Nature Wars

Karina: 1
Ants: 0

Interna´s: 2
Bats: 0

That is the official score from last night.
After saying our evening rosary, the Interna´s and I head down to the kitchen for their dinner. Upon entering I hear something crunchy underfoot. Bad sign, this means there is food on the floor which means there will be ants. Conveniently, the lights were not working so I couldn´t see what was crunchy, but immediately assumed the worst and began a wild stomping dance across the floor suspecting I had ants crawling on me. I get the willies just thinking about it.

Finally, the lights came on and the thick path of black ants was revealed. Big ants. Lots of them. They came for the pasta which was stacked in plastic bags in 3 crates on the floor. Because the pasta was hard it poked right through all the plastic bags and fell to the floor in a manner oh so tantalizing to ants. Ants that came in swarms. I grabbed a broom, enlisted another girl, and the two of us swept the growing pile of ants out of the kitchen. With quick thinking we pushed the crates of pasta outside. Grabbing buckets of water I doused the milling ants and watched them wash away into the darkness of the night. It was a great victory! I stood proudly with my bucket for a second until I heard screaming and saw Interna´s come running down the stairs shouting a word I didn´t know.

Upon investigating I discovered the word meant ¨bat,¨and two of the girls were diligently waving brooms around in an attempt to beat a flying bat out of the study room. And they succeeded! Actually, I think all the screaming confused the bats sonar so he ran right into a broom and fell to the floor. (man those girls can scream!) To ensure their safety, the girls beat the hell out of the bat, and then I threw it away.

After dinner, we repeated the process when another bat flew into the room. I think we should do this every night, keeps the girls on their toes, and they´re learning how to work together. :)

School´s Closing

And so it goes....

The Education Ministry is going to close the schools in all of El Salvador for another week to try and slow the spread of the Swine Flu. The country has raised its alert level to Red and all the fiestas for the month of August have been cancelled, so there will be no large gatherings of people. I have to admit, a lot of the students in the school are getting sick. Though, it hasn´t been the Swine Flu, apparently it´s just the flu. Either way, half of the Junior class is missing from school this week, that´s 16 students.

We still don´t know if the closing will take place one week before the August vacations or one week after, but those are the two options, that way there are two full weeks where no one is attending schools. Vacations are the first week of August which means one week before and I´ll be starting my vacation next Monday, or the week after and I´ll be starting vacations in another week. This time, the missing days will simply be made up with another week of classes at the end of the school year. I prefer this method much more!

Making Up Time

Since the school was closed for 2 weeks, we are making up time by having Saturday classes. Today is Tuesday as last Saturday was Monday and the next Saturday is Wednesday (I hope you can see the pattern here). Solidea and I ran around town last Sunday visiting various touristy destinations and since this Sunday we are staying in the school for the Vides Promesa (something I did while in Texas) we are making our escape after classes today to go see the new Harry Potter film where we will meet up with Sydney and have coffee too. Having coffee is our new thing. I like coffee now. Or maybe it´s just the association between coffee and freedom. Either way, my teeth are turning yellow.

This morning has been crazy for us. Our Sophmores put on a play in English for 1st - 7th grades and had me stressed out to no end since we were very poorly prepared. BUT, it went great! AND, I forgot my camera! So very sad about that!! And they all looked so cute with their little lamb and buzzard costumes. Grrr.... At least the play went well, we celebrated with suckers. :) Now, we get to give a few exams then it´s off to the movies!

Quick Conversation

This is my interpretation of a conversation Solidea had this week with a Sister we met through VIDES. After hearing her describe it, I wanted very much to write about it, and Solidea gave me the rights to exercise my creative license with her experience.

Sor: Hello Solidea!
Solidea: Hi Sor! (name unknown)
Sor: It´s so good to see you!
Solidea: You too. How are you?
Sor: Oh, I´m good. And you? It´s good to see you.
Solidea: Yes, I´m good. (awkward silence)
Sor: Well, it´s good to see you.
Solidea: Yeah. What are you doing here?
Sor: Yes, we are looking for ... (not sure). It´s good to see you.
Solidea: (pretty sure we´ve exhausted the use of that phrase) Okay, well, I´m going now.
Sor: Yes, yes, it´s been good to see you.
Solidea: (no, it hasn´t been good seeing you) Goodbye.

The End.

If you´re wondering about the depth of your relationship with someone, just talk to them and see if you can get past the conciliatory phrases!

Remesas

Definition: Remittances
Remittances (remesas in Spanish) are the money immigrants send to their home country.

REMITTERS: A STATISTICAL SNAPSHOT

Remitters come disproportionately from the working poor, and many are in the United States illegally. They remit on average 12.6 times a year, typically $150/200/250 each time. These remittances constitute approximately 10% of their household income. A quarter of remitters send money home first, even before paying their own bills.

47% of all Hispanics born outside the U.S. regularly send money to their country of origin.
57% of immigrants from El Salvador send remittances
60% of U.S. remittance senders are male
63% are under the age of 40; the average age is 37
59% are married
59% have not completed high school
57% make less than $30,000 a year
64% of those who are employed are unskilled laborers
45% say they plan to move back to their home country
55% do not have credit cards
43% do not have bank accounts

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EL SALVADOR: REMITTANCE NATION

2.5 million Salvadorans, legal and illegal, live in the U.S., more than one third the total in El Salvador itself.

El Salvador's principal export is its people, after that, coffee, sugar, rice.

El Salvador's principal import are remittances from Salvadorans in the U.S., estimated at $2.5 billion annually, 17.1% of the GDP.

Remittances to El Salvador have increased by more than 6 percent a year for more than a decade, with double-digit growth more recently.

Remittances to El Salvador represent 133 percent of all exports, 655 percent of foreign direct investment, and 91 percent of the government budget.

Remittance flows to El Salvador are so large the country completely dollarized its economy in 2001.

22 percent of households in El Salvador receive remittances, more than any other Latin American country. Three quarters of that money goes to household expenditures.

El Salvador has a 13 percent sales tax and no property tax. Since remittances are primarily used for consumption, they amount to the poorest people in the country subsidizing the government.

SOURCES: Inter-America Development Bank, Pew Hispanic Center, The Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador, USAID, World Bank, Inter American Dialogue, Foreign Affairs en Español

From : http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/onehome/chinameca_remittances.shtml

Swine Flu Vacations!

Thanks to the swine flu our school was closed for 2 weeks and Solidea and I took advantage of this time by spending 5 blissful days at the beach. Here are some stories from that time.

1) We stayed at the same house as usual with the family of Pedo - they have 3 rooms set aside for travelers. Two of the nights we were there we returned to the house to find the door locked and everyone inside asleep. Two nights we passed the night on the beach with our friends from El Tunco, a.k.a. The Tunc.

2) Soli and I nicknamed El Tunco, The Tunc.

3) I stood up on my surfboard for, like, 3 seconds! Then I learned that standing up on a surfboard is not such a big deal as I thought. Turns out Soli and I are just really bad! But I blame it on the fact that we never actually surf 2 consecutive days in a row. More like once every 2 weeks.

4) We had dinner with friends and they went fishing to catch our dinner. Here is what they caught.

(That´s Leo) Yep, just the one. Luckily, they had purchased other fish ¨just in case¨they didn´t catch anything.

5) The guys cooked for us. Had a pretty good time doing it too.

(Charlie Brown is on the left, the Jose, then Sergio) You should have seen the rice, they put an entire bag in one little pot. We watched it grow, but it never did fall out of the pot, and it tasted good in the end.

Here we are waiting for our dinner. We provided all the ingredients for the guys, except the fish, so we got to sit and enjoy the wine. The girl in the center is Prisca, she was our new friend from Germany. So sad that she can´t stay for, ohhhh, another 6 months. We got along great.

6) We met Ruben. I don´t have any pictures, but he is a hoot. He´s a hippie who cut off his dreadlocks for his mom on his last birthday and can tell you all about the affects marijuana has had on his memory, but he still remembers our names. :)

7) We were eating dinner at high tide, had just received our food, and a wave came crashing up over the side of the wall of the restuarant (roughly 3 foot tall wall) and doused us with sandy water.

8) Random art in our room. It says ¨Without the hammer, there is no food.¨ I find it inspiring, if somewhat cryptic and well, disturbing.

Birds!

Oh, where have I been that I haven´t posted in 9 days! Oh, wait, I was at the beach. :) Happy days.
Well, I have a story for you. 2 weeks ago the Sister´s found a baby bird sitting on the ground in the school. Not just any baby bird, but the national bird. Poor guy couldn´t fly yet, so they picked him up, brought him to the house, and gave him a home in a box with newspaper, bread, and birdseed. Then, as chance would have it, the same day they discovered another baby bird, also the national bird! I think they´re siblings. So this other one also got a box, newspaper, bread and birdseed.

The little guys hunkered down and stared at us whenever we came by to observe. Quite cute. Off to the beach Solidea and I head. When we return, one little bird was dead. We mourned the loss and gave the carcass to the cats, then 2 days later, the second died as well.

Reminded me of when I found a baby bird on the ground with my friend Mike. We tried to take care of it, but failed. It died. Birds just aren´t easy to raise. I´m sure there´s some deep moral we can find in the story, but I´m going to leave that open to interpretation - I have to get to class!

Page 394

I haven't been able to stop thinking about the quote from Harry Potter after yesterdays post, so here is a link to Severes Snape saying "Page 394"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlIKLLkvulY