Your Fly is Open

I really want to get my yard into shape. Another thing that happens when your gone for 3 weeks, is your yard becomes a jungle. Besides the fact that I cant walk to the letrine without getting covered in moisture from the tall grass, I want to plant a garden.

I was inspired during pre service training 2 last week to make a garden after visiting the sites of other volunteers. Organic composting. Growing my own food. Eating healthy. Setting an example for the community. I´m in.
So my landlord-neighbor was walking by and I asked if he had some tools I could borrow to fix up my lawn. Sure he said with a smile and walked off towards his house. I went back into mine and continued my yoga (also in 3 weeks, you lose all flexibility you gained from the first 2 months of yoga). Just as I was reaching up into the sky, balancing on my left leg in tree pose, I saw Don Emilio returning with 2 large tools in hand. A horse and her colt. Less labor for me I thought. Although, I have to admit, I was semi-excited about hacking the crap out of my lawn with a machete. ¨Just make sure they don´t eat the yuca plants and baby mango trees¨ Emilio warned me. Right, because 1. I can distinguish between the roots of a yuca plan and the weeds that are rampantly growing across the entire manzana of my yard and 2. if that huge caballo walks over there to the mango tree, I´m going to know how to call him away in campo-spanish-horse language, while simultaneouly beating him with a stick.

Don Emilio brings me to my next train of thought. If there is one thing about El Salvador that will be sure to impress any of my visitors (my first is on her way: my older sister Danielle!!- August)…its the zippers on pants. If you are running late for your flight, Danielle, and wearing jeans, have no fear, there is NO NEED to zipper up here. It´s simply accepted that we don´t zipper our flies. If they are in the front, the back, the side, they stay open. After chatting with other volunteers, we still haven´t come to the conclusión as to why the population of El Salvador wears their flies undone, but some of us have opted to assimilate and forgoe the effort of zipping up before heading out into civilized society.

Lastly, we are knee deep into the Winter here. Winter here means rain and frogs. That´s the only way to describe it. I may have said this already, but a frog here is not a frog. It is the size of a squirrel and impeccably more annoying. They don´t really move. They just sit their fat asses at your door step and croak all through the night. They even show up in your shower, sitting their behind the curtain…making you feel uncomfortable as they watch you in the nude. It POURED the other night. I mean, Emilio´s house had a lake out front. And guess what, that meant infinitely more fat toads. The wáter and the amphibians spilled over into my yard, and I swore, as I lie in my bed reading that I was perched on top a lily pad, and surely into the night I would morph into one of those disgusting critters. It didn´t help the fact that all these Little nats were flying around my head lamp, just watiing for me to stick out my tongue and suck one up. I didn´t, but if it would scare them away for the night to let me sleep in peace, I´d consider having them as a midnight snack.
That being said, hope you´re excited to come Danielle! We´re going to have a great time. It´s sooo relaxing here :D

Maybe some of you are actually interested in my WORK here and not my interesting observations of life in the campo. Well, you´d be pleased to know that, as often happens, my meeting with an NGO to help out with my Artesania de Jewelry got canceled. But hopefully he will come through next Wednesday. We´re trying to get our group organized so that we can start a business out of it. Training was helpful as that I plan on sitting down with the leader of the group this week to make our business plan.

I have made 2 appointments for next week to interview a local NGO and the Mayor of my Municipality to discuss their work and projects. I will be starting classes next week at both schools that the youth of my canton attend. At one, I will teach physical education- sports (others besides soccer- they might be flabbergasted to know they exist), yoga, stretching techniques and the importance of being healthy, other fun games. And at another the Director wants be to teach art which I´m pretty stoked about. Still working on the soccer team for the girls…the men dominate the soccer fiel d on the weekends so its been hard to organize time there. And the community wants to start a fish Project where everyone has their own Little pond. I know NOTHING about how to go about doing this so we´ll see when that happens. Also have to start writing a grant proposal for some Money that has been offered to our business group. Before I tell my community about this, I´m going to try to get them to do some fundraising of their own. However, if any of you at home has old sports equipment laying around…balls, softball gloves, bats (is there a way to send that?) feel free to send them! Also, drawing-art supplies.

I miss everyone at home IMMENSELY. Now that I´m back in my community without the other volunteers, the loneliness returns. I miss home, I miss my home…and while it´s nice when I refer to my community as ¨home¨, its a Little scary. I think about everyone at home all the time. The weirdest things remind me of my family, like the tea bags that my friend sent me make me miss my Mom. And sleeping with the teddy bear my Little sister gave me makes me miss my friend and Mr. Bear. I love and miss you all! Come visit!