Semana santa

Parts of my experience here are exceptional, but like life anywhere, the majority of it is routine, mundane and rather boring at times. So here's to an un-profound blog post.

Rainy season is starting again. In the States, a leaky roof is unbearable, grounds to denounce a landlord, a newsworthy event. In rural El Salvador, a leaky roof is a reason to move your bed. The question here when it rains isn't even ¨Did your roof leak?¨ It's ¨Did you get wet?¨ Of course it leaks. The important information is whether it leaks so much that you are unable to avoid getting wet while you are indoors.

We are no longer allowed to go to our office in the capital without a specific appointment or prior permission. Neither are we allowed to take buses to get there when we do have an appointment. It seems counterintuitive to me to limit access to the Peace Corps office for volunteers, who, I had always assumed, were the reason the office existed in the first place. It also seems unreasonable to me to require us to pay for taxis to and from (though they will cover the costs in some occasions) when most of us already struggle to get by on the meager living allowance we are afforded. I, however, do not make the decisions (despite how much I would like to) and will just have to get used to the changes. I acknowledge the fact that what Peace Corps is doing is likely in our best interests, but that doesn't change the fact that it is frustrating and restrictive. I'll also admit that I am entirely desensitized to the violence in this country and it does not seem remarkable or even particularly noteworthy to me that a 16 year old was shot in the head just a couple blocks from the office. I know that sounds callous and illogical, but the murder rate here is about 20 times higher than in NYC and after so many times it's just another story on the news when one gang member kills another. Obviously my reaction would be different if I knew the victim, but a person only has so much empathy to go around. About 10 people get killed a day here in a country the size of Massachusetts.

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I am sick of Evangelicals. Before coming here, I read that 90% of the population was Catholic. That must be the figure from about 2000 or earlier, because the Evangelical population is significant and quickly growing. I am tolerant of religious views, and respect everyone's right to their own beliefs. I am not so tolerant, however, of people promoting ignorance and hate at the top of their lungs on buses or with sound systems for the whole neighborhood to hear. Here's the gist of how it goes: A self-proclaimed preacher will board a bus and stand at the front. He will excuse himself for the noise and the bother, and then launch into a sermon at the top of his lungs for all to hear. They usually last from 15 to 45 minutes and the preacher will often ask for donations at the end of the sermon, though some pride themselves on the fact that they do not ask for money. The sermons differ slightly in style and message, but the same main points are almost always addressed; I was once a sinner and now I am saved; the bible is sacred, but most people don't interpret it right; science is the work of the devil and evolution is nonsense; government officials are unholy false prophets; homosexuals are the worst of the worst; kids these days are way worse than before; the world is about to end, repent now.

I don't want this to be interpreted as an anti-religious rant. I believe in God and think that the Bible has some great messages, despite its flaws and contradictions. What I have a problem with is hypocrisy, selective morality, and exceptionally loud and intrusive means of promoting this message that Evangelicals in El Salvador practice. If science is the work of the devil, then don’t take antibiotics next time you have an infection. If you are going to pick on homosexuals, then why don’t you give the bus driver a hard time for operating this route on Sundays. And really dude, I just don’t want to hear your ridiculous, uninformed opinion on all of this. You can barely read, so don’t tell me you are some expert at interpreting the Bible. You’re just copying the exact sermon that you heard everybody else give and putting your own little spin on the charismatic elements. And the world is not ending this year, next year, or the one after that; but you probably already know that. It’s a pretty slick recruiting tool, though.

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Our WYD scholarship camp is coming up at the end of the month. The 25 kids (20 girls and 5 guys) to whom we awarded scholarships this year will be attending a weekend camp at a lake on the other side of the country. Some of the topic covered will be leadership, self-esteem, how to get a job after graduation, sex education and self-defense. I want to thank everyone who donated to the fund this year! I had more people donate in my name than anyone else on the committee, and as a group we raised almost three times as much money as the previous year. We are hoping to do a 2nd camp this year and give out significantly more scholarships in the coming year because of the increase in fundraising.

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The week leading up to Easter is called "Semana Santa" here and everyone is on vacation. Most people don’t have jobs anyways, but the kids are all home from school and most everything in the cities is closed as well.

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The group of 8th and 9th graders I have been training to be HIV prevention facilitators has completed their initial group of workshops and is ready to start teaching other kids. First, we are going to do a workshop at our school here in El Palmital. Next, we will visit other schools in the area to reproduce the workshop and hopefully I will be able to win a grant of some sort to fund a trip to a lake or beach for a combination workshop-excursion at some point.

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I recently took over as one of the Security Wardens for Peace Corps El Salvador. In case of an emergency or national disaster, I am in charge of contacting the volunteers in my region to let them know what steps PC wants them to take to stay safe. Also, if someone is incommunicado during a disaster and the staff is too busy tracking down other people, I get to play Superman and go rescue them. The coolest part, in my opinion, will be doing visits to other volunteers’sites with a PC staff member to assess the security situation in their area. I am looking forward to getting to know other poor, remote parts of the country that I would never visit otherwise. It’s a kind of anti-tourism. Visiting the places that have little or no appeal other than to a development worker. It will also be a good opportunity to get to know some other volunteers a little better, and I’ll have some idea of where they are at in the one-in-a-million chance that I have to go rescue them someday.

That’s all I’ve got for today.