Hola desde El Salvador #2

Queridos familiares y amigos,

Hello from San Salvador! I hope that this letter finds you all a lot better than I was about 48 hours ago. I just got out of the hospital this morning after spending a couple days there with the triple-whammy of amebas, Giardia, and a bacterial infection (as they say here in El Salvador ... Puchica!). NOT exactly where I wanted to be just 5 days after arriving in my community after the swearing-in ceremony. But, as long as I'm stuck here in San Salvador until tommorrow morning (the doctor wanted me to stay in the city overnight 'just in case'), I figured I would make the best of my access to the computers in the Peace Corps office to write you all.

I wanted to start by saying THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who has written me, either by snail mail or email ... I promise you I am working on writing more personal responses than these mass emails, but the end of training was super busy. I'm hoping to get out some real letters in the next month once I get settled in my site.

The second half of training really flew by for me. My series of classes on organic huertos caseros (home vegetable gardens) for the women of San Felipe was a really great experience, for me and I think for them as well. I ended up planning and teaching classes on Composting, Polyculture (i.e., planting different crops in a single plot to preserve soil fertility and prevent pest problems), Building and Planting a Vegetable Garden, Natural Pest Control, and Nutrition. Each session started out with a presentation / disucussion, followed by a demonstration at my host family's house. Afterwards, I visited each woman's home to help her build a compost pile and plant her garden. By the time I said good-bye to my training community, tomatoes, peppers, squash, radishes, and cucumbers were all poking their first leaves above the soil -- but what was really special for me was seeing the smiles on the women's faces and the sense of accomplishment they radiated as they stood proudly by their new gardens.

The huertos caseros project also taught me some really valuable lessons. One of the biggest challenges I faced was designing materials that were accessible to people without much formal education. When I passed by the house of each woman with a schedule of the classes and a list of the materials they would need to gather to build the compost pile, one of them hung her head and told me quietly, "I can't read. Maybe I can't participate." I felt absolutely terrible for having put her in the uncomfortable position of telling me that she couldn't read, but luckily I was able to convince her that she could still participate and that she had a lot to offer to the group. I ended up revising all the posters and handouts to include lots of pictures, which stretched my artistic ability to the limit but hopefully made her feel less intimidated and more included. In my site, I'll definitely be more conscious of how to facilitate the participation of all who want to participate.

I also learned the value of blending the somewhat theoretical knowledge that I bring as a Volunteer with the practical, local knowledge of the people. All of the "classes" were really more discussions, with a mutual sharing of information that I found to be very exciting. For example, in the handout on polyculture, I had put the example of planting fast-maturing greens such as lettuce and spinach with slow-maturing peppers and tomatoes. However, given the hot climate around San Vicente, I advised the women against planting lettuce and spinach, which prefer a cooler climate. Not to be discouraged, they were full of ideas to plant chipilin and mora, two local greens that are adapted to the local climate, and are (I later found out) very rich in iron. We were even able to get some chipilin seeds and find some wild mora to transplant into the gardens to put their good ideas into practice. This kind of exchange, it seems to me, is what Peace Corps is all about: working together, the women and I were able to come up with a solution better than any of us could have dreamed up alone.

The garbage collection project, unfortunately, did not go so well. A lot of people said they thought it was a good idea when Vicki and I walked around talking to people about the environmental and health benefits of trash collection and recycling, but when it came time to say they would pay the $1.05 per month, no one was willing. I realize that in comparison to most people in the United States, the people of my host community were realatively poor, but most of them have a TV and buy Coca-Colas and chips for their kids from the local tiendas (little stores run out of people's houses). I can only hope that a bit more patience and education on similar projects will prove effective in my new home, where I'll have two years instead of just two months to work with the people.

Despite the frustration with the garbage project, most of my experiences in my training community were wonderful (that is, minus getting bit by an unvaccinated dog. Thank goodness I had the series of 3 preventative vaccines against rabies so I only had to get 2 boosters, instead of the 21 you have to get after a bite if you have no preventative vaccines!). Anyway, saying good-bye to my host family and community was really hard. I guess I never realized how much they had given me -- and how much I was going to miss their companionship -- until it was almost time to leave. I also hadn't realized how much our presence as Peace Corps Volunteers meant to them. As excited as I was about how well the huertos caseros classes had turned out, I found myself doubting if such small projects could really change people's lives. Yet talking with the people I had grown close to in San Felipe, I began to realize that just being here in El Salvador, sharing in the lives of the people, makes a difference in ways I may never know. Warm affection and appreciation shone in the eyes of my Tia (Aunt) Hilda and next-door neighbor Melida as they clasped my hands and thanked me, not only for teaching them how to build vegetable gardens, but also for forming friendships with them. And I nearly cried when Melida's husband, don Simon, expressed his gratitude in his calm, genuine manner,m thanking me for being an example of service and concern for others to his son Ramon and grandsons Jaime and Ricardo. After all that they had shared with me, I was glad that I was able to give back, even if just a little.

So here I am, and officially sworn-in Peace Corps Volunteer, no longer a Trainee. Although I may be stuck in San Salvador right now, my new home is in the caserio (rural village) of El Amaton, located on the westernmost fringe of the department of Santa Ana just two kilometers from the border with Guatemala and at the base of the Volcano Chingo (see picture at right -- a bunch of people in my community have already offered to take me on a hike up to the top. I can't wait!). My counterpart agency there is CENTA (Centro Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria y Forestal, or National Center for Agricultural and Forestry Technology), which is the government extension agency that works in agricultural improvement.

People in the community cultivate mainly corn and beans, but some also cultivate a small parcel in shade coffee (coffee bushes intermixed with fruit trees), just for their own consumption. Although I shouldn't even be thinking about projects before I really get to know the community, I'm excited about the potential for promoting crop diversification to include fruits and vegetables, soil conservation, and home gardens. No matter what, I'm sure I'll be working with potable water -- I could see this was a priority after about an hour in the community. Right now there is one public chorro (faucet) for the entire community, and in the dry season (November - May), it doesn't fall (in El Salvador, they don't say the water runs -- they say the water falls!). In my community, people strap two canteros (big water jugs) onto horses and ride down to the river to bring water back to their homes during the dry season.

Specific projects aside, I think some of the biggest general challenges I'm going to face will involve gender issues. For one thing, I'm a woman hoping to work in agriculture in a country where gender roles are very strictly defined and women's generally do not work in the fields. During my site visit, I encountered a bit of incredulity when I asked some of the farmers if I could come and work in the fields with them (one suggested that I could help his wife bring lunch, which was a valuable experience as well but also frustrating in that he obviously didn't think I was capable of agricultural work). I'm already seeing some positive changes in attitudes, however. During my visit, I was able to convince one farmer, don Obdulio, to let me help harvest his beans and corn, and ever since then the chambre (gossip) has been getting around that the gringa can arrancar frijoles and tapizcar maiz (that is, pull out the beans plants to let them dry before threshing and harvest the ear of corn from the plant). When I arrived in the community to stay, he even invited me to come pick coffee with him and his family! (Above and at right is a picture of don Obdulio and his son Jonaton picking coffee.)

Another gender-related challenge I'll face will be encouraging the participation of women in community decision-making. Rosario, the assistant to the Peace Corps Agroforestry program director, told me that when she made an initial visit to the community about the possibility of them receiving a Peace Corps volunteer, the meeting was 43 men plus her. Given all the time-consuming responsibilies that women in the campo have -- cooking and grinding corn for tortillas, preparing meals, bringing lunch to the men, carrying water and firewood, going to the river to wash clothes -- I hope that I can convince them that their unique perspective on community resources and needs is important enough to merit their participation in community development activities.

My most important activity right now, however, is getting to know the people of my community, and so far everyone has been wonderful in helping me get settled. Since I still don't have a functional stove, I'm eating with don Abel's family, which has actually been a good opportunity to get to know them. I'm learning all about how to cook here from don Abel's daughter Iliana, who is about the same age as me. Iliana's 5-year old daughter Alison has also enthusiastically accompanied me all around the community, introducing me to her neighbors (as well as climbing every tree in sight -- I think she's half monkey!). My other neighbors have also been wonderful, helping me clean up my house and hang my mosquito bed net, giving me every fruit from oranges to banans to guavas as I walk around visiting with them, and even leaving canteros of water outside my house during the night. The latter in particular is no small gift, given the shortage of water that is beginning to set in with the beginning of the dry season. With only a thin stream or a trickle of water falling from the one public chorro, people stay up nearly the whole night waiting to fill a cantero and carry it the long distance back to their families. The generosity of these people with the most precious resource has amazed and humbled me.

People have also bent over backwards to include me in all their activities. All aspects of life here have a special communal, or familial, dimension (since everyone is related, I guess the communal and the familial are really one and the same!). Going to cut coffee with don Obdulio was like a big party, with the whole family and his neighbors trooping up the volcano to the finca, then laughing, talking, and singing as we filled our canastas with ripe coffee beans. Even laundry is a communal outing -- I left early in the morning with Iliana, her two sisters, and their kids for a trip to the river, where the four of us lined up by the big, flat rocks to scrub our clothes while the kids played in the water.

So, minus the amebas-Giardia-bacterial infection, I'm really excited about beginning my work as a Peace Corps Volunteer, sharing the lives of the people of El Amaton and helping them create a sustainable, hopeful future. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.

Sincerely,
Megan

Hola desde El Salvador #1

Hola a mi familia y mis amigos,

I hope that this letter finds you all well. Welcome to the first installment of my updates from El Salvador, which I will try to send out every so often.

Things are going well here in El Salvador, although I do find myself missing my home, family, and friends. My group of 14 Agroforestry / Environmental Education Volunteers arrived in El Salvador a month ago to begin 2 ½ months of training for Peace Corps service. The training center is located in the pueblo (town) of San Vicente, about 1 ½ hours away from the capital, San Salvador. We are all living with host families in the cantones (rural villages) surrounding San Vicente. I live in a small community called San Felipe, where the majority of the population works in agriculture (corn, beans, and sorghum are the principle crops). Most of the Volunteers are living in big families, but I have kind of a different situation in that my family consists of a senora (who actually just left to visit her sons in the U.S. for two months) and her 29-year old daughter Silvia, who works for a judge in San Vicente. The senora’s other 7 children are all grown and living elsewhere, so my house is very tranquilo with just Silvia and me. However, I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Silvia. She’s really a very unique woman in that she is quite educated and is a leader in her community as the organizer of her church youth groups. In a country where machismo is very apparent and there is considerable inequalities between men and women in education, employment, and influence in family and community decision-making, it’s inspiring to see a woman who is so confident in her own ability to have a positive impact in her community.

My group is receiving community-based training, which means that we come to San Vicente only 2-3 times per week for classes in Spanish, technical material (sustainable agriculture and participatory education), development approaches, and culture. The rest of the time is spent in our communities, where we have Spanish class in small groups as well as Community Contact assignments.

So far I’ve really enjoyed training, especially the technical classes. All of the sessions are very hands-on, with lots of playing in the dirt! We’ve built compost piles, planted organic vegetable gardens, treated tree seedlings for optimum germination, planted a small tree nursery, made worm compost bins, planted ‘green manures’ (nitrogen-fixing crops that are planted between rows of corn to enrich and protect the soil), and planted ‘live barriers’ of grasses and nitrogen-fixing trees on the contour of hillside farms to prevent soil erosion.

For Community Contact, we’ve spoken with farmers to investigate basic crops, worked with a local farmer (a week later I was still sore), visited the Alcaldia (mayor) to find out what role municipal government plays in the development of rural areas, and visited the local primary school. This week was a big week for us, because we had to prepare and give charlas (presentations) in Spanish on an environmental topic at the local school. I taught the 6th- grade class about composting, and its relationship to reducing the waste stream and maintaining soil fertility. Both of these concerns are pretty important in an area with no trash pick up and fairly poor quality soils. I think that the lesson went pretty well – I arranged to have all the materials at the school so we could actually build a compost pile, and the teacher seems enthusiastic about keeping it going. I also made up a sheet of instructions for the kids to take home so that they can start compost piles at home. The main challenge I encountered was engaging the students in the classroom part of the lesson, before we went outside to build the compost pile. Traditional Salvadoran teaching methods are not terribly participatory, so the students were very hesitant to answer questions or offer their ideas. This made things a little awkward, since I am used to teaching methods where class participation is an integral part of a students’ learning. However, I talked to some of the staff at the training center, and they were able to give me some good ideas on ways to encourage student participation.

The other big excitement for the week happened on Wednesday morning, when a rat fell in our pila (a pila is a big concrete tank outside the house that people fill with water for bathing and washing dishes and clothes. Our families around San Vicente are lucky enough to have water that usually runs every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but in other parts of the country people fill them up by drawing water from wells). Anyway, like I said, a rat fell in our pila and then a cat jumped in a killed it so it was a big mess. Since Silvia had to go to work, I got the lovely job of draining all the water out of the pila and scrubbing it down with bleach (it’s a good thing I had a Community Contact day so someone could take care of it!). I was so disgusted by the thought of a (probably disease-carrying) rat swimming around in my bathing water that I was literally sloshing everything in sight with bleach. It was definitely an experience!

Beginning next week, we will be having a lot of “Self-Directed” Community Contact time, in which we carry out small independent projects in our host communities. There are two main things that I’m working on. First, I’m working on a trash collection project with my Spanish teacher, Vicki, who lives in San Felipe. Since they currently have no trash pick-up, people either throw their trash on the ground (believe me, it’s everywhere) or burn it, which can cause severe respiratory problems, particularly when they burn plastics. We’ve spoken to the Alcalde, and he said that trash collection in San Felipe would be possible if the majority of the community was willing to pay $1.05 per month. Beginning in January, the municipality will also be participating in a region-wide recycling program, so San Felipe would become part of that if they agree to receive the trash collection service. I’ve been working to talk to people in the community about the dangers of throwing trash out in the open or burning trash, and the benefits of a trash collection program. Vicki and I have set up a meeting for this weekend to talk about the issue. If enough people are interested and San Felipe does receive trash collection, I’ll probably be working with the Alcaldia and Vicki to give some presentations on the separation of trash into organics for composting, recyclables, and nonrecyclables.

The other project that I’m working on is a series of workshops on organic vegetable gardening for the women of the community. Right now very few people cultivate vegetables, and in the years when the harvest of corn and beans is poor, most farmers don’t make enough money from their extra corn and beans to buy lots of other foods for their families. As a result, many children lack the vitamins and minerals provided by fruits and vegetables. I’m hoping that home vegetable gardens could be an inexpensive way for families to care for the land while improving their nutrition.

Well, that’s what we’ve been up to in training thus far. Although I’m really enjoying training, it has been difficult to see the poverty, lack of opportunities, and environmental degradation that exist here in El Salvador. Already, I’ve met too many bright, motivated kids who will never get to go to high school because their families are too poor to send them. I’ve talked with too many families that are broken apart because the sons are forced to seek work abroad (One-third of the Salvadoran population – 2 million people – lives in the United States because unemployment is so severe. My host mother has three sons living in the U.S. Salvadoran families are incredible close, so it’s terribly hard for them to live so far apart). I’ve seen too many hillsides that can no longer support vegetation because all the rich topsoil has eroded away, and too many rivers that run opaque brown with eroded soil particles and agrochemicals. Sometimes the problems seem so overwhelming, and I find myself wondering if I can truly make a difference. But then I remember that I’m not the only one working to improve people’s lives and the land that they depend on in this little country. Between the Agroforestry / Environmental Ed, Rural Health and Sanitation, and Municipal Development programs, Peace Corps is 120 Volunteers strong, and there are countless NGOs working toward the same goals – not to mention the hard-working Salvadoran people. It’s not going to be easy, but I have hope that I can make a difference, at least to the people of one community.

We’ve been very busy, but I promise to do my best to write you back! I look forward to hearing about all the excited things that you are all up to.

Sincerely,
Megan