Bicicleta, Bicicleta

I am at the mayor's office trying to, wait a second, the mayor just walked in!
(Super fast spanish, on his part, me trying to get to the point, he is a busy man) And success!
I am here to solicit transportation for a break dance camp that I am taking my kids to this next week. It is going to be at the Lago de Coatepeque and I was invited by two other volunteers that have put it on. I am taking 4 high school aged guys from my site and there is going to be workshops on different break dance moves. The coolest part about the camp is that most kids that are into break dancing feel like it is a bad thing because of the stigma that only delincuents are break dancers. Through the camp they get to meet other kids who are into it just as much as they are, they learn it is fine to enjoy break dancing, and in fact it is a healthy and artistic outlet for them. We also ask that when the students return back home they volunteer 15 hours of their time to community service.

I have been waiting all day for Don Adrian (the mayor). I am in Jutiapa where there is another volunteer who is in the Municipal Development program. There is only one bus that leaves for Jutiapa in the morning and it is at 630am. The problem is is that if I would have gotten there at 7 or 730am and then talked to Adrian for 5 minutes and gotten the OK for transportation I would to have had to wait for the bus to leave at 12pm. And if he wouldn't have been here this morning (like he wasn't) I would have totally missed him and wasted a whole morning. So this morning I left on my bycicle from my site all the way to Jutiapa. Close to 20 kilometers or 13 miles. It was super hilly, really hard at a few points, and overwhelmingly beautiful with the most fantastic views of El Salvador I have seen. Jutiapa is at a higher elevation than my site so it was cool to get to a few spots and just stop and look down at my site, all of the green and brown and dried up corn fields.

Things are getting busier every week. Last week me and about 15 kids had our first meeting to discuss forming a dance team. I tried forming a dance team about a month ago to no avail. I have learned that things do not have to be so hard here, and when you give more responsibility to the people they will at least try to do their part. Instead of creating a meeting and time for the dance team this time I asked Mirian, a 16 year old 8th grader, to be in charge and find out what day and time we could have a meeting. An hour later she had the day and time and I made a little poster to remind everyone. At the meeting we went through all the questions, why we want a group, where we will practice, and who will teach. We made a plan for all the questions except one, the teacher. I said I would search for a teacher, having no clue where to go, who to ask, or how it would work. It is exciting. It is the same feeling I had in July when I was in Washington DC. Clueless about the country I would soon be living in, what I would be doing, how I would be helping. I decided to talk to the director of the Instituto Nacional de Ilobasco. A really nice high school in my nearest pueblo. I explained the situation and he told me to come back the next day to meet a kid that could possibly help. I came back, talked to the kid and the guidance counselor, and tomorrow we will have our first dance team practice with our teach Eric. Success!

Time goes by slower
Acabamos de llegar
Learning bout success.

Money it is not
Nap at least once everyday
We need to slow down.

Be Part of The Solution

I just got my bookshelf!

I had Javier build me a bookshelf in October. He told me it would be a few months and I would have it. Javier is the local carpenter, he lived in Las Vegas for a few years working in a restaraunt, and he also learned carpentry.

Javier makes me laugh so much. I am late all the time, I lose track of it, and in a country like this one, that way of living makes most things a little easier and or less stressful. I did not think it would take Javier until February to get me the bookshelf. He makes me laugh because even after he had made it it took him weeks until he actually brought it over to my house. But asi es the life where I live. I would literally go to his house with the hopes of takign my bookshelf home, staring at it, hugging it, smelling it, and hoping he realized that I needed it. And every time he would just say "Yeah I'll bring it over later no worries." I knew that did not mean today, so I would sit down, talk about Las Vegas, carpentry, futbol, and girls.

Now that I have a bookshelf I feel like my house is a complete.
That is not to say that I have any of the conventional services of a complete house.

My house is a room.
I do not have:
a bathroom, toilet, water, or a fridge.

School has started back up and that means a few of my projects are going to start happening soon. One of my projects that I have had since I have been in my site has been with Stove Team International. It was created by a Peace Corps Volunteer and it is this really great company that provides ecological and economical stoves for salvadorans. They are really cheap, great quality, and good for the environment.

Also I am starting youth groups, art groups, and in general organizing people to just work together. I am really excited about a project that I will be starting really soon that will be a pen pal type of correspondence to my junior high alma mater. I am going to work with the spanish teacher their and have her kids write to my kids in spanish and then my kids will write back and talk about themselves, their family, and it is going to be a great way to share each others cultures.

This sunday is the super bowl.
I am going to root for the New Orleans Saints.
I am not from Louisiana, I have no family from there,
nor do I have any money riding on them winning this sunday.

I am going to be able to see the game too. I am going to come to the capital and watch it at a TGI Fridays. I am going to have a burger and beer and wear an american flag.