A More Perfect Union

I have been here since tuesday. I got amoebas. Maldita amoebas!
I just have diarrhea. And I have lost about 10 pounds since tuesday.
On friday the newest group of trainees were sworn in, bound by the
constitution and the truths therein to uphold the ideals from which
John F Kennedy created the Peace Corps Act. To volunteer and help.

Friday night we welcomed the newly trained volunteers to a night of drinking and dancing and all around rump shaking. It was a great night, and also something of an initiation. Imagine if you will, a group of mainly 23 to 30 year olds who for two months were "not allowed" to drink during training, being served at the embassy with some of the best food in one of the most beautiful/elegant places I have been to (seriously there is a Marine that opens up the bathroom doors), and then being finally allowed to drink on the eve of your first day in site. It is not a joke. It's swearing in day.

Fortunately me and the other veteran volunteers stayed an extra night to make sure we could walk properly back into our sites. We spent most of the day recovering, watching shows in english on TV, and catching up with people back in America. There was something I knew about Peace Corps before coming here that I had yet to experience. Peace Corps Volunteers. I knew a few before coming here, the brother of a friend who I had a spanish class with, and also the friend of a friend that I got to know before coming. Both guys were so incredible.

Every group that comes in brings in their own personality.
What I have noticed is that in this country with every volunteer that I have met I am at awe at how weird I do not feel. I was in shock for the first few months at how well we all felt around each other. Like we knew each other before, like we went to school together, or swam at the Sea horse together, or were made to play with each other because our parents were friends and yet we grew up and still liked each other even though our parents weren't friends anymore.
I hardly feel normal. What is normal? If I hardly feel normal
then maybe what I feel is what is normal and what I hardly feel
is not normal. What I feel around volunteers, and around the
people in my group is something that I am trying to learn to
explain.
Community is the closest thing to describe it. Its much more than that.
It is like being with a lot of people who are so much like you, and sharing a
sense of service, and passion, and love for the people, and this country, and
your own country, and any other country, and unity in moving forward. Forward.
Moving forward.
I am trying to learn how to bring that back. One of the goals of the Peace Corps.
And something America really needs today. Not for progression of this party or
that party, not for the gain of more capital, and most certainly not because we are
the best maldito country in the world. Because everyone is watching. Because we
got off to a bad start and we move forward and it gets better. We see in each
other something that feels normal. We know that there is some way for us to
volunteer. And help.

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.