Friday, March 18, 2011

Long time w/o an update...

and a lot has happened in my life, but I'll start with today.

Today was a good day. I've been feeling down lately; I think, mostly, because of the situation I'm in in my personal life. However, I went to the alcaldia today and we went and watered trees all day long in the hot sun (I just cut some aloe off my plant for the sun burn). I remember having a moment, sitting on top of the water tank on top of a large truck while collecting water with others from the nearby stream, and thinking "I'm really glad that I'm here, right now." It's been the first time I've thought that in a while.

On a general basis I tend to just go through the motions. There are moments of true happiness in being here, but they are few and far between. Today, on top of the large tank while ensuring the large hose stayed in place, I looked up the road and all around. I saw some small houses made out of salvo-style brick w/ teja roofs, some horses in a field, trees, the stream flowing at it's low level, my amigo in the water keeping the hose under water ensuring not to suck up fish, and another compaƱero controlling the pump; I was happy. Happy to be in El Salvador and happy to be doing what I was doing. Happy that I saw ciclids in the stream.

I guess blogging about the fact that I had a truly happy moment is pretty telling. Life has been difficult for me, as of late. I don't want to go into too many details, but I'm going to be a father and it's complicated. It turns out luck does run out and it's difficult when the local woman with whom you are with becomes pregnant, stops talking to you, and doesn't want to live in the US.

El Salvador ---

El Salvador recently became the number one place in the world for murders per capita. So, that's interesting. I'm such a peaceful guy that I never imagined I would live in a country with so many murders. I'm also amazed how normal every-day life really is. I mean, you get used to not going out at night and separating your money / not carrying expensive stuff, etc. It becomes normal.

Quick things on life in general, then Peace Corps activities:

- I moved to the pueblo. That's like the big community with the mayor's office and such (maybe 1,000 - 2,000 people, max, probably more like 500)

- I bought a weed eater - or trimmer as some prefer. Something i never thought I'd do in Peace Corps.

- I have a sweet garden w/ lots of peppers and a lemon tree.

- I was on a bus that was robbed at gun point in San Salvador in the middle of the day. Interesting, but not as bad a friend had it.

- A 9 year old boy was killed in front of my house when hit by a car a couple of months ago. The community liked to joke about it for a couple of days. I was in shock and felt nobody else shared my empathy and core disbelief.

- I have high speed internet and Claro has the worst customer service and general service, ever. Lots of problems, but it is Peace Corps and I do have high-speed internet.

Peace Corps acitvities:

- I had guitar classes, which were awesome, for about 4 months and then people stopped coming.

- We planted a garden at the school, which was awesome, and then the chickens and iguanas ate it all

- We planted 5,000 tree seeds of various types - mango, lemon, maraƱon (cashew), and some forestales. Most of them grew and we gave them away to people. I saw a field with 1,500 of these trees planted in it and being watered daily during the dry season - TOTALLY FREAKIN' AWESOME! It's really, really dry and hot this time of year.

- I've done some environmental skits at the school about garbage and recycling.

- Did some English classes for a while, which were fun and involved a lot of culture on Montana.

- We have a recycling campaign that's been ongoing. It's in many of the communities around us and collected every 2 months, or so. However, it surprises me how much dirt can get in with recyclables. I'm just started pushing for separated garbage cans in the city hall, but they're not too receptive. I'm gonna work out a presentation w/ pictures and such. The Unidad Ambiental (enviornmental position in the mayor's office) wants to start a curbside recycling program. I'm trying to give him guidance and keep it realistic. I'm actually the one saying, we should start with a pilot project. I used to hate that, but there is a reason.

Well, we'll be doing a bunch more tree watering this next week. I'm going to bring my hose and we're gonna try and syphon from the pool of water so we don't have to go bucket-by-bucket to each of 100+ trees in the heat. We'll see. I'm also going to remember to put the freshly charged battery in my camera. Fo' sure.

Ok. I'll update this blog on a more regular basis. I know I've been really slacking ... I'll also get pics up.

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