4:45 a.m.: Alarm clock rings. Time to wake up. Walk to the neighbor’s house to bucket bathe. Cold water before the sun has come up really gets the blood going. No need for coffee this morning.
5:20 a.m.: Walk up the hill to my original host family’s house, where I usually eat my meals. Typical breakfast of beans, eggs, and tortillas. Never thought having the same breakfast every day for months on end would be appealing, but it actually makes life very comfortable always knowing exactly what I’ll be eating, especially in a country where you wake up every morning never having any real idea of what you’re going to end up doing that day (foreshadowing…).
5:55 a.m.: Start walking down the hill from where San Luis is located to the road where you can catch a bus.
6:25 a.m.: Truck passes. Hitch a ride all the way in to Chalchuapa.
6:55 a.m.: Arrive in Chalchuapa and go to the CENTA office (Extension Agency of the Ministry of Agriculture). My plan was to talk about finalizing dates for when one of the extension agents would be giving a few lectures about soy beans in a few communities I work in as a part of a project I have organized to introduce soy bean as an alternative crop. This conversation should have only taken about 10 minutes. Mistake #1: Thinking anything in El Salvador will take just 10 minutes.
7:15 a.m.: Frustrated. They all seem obsessed with a new corn plague they think will be arriving this year from South America. Repeatedly change the subject from soy beans to South American corn plagues.
7:45 a.m.: Eventually give up any hope of planning soy bean sessions. However, I do leave with lectures planned about preparing to combat new corn plagues planned in 2 communities near me. All CENTA field extension agents seemed completely happy with having already achieved so much before even 8 a.m. I prepare to leave the office still having not achieved anything I came to the office to do.
7:55 a.m.: Sell 4 bottles of shampoo and 6 bars of soap (all products made by the women’s group I organized in my community) to the secretary (our #1 customer) in the CENTA office.
8:05 a.m.: Show up at the mayor’s office. He had pledged to donate $75 to pay for the transportation of the 100 stoves back to my community. Despite 2 visits in the last week to make sure they understood when I would need the money by, it is, not shockingly, not yet ready.
8:40 a.m.: After a 30-minute delay (in another meeting I figured should last only 10 minutes), I come to the conclusion I’ll just be fronting the money for the transportation and hope to get the money from the mayor’s office later in the week.
8:45 a.m.: Jump on a bus to Santa Ana, the capitol of my department, and the location of a bank where I will be changing all the cash I have collected for the stoves into a check.
9:25 a.m.: Arrive at Citibank in Santa Ana.
9:45 a.m.: Despite the fact that I have a completely legitimate Salvadoran ID card that always has, and legally should have, been enough, showing up in a Salvadoran bank as an obvious foreigner without my passport and with over $2,000 in $5 and $1 bills made me suspicious enough to attract just about every on-duty employee in the bank and lead to more delays.
10:30 a.m.: Salvadorans are very obsessive about their signatures. Many, at least in rural areas, can’t read or write, but have learned to sign their name—exactly the same way, over and over again—which I think is highly valued due to their inability to otherwise write. My signature is anything but consistent. After resolving the issue of my identification, the fact that my signatures in the bank records, my Salvadoran ID card, and the bank forms I turned in were all different once again attract the attention of a large contingent of the bank’s employees.
10:35 a.m.: Frustrating bank experience is put on hold—I have to pee, and there are no public bathrooms in the Citibank, meaning I have to leave the bank and pee behind the temporary circus tent set up in the empty lot next door.
11:00 a.m.: Time I said I would arrive at the stove factory in Sonsonate passes. Now looking at being extremely late.
11:05 a.m.: Finally, almost two hours later, leave the Citibank. At this point, not too worried about being late—just about everything in El Salvador happens at least 2 hours late, so I figured it would really just mean less waiting once I arrived at the stove factory, which at this point seemed just a simple bus ride away.
11:10 a.m.: Get on bus for Sonsonate. Should be about a 90-minute ride.
12:40 a.m.: Nowhere near Sonsonate. It has started to downpour while the bus is driving a section of road featuring a few hairpin turns up in the mountains. Everyone closes the windows, transforming the inside of the bus into a sauna. Usually I’m a big fan of saunas…not this day, not trapped in an extremely crowded bus with over 75 Salvadorans, none of whom I know. The buses top speed approaches 10 mph.
1:10 p.m.: Arrive at bus terminal in Sonsonate with hand-drawn map and instructions for walking to the stove factory from the bus terminal, supplied by the boss, who lives in Sonsonate, of the sugarcane processing plant, located near my community.
1:12 p.m.: Leave the terminal by foot, wholly trusting my map, and counting on arriving at the factory within 10 minutes, only 2 hours late, and most likely still able to get everything done without a hitch.
1:45 p.m.: Have come to the realization that I am pretty well lost. I am now in the middle of Sonsonate’s (the 4th or 5th biggest city in El Salvador) bustling marketplace. The only “landmark” I can identify on my map, whose validity I have definitely begun to doubt, is a bridge which looks to me to be named “Augusto” (as in the month, August). I proceed to ask many people if they no where the “August Bridge” is…I receive only blank stares in response.
2:15 p.m.: Absolutely lost, I finally give up and call the stove factory, trying to describe to them where I have ended up, and asking them to send someone to come pick me up.
2:22 p.m.: Realize the “Augusto” bridge was actually the “Angosto” bridge (“angosto” translates to “narrow”…a Spanish word I hadn’t yet learned…I think I’ll now always remember the meaning of “angosto”).
2:45 p.m.: After being thoroughly ridiculed by the driver the factory sent to find me for my Spanish error, in addition to realizing my map would have worked if only I hadn’t been looking at it upside down and headed out from the bus terminal in completely the opposite direction from what was intended, I arrive at the stove factory. Only 3 hours and 45 minutes late.
2:46 p.m.: Realize the truck driver I had contracted to drive the stoves to my community had left after waiting for 3 hours, claiming he had another job he had to get to.
2:47 p.m.: Frantically begin calling any and all truck drivers in Sonsonate that I know of or can get the numbers of, trying to find someone who can still deliver the 100 stoves to my community that afternoon.
2:53 p.m.: Realize the supposedly “non-profit” stove factory’s bank account is in the name it’s director and not in the name of the organization itself, not only throwing the credibility into doubt (really just making them rather typical for El Salvador), but also meaning none of the checks I had brought to pay for the stoves would work, since they were made out in the name of the stove factory.
2:55 p.m.: Things are starting to fall apart. Despite my knowledge this is standard-operating procedure for El Salvador, I start to panic just a little bit inside.
3:15 p.m.: After discussing my options, of which none are good, with the stove factory staff, I head back to Chalchuapa in complete resignation. It seems there is no way I will be able to get another truck driver until the next week, meaning I will have a lot of explaining to do to 100 families who had been expecting their stoves.
3:25 p.m.: Walk back to the bus terminal, this time taking only 10 minutes, buy a stack of pipin’ hot pupusas (one of my favorite Salvadoran traditional treats—basically a tortilla but packed with beans and cheese in the middle) to console myself with on the bus ride home and shut up my screaming stomach (hadn’t eaten since about 5 something that morning), and hop on a bus heading back to Chalchuapa.
3:27 p.m.: As the bus is leaving the terminal, get a call from the friend of a truck driver whom I had previously called begging to transport my stoves on a moment’s notice. He says he has a big enough truck and was free to make the trip right away. I quickly jumped out the back of the bus (accidentally dropping all my pupusas—yet another blow in already long, long day) as it was leaving the terminal and race-walked back to the stove factory (this time, skipping the 2-hour detour in the wrong direction that had marred my initial attempt to find the factory).
3:40 p.m.: Arrive at the stove factory as my new best friend and truck driver is arriving. Already highly impressed with his promptness.
3:45 p.m.: Begin to realize paying the new truck driver will be a problem—not only is his price $50 higher than my first truck driver, but I have no cash (the first driver is associated with the factory and I had planned to pay him with a check in conjunction with the factory).
3:46 p.m.: Also realize me, the truck driver, and his two security guards are in for a ton of work. The workers in the factory get off at 4 p.m., meaning by this point they were on their way out and had absolutely no intention to load the 100 stoves I had bought into the truck, as they usually would have done earlier in the day. This already long day was about to get a lot sweatier—each stove weighs about 85 lbs., is an awkward shape, and the bed of the truck is pretty high up here.
3:55 p.m.: In a bit of a last minute panic due to my desperation to get the stoves back to my community but faced with a complete inability to pay the truck driver the price I had already agreed to, I bargained an extra two free stoves out of the factory management, which they agreed to since I was purchasing 100 other stoves, a much-larger-than-normal purchase. Although I now had two extra stoves, bringing my total to 102, I still didn’t have much of a plan.
4:00 p.m.: Factory closes. While hastily trying to load the stoves in the back of the truck, have to deal with annoyed factory management who apparently really wanted to go home.
4:25 p.m.: Finally finish loading all the stoves, re-drenched with sweat (the first time was during my “sauna” bus ride from Santa Ana to Sonsonate), take off from the factory. As the truck is pulling out of the factory, I see an SUV pull up and notice the look of defeat on their faces when they see the factory is closed. I ask the truck driver to hold on for a second, and jump out of the truck’s cab to have a chat with the family in the SUV with an idea taking form in my head.
4:26 p.m.: The stove factory had been featured on the national news just a few nights earlier for the efficiency of the stoves they sold and their rising popularity in the face of the sky-rocketing price of gas in El Salvador and the recent cutting of the gas subsidy by the Salvadoran government due to World Bank pressure. The family wants to buy two stoves. I quickly explain the factory had closed for the day, but offer my two extra stoves for the price of $55 each (the factory charges only $45)—an offer the family quickly accepts. With my new cash infusion, combined with the odd bills I had in my pocket, I was now able to pay my truck driver, which provided immense relief for the rest of the ride home.
4:34 p.m.: A few minutes in to our drive, the truck driver connects the dots and realizes I previously had no way of paying him and had been completely reliant on the luck of the family arriving to buy the stoves as we were leaving the factory. He curses at me. I tell him I’ll buy him some cigarettes at the end of the night to sweeten the deal, which gets our relationship back on track.
5:40 p.m.: With a still aching back (from loading the 100 stoves in to the truck), I realize since we will now be arriving to the sugar cane cooperative near my community, where we will be dropping off the stoves, much later than planned, there will be none of the normal workers there to help us unload the stoves. The truck driver is not happy with this sudden development; our relationship takes another turn for the worst. I’m just glad I didn’t yet have to break the bad news to his security guards, who are in the back of the truck with the stoves.
5:45 p.m.: Relationship with the truck driver gets worse. He had agreed to deliver the stoves at the price he offered because I had assured him the roads were in great condition (I needed to get the price down). About 12 kilometers from my community, the paved roads end and you can wave goodbye to any roads in “great condition,” especially during the rainy season. However, at this point he has no options, mumbles a little under his breath, and continues the drive to the cooperative. I offer him a few beers along with the cigarettes. It didn’t dawn on me until later that supplying beer and cigarettes to Salvadorans probably isn’t in the spirit of Peace Corps’ mission in El Salvador.
6:45 p.m.: Now facing complete darkness, we arrive at the cooperative’s gates. The security guards both wake from their slumber to let us in.
6:58 p.m.: We begin to unload all the stoves. I had tried calling some of younger males in the community who I figured would be willing to come down to the cooperative and help us unload, but it was a Tuesday, meaning there was afternoon soccer practice, which meant none of them had been answering their phones. I managed to rustle up just one guy to help us out.
7:25 p.m.: Now nearing the time I usually start thinking about heading to bed, we are still unloading stoves. The pace of work has slowed tremendously as all of us are getting pretty weary. I send one of the security guards to buy the beer and cigarettes I had promised to the truck driver with the last $5 in my pocket.
7:45 p.m.: Begin the 20-minute walk, all uphill, back to San Luis from the cooperative.
8:05 p.m.: Too late to go to my original host family’s home to eat dinner (the majority of San Luis is definitely asleep at this point), put some water on my small stove to boil and drop in a soup packet while going to bucket bathe at the neighbors.
8:20 p.m.: Return to my house, and despite my incredible hunger, leave the soup on the stove and collapse into my bed. I would eventually devour the soup when I wake up at 4 a.m. the next morning.
Great post Max, you really captured the tides, high and low, of trying to get something accomplished down there. Hopefully life will get easier but I think you are learning some incredibly valuable lessons . . . cigs and beer can be very powerful forces. Thanks and love ya. dad
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteI was working on a paper about Foreign Aid in El Salvador and I stumbled across your blog. Just wanted to stop for a few minutes and say that what you are doing is very inspiring and I wish you the best of luck. I might stop by every once in a while and read about your adventures.
Thanks for sharing your experiences.