I have never been so scared in El Salvador as I was last night.
I had noticed there was an increasing fowl smell over the last few days... that I dismissed as a successfully poisoned rat. I got in bed last night with my mini DVD player watching the Hangover 2- a really terrible movie... and not just because it was a pirated version filmed by a guy in a movie theatre with a video camera... It's just an awful movie. Anyway, so it's like 10pm and over my head phones I hear the strangest growl I have ever heard in my life. I've gotten used to the animals that live on this farm with me... they never sound like that! It was such a creepy growl! And I could tell it was right outside my house on the other side of the wall from my bed. I couldn't help but wonder- Is it just the dog? Coyote? Is it one of my dogs protecting me from an intruder? I considered all possibilites. The growling came to an abrupt hault. Did the intruder kill the animal? What the hell is going on out there?
But with the noise having stopped briefly I went on being poorly entertained by the Hangover2 until my eyes got heavy and I passed out. 11PM- Eyes wide open as the strange growl returns and disturbs me from my sleep. The unfamiliar sound of the animal alone made me uncomfortable, but then... there was rustling and I heard things being moved on my back patio. The back porch of my house is full of Marinita's firewood stacked up against the wall that's on the other side of my bed and they have a barrel of corn out there that chicken live on top of. I'm used to the chickens being on the other side of my wall... and I know their sounds. This was different. I even heard movement that was touching the roof. Firewood was falling and I could hear the tiles that sit on top of the bamboo to make my roof being moved. My god. This is it, I thought.
Now, to tell the truth- my worst fear of living in a house alone in El Salvador has always been that someone could break into my house in the night entering through the roof by simply removing the tiles. Of course this is the worst case scenario imaginable. I have heard of this happening to one Peace Corps Volunteer in the north- she was not physically harmed but she ended up ending her service soon after and going home. And it happened to a sweet old lady friend of mine that lives here in my community. So, it's not unheard of. However, I can tell you I have always felt safe in this house. I live next to the police, in plain view of the street. And my host parents come running when they hear noises. But you know, being alone, in the dark at night... when I hear freaky noises, especially unfamiliar ones, I get freaked. Whenever I was house-sitting for my parents in Houston- who don't live in a good neighborhood by the way- if I heard scary noises sometimes I found myself walking through the house with my dad's revolver. What I would've done if I actually encountered an intruder in the house, I have no idea. But at least I felt like I had a defense. What do I have here? A whistle! The big plastic orange one that came in my Peace Corps medical kit. It's a loud one, and if I blew it I know that Don Chepito would be outside with his rifle in no time.
So, heart racing, I get out of bed, slinking through the bottom of my mosquito net, with the intention of quickly finding my whistle. In my nervous motions I accidentally hit my little yellow nica with my right foot, the bucket I use to pee at night because I don't want to go out in the dark. I turn on the lights and.... GROSSSSSSS. Now I have my right foot and the floor covered in urine. Explatives are flying out of my mouth... and then i figure, well now whoever's out there knows I'm awake, they can hear my $&!(@* and see my lights. I talked to Noel on the phone and he made me feel better... I went back to sleep with the lights on and with my whistle in hand, noticing the nasty smell was still there... getting stronger. This just wasn't my night. As the night went on, I kept waking up nearly every hour from the growls and bumps outside... scrambling to find where my whistle got lost in the sheets. I was so happy when morning came!
After my morning run I was talking to Elsy, Marinita's daughter-in-law visiting from Boston. I asked her if she had heard all those strange noises last night... she said she did but that they had noticed them the night before too and didn't think much of it. Then I told her about the strange smell in my house, so she comes over to my house to investigate what stinks. She noticed it too, and that it was especially strong in the corner of my room by my bed. We went outside to see what's on the other side of the wall. I notice the loads of chicken poo, but that's nothing abnormal, and I know the smell of chicken poo by now, that is not what we were smelling. So we get to where the wall of the patio is shared with where my bed is... the smell was definitely coming from here...
Elsy climbs up on the stacked firewood and says, "Oh my God. I can't believe Marinita did this. Why would she do this?"
"What?" I see a knocked over bucket, with flies all around it, but had no idea what I was looking at.
She didn't want to tell me. She said I didn't want to know. "I want to know!" I tell her. Then she tells me that that bucket is full of the tripe and cow inside parts that were left over from when they killed the cow for their feast on Saturday. OoooOoH! That IS gross! And yea, why the heck would she put them in a bucket at store them for days right outside where I sleep? What was she planning to do with it anyway? Well, they do eat those parts, but man... days later? So this explains the smell, and noises in the night... the dogs were all climbing up there and eating it and fighting over it. Phew! It's gross, but at least it wasn't something worse, like some of the things I had imagined throughout the night.
Marinita wasn't home for me to ask her to take care of it... but I wasn't touching that bucket! So it sat there all day until she got home in the afternoon... the wind was even carrying the horrific smell all the way over to the neighbors house. But she got home and apologized so much for it, saying she had forgotten that she put it there. LoL. This is one to remember.
In other news, Noel was cat-sitting for about a month. A black domestic short-haired sweety named Malcolm. He was a good cat and I enjoyed having his company when I went over there... even though he was annoying at times, but that was just because he was a baby still. I kinda fell in love with him and when his time at Noel's came to an end I was asking if we could keep him. The owners were on vacation and that's why they needed Noel to take care of him, and when they got back they were moving to Panama. So they came back and took Malcom in the car to drive him down to Panama with them. Sounded kind of crazy to take a cat on a long long road trip like that... It would've been a lot easier if they would've let him stay in San Sal. But no, they wanted to keep there cat, so we said our goodbyes and on the road Malcolm went. The other day Noel broke the news to me... about 5 miles outside of Panama City they got a flat tire and Malcolm got out and ran away.... :( How sad. Maybe he is out there somewhere still... trying to find his way back to San Sal? Who knows... but he was a good cat. Peace be with you, Malcolmcito. You were loved.
I'm gonna get a cat when I'm done with Peace Corps I think. A girl cat.
Lots of things to look forward to this second year of my service, and after!
For now, I am thankful to be alive and well and safe and loved... and free from stinky cow parts!
Good night world!
Paz y amor.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
One Year Down... almost!
In just 11 days I will have been in El Salvador for exactly 1 year. How 'bout that? Nearly one down, one to go.
I just got back from a short trip home to Houston. It was so great to get to spend time with the family, and to be in the U.S. for the 4th of July weekend. I didn't go see the fireworks... but I did watch them on TV. I felt like I was gushing with patriotism all weekend. I even got myself some red, white and blue bikinis! lol ;) Wore them all weekend in the pool at mom's and dad's house, eating all of dad's yummy cookin'! It was a great weekend! But as soon as I got back to El Salvador I was back to work, with a water project meeting the next morning. Nothing new is really happening on the progress with that. Now I'm just waiting to hear back from the mayor to see what he says about supporting it. Oy. And I've just been running around ever since I got back... haven't had one single day to just rest. And it doesn't seem like I'll be getting one anytime soon.
July feels crazy. My boss told me I am entering "the most productive part of a PCVs service." Boy is she right. It's so strange too.. because all of a sudden I am busy doing all kinds of things, and just a few months ago I was just barely getting my feet wet. I just kept finding more and more things to take on and now all of a sudden I am like, "Whoa!" trying to keep up with it all. And amidst my projects I've got to go to a Safety and Security conference for a few days next week up in Chalatengo, later in the month I have a regional meeting... I guess it's good to be so busy... Time can just keep flyin!
I'm really excited about one of my newest project ideas- a Vision and Literacy Campaign. I am going to be able to distribute 300 pairs of reading glasses to people in my community. I know of a few ladies that can't read or write. When talking to them they told me they have tried to learn but also part of the problem is their vision is a bit blurry. So hopefully these glasses will help them with that, and then I'm going to spend time with them a few times a week teaching them the alphabet and phonetics. Can you imagine being a grown woman and not being able to read? Getting lost because you can't read signs... Margarita sells Avon products and has her kids fill out her forms for her. She said they have tried to teach her to read time and again but they get so frustrated. That's also because they are kids, they don't really have much of an idea about how to teach someone, you know? Margarita also has one son that is 16 who is a complete invalid.... she says he got really sick when he was 1 year old and got a fever and ever since he hasn't been able to move, walk or talk. He just lays there. He cries when he's hungry and they feed him liquid foods. I wonder what it really was that happened to him. Anyway, I'm gonna try to teach his mom how to read... then she may be able to do more in her work and to take care of herself and her family.
Marinita and Chepito have their son visiting right now with his wife and kids. They just got in the other day. It's been really neat seeing how they react to life here. The parents grew up here, but haven't been back in 20 years. They are more American now than Salvadoran. They were throwing a baseball around outside and all the neighborhood kids came crowding around watching like- "what the heck are they doing throwing that ball with their hands, and those gloves?" They ended up playing soccer after... the only sport Salvos really like to play... and the American son didn't want to play because he hates soccer.
They plugged an electric bug killer into an extension chord and ran it into the latrine to keep the bugs out. Haha... I thought that was funny. I never even noticed the bugs in there that much before. And then they rigged up the hose to hang from the roof over the bathing area so they could have water fall on them frmo above to take a shower, rather than the bucket baths all the salvos do. It was really quite a good idea, and I was like, "why didn't I ever think of that!" but when I tried it myself I didn't really like it. I felt like I was wasting so much more water and it was making the curtain fly open. They were surprised I didn't want to keep it on, that I prefer the pila water in a bucket on my head. Also the kids don't really speak much Spanish. They don't seem to wild about the food. And they freak out just as much as I do when Marinita comes to beat the dogs with a stick. So... it's not just me. Anyway, they're gonna be here for several weeks... and I have someone to speak English to in the campo. I like that sometimes.
Happy July to everyone!
Paz y Amor!
I just got back from a short trip home to Houston. It was so great to get to spend time with the family, and to be in the U.S. for the 4th of July weekend. I didn't go see the fireworks... but I did watch them on TV. I felt like I was gushing with patriotism all weekend. I even got myself some red, white and blue bikinis! lol ;) Wore them all weekend in the pool at mom's and dad's house, eating all of dad's yummy cookin'! It was a great weekend! But as soon as I got back to El Salvador I was back to work, with a water project meeting the next morning. Nothing new is really happening on the progress with that. Now I'm just waiting to hear back from the mayor to see what he says about supporting it. Oy. And I've just been running around ever since I got back... haven't had one single day to just rest. And it doesn't seem like I'll be getting one anytime soon.
July feels crazy. My boss told me I am entering "the most productive part of a PCVs service." Boy is she right. It's so strange too.. because all of a sudden I am busy doing all kinds of things, and just a few months ago I was just barely getting my feet wet. I just kept finding more and more things to take on and now all of a sudden I am like, "Whoa!" trying to keep up with it all. And amidst my projects I've got to go to a Safety and Security conference for a few days next week up in Chalatengo, later in the month I have a regional meeting... I guess it's good to be so busy... Time can just keep flyin!
I'm really excited about one of my newest project ideas- a Vision and Literacy Campaign. I am going to be able to distribute 300 pairs of reading glasses to people in my community. I know of a few ladies that can't read or write. When talking to them they told me they have tried to learn but also part of the problem is their vision is a bit blurry. So hopefully these glasses will help them with that, and then I'm going to spend time with them a few times a week teaching them the alphabet and phonetics. Can you imagine being a grown woman and not being able to read? Getting lost because you can't read signs... Margarita sells Avon products and has her kids fill out her forms for her. She said they have tried to teach her to read time and again but they get so frustrated. That's also because they are kids, they don't really have much of an idea about how to teach someone, you know? Margarita also has one son that is 16 who is a complete invalid.... she says he got really sick when he was 1 year old and got a fever and ever since he hasn't been able to move, walk or talk. He just lays there. He cries when he's hungry and they feed him liquid foods. I wonder what it really was that happened to him. Anyway, I'm gonna try to teach his mom how to read... then she may be able to do more in her work and to take care of herself and her family.
Marinita and Chepito have their son visiting right now with his wife and kids. They just got in the other day. It's been really neat seeing how they react to life here. The parents grew up here, but haven't been back in 20 years. They are more American now than Salvadoran. They were throwing a baseball around outside and all the neighborhood kids came crowding around watching like- "what the heck are they doing throwing that ball with their hands, and those gloves?" They ended up playing soccer after... the only sport Salvos really like to play... and the American son didn't want to play because he hates soccer.
They plugged an electric bug killer into an extension chord and ran it into the latrine to keep the bugs out. Haha... I thought that was funny. I never even noticed the bugs in there that much before. And then they rigged up the hose to hang from the roof over the bathing area so they could have water fall on them frmo above to take a shower, rather than the bucket baths all the salvos do. It was really quite a good idea, and I was like, "why didn't I ever think of that!" but when I tried it myself I didn't really like it. I felt like I was wasting so much more water and it was making the curtain fly open. They were surprised I didn't want to keep it on, that I prefer the pila water in a bucket on my head. Also the kids don't really speak much Spanish. They don't seem to wild about the food. And they freak out just as much as I do when Marinita comes to beat the dogs with a stick. So... it's not just me. Anyway, they're gonna be here for several weeks... and I have someone to speak English to in the campo. I like that sometimes.
Happy July to everyone!
Paz y Amor!
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