Merry Christmas!

A lot has happened in the past few weeks, here are a few of the more interesting details:

- I have now officially attended my first genuine Latin-American protest (technically I had been to one while I was at the national agricultural university for training, where the Ministry of Agriculture staff were protesting for better pay, but I only saw that one in passing, so it’s not going to count for now). Basically, this time of year, all the men of San Luis either work at the engineo, which is a processing plant for sugar cane, or they cut sugar cane for the cooperative. While working at the engineo (located one community over in La Magdalena, about a 45-minute walk from San Luis) is definitely the better job as the pay is better ($1.10/hr. vs. $5/day), it definitely is no dream job. Everyone works one of three 8-hour shifts (7am-3pm, 3pm-11pm, 11pm-7pm). Your shift changes every two weeks. You work 7 days a week. There are no holidays or sick days, not even for Christmas or New Years. Literally, for three months, the engineo never stops processing for a minute. Also, the engineo has always, for years, shorted workers on their pay-checks, which they know they can get away with since no one would dare complain, since there are thousands of workers cutting sugar cane who could replace them at any moment. This year, the workers of the engineo finally decided to unionize, deciding they had had enough of the bad working conditions and low pay (average pay at other engineos across the country is $2 or $3 more a day). While the right to unionize is very clearly stated in the Salvadoran Constitution, the owners and bosses of the engineo refused to allow the workers to unionize. Thus…protests. For two weeks all the men of my community spent all their time outside the walls of the engineo, often even sleeping there. However, this meant they were earning no money and that all the sugar cane that had been cut in anticipation of the opening of the enginio dried in the sun waiting to be processed and became completely worthless, ruining the crops of many farmers. Big problems—especially for people who don’t exactly have savings accounts to draw on in emergencies. Life in San Luis got pretty tenuous for a week or two there. Anyways, after two weeks, the national government finally stepped in and forced the engineo to recognize the union, so, for the last week, life in San Luis has gone back to normal. However, everyone is still pretty nervous about what exactly is going to happen whenever the union objects to something, which is bound to happen in a week when pay-checks will be given out and inevitably many will be given less than they actually earned. While Volunteers are prohibited from participating in political events (political party rallies, campaigns, and often protests) I didn’t really have a choice. Not only were the engineo workers protesting, but the sugar cane cutters were protesting too, since they couldn’t begin working until the cane they would be cutting could be processed. Anyways, to talk to any male in the community I had to go to the protests, which I wasn’t completely against anyways, as I thought they were pretty fun and exciting. For a few days I spent a few hours every afternoon just chilling with the men of San Luis and other surrounding communities eating coconuts, playing soccer, talking about soccer, thinking about soccer, and playing cards. I posted some pictures from the protests late last week.

- I’ve started moving farther forward with the planning of a few of my first larger projects. I’ve had meetings with multiple people in order to organize a youth reforestation campaign, but am currently on hold, since the director of the school for the coming school year, starting in January, is still up in the air. Until that is decided, I can not do much else, but I am still excited. It looks like I will be teaming up with the nearby environmentally-protected area and a local NGO called Agua y Arboles to coordinate a reforestation campaign through my environmental youth group and the local school. In addition to bi-weekly activities centered on the importance of the environment, every student in the school will be taught then able to practice gathering seeds, planting them in a nursery, and then later permanently transferring them into the ground. I’m also currently working on organizing and writing the grants for a hybrid chicken project (traditional Salvadoran chickens in San Luis lay 40 eggs/year; properly cared for hybrid chicken can lay up to 200 eggs/year) which would greatly aid the nutrition and income-gathering ability of many families and a soy bean project (I know…that one really sounds exciting!) which would familiarize the families of San Luis with a food and crop they are not familiar with and thus hesitant to plant, but which is both much healthier than the crops they currently grow and eat and better for soil conservation and crop diversification.

- This past Saturday I was in San Salvador with a mountain of other Volunteers for the annual soccer game between Peace Corps and JICA (basically, the Japanese version of Peace Corps). We played in the national stadium, Estadio Cuscatlan, which was one of the coolest things I’ve done as a Volunteer. Unlike the soccer fields in my community where I am used to playing there is actually real grass and lines and other soccer standards like that which made it infinitely more fun. However, I also realized how obscenely large a FIFA regulation-size field is—not only was I gasping for air after about 15 minutes but my respect for professional soccer players increased ten-fold.

- I will be embarking on my first international vacation since arriving in El Salvador to begin the 2011. While I still plan on getting to all the countries of Central America during my two years, due to the busy nature of training and my first few months in site, I have yet to make it out of the country. From January 2^nd to 8^th, I will be in Honduras, where I am meeting up with some George Washington University friends (still current students who will be there with a GW Alternative Winter Break trip) somewhere near San Pedro Sula, then meeting up with another GW friend who has graduated and is working in Honduras and probably going to Copan and Lago Yojoa.

- Over this past weekend, while in San Salvador, I went to a live music venue that is quickly becoming one of my favorite places in the country to see a Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band (maybe not a dream concert, but the pickings are slim down here). While the band was pretty good, actually sounded a lot like the Chili Peppers (despite having two lead singers, both of whom were girls), and real fun, it was pretty obvious they had no idea what the meanings of the words they were singing were. Altogether, an awesome, but weird, experience.

- Two nights ago, there was a total lunar eclipse which was visible in all of Central America between 2:30 and 3am. I heard about it on the radio while eating lunch and spent a healthy chunk of the afternoon trying to find a Salvadoran who was willing to wake up and check it out with me. They all thought I was nuts. I ended up climbing out of my mosquito net at 2:30 anyways, hanging my hammock outside, and sitting alone in the cold for 30 minutes waiting for something cool to happen. I was under the impression lunar eclipses were interesting. Not so. Maybe I just missed something and should of paid more attention in my freshmen year Astronomy class, but I think the Salvos were right on this one

- There are two huge mango trees in front of my house. While the mangos will not be ready for about six more weeks, I tried counting how many I had coming today. I got to 200 before completing the first tree. My mango trees are definitely in the running for my favorite aspect of my new house.