for an hour and a half until we were ready to leave a little after eleven haha. After the bright and early start we rode in a giant truck towards Aguilares. When we got to Alguilares we stopped for gas. When we pulled in we were rushed by vendors running to us to get the first crack at our money. It was like we were the jackpot. The air was filled with the shouts and cries of the vendors fighting for our attention.

When we left Aguilares I thought we were getting close but I never asked. When we turned onto a dirt road I thought we must almost be there. After riding another 1 and a half on this dirt road we suddenly turned a corner and arrived in a community of about 600 people. El Salvador never ceases to amaze me. There wasn't another community for about another 10 miles but yet somehow this community was pretty big.

We played our game and once again I was in the right place at the right time to score another game. We were winning 1-0 after the first half. In the second half we lost focus for a minute after they made a goal. Almost instantly they made a second goal and we were down 2-1. Later one of our better players made a few moves and was right in front of the goal when he shot the ball badly and it was blocked by the goalie. I did my handspring throw-in three or four times during the game and the community was pretty impressed I think. After we played the first team played. The first half was 0-0 and both teams had great defense. Late in the second half it seemed like nobody would ever make a goal. When I was talking to a few locals and learning about the community, I said I think they are gonna tie. Just when I said that my team made a goal! It was kinda fun braging a bit about my community. Finally after the game a few of the locals were saying bye to me and calling me chaugy. I couldn't figure out what it ment until my team explained it was Chaugy and scooby doo! Its a good thing scooby is a universal word...The ride back always seems shorter than the arrival. We got back and we began to chant “Bario Bario … El Bario” as we rode into town to celebrate our first team winning (which is what matters). It was the first time we ever won at their field.

More adventures soon to come! Including getting sunburned!

-Nate

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Nate's life

Today is extremely hot. I guess I like it but the afternoons are tough when there isn't a breeze. I think I must have said the right words because the breeze just started... Lately I've been changing my schedule around. I really enjoy Fridays. Friday has been my day to meet up with old friends I met in my first month in Suchi. Yesterday I played basketball for two hours and then went and had an excellent dinner with my worldly friends. We have one English, one Australian, me and two Salvadoran. This dinner we also had 3 Danes and 1 Norwegian. We all get along really well and the conversation rapidly switches from Spanish to English. We all speak well in both so the language usually tends to be what culture we are talking about. I'm the youngest one and the American so.... I get made fun of but its all in a joking way so I'm cool with it.

I've started changing things at the school and I have some good projects in mind. Today I'll be working on finding free computer games to download. The majority will hopefully be educational. My other project is rebuilding the basketball hoop. When I was playing basketball yesterday my friend Carlos said he would talk to a PE teacher who donated the nets and hoops in Suchi. I've found that one of my better skills in networking rather than working all the time. I will start on my project for Apulo today and start getting my donations together. My other project I've been working on is getting others from suchi to volunteer at my school. Angie is living here for a few months after me so I'm working on setting her up so she could help two days a week. Maddy, my Australian friend, is going to visit on Monday. I'm excited to see what she thinks and how she wants to help. The PE equipment is working but not entirely working at the same time. It turns out that the basketballs were really old and after just one day of use one popped and two are about the pop. My basketball that I donated is good but it has a slow leak. The soccer balls are doing well but I'm trying to work out a system to share them all fairly. I think I will assign one ball to each class if I can.

My schedule has changed recently. In order to accomplish my projects like computers and basketball I've stopped giving regular PE classes. I've decided that I'll be traveling to Apulo for two days a week to visit and to give individual and group classes. I'll be helping with Math and English. One of the reasons I've decided to not have many classes of PE is because its been extremely hot. After two classes of PE in the morning my energy is just shot. The other reason is that I'm not an official teacher so I can't force participation. The problem became that I wasn't teaching a whole class because many would go back to their class and run away and sit on the side and not participate. Its been interesting to see what little respect some students have for school authorities. Its more obvious with me because I'm much younger and they know I'm not going to be here forever. Because of this I've decided the focus more on things that will last.

These last few days has been the season for bugs. There have been about a billion flies all around the house. One day me and Yosa spent like an hour killing the ones on the table and then the next day they were all back. At night there are also little nat things that look like baby mosquitoes but don't bite. They just fly around the light a bunch. I made mistake one night of leaving my light on after Mario turned the main light on. In about 3 seconds all the bugs had flown into my room. I turned on the outside light to draw them out but it only half worked. During the night I got to listen to the sound of mini bugs flying close to my ear. Luckily, I was tired so it wasn't a big deal.

Bus Experiences!

It's been hard to write recently and I don't really know why. I feel like I don't have much to write about anymore. It might be that I'm very acustomed to living here so nothing really shocks me anymore. The buses are always an adventure but even on those I've kinda seen most of all that could happen.

I really hope someone who likes to write will take up this project but I think you could probly write a book on all the different experiences people have on the buses. Before I get into the interesting people I want to talk about my personal experience and growth with the buses. At first I kinda just waited for the bus and listened to music. Now I tend to have conversations with people I know from the buses or see in Suchi while I wait. Some of my best conversations have occurred on the bus or waiting for the bus. I've also been reading “Sweet Relief” while I wait for the bus too. Its led to many cool conversations where I told people about Marla and what she did. I also have a new favorite bus food that I like to buy. They sell these chocolate covered peanuts that are just a quarter for a good size package. They are my new treat that I like to buy on the bus.

Speaking of people who sell things on the bus.... I have a few favorite experiences I'd like to share about bus vendors. The first bus experience included a clown that told jokes and a blind guy that sang with a guitar. Later I found out that a friend had a clown on the bus one time. He was telling jokes and nobody was laughing so then... he robbed everyone. Yes I know not funny but I thought it was worth mentioning. One of the more recent ones was squeaky toy duck guy. He literally went down the isle squeaking a rubber duck in the ear of every single person. It really made me wonder if that tactic was at all successful. There are also a few vendors that come on the bus and explain what they are selling and give a speech and then see who wants to buy it. They are usually my favorites because usually they have a good reason to buy their stuff. They also tend to have more experience at selling things. Anyways there is one thing they sell that I can't understand why. They go on and on explaining about this book that has all these fun questions and answers. Questions like what is the only animal that lays eggs, how far away is the sun, how far to the center of the earth etc... I must admit they make it sound somewhat interesting but its still just a pamphlet of random facts that won't help you in life.

Aside from funny things they sell the people are hilarious as well. When the buses are really full they still come on the bus and force their way though the people standing in the isles. When I was going to Perkin one time there was a vendor that couldn't move much because it was so crowded yet she still continued to shout “Sandilla Mango! Mango Dulce dos coras” She probly said it 5 times when she was standing right next to me with like a 3 second pause before starting again. My thoughts at this time were “Thanks I don't think anyone in my general area will change their mind about watermelon or Mango. We didn't want it the first time you said it what makes you think the 5^th time will work...” This same thought came through my mind another time on my journey. One person came on the bus selling soda, water and juice. When she was a third of the way though the bus another lady came on selling the exact same thing. Instead of leaving to go to another bus she stayed on and tried to sell the same thing people had already bought or said no to 15 seconds before. This has happened with Sodas and Sandilla and mango about three times during my trip. The last interesting vendor was parasite vendor guy... he sold a generic medicine for parasites but his presentation was interesting... Hey had a little chart of all the parasites and he went one by one and told about what each parasite can do and how it can harm you. He also mentioned how you can get it... Basically he made everyone think they have parasites so in a certain sense he did his job. I think a few people bought the medicine but I think many people knew better.

Well thats all the bus adventures I have for now. I'll try to take more pictures and write a little bit more when I get the chance. Tomorrow I play two soccer games so I'm excited for that. And Tonight I'll be talking with all my Quaker Friends at Quarterly meeting! I would say I'm starting to be officially home sick but I'm also still enjoying my time here.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Many Siesta Synapeses

Okay so I've been really horrible with writing lately but I need to update you guys a little bit on my life. For now I'm just going to skip what happened these last two weeks and tell you what I've been doing this week.

As of now I'm in Los Suenos again to visit families during a long weekend from school. They don't have school because its Dia de la Madre this Tuesday so they had school on saturday last week to replace this monday so they could have a 4 day weekend. Monday I'll be going to Apulo to get my clothes I left there and to visit families. They are going to have a little get together with me because I donated money to ADEKOI.

In El Bario I've been playing soccer again. I really love the soccer community there. In my first game back I scored two goals (one on a header and one off a rebound). In Suchi I've had some problems with my team because they seem to have lost hope. The last game we played we only had 9 ppl able to play and two of them got hurt during the game so we were playing a good team with about half our people. They aren't very organized which may be the problem. I still think I'll try to play for them when I can.

El Bario had a dance this last weekend which turned out to be pretty much like dances in High School at first with nobody dancing. Then miraculously when I came back a half hour later everyone was dancing. It turned out to be a good dance. I practiced my latin styles. It was a bit awkward when they played my kinds of songs because everyone else dances differently to them. I still managed to have a good time and hung out with my house brother who's 20 and pretty cool.

Living with my family again in El Bario has been interesting. I haven't had very much time to myself recently and I've had to travel into Suchi to do things on the internet so I feel bad I haven't gotten to really bond with my family. I've been working on spending more time with them though. Whenever I do spend time with them I end up watching Don't mess with the Zohan. Its stuck in the DVD player so we've watched it probly 30 times.

This past month its been extremely hot... even in Morean. Apulo or El Bario has been the worst heat but I've learned to deal. My hair has become blonder. Its getting pretty long too so I think I'll cut it soon. I don't know how I'll deal with this coming winter but we'll see when it gets here I guess.

I've gotten to take some great pictures lately and experience some interesting Catholic events. I've experienced Semana Santa, Resar, and Dia De La Cruz. To be honest its not very fun to listen to people give mass or recite things in Spanish. After a while it just goes in one ear and out the other. Dia De la Cruz was my favorite because it was colorful and it wasn't much talking and mass before hand. The point was to taste and eat the different fruits. In the next few weeks its time to start planting the new crops for winter. One day I plan to go with Mario and experience the fields and what they do all day.

I'm feeling like a change needs to happen soon. I miss my friends but I love it hear too. I think to get back in the groove of working everyday just seems kinda boring to me (I guess that means I shouldn't be an adult) My work is becoming more and more focused on organizing this trip for the youth coming up. I'm making lists and networking with the communities more and more.

I wish I had unlimited money. I see so many opportunities out there to help people but I can't give money away that I don't have. I need more US contacts the next time I come here.