Greased Pig Chases, 24/7 Reggaeton, and Mud Fights

So I don’t have any cross-country hitch-hiking adventures to report on this time, as I have been primarily just working around my host community of San Esteban Catarina, however, it still has been a pretty exciting past week.

Last Wednesday I taught my first English class in the school around the corner from my house. Just about every Volunteer ends up teaching English classes at their local school at least a few times, no matter what program they’re in or what they want to focus on with their projects. Surprisingly, it actually helps your Spanish skills a ton having to explain the English language using Spanish vocabulary, is a way for you to meet the kids in your community (something you’re inevitably going to have to do), and helps expose Salvadoran teachers to new teaching techniques. Teachers here rarely ever incorporate students into class, lecturing almost the entire time, which I have found to really stifle creativity. It is just the way teachers are taught to teach here and the way things have always been done. However, when Peace Corps teaches us how to teach classes in Salvadoran schools, they put a huge emphasis on relying primarily on getting students to speak and think creatively. The thought is that teaching this way is a much more sustainable way of development because if Salvadoran teachers begin to incorporate these more interactive ways of running classes into their lesson plans, the difference a Volunteer makes will be multiplied throughout the rest of that teacher’s career. Anyways, my English class was pretty fun, as the kids here are always extremely excited to have a new gringo teaching class for a day. I taught on the day they were supposed to learn about adjectives and adverbs, and once I had actually re-taught myself what in the world an adverb was in the English language, it was a real breeze.

Last Friday I marched in some sort of “parade” with the 7th through 11th grades of the same school. This is the month of El Salvador’s independence, so every day they do some sort of activity to commemorate it. Friday we walked for over 90 minutes through what can hardly be called roads (though we did have a police escort) in the pouring rain and mud to the neighboring village of Calderitas. When we arrived, the group of about 500 kids sat down in the middle of the soccer field (a glorified mud pit) to listen to what was one of the more bizarre lectures I’ve heard in my life. Four women came from the Ministry of Education to lecture the students about sex and relationships. Though this is definitely a pressing issue in El Salvador, as there is really no birth control and most girls, especially in the rural areas, don’t get close to finishing high school because of pregnancy, it was certainly a strange environment to choose to talk about the subject. I never thought sitting 500 rambunctious teenagers in the middle of a mud pit during an epic rain storm would strike someone as a good time to talk about the birds and the bees, but that wasn’t stopping anyone last Friday. Although I didn’t pick up all of the lecture, I did completely understand one section when the women stridently declared that homosexuality was a sign of mental illness and that anyone who took part in homosexual activities should immediately visit a psychologist and was “highly abnormal.” I guess in a still-developing country where Catholics are an immense majority and the only other people are very strict Evangelicals lectures like this are something I’m just going to have to get used to. After the sex lecture, the school director put me in charge of 60 kids for two hours, and although I tried to run about 5 or 6 activities, just about anything I tried quickly evolved into huge mud fights. Within 20 minutes, everyone anywhere near the soccer field, including the school administrators, teachers, police escort, and Ministry of Education speakers, were completely coated in mud. Although I was worried people would be unhappy with how the day turned out, it seemed everyone was extremely pleased with the day’s results and they told me they want to schedule another “parade” for later in the month.

Also, for the last 5 days, San Esteban Catarina has been in the midst of their annual September carnival. This means that the central square and park (just one block from my house) has been the scene of numerous rides, countless food and candy stands, DJs blaring music 24/7 (a personal favorite, led my to buy my first Salvadoran CD, it has the top 130 Reggaeton hits of 2004 and cost just $1), soccer games, marching bands, shooting booths, gambling, what must certainly be the world’s sketchiest Ferris wheel (made at least a few of my fellow trainees nauseous and caused one to puke…I personally loved it), roving Salvadoran drunks at all times of the day, greased pig chases through the streets, horse races (also through the streets), some sort of horseback ring-jousting activity (I’m not even going to try to explain), and general merriment and huge crowds literally around the clock. Despite the fact that the presence of all the carnival rides meant the rest of San Esteban lost power every night, I still have to say I am definitely looking forward to my next Salvadoran carnival. A personal highlight was my first Salvadoran dance. It featured the apparently “world-famous” Salvadoran DJ Sonido Lasser, multiple huge TV screens to show music videos, pounding Reggaeton music till 3 in the morning, fights, smoke machines, clouds (San Esteban is high enough in the mountains that the clouds are consistently at ground level, limiting visibility to about 10 feet), drunks peeing in corners, people of literally all ages dancing their hearts out, $.50 beers, approximately 3 English songs (Michael Jackson, Elvis, and Lady Gaga), and security guards with automatic machine guns (what more could anyone ask for?).

This Thursday (2 days from now) I will be receiving my site placement and I am extremely excited to finally found out where I will be living for the next two years. From there, I have one more week of training, then Peace Corps officially tosses us out on out own for the next two years. While I think it will be great moving to a new place and seeing more of the country, it is definitely going to be hard to leave San Esteban Catarina. While I am far from knowing everyone in town, I definitely know every single person whose home or business I pass in a standard day and really have begun to feel like a part of the community. The Salvadoran culture is extremely welcoming and as a result everyone here feels an overwhelming responsibility to make sure the non-Spanish speaking gringo in town is well-taken care of. I will certainly miss having to deal with the impossibility of getting anywhere on time because I have to stop and talk to someone at every house I pass, but I am sure that within a few weeks of living in my new community it will be much the same.

In a few other interesting tidbits from my last week, I am proud to announce my Spanish is now good enough that I successfully convinced someone I was from Argentina and not the United States. With just a quick change of accent, I had them completely fooled and thinking that I was, in fact, not a gringo, which I’m sure will come in handy more than a few times in the next two years. I also attended my first Salvadoran funeral this weekend. The 17-year old daughter of a Peace Corps staff member was very violently killed in what was definitely gang-related violence. Hearing about the crime, attending the funeral, which was one of the strangest atmospheres I have ever experienced, then walking with the casket through the streets to the cemetery and finishing the burial, was definitely the most intense moment of Salvadoran culture I have experienced. Though I hope it won’t occur again, with the current gang situation here, I am positive it will not be the last funeral I attend.
I’ll try to update the blog again sometime soon after Thursday so I can let everyone know where I’ve been placed. I don’t always remember to mention it, but thanks again for all the emails and comments, they are always great to have whenever I actually get on a computer.