This afternoon I got back from
Immersion Days, a component of training in which trainees spend three
days shadowing a current volunteer in their site. I (along with Noah,
another member of my training group) shadowed a Youth Development
Volunteer named Cesar, who is a social worker by training and an
all-around great guy. His site is located in the department of Santa
Ana, in a caserio outside the city of Metapan. The caserio,
which is called Buenos Aires, has about ninety houses and 300 people.
Living with a family there and getting a sense of Cesar's day-to-day
activities was very useful and enjoyable (despite my swollen ankle,
which I'll get to later).
 |
Noah experiencing "peak confusion"
while playing with kids |
On Thursday and Friday, Cesar, Noah and
I spent a good amount of time at the local school (pictured), where
much of Cesar's work takes place (naturally, as his focus is Youth
Development). The school serves a little over seventy children from
pre-K to ninth grade. Schools in El Salvador divide students between
morning and afternoon sessions, so only about thirty to forty
students are in school at any given time, which makes for a peaceful
and quiet learning environment (the school in Siete de Marzo, by
contrast, serves about 300 to 400 students at a time and is so loud
that at times the children cannot hear the teacher). At Cesar's
school, the younger students take the morning session and the older
ones attend in the afternoon, as many of the older children spend
mornings working in the fields that surround the caserio.
 |
| The school in Cesar's site |
At the school, the three of us read to
a group of six-year olds, led an English session with some
eleven-year olds (we taught them parts of the body), and taught a
group of high school students how to prepare a proper resume. The
high school students all attend school only one day a
week—Saturday—and work in the fields Monday through Friday. After
ninth grade, students from Caserio Bueno Aires have the option to
continue to attend a Monday-through-Friday school in the city center
of Metapan, but almost none pursue this option, as transportation
into Metapan is costly (about $1 each way, which would amount to $10
a week, a substantial amount for many rural families) and their
families need them to work in the fields. Until a few years ago, they
were not allowed to pursue the Saturdays-only option, but one of the
Peace Corps volunteer that preceded Cesar convinced the local
government to get rid of a requirement that Saturday students be at
least eighteen years old. Even with the Saturday option, only a
minority of Caserio Bueno Aires' teenagers choose to continue their
educations beyond ninth grade. One of the teenagers at the
resume-writing session told me that out of the twelve students his
age in the community, only four were still in school.
On Friday evening, after we finished at
the school and headed toward the church, a central landmark in the
tiny community, we stumbled upon a presentation in the church
courtyard being given by three men and a woman in business dress.
Cesar knew vaguely of a planned presentation by some medical
salespeople, so we joined the gathering to listen in. To make a long
story short, the salespeople were pitching a pyramid scheme based on
some “100% natural” pharmaceuticals that promised to work such
miracles as cure migraines, alleviate all colon-related problems, and
“kill 90% of cancer cells in the body”. In promising up to $2000
a month to the dozen-or-so community members in attendance, the
salespeople repeatedly invoked God, making religious appeals to
convince their audience to partake in the scam. Several of the locals
seemed interested in the program and requested more information. It
was a sickening spectacle, compounded (from the perspective of the
three Americans in attendance) by the fact that the company operating
the pyramid scheme was an American firm, a tidbit that the
salespeople invoked to legitimate the company. Cesar plans to talk to
warn the people who expressed interest not to partake in the program,
but the reality is that most rural communities in El Salvador don't
have a Cesar. While many people here are discerning and will identify
crooks without a nudge from an outsider, others are very vulnerable
to succumbing to sales tactics designed to take advantage of poor,
uneducated people.
 |
| Pasteles |
After the pyramid scheme pitch ended,
it was dinnertime and the three of us stumbled to the other side of
the courtyard where every Friday, women make and sell pasteles.
Noah and I, who had spent the day under the impression that we would
be having desserts for dinner (as pastel,
99% of the time, means “cake”), were surprised to discover that
pasteles are actually
delicious, deep-fried dumplings filled with beans or potatoes (pictured). They
went for $0.05 apiece; I ate 20, and Noah, 25. As we waited for our
food, we made fliers to advertise an English club and a charla
about the origins of everyday emotions, two of the projects Cesar is
developing.
On
Saturday, Cesar, Noah and I rode on the back of a truck (I'm sure my
mom just cringed reading that, but sometimes the back of a truck is
the only way to get around...sorry mom) into Metapan so that Cesar
could run some errands and show us around town. Metapan is a bustling
little city of about 60,000 (at least according to Wikipedia) with
lots of shops, markets, and some attractions like a soccer stadium
and some ornate churches. There we met some other PCVs and their
Immersion Day trainees at a chic little bakery that offers free Wifi
(and is thus frequented by PCVs). After absorbing a sufficient amount
of internet, we walked around town, had a nice lunch at a comedor,
and, after splitting from the rest of the group, Cesar, Noah and I
finagled our way (with permission) onto the top of the roof of the
largest Cathedral in town (also the town's highest building), where
we took in the view of the city.
We
then returned to Caserio Buenos Aires
in the back of another truck (which happened to be that of the guy
who let us onto the top of the church), and rested for an hour at
Cesar's house. At three, we embarked on a hike with some local men,
with the goal of climbing the highest hill in the area and building a
fire there in which to cook elotes
(corn on the cob). The hike got off to a great start, with us weaving
our way through corn fields and up narrow hill trails. At one fairly
nondescript juncture, I took a step on some rocky ground, rolled my
ankle and tumbled to the ground, probably letting out an expletive or
two. My ankle hurt badly at first but the adrenaline quickly eased
the pain and, as we were just ten minutes from the top (or so I was
promised), I decided to continue with the hike. About forty minutes
later (in El Salvador, “diez minutos”
rarely amount to sixty-seconds-times-ten), we reached the top of the
highest point in, and the three gringos lounged on some rocks while
our generous local guides built a fire and cooked elotes,
which they served with some limes they collected from a nearby tree.
After
our little snack, we headed back down the hill toward the caserio
at a much more slower pace than we ascended, as my injury was
beginning to catch up with me and I had to walk very gingerly. As a
result of my sluggishness, we didn't get back until after dark, but
fortunately the ever-prepared Noah brought his headlamp so we could
see where we were going. In purely medical terms, I shouldn't have
continued with the hike after rolling my ankle (something I knew at
the very moment of the incident), but the experience of reaching the
top and victoriously eating some deliciously fresh corn with a good
group of guys well outweighed any consequent exacerbation of my
injury (sorry again mom, I know you just cringed again).
 |
| A beautiful view from our house in Caserio Buenos Aires |
Noah
and I returned to our host family's house around 7:30 (about an hour
after the sun goes down, and quite late by Salvadoran standards) and
our extremely kind host mother, Graciela, proceeded to fuss over my
ankle, applying camphor cream and holding an ice pack to it, and
serving me pupusas while I sat in a hammock with my leg elevated.
Then we went to bed around 8:30.
This
morning, Noah and I had to catch the Peace Corps microbus in Metapan
at 9am, so naturally we caught a ride with the milkman. The lechero,
as he is called in Spanish, drives his truck through the caserio,
stopping on average at every third or fourth house to collect milk
produced by that family's cows (Or goats? I'm not really sure). His
system is remarkably efficient; a member of each milk-producing
family waits for the lechero
truck in front of their house and quickly pours the goods into large
plastic vats that sit in the bed of the truck. Once the lechero
has collected milk from all participating households in the caserio,
he zips off to town to convert the milk to cash (and, with the extra
space in the back of his trucks, carries passengers from the caserio
into town for $1). Noah and I are not entirely sure how the system of
payment works (for example, how does the lechero
fairly allocate money to each family, as every family contributes a
different amount of milk?), but perhaps details like this will become
more clear the more time we spend in El Salvador. Whatever the fine
details of the system, our experience in the back of the lechero
truck showed us an impressive example of community members working
together to generate income.
And those were my Immersion Days. My
host family here in Siete de Marzo killed one of their
chickens for me this morning so they could greet me with fresh
chicken soup when I got home. It's good to be back!
