¡Usted no trabaja para nada, señor!

Like a lot of things in El Salvador, teaching computer classes to 1st-9th graders has led to a set of unexpected difficulties. I spend as much time trying to explain the difference between left click and right click as about everything else combined. The fact that approximately 50% of my students do not as of yet have a firm grasp on the concept of left and right makes this task a bit difficult. Those who do understand that each of their hands has a name, and that this concept can also be applied to a computer mouse, are inevitably bogged down by the difficulty of a theoretical concept we call ¨double click.¨ Philosophers and mathematicians have worked out hypothetical situations in which a ¨doble click izquierdo¨ opens an educational program with math and reading games inside, but this obscure theory still lacks overservable results confirming its validity.

When I offered to teach computer classes, the school director devised a schedule in which half of the grades would have class on Tuesday and the other half on Thursday. It worked pretty well the first few weeks and the right class usually came at the right time. After a few days of cancelled classes due to the school being closed or my having to miss a day here or there for an event on the other side of the country, groups started switching days to make up for missed class or just because they bugged their teacher enough to let them. Lately, no one at all comes about 25% of scheduled class periods. Whether the schedules are mixed up, or someome decided that computer class wasn’t necessary anymore, I don’t really know. I don’t really mind when no one comes. I have gotten addicted to a geography game that I originally intended to use with my students (which flopped when I found out that most of them cannot even locate El Salvador on a map of Central America... and those who can are unable to prove it by clicking on the country to highlight it. I should mention the exception of one 6th grader who can correctly identify most of the countries in the world and seemingly every flag. There are also a few 8th and 9th graders who can get the Central American countries right.) When the teachers forget (or choose) not to send their students in for computer class, I spend my time memorizing geography. I admittedly suffered from a condition relating to the part of my brain corresponding to knowledge of geography, common in Americans, called ignorance, but have treated this with many hours studying to the point where I can correctly identify every country in the continents of Europe, Africa and the Americas. I even know the provinces of Canada (though I realize how worthless that information is). All that is left is a handful of annoying little countries in Asia that still get me mixed up.

Now that I’ve thoroughly catalogued the frustrations, I’d like to add that the computer classes are rewarding at times. I taught a cute little 2nd grader how to add and subtract with the help of an educational program I found for free online and she was really pumped. She hugged me around the knee and thigh area after class and always runs up to the barbed wire fence to say hi to me when I walk past her house. To ruin this happy story, I’ll tell you that her house is actually more of a shack made out of sheets of aluminum and tarps and her teeth are close to rotting out because of cavaties (and I assume, a lack of toothbruth and toothpaste.)

I recently taught a couple of my friends the concept of knocking on wood. As in, I haven’t been robbed yet, knock on wood, or I haven’t had Dengue or Malaria yet, knock on wood. With this in mind, I am getting close to success in a little project I have been working on with a family in my community (knock on wood). The youngest son of this family is in a wheelchair The family lives in one of the most elevated, and also one of the poorest, parts of the community. During rainy season, which lasts about half of the year, it is too muddy for his wheelchair to go anywhere and even when it is dry, wheelchairs aren’t great for navigating a half-mile or more of stone paths. He has recently had some neurological problems (or at least that’s what I think his mom said) that have resulted in a need for glasses. So basically this kid is restricted to an area about the size of a living room and as of recently, can no longer see anything clearly outside of that area either. Neither of his parents can find work and his house is similar to the one described earlier in which the cute little 2nd grader lives. I offered to help the family do fundraising to buy the glasses for Cristian, the 10 year old kid in the wheelchair. I bought a cheap cell phone and, with the help of some other kids from the village, we sold lottery numbers for a quarter each until we raised enough for a pair of glasses (just a little shy of $40). Tomorrow we are picking the winning number out of a hat (actually, we are using a plastic bowl called a ‘juacal’ that people use for everything here) to determine who wins the phone. The kid and his mom are going to come into the city on Tuesday for a free eye exam and to buy the glasses for cheap at an eye-fair (they would cost $80 otherwise). Unfortuantely I am going to be at some training event on the other side of the country so I won’t be able to be there to make sure everything goes smoothly, but, knock on wood, when I get back into town Cristian should have his glasses.

Festival del Maíz

I've always been somewhat of a 'go with the flow' type guy. What I mean by that is that I can adapt pretty quickly to my surroundings. I wasn't particularly bothered when I switched from hot showers to pouring rainwater over my head with a plastic bucket to bathe. I don’t mind the heat. I actually prefer speaking in Spanish when I have the choice, not because it’s easier but because I always feel like I’m learning something new. I’m not homesick and I definitely don’t miss my job back home.

Now I don’t mean to say that I don’t miss my family or that I don’t linger in hot showers when I stay at hotels in the capital, but I tend to get along pretty well regardless of my surroundings. All I really need is a decent night of sleep, the company of people I like, and some way to keep myself busy.

I’ve been here a few days short of 7 months and now that I have found some ways to work in my community I am spending significantly less time in my hammock and at cyber cafes. I spend a lot more of my free time hanging out at the bus stop on the road that passes through our village, where a bunch of guys spend their afternoons just hanging out. Rarely do any of them actually get on a bus. Yesterday evening I stopped to chat after getting done teaching at the school. There were 6 of us hanging out. Three of us, myself included, could speak English and Spanish (myself lacking a bit in Spanish still and the other two vice versa). I couldn’t tell you exactly what we talked about, but the conversation switched back and forth between languages and among topics.

I walk a lot around my village, visiting people all over and wearing down the soles of my shoes on the cobblestone paths.

I go to the market in the city a couple times a week to buy anything from fruit to clothes to illegally burned dvd’s. It takes a little longer to buy things in the market, but bargaining over prices and having vendors court you is a lot more enojoyable than standing in the never ending lines at the supermarket.

This past weekend I went to a Festival de Maize in the pueblo just down the road from my village. The festival was put on by the catholic church and the mayor’s office to celebrate the corn harvest and just give everyone a reason to have a good time. About every food possible was made from corn, and a few beverages too. A former Peace Corps volunteer was back in town visiting the pueblo and brought along a British guy backpacking through Central America whom she had met in a hostel in the capital. The three of us were unmistakable, a trio of tall blondes in a country of tiny people with universally brown hair. Some moderately famous singer who is originally from the pueblo performed in hilariously tight spandex pants with openings on the sides. There was also a museum of ceramics and other artifacts from hundreds of years ago that have been discovered over time.

The British guy has a comically low level of Spanish. It is a bit terrifying to hear what I must have sounded like 7 months ago, although I was never quite as bad as he is. To his credit, he gives it a shot at least instead of just keeping quiet.

We were willingly tricked into drinking some fermented maize drink. Betsy, the former volunteer back visiting, asked a couple times if it had alcohol, and after the response, ¨No, they don’t put any alcohol in, it just ferments,¨ we said what the hell and drank it.

On a side note, alchol use here is all or nothing. Only at big festivals like that does anyone drink socially in rural areas. Either you are an alcoholic or you don’t drink. A lot of things are like that here. Either you believe in God or you are a devil worshipper. All Americans are rich and all Mexicans are evil. Women wash dishes and men absolutely do not. People tend to believe generalizations and extremes.

Anyways, that’s all I’ve got for today. I can tell my vocabularly in English is shrinking. Multiple times today I had a word on the tip of my tongue (or fingertips, to be literal) and just couldn’t find the right one. I guess that is inevitable when I spend at least 90% of my time speaking (or at least trying to) in Spanish.