Semana Santa (aka Holy Week) Adventures

This will be my second blog in as many weeks and I’m starting to feel like some sort of a writing machine—I haven’t had this much to say in my entire 9 months (that’s right—9 whole months!—easily the fastest 9 months of my life—I have absolutely no idea where the time has gone) in El Salvador. However, in truth, the current rash of blog posts has more to do with the fact that I’ve recently been on a bit of a yerba-mate (a traditional Argentinean tea which certainly packs a caffeinated punch and makes me much more likely to stay up late writing a blog post versus my previous routine of falling asleep reading in my hammock by 7 pm) binge than anything else. However, there have been a few notable and blog-worthy events pass by during the last week which I’ll try to illustrate for ya’ll:

- Up to this past week, my time in El Salvador had been anything but spiritual, at least in the traditional religious sense. Due to the fact that 90% of the people in my community are Evangelical Christians and follow religious rules that would easily classify them as fringe, Bible-thumpin’ crazies in the States (no coffee, soda, music, soccer, school past 6^th grade, dancing, shorts, tattoos, long hair, or facial hair combined with a nightly dose of church including chanting in tongues and holy fainting spells) and that someone calling themselves a “Jew” may be even more foreign to them than an alien, or well, an American who decided to live in their community for two years. Anyways, to escape the prospect of daily lectures informing me that I’m destined to eternal burning hell, I’ve chosen to take the easy road, and just tell them I’m Christian, but Peace Corps doesn’t allow me to go to Church a lot, so I just pray in my house at night when they’re not around. In turn (not that I was too devoutly Jewish before my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer), Jewish customs and traditions certainly are playing no part in my life in El Salvador. That was until last week, when the Jewish holiday of Passover came around and I was invited by the Jewish community of San Salvador to come in to the capitol for a night and partake in the festivities. Not really knowing what to expect and figuring if nothing else I’d come out of the night with an interesting story, I accepted the invitation. First, with a group of just 3 or 4 other Jewish Volunteers, I headed to a quick, 30-minute service at the Jewish synagogue. Before that night, I had no idea there was a synagogue in San Salvador and figured if there was one, it would be a pretty tiny affair, but while it certainly wasn’t large, the synagogue was surprisingly nice and the congregation boasts a membership of about 100 families, which pleasantly had me surprised. Apparently, basically all of El Salvador’s Jews originate from families that originally fled Europe around the early or mid-1900’s and for some reason ended up in Central America. I even managed to recognize a few of the prayers and did my best to hum along, though silently enough to avoid embarrassing myself with the singing ability I never had. It was a wholly unexpected comfort to be able to follow along in a Hebrew-language service in a Spanish-speaking country—an experience I never thought would come out of my Jewish roots. After the service, I was introduced to the family who had volunteered to house me for the night and instantly took a liking to them. Next came the actual Seder, which was completely different from any Seder I’d attended in the States. The rabbi, who I had previously met before the service, is a young Argentinean who had just moved to El Salvador from Cuba and is definitely the coolest rabbi I’ve ever met (not that he has the toughest competition in the world to win that honor). The Seder, which took place in the main ballroom of the Hilton hotel, featured the Israeli ambassador and his family and the chief-of-staff from the US Embassy and his family but was still small enough to feel comfortable with only about 50 people sitting at a large circular table, a projector featuring YouTube clips, a slide show, and music videos to keep the Seder from evolving into a marathon test of your patience while just praying for the food to finally be served and forgetting all about the actual religious importance of the holiday, and plenty of activities for the young kids. With its entertaining and young spirit, great food, and the traditional abundance of wine, my Salvadoran Seder certainly took the cake for most enjoyable of my life.

- While I may have been busy celebrating the Jewish holiday of Passover, the past week was actually Semana Santa, or Holy Week, which is celebrated throughout all of Central America. No one goes to work all week and Salvadoran families traditionally feast on fish, relax, and head to the beach. I decided to take the opportunity to climb a few volcanoes I’d wanted to hike, so after hiking Volcano Santa Ana the first weekend of Semana Santa, I went to work on Volcano El Chingo this past Friday. Volcano El Chingo is located right by my community and had been looming over my life, seemingly daring me to attempt an ascent, for my first 7 months in San Luis. Volcano El Chingo is unique because one half of the volcano is in El Salvador and the other half is in Guatemala. The border literally runs right across the middle of the volcano and crater. Despite not being as tall, the hike up Volcano El Chingo certainly proved more challenging than my earlier hike up Volcano Santa Ana. It is much less accessible, its sides are much steeper, and it is much less frequented by hikers, combining to drastically increase the difficulty of the trails. However, the climb was well worth it, and the crater provided the opportunity to straddle the border with one foot in each country, drink in dramatic views, and even play some impromptu soccer against other visitors for an hour or two on a soccer field that has been cut out of the forest in the middle of the crater. But just like any other Salvadoran adventure, it could never go completely smoothly. Upon our descent, the skies opened and it began to pour, meaning the 5-hour return hike turned into a muddy and wet scramble from house to house that ended with me returning to my front porch covered by multiple layers of mud, shivering and soaking wet, well after the sun had set and the rest of San Luis had gone to sleep.

- It seems, in every blog I post, I end up including something about the food I’ve recently been eating, and this blog will be no different. In what has turned into one of the sadder events of my time in El Salvador, the harvest of mangoes from one of the trees in front of my house came to a end last week, meaning my diet has taken a drastic change. For the last 6 weeks, I was literally eating at least 4 or 5 mangoes every day. The treasured tree is located directly in front of my house and is absolutely huge, consistently supplying me with an extravagant diet of to-die-for mangoes for over a month. However, all is not lost—my other mango tree, located behind my house, has still-green mangoes that look to be ripe in about a month and I am eagerly awaiting their time. Changing the tone of the food update from delicious to gag-inducing, I also want to continue to chronicle my early morning struggles with fish that I began to describe in my last blog post. Fish is considered the traditional food of Semana Santa, and in the belief that fish “can start the day with luck,” the first 5 mornings of the past week I was greeted with fish soup for breakfast. While marginally tasty and acceptable the Monday morning, by Thursday and Friday, I was subtlety passing spoonfuls of the soup under the table to the chickens and dogs of the house. I normally like the fish I’m served in El Salvador, but this week the fish included in the soup was different—dried, heavily-salted, and pungent, to say the least—instead of fresh and grilled. Not, at least for me, the ideal way to start a morning.

- I have recently become a member of a basketball team in the local league in Chalchuapa, the closest town to my community. While I enjoy soccer and practice twice a week and have games or tournaments nearly every Sunday with my community’s team, I’d long been dying for a sport I’m a little more familiar with. After having talked to a Salvadoran staff member of Peace Corps who happens to live in Chalchuapa, I jumped at the opportunity to begin to play with his team. We have practice every Wednesday and a game every Saturday, which fits around my soccer schedule perfectly, and gives me an opportunity to play a sport I enjoy a little bit more than soccer. The name of the team is the Nuggets (nearly all of the teams in the league feature NBA-team names), but the name is affectionately pronounced “Noooo-gets” (as in that stuff inside your 3 Musketeers bar). We have the semi-finals of our current tournament next Saturday and hopefully will continue our strong championship push.

- The next two weeks will be a real change of pace for me, as I’ll be spending a lot more time than normal outside of San Luis and around other Volunteers. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week I will be at a training event about project design and management then the next week I will be going to the National Agricultural University for a full week of technical agricultural and environmental training. I’m looking forward to hopefully picking up some new skills during the trainings and exchanging ideas with other Volunteers that I can then incorporate into my work in San Luis.

Hiking Volcano El Chingo

view from Volcano El Chingo on a disappointingly cloudy day

view into the crater of Volcano El Chingo...it erupted so long ago that the entire volcano is now completely covered by thick forest

the soccer field in the middle of the crater of Volcano El Chingo

more scenes from a few hours relaxing in the crater

the Salvadoran-Guatemala border, which runs right across the middle of the volcano

more shots of the border, where all the trees and forest have been cleared to clearly delineate the border, and shots of a few of the border markers

a rare and gorgeous tree...el palo de fuego...or tree of fire in english...easily earns its name with its bright red leaves, flowers, and bean pods

March and April

It has been quite awhile since I’ve posted anything but pictures, so I’ll try to catch ya’ll up on some of the more newsworthy events of the past month in El Salvador.

- This past Tuesday my life was very literally rocked by what was certainly my first large earthquake experience. While I wish I could say I handled it bravely and astutely, that very much was not the case. Although I’d previously felt multiple small tremors—they are pretty standard here—they’d never lasted more than a second or two and or had been much more than just a petty rumble. However, the earthquake last week registered at 4.8, but what really made it a doozy was the fact that it lasted at least 6 seconds and the epicenter was only a few kilometers from my community. I was sitting at my desk at around 8:30 pm when all the dogs of the community started barking, and then moments later, the earth started rocking. And I’m talking really rocking—I certainly never thought I’d see my 12-inch-thick mud walls shaking, waving, and bending like I did that night. However, contrary to all advice, I made no effort to get outside to the safety of open skies—I just sat shocked in my chair, watching the roof beams in my house rocking and wondering if anyone in the States would ever even know what had happened to me when they came tumbling down onto me. I’m a bit ashamed to admit it, but my first real earthquake experience certainly shook me up—my heart was racing for at least 30 minutes after and absolutely refused to slow down. The earthquake certainly was a popular theme of conversation for the following few days as well, as at least 20 houses in San Luis basically cracked in half (none actually fell over, walls just split from roof to the ground), yet we did emerge lucky, as not a single person was harmed.

- Sunday afternoon I went on a trip with a group of other Volunteers, a few of their Salvadoran plus-ones, and 3 or 4 Salvadoran staff members of Peace Corps to summit Volcano Santa Ana, which is both El Salvador’s tallest volcano and its most recent to erupt (early 2005). It was certainly one of coolest things I’ve done since arriving here and will undoubtedly be including it in the itineraries of any future visitors I get. Although definitely not an easy hike, especially since I was trying to take a bus there, complete the whole hike in one day, then bus back to my community, forcing me to set a torrid pace, the 40 minutes relaxing and eating a lunch on the rim of the crater were well worth the sweat and sunburn it cost me. Volcano Santa Ana, Cerro Verde (Green Hill in English), and Volcano Izalco make up a chain of 3 neighboring peaks surrounding Lago Coatepeque, a gorgeous lake often sited as the most beautiful part of the country. While Volcano Izalco certainly appears in the more traditional volcano shape, with a sharp cone and distinct crater, Volcano Santa Ana has a more untraditional shape, with numerous ridges and a complete lack of substantial plant growth due to its more recent eruption. The highlight of the hike is certainly making it to the top, where you can walk along the skinny ridge of the volcano, takking in the views of almost half of El Salvador, from the major western cities of Santa Ana and Sonsonate, to the two neighboring peaks, to the Pacific Coast, to Lago Coatepeque. Additionally, the view inside of the crater is ever more unforgettable—far below the literally vertical cliff interior is a quite unnaturally green laguna featuring an unforgettably strong sulphur scent. It is so sulphuric, in fact, that the water can actually be classified as sulphuric acid itself, and submerging your hand for even a few seconds would leave you with some seriously serious burn wounds. Between the eerily green water, emerging steaming vapor, and overwhelming stench, it proves to be a drastic counterpart to the breathtaking views in the other direction. I posted a few pictures from the Volcano Santa Ana hike on the blog yesterday.

- Although a bit morbid and sad, I figured I should also include the other bit of hot gossip swooping through the community (besides, of course, the earthquake). Late one night, about two weeks ago, a man (from just a few communities over from mine) wandered into the sugar cane of the local cooperative, managed to stumble into one of their bee boxes (they also have a small honeybee program), and was found dead, killed by the bees, the next day. However, in typical, rural, El Salvador fashion, that was far from the end of high drama and gossip. While initial general public sentiment (meaning the opinions of the community’s women as they washed their clothes in the river or made tortillas and gossiped) fell against the cooperative, despite the fact that their bees are located at least over 500 meters from any homes, well more than required or suggested. Women were consistently citing the fact that just a few months before, the cooperative’s bees had also been found as the guilty party in the gruesome murder of a family’s goat. However, just a few days later, it was revealed that the man had been very drunk and had, earlier in his night’s drunken wanderings, stolen water and some tortillas from the kitchen of a nearby family. While this certainly did something to change public opinion, it did very little to quell the rumor mill. Next came the revelation that the family was demanding a $2,000 payment from the cooperative as retribution. While the flames of chambre, as it is known in Salvadoran slang, have recently settled down a little in anticipation of the response of the cooperative, I am certain we haven’t heard the last of this tragedy.

- Next, I’ll include my traditional section detailing the most recent gastronomic events of my time in El Salvador. While I have, in just the last month or two, eaten stewed cow intestines, a 5:15 a.m. breakfast (this one as recently as earlier today) of a very complete fish (literally, they just catch it then slap the who thing on the grill, leaving all the dirty work to you), grilled frog, cow ankle stew, and cookies made from flour ground from dried fish (despite being disguised as a cookie, the hardest to stomach due to its very un-cookie like odor…yet closely followed by the horribly unforgettable chewy texture of cow intestine), I have to admit that I finally broke my vow to at least try a few bites, with honestly open mind, of every food presented to me in El Salvador. The offending morsel of food which repulsed me enough to forget all about my vow to approach the Salvadoran diet with an open-mind was raw cow testicles. It all started off innocently enough with me helping three of my close friends who had decided the time had come to de-man their young cattle, thus causing them to grow much faster and to a larger adult size. After completing the procedure, thinking I was almost free to return to my hammock and call it a day, they invited me back to one of their houses. Thinking it would only be for a quick chat, I obliged. Once there, one had his wife fix up a nice cocktail-like mix of raw (yes, raw) cow intestine and thinly sliced onion, pepper, and tomato. While I remain ashamed I broke my oath to try any and all foods presented to me, I do still comfort myself with the fact that I’m pretty sure I’d at least have taken a bite if they’d only cooked it, at least at little, and the conviction that there is certainly some sort of horrendous disease easily contractible through the act of eating raw cow testicles.

- In another update about the projects that have been keeping me busy recently, I’ve coordinated a project through the Office of Social Service with the National Agricultural University, in which I and a group of 2^nd-year students are going to come out to the school in my community every two weeks and organize, plant, and cultivate a school garden with the 5^th and 6^th graders. I also am researching and organizing a solar food dryer and dehydrator project, which led me to a recent, very interesting, and stomach-satisfying, day-trip to the Ministry of Agriculture’s Laboratory of Food Production. While I think I have finally gotten very close to completing my prototype solar food dryer, I’m still working on figuring out exactly how I’m going to turn it into a project and get the proper funding. I’ve also been kept busy teaching my women’s group how to make bar soap, expanding and further developing our shampoo sales, and teaching them more about the economics of a small business. Next week I’m planning on teaching them how to make hair gel, an almost universally popular product among young Salvadorans. Lastly, I’m wrapping up a project to subsidize the sale of highly-efficient wood stoves which limit deforestation through their lesser demand for firewood, emit no smoke (immediately increasing women’s health), and limit the possibility of accidental burns to young children.

A Picture of Volcano Izalco and Cerro Verde (Green Hill) from Volcano Santa Ana

The crater of Volcano Santa Ana, the highest volcano in El Salvador, which most recently erupted in 2005

The very high sulphur content give the laguna its distinctive lime green tint. Submerging your hand in the water for even 5 seconds will leave you with very severe burns from the sulphuric acid in the water.

It is impossible to get a Salvadoran to smile for a picture...

except for little girls, they'll always smile