Changes Are A-Coming

Over the last few months, Peace Corps in El Salvador (along with the Peace Corps programs in Honduras and Guatemala) have been forced to adjust to some big changes prescribed by Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington. No one in the Peace Corps community—from staff members to Volunteers to the very communities where Volunteers work—could escape dealing with these sudden changes, including me. As a result, in less than two weeks, I will be moving from the far west of the country—the tiny, 300-person strong, rural community of San Luis, the place I have called home for the last 20 months—to the far east—San Francisco Gotera, a, at least relatively, bustling town of about 10,000. San Francisco Gotera (or just “Gotera”, as it is universally known in El Salvador) is the small, infamously hot (the first thing literally every Salvadoran tells me when I inform them I’m moving there: “Do you know how hot it is in Gotera?”) town that doubles as the capital of the northeastern, ruggedly mountainous department of Morazán. Morazán was the epicenter of the guerrilla forces and the most intense fighting during the Salvadoran Civil War, leaving it very poor with completely devastated economies, communities, and families. Once in Gotera, I will be adjusting to a new role within Peace Corps as well, shifting from working as a Sustainable Agriculture Volunteer to serving as a Regional Leader, more or less supervising and overseeing all of the other Volunteers in Eastern El Salvador.

These last two weeks in my site promise to be some of my most hectic, as I have daily schedules crammed with various despedidas (going-away parties), individual good-byes, loose ends on projects, and various Peace Corps paperwork. There are festive activities—a despedida in the nearby naturally-protected area with all the park rangers and staff, playing in my last soccer game with San Luis’s team, and another despedida dinner party with all the members of San Luis’s ADESCO (Asociación Desarrollo Comunal: a locally elected group of leaders, all from San Luis, which acts as it’s representation and leadership). And there will be the more emotional—saying goodbye to the host family where I lived for my first two months and ate all my meals during my entire time here and my other neighbors and close friends. Also, the time-consuming—visiting all the families involved in my tilapia project, reviewing what they’ll need to do when harvesting their first fully-grown fish just 2 or 3 weeks after my leaving, and completing the various final reports and summaries required by Peace Corps. All of that, on top of trying to find a place to live once I get to Gotera, figuring out how I am going to get all my stuff moved clear across the country to my new home, and preparing for a 3-week trip to Peru, and it’ll certainly be a busy next two weeks.

However, to help me get through the emotional and busy days and nights to come, I do have that trip to Peru to look forward to. I will be traveling with my Mom for the first ten days then traveling on my own for about 10 more days, before heading back to El Salvador in early May to attend training for my new Regional Leader position. In Peru, I’m excited to be heading to Machu Pichu, other various ruins in the high mountains of surrounding Sacred Valley, Cuzco, Arequipa, Lake Titicaca, Lima, and probably at least a few other places while traveling on my own. I’ll surely be posting pictures to the blog upon my return.

Part of what I am looking forward to about moving to Gotera is that I will be transitioning from very rural Salvadoran life to life in a small city. I will have running water (all the time!), electricity (all the time!), cell phone reception and internet service (all the time!), and potentially even air conditioning in my bed room (a key feature in one of the houses I’m looking at moving into). While I have loved every moment of living in San Luis, and a huge part of why I joined Peace Corps was to live a bit “off the map,” without electricity and water and in a place where a cell phone signal or internet service was rare, after over a year and a half…well, I think I’ll certainly enjoy that first shower in Gotera. I feel like after leaving a place where bucket-bathing and spotty electricity are not just the norm, but a given, I’m going to feel, relatively, like I’m mine as well be back in America, enjoying the comforts of the completely developed world! And more than internet or running water, I’m also looking forward to being able to go workout at a gym or play pick-up basketball every afternoon in a nearby park, something that just wasn’t feasible in San Luis, it being over an hour from the closest small town equal in size to Gotera. And while I have fulfilled one of my desires for joining Peace Corps—living a bit “off the map”—another of my goals was getting to see and experience as much of El Salvador and Central America as possible. While I have passed through Gotera once or twice by car, and I have traveled a bit in Eastern El Salvador, it is a side of the country I do not know close to as well as the West. And now that I very well know my way around the rest of the country, I’m extremely excited to learn my way around Eastern El Salvador—especially the different traditional foods eaten and Spanish slang there.

The next biggest change to my life after returning from Peru will be the day-to-day work I am involved with. In San Luis, I have no one to report to and to supervise, and am basically on my on in my own community, free to do as I like, starting and stopping any sort of project I like, whenever I like. Additionally, the focus of most of my largest efforts is agricultural and the majority of my time is spent with rural, Salvadoran farmers. In Gotera I’ll be taking over a new position as Regional Leader—a newish position in El Salvador’s Peace Corps program, which can be loosely defined as supervisor, manager, and support for all the Volunteers in one’s region. I’ll be visiting the communities of all the Volunteers in Eastern El Salvador (to check up on their personal status, the status of the projects, and help them solve or deal with any issues within their community, etc.), organizing regional Volunteer retreats, meetings, and get-togethers, supporting Peace Corps in their setting up of a new regional office to be located in Gotera, and organizing regional youth leadership camps. Instead of dealing with rural Salvadorans on a daily basis, it is much more likely I spend my days planning and discussing with Peace Corps staff in San Salvador, local organization and institutions run by professional Salvadorans, and other Volunteers. Instead of not deciding on my day’s schedule until after waking up, eating breakfast, then reading for an hour or two in my hammock, I will probably have to start keeping a day planner or some sort of calendar to schedule the, at least slightly, more rigid, planned-out life I’ll be living.

So, with all these changes, travels, and transitions ahead of me in the next month or two, I couldn’t be more excited, and will do my best to keep all of ya’ll as updated as possible via the blog.

Also, just last, boring a technical note: For all of you that were planning on sending me something via snail mail, I’d hold off for now. While I will certainly have an address where I can receive mail in Gotera, I still do not know exactly what it will be, and if something has not already been sent, it won’t be arriving at my current address in time for me to get it before leaving. Thanks!