Hot Springs

Yeah! Tomorrow I´m going with the local VIDES group to some natural forming hot springs, this should be great! So why am I so tense?

I´ve been thinking about this quite a bit, and I´ve come to the realization that I don´t like this particular Sister who heads up VIDES and will be going as well. I always feel edgy around her, like she is looking for something from me, but I don´t know what and I can´t give it to her. Makes me feel incredibly weird and uncomfortable. So I avoid her. This works really well because she is never at the house - she spends most of her days at home taking care of her father and visits the school on occasion.

This week, however, she has been at the school, and I have been avoiding her, except when necessary to communicate. I´m not sure what about her fills me with such unrest, I have a lot of ideas, but I´ll leave it at that. I´ll be happy when she heads back home.

Goodbye Jodi

Jodi is going home. Today. At noon. So in about 40 minutes if the plane takes off on time. I know it´s different here from what we´re used to and I´m not the nicest person to be around, but I didn´t think she´d actually leave!

Actually, it´s not that at all. I am a great person and I can´t imagine anyone not wanting to be where I am. :) Something came up at home, she had to go, I´ll let her explain if she wants on her blog. However, we are one volunteer short now and even though she has only been here 1 month, her absence is felt. It is for me anyway. I like her. Chances are good I´ll be gone before she returns and I didn´t even say goodbye. So, goodbye Jodi. Take care. You and your family are in my prayers.

On the plus side, exams are done for me! Now I just need to grade them. icky!

New Pictures

I´ve finally added some new photos! Check them out the slideshow on the sidebar.

Nearing the End

Have you ever done this? You´re in a situation where items or comforts you are used to are denied you. You know that for the time being, there is nothing you can do about this, so you tell yourself to forget those things and simply focus on what you have. I´ve been doing that for the last 9 months and it really hit me today in the supermarket.

Gina, Jodi, and I went to the supermarket to pick up party items for the End of the Year/Birthday Party (for those whose birthdays are not during the school year) for the Interna´s. As we walked through the food aisles to pick up a few snacks for ourselves I suddenly realized how tired I am of crackers, nuts, and peanut butter(easy foods to keep stored in your room) and everything else looked sooooo appetizing!

I walked by Eggos in the freezer section and longed for Eggos; I walked by broccoli and longed for a veggie platter with veggie dip; I walked by All Bran Flakes and longed to take it home with me. I long to prepare meals again, because meals are so much more satisfying when prepared yourself. (even macaroni and cheese!)

So, my self denial is really starting to fall apart. I hope I can keep myself busy enough these last weeks to hide this fact from myself.

Soyapongo Thriller Dance

Right now, Immediately, go to Gina´s blog and watch the video she and Jodi put together of the teacher´s dancing to MJ´s Thriller! Too funny. She compiled the best dance moments, which is too bad because the other moments were hilarious! Not that the good moments are all that good! Ha ha! So much fun. Watch it, watch it!

Liturgical Dance

I don´t think I ever mentioned this, but we have liturgical dancers at the school. Isn´t that awesome! I remembered today because we had mass this morning and between the first reading and the Gospel, 6 girls danced up the aisle for a short song. They wore petal shaped skirts of different pastel colors with a matching ribbon in their hair. With graceful arcs and steps they flowed to the front of the congregation where they completed their dance. This isn´t the first time they´ve danced, just the first time I thought to mention it.

Haven´t we all wanted to be liturgical dancers at some point in our life?

WIND!

It is officially the windy season here in El Salvador. I can even tell you that it started at 9:57pm Sunday, the 18th of October. That is when a really strong blast of wind ripped through my bedroom. This would not be so unusual if a fairly large and loud thunderstorm then followed, but the amount of rain and noise was not proportional to the strength of the wind.

Since then, the wind has not stopped. Slamming doors abound on the campus and I remember that it was windy when I first came here as well. So I guess the wind will last for about 3-4 months.

Oh, and it´s ¨cold¨ now too! Last night I wore my pajama pants, put socks on, and wished for a second blanket. It got down to 73 degrees! Just goes to show what constant heat will do to a person. Yeah, pretty sure I´m going to turn into a Popsicle when I get home!

And last but not least - I purchased my plane ticket home yesterday! It felt very nice. It is for the 17th of November. I plan to travel to the coast of Honduras the week prior to leaving and learn how to scuba dive off the coral reef there. :) And I´m taking the new volunteers with me! We´ll have a grand time.

A New Lake

Sor Margarita Guillen´s room flooded last night! What it flooded from she didn´t say. She has a second story room, right above the general work room with the computer. When I went in this morning to drop off my bag before dinner I noticed a large puddle coming from the bathroom (it used to be a bedroom, but they converted it to a work room) and water dripping from the ceiling in there. I then went to breakfast.

The Sister´s were discussing it and I didn´t really listen until I realized Sor Guillen saying it wasn´t a broken pipe, her bedroom is flooded and the water is leaking through. Ohhhhh! I went into the work room after breakfast to grab my toothbrush and now there is another leak right in front of the door! The bell just rang for Buenos Dias in the gym, but I´m going to use a few minutes to move all my stuff over to my room - just in case the ceiling falls in.

Baleadas

Have I mentioned Baleadas before? If so, they deserve a second mention. They are the typical food of Honduras, but we get to enjoy them here in El Salvador as well. Yea!

Gina, Jodi, and I just helped Elizabeth prepare a dinner of baleadas. I spread the dough for the big tortillas (not made like regular tortillas) and after I tried to flip a few on the hot comal, relinquished that job to Jodi because I´m a woose and complained of burned fingers. No worries, I´m an excellent spreader of dough, so I did that. The beans were already prepared. Tortilla, beans, and cream. Umm... So simple, but sooooo good!

I´ve added this to my recipe collection. I´ve been collecting recipes here! I now have, um... 3. Okay, so I haven´t really been diligent in collecting recipes or learning how to cook the staples here, but I do have Pupusa´s, the sauce to put on Pupusa´s, Tortilla´s, and now Baleada´s. I figure that´s all I need. I´m hoping to be able to find and buy the cheese we have here. Everything else is fried.

Clouds

Sorry for the break in posting. To make up a bit, check out the blog of Gina Chavez (I have a link in the right sidebar). She is one of the new volunteers here (Jodi is the other) and she has a video camera, so has posted some videos of the school to her blog. And she shows the ¨pila,¨ the place where we wash our clothes! Very exciting stuff. ;p

I have always had a fascination with clouds. Especially big cumulus clouds. El Salvador has the best clouds. All around the mountains (which I can see from my room) the clouds pile up in immense, soft, towering pillars that dwarf the mountains below them. My theory is this: the clouds were cruising along single file through the sky. Because of the lack of restrictions in their travel, none of them paid much attention to the clouds around them or where they were going. A kind of road hypnosis of the sky. Suddenly, one of them crashes into this invisible wall of air created by the sudden height differentiation of the mountains, the rest don´t notice before it is too late and they all crash into the cloud in front of them, the clouds billowing up higher and higher at each crash!

And then there are the storm clouds. As if storms alone weren´t cool enough, these storms know how to make an entrance! First, the purple, gray clouds appear and grow in the distance. As they plod across the sky the front runners are lit from behind by lighting flaring deep inside the tumultuous core. Working up a frenzy in their approach, branching lightning jumps outside the thick clouds, reaching to escape, only to be drawn back again by the covetous cumulus.
After that the rain starts in a torrent and I have to close the windows, so I can´t see anything. Which isn´t a big deal since the clouds are indistinct after that point anyway.

Yeah, I like clouds.

Thriller

All of the teachers from the school, including the 2 new volunteers and myself have just attempted to re-enact Michael Jackson´s Thriller for el Día de los Niños. The potential for this to be something good was there: we had practiced the dance (somewhat modified) each day this past week and our zombie makeup looked great!

It started with ¨MJ¨ dancing with his girlfriend, just like in the video. They come to the graveyard, the music changes, and the zombies stationed around the gymnasiasm begin to rise from the ground. Children scream as the bedraggled, white faced, vacant eyed, zombies stagger to the stage. The dance begins. Screams change to crys of delight. The one leg drag shuffle forward, the head jerk, and suddenly the spastic movements turn into smooth dancing zombies.

Those girls were screaming their heads off! And crowding in really close on our dance space. Because of this, our dance brought us right up to the girls sitting in the front, and no one could step out in front to lead the dance. I kind of lead the first part of the dance since I was front and center of our two rows, but once we changed sides, I danced on the end of the line and no one knew what to do next. So our dance fell apart. We all came together again for a few dance moves and people randomly chose moves, and when the music finally ended we staggered off into our changing room.

Good or bad, it didn´t matter to the students, they loved it! Really, in what school in the States would this ever happen? It is soooo much fun!

A Few Things

1) I will never get tired of watching the storms roll in each day. As the clouds gather and build in the distance, lighting jumps around inside, lighting them from the inside. I watch while the storm approaches, the daylight fades, and the lightning becomes brighter as it branches outside the clouds in a fascinating display that holds me to the slanted windows until the sudden deluge of rain forces me to close the windows.

2)Gina, one of the new volunteers, is a musician and plays the guitar and sings for the girls. I love listening to her and playing/singing with her! She is very talented and you can check out her music at
http://www.myspace.com/ginachavez
She´s definitely worth a listen!

3)I killed a giant cockroach in my shower last night. I didn´t even know it was there until after my shower - imagine my surprise. It was a triumphant moment because usually Solidea would kill my cockroaches (though, to be honest, that only happened one time). Proof that the Lord only gives us challenges which we can handle. ;)

4)I believe the storm with Cecibel and Solidea´s Facebook photos is finally blowing itself out. Solidea accepted Cecibel as her friend on Facebook once she got back to Italy. Cecibel immediately perused her photos and found many photos of El Salvador. Not so unusual. What upset her were the photos of the ¨Poor People¨ and she felt this robbed the people of their dignity and made fun of El Salvador. I would like to point out that these photos did not depict people in a bad light, but merely doing tasks which they do on a daily basis.

She had MANY complaints about various photos and what it all boiled down to is that she now hates Solidea.

I talked it over with a few other people (and I showed others the photos as well to see if they were offended, I know Solidea wouldn´t purposely try to paint a bad light of El Salvador - but they weren´t offended. In fact, they didn´t think much of it at all.) and the school psychologist said it could be that because Cecibel misses Solidea so much, she is looking for a reason to dislike her, so it doesn´t hurt so much now that she´s gone.

I went through the photos with Cecibel. We went over the comments(in Italian) and what they meant so she´s not upset about those anymore, and while she is still upset about the photos, she doesn´t hate me anymore. Yes, she said I was like Solidea and so disliked me as well for a couple days.

We had quite the argument yesterday, but I wouldn´t change my position that the photos in no way are meant to offend, and she walked off in a huff. But later that night she gave me an exhausted and apologetic hug, so she likes me again.

I know this is hard for her, so I´m trying to be understanding, but at the same time standing firm in the truth, because she needs to see that just because she wants to hate Solidea, doesn´t mean that she can contort the truth. She needs to accept her pain and learn how to cope with it.
Not sure I´m the best person to help her with this, but it would seem I am the one here to do it. Keep us in your prayers!

Happy Birthday??

Let me see if I can do this awkward moment justice in the retelling. Yesterday was the birthday of Sor Margarita Roman. No one remembered except for Jodi, one of the new volunteers, who pointed it out at breakfast (there is a paper with everyone´s birthdays posted on the wall). ¨OH!¨ came the response once Sor Roman had left the room.

For lunch, the Sister´s put out the placemat, set flowers and a balloon in Sor Roman´s spot at the table. Sor Roman came in, got her food (as the Sister´s got out the guitar to sing happy birthday), came back into the dining room and purposely set her food down at another seat, claimed her silverware and glass from the seat with the placemat and flowers, and brought them to the other seat.

Filled with a deep sense of purpose that will not be thwarted by lack of eye contact or general acknowlegement, the Sisters sang their happy birthday songs to, well, each other. Sor Roman prepared her food with seasonings to her taste and began to eat as though she were the only one in the room. Although, even people who eat alone will look around them with a bit of a far away look in their eye as they ponder one thought or another. Sor only concentrated on her food, and when the music ended she said a somewhat appreciative thank you to her soup, and that was the end of that.

El Día Típico

Today there will be many students, parents, and friends, not to mention teachers, at the school as we celebrate El Día Típico. On this day, family and students come to prepare and sell typical foods of El Salvador. This should be very exciting as there are still many foods I have not tried.

It will also be good for other reasons: 1)The students will be here and I love talking to them outside of class and 2) their are 3 volunteers now so we can split each item so we don´t get full on one and try bunches!

I´ve really enjoyed showing them around and helping them get settled. It´s been a lot of work that left me really tired and a bit disoriented last week (I kept wearing the wrong uniform for each day and would plan classes for the wrong day), but there is so much to show them and I only have a month before I head home. At least we´ve made it outside one day this week, so they know where the post office, one supermarket, and the closest mall are. They also now know where to take the interna´s to watch a movie, play basketball, and how and when to approach Sor Marg. Roman to get permission to do these things with the interna´s. :) Every task has it´s challenges.

I hope to be able to show them around San Salvador a bit more so they can get familiar with the busses and how to get to the most necessary places. Now that I have more energy again, I´m really looking forward to this. I´m also hoping to be able to have one or two classes plan a haunted house! Wouldn´t that be perfect?

Short on Time

There is only a month left of school! Wow. When did that happen?

With the new volunteers here I am showing them all around school, how to wash clothes, when meals are, coordinating time with the internas, showing them how to do Buenas Noches with the girls, explaining meal times, and taking them outside the school as well to the post office and supermarkets. I´m still teaching all my classes and there is always a volunteer with me now to learn how the classrooms and school system works since they may be teaching next year. This has been nice because now I have help grading again! :)

The girls, Jodi and Gina, are really nice and fun to be around, but I still miss Solidea.

We also talked about Visa´s today. The girls are debating applying for a residency visa. They know it would be a lot of paperwork and they are going to travel with their parents to Costa Rica around Christmas - which is right at the end of their 3 month visa. So they would be renewed for another 3 months starting in January. Then they would only have to leave one more time before they head home in July, or they could remain in the country illegally until July. I told them it would be cheaper to remain illegally, but then they can´t travel outside the country.

So we´ll see what they decide.