End of Week 2 musings

I've been here two a half weeks now, so I thought I'd discuss some of the observations I've made so far. I'm reluctant at this point to make many sweeping generalizations about “Salvadoran culture” (having been here for so little time, and having only lived in one community, with one family, etc.), nor did I come here to judge El Salvador through my Gringo specs, but it'll be helpful to me to hash out some of my initial observations so in a few months I can look back and see if and how my thinking has changed. If any observations I mention in this post come across as broad generalizations, understand that each carries the qualification of being based on my limited time in the country.

I'll start with a simple yet important observation to note, which is that the people I've interacted with here are extremely kind, generous, and friendly. A stroll down the street in my host community is a cacophony of Buenos dias!/Buenas tardes!, Que le vaya bien!, or simply Buenas!. It seems like nearly every member of my Peace Corps group has been struck by the generosity of their host families (and some are correspondingly overwhelmed by the size of the food portions this generosity sometimes begets). The good nature of the people here contributes hugely to our collective feeling of safety and security in this country whose chronic violence grabs so many international headlines. Not only are our host communities quick to dole out a warm Buenos dias!, but they look out for the safety and wellbeing of their neighborhood Gringos.

Other general observations (and probably unsurprising if you're familiar with Central America) are that people tend to have large and close (both socially and physically) extended families (an exception to the physical proximity being the large number of Salvadorans living in the U.S.), gender roles are fairly pronounced, and church attendance is very high (though plenty of people attend church on days other than Sunday, which surprised me). A couple observations that bother me are that children here spend too much time in front of the television and not enough time reading, and that sugar intake—through soft drinks and heavily-sugared coffee and fruit juice—is higher than my Northern California sensibilities are comfortable with. Of course these problems are complex—relating to factors not limited to literacy/education levels, lack of access to reading materials, and lack of access to potable water—but are certainly among some of the issues that are on my mind as I begin to think about what kind of ways I might be able to help my eventual work community.

I attended a community meeting yesterday convened by some social work students from a nearby university. The students had completed community assessments of several of Nuevo Cuscatlan's colonias (neighborhoods, essentially), to gather basic statistics (head count, education level, etc.) and assess community needs (such as through surveys and community mapping). The studies they had done were almost precisely what I'll be doing in my first couple months as a PCV: assessing community resources, weaknesses, and needs with information gathered from those who know the community best—its residents.

Not surprisingly, many of the top concerns of local residents, according to the university students, pertained to physical assets like potable water and roads. However, many residents placed low levels of community organization high on their list of concerns. Considering that promoting community organization will be one of my main priorities in my work site, it was heartening to see that (at least here in Nuevo) there is an indigenous appetite for stronger community organization. I was also struck by the high illiteracy rate (24%) in my colonia of Siete de Marzo. I suppose the fact that both of my host parents are teachers biased my expectations somewhat, but independent of that, I reckoned that a community as safe, developed (with respect to transportation, water and electrical infrastructure, sturdiness of homes, etc.), and close to the capital would have a fairly low rate of illiteracy. That a place as secure as Siete de Marzo would have illiteracy as high as 24% suggests that my work site, which will likely be located in one El Salvador's three poorest departments (San Miguel, Morazan, or La Union), will likely suffer from very widespread illiteracy (both a challenge and an opportunity for a PCV). This points to a wider point that I can't lose sight of during my ten-week training program: as much as I am learning from living in Siete de Marzo, I can't allow the knowledge acquired here to unduly prejudice the mindset I bring with me to my yet-unknown worksite.

That's all the El Salvador musing I'll be doing for today. On a personal note, I'm very happy to have regular internet access in my training community (I have a USB modem that is reliable and fairly inexpensive) so I can access email and news every day. I've been thinking a lot of late about the sale of the Washington Post and its implications for the news industry (though, like many, I'm not sure whether to feel positively about it or not), and am very concerned about recent events in Egypt. I'm a bit nervous about the prospect of not having regular internet access in my work site, but such a possibility comes with the territory (in a literal sense, as certain parts of the country simply lack the communication infrastructure). In general, I'm doing very well—getting plenty of exercise, improving my Spanish slowly but surely, and always looking forward to the next adventure.