Saturday, February 12, 2011

Don't let life pass you by.

This blog of photos is for Nora, Bill, and Ann- They remind me how this experience will go by so fast, as it is! Wow 7 months in already? And, also to take lots of photos, because everything will just start "feeling normal" They are right. Here are some pictures I took, that appear quite boring to me, but thought you all may enjoy. Thanks for the reminders!
Just some pictures from around the house: (Handwashing my clothes, pretending to bath, and of course a photo where all the shit goes down (literally))















My first hijo. Que lindo!

Just a quick blog to say, I got a puppy! What kind? Well, its more of a question of, what kind it isn't? But anyway, its cute and I love him! After going back and forth with alot of names, I finally decided on Rocky (all my host family agreed maybe because it was the only name they could pronounce) Rocky, because I wanted it to be a word in english that meant something to me. That something being the good old Rocky Mountains.

After picking off 100 fleas, and giving it a nice long bath, I was excited to cuddle with it in my hammock, and play. Of course everyone thinks I'm crazy and dirty for wanting to hold it. But I'm finding more and more people wanting to hold it (when there aren't alot of people around to see them) I'm finding members of my host family holding their dog alot more too, only to be yelled at shortly thereafter from their father. Whoops.

What an adventure getting these 3 chuchos (Rocky, Cookie, and Lazy) back to the community- The other 2 dogs are my friends. My friend Lorena, her son, and I (see photo below) walking 2 hours back to our community with the 3 chuchitos following close behind. Everytime we heard a car, yelling, "carro!" chasing after our 3 chuchos while they ran away from us. (This might be a 'you just had to be there' type of story, but we had fun!)

Rocky











Friday, February 4, 2011

Land of Dreams.

Everyone has got a dream, you know what I mean.
Everyone wants to see what they've never seen.
You know what I mean.
If you want me tonight, I'm yours.
For as long as I can be.
Everyone becomes invisible in the land of dreams.
- Langhorne Slim
(great song - you should download it)

For those who appreciate great music (or just any music in general- my standards for music have been lowered.), I would love to receive some! (hint, hint) It's great when it comes to hours upon hours of handwashing my clothes. Or when I'm sitting in my hammock, writing my blogs, watching the sunset through an array of beautiful green trees. Music is my sanity.

So I felt that song to be appropriate while writing this blog. So of course the people here believe the jibberish of the world coming to an end in May (due partly to the fact that they are extremely religious). I was having a talk with my Salvadorean friend in my community about one thing we want to do before we die. Her response was she wanted to go to the States to see her son's dad again (It's been 3 years). While talking about my dreams, which included "bicycling to Chile, a yoga retreat in India, and running with the animals in Africa" I realized, I'm living my dream. I remember my middle school/high school years always having an image of being in a developing country in Latin America and playing soccer with little kids. Yup, that pretty much sounds like my life right now. I did it!

Anyway, what have I been up to (outside of playing soccer casi todo los dias)? Well yours truly is getting started on some projects, poco a poco. I've been in the process of grant writing to get computers and huertos (vegetable gardens) for my school here, and later educate the youth the importance of eating healthy, and how to do their own gardens) The grants still include a 25% community contribution, so I've been coordinating with some of the staff and community members for ideas for fundraisers. Well it was more or less me throwing my suggestions out there, and them being like sure sounds good, lets try it. So in the next few weeks, I'm going to try to make shampoo de salvila (aloe) with some students and sell it. Luckily, I found a lady here that knows how to do this, so she told me she would help my first time (I hope she actually meant my second and third time too). I think we're also going to try to do a movie night, and charge dos cordas to enter, and sell popcorn and what not.

Wish me luck.

Que mas? Well, my host mom returned from the mental institution last night. She's been there for 3 weeks. She claims she is doing better, but we will see. Oh, and the house that I can move into is ready. But I do have to admit, the thought of living alone scares me a bit. We all know it is the better option to move out of my house. I think next month I'll give it a shot.

Off to San Salvador on Sunday to be Americanized for the day (eat wings, talk english, and watch the Super Bowl!)

Adios!