Que Wow

Holy moly shmoly... my mind is all over the place right now. Just trying to process many things- the last two and a half weeks out of my site, being around other gringos constantly, speaking mostly english the whole time, staying in nice hotels with comfy beds and a/c, cable tv and internet.... that's enough to mess with me as i get ready to go back to the campo life in a few hours.

To further flood my mind with preoccupations- the loss of my fancy macbook has brought me down. It certainly is not the end of the world. I can be greatful for my good health, my wonderful community, my good friends. And there are much worse things that could happen to me around here than losing my computer. Plus, I knew when I brought it down here there was the risk of losing it. Just frikin sucks. As you all know, I am an avid blogger. It helps keep me sane, being able to type something up and share my experiences with people back home, or wherever my readers may be. I also was in the habit of watching a tv episode or a movie on my laptop before i went to bed every night. It was good company for when I was alone in my house. And I finally had found an internet stick that kinda worked and allowed me to chat with people and check email from my site. It brought so much comfort to me that one electronic device. At the same time, maybe I was a little too dependent on it. Maybe it really is for the best. Maybe it was kharma's way of telling me I was spending too much time on the thing. That i need to disconnect from home a little and connect more with being here. It may be a blessing. It will get me out of my house more... spending more time with the people I am really here for. And I can read a book at night instead of watching a mindless movie. We'll see how it goes. I may just end up replacing it with one of those cheap little notebook laptops when i go back to the capital next week for thanksgiving. LoL. Or we'll see what my property insurance can do for me. Maybe I can get them to help me replace it.

So a few more things that are screwing with me... Now that I am finally done with all of my training I stand here at the beginning of my service with a long road ahead of me. It's a little overwhelming to think about the big picture and ALL that I want to do in my community. And there is SO much that I have on my list. I know... just gotta take it one day or one week at a time.
So.... Que Wow!

Before I go- let me tell a bit about my PST2 experience... It was great. I got tons of useful information to help me with getting to work in my site. Among some of my projects that I plan to get started are a youth group, a women's group, teacher training, professional training/life planning for youth, and a new school roof for the very poor school in my community. There's just so much. But i'm gonna start with just one thing at a time, and slowly build on what i've got going.

So the first week of training was very informative, and not very exciting. When the weekend rolled around I went and stayed in my friends training community for the night where they were have a promotion for the television show Bailando por un Sueno that one of the PC El Sal volunteers has actually been competing on. Well she got kicked off the show the next night, but we were there to support her the night before. I got up on the stage there in the park for a little dance competition. I thought, FUN! Bailando por una camisa! (dancing for a t-shirt!) I got up there with my fellow gringa friend Ana... we were the last two to dance... When he said we had to do merengue and when I saw the first 2 latinas go ahead of us... I was like- uh oh- great. I like to dance, and I think i'm pretty good at it... but I can't usually out dance the latinas. They've got a good dancing gene... it's in their blood. So I didnt win. But we got it on video. Hopefully my friend will put it up on fbook soon.

What else? Went to the capital the next day. Being in the capital is so expensive. We all spent so much money and are going back today feeling broke. I ate at Tony Roma's, Pizza Hut, Wendy's, Sushi... all that really adds up. But it was kinda worth it. It was nice to get good ol' american things for a bit. There are many peace corps countries where doing that kind of thing is out of the question. Anyway... we went to a beautiful place in Ahuachapan where we stayed in pretty fancy luxurious cabins for the night, saw a beautiful waterful on a long hike. We went out a lot with friends during the last week and had a good time. I told my closest friends before leaving- "I'm gonna get cheezy on y'all for a sec. I really feel like PST2 has brought us closer." And it's true. I feel so lucky to be here with such a great friends... americans and salvos alike. They all make this experience worthwhile. El Salvador has one of the lowest early termination rates of all Peace Corps countries. It's no wonder. Salvos are great and we are only a skip and jump away from gringo time when we need it. And even with all that... it still gets hard.

Many say that Peace Corps is full of really high highs and really low lows. The longer I am here the more I experience the truth in that statement. So I've been feeling a little low lately... but I know that's just part of the journey. I'm looking forward to getting back to my site and seeing my friends there... and I know it won't be long before I'm up again.

I had a nice transition back to my site though. We went to our regional meeting yesterday and stayed the night in these very rustic cabins. It was good that I had to go there first after being spoiled in the capital. GOing there before going back to my site I really think is going to help me appreciate my little house. It's nicer than where we were last night. Sleeping on the floor on little pads... with tons of bugs all around. I hate sleeping without a mosquito net. I saw big spiders in there. And I was afraid they would crawl on me while I was sleeping. So I slept with the blanket over my head. Which is good for the feeling of protection, but kind of hot and suffocating at the same time. Me and Jamie were in there alone... scaring ourselves talking about the ghosts we had heard that are around there earlier that night. Apparently the place was on the land where a huge massacre had been during the war. Great. We felt like little girls again, like it was a first night at summer camp and we wanted to call our mom and dad to come pick us up. But we just told ourself to try to sleep, it would all be over in the morning. And we lived!!! It was fine :) lol.

And now, I need to get going. It's back to my site for a few days and then back to the capital for thanksgiving. So another few nights at a comfy house with good american food is really just less than a week away. It's nice to have things to look forward to. Even if it's just having pupusas for dinner.

Paz y Amor.