This photo shows the red, white and blue painting
that can be found on rocks, poles, bridges, buildings
all over El Salvador. The colors represent the ARENA
party, the party that currently holds the presidency
and that was in office during the war. At first I did
not realize that the painting was not a spontaneous
show of support, but instead a concerted propaganda
effort funded by the government. Its disturbing to
consider the cost of this effort in light of the abysmal levels
of social spending presently occurring in El Salvador.

A friend from Oikos laughed at me when I remarked that
there must be a correlation between the fact that the
US colors and the ARENA colors are the same, as ARENA
has always famously supported just about any economic or
military proposal of the US regardless of its effect on the poor.
Ya think?? he said laughing.




















Ok, and at the risk of being too on the nose, these
are photos of houses along the same road as the ARENA rail.
I remember when I drove by these houses once with a
friend from Oikos I said incredulously, Estos son casas? and he
answered simply, si, casas.

Taty participating in a school fundraiser- a beauty
pageant for kids. The event was fun but also a bit
depressing as the winner is simply the kid whose
family donates the most money. The kid next to her
had that same look on his face the entire day.

I like this picture because it also shows Taty about
to drink water from a bag. In much of El Salvador it is
more common to use a plastic bag and a straw to drink
water or soda when out of your house. I found this a
strange sight at first.

The Doctor/Mayor who gave me the shot in the ass.

This is our last week as SIPPIES. I am planning to leave at the end of this week for Honduras, then Mexico, then back to Los Angeles. This last week was my birthday (I am 27, damn my parents feel old right now) and was a vacation week at Oikos, so I spent alot of time at home and in El Transito and Usulutan. Toward the end of the vacation week I was struggling with boredom, heat and blood sucking bastard mosquitos, so I´m happy to be back in the Oikos office for a couple of days to finish up my project and spend time with people here.

I am craving so many weird different types of food right now as my time in the campo winds down. My friend at Oikos went to a conference in Thailand and Japan and just seeing photos of sushi and dumplings mad me crazy and reminded me of all the places I love in LA. Little Tokyo, Happy Family Restaurant, Indian Food, chocolate cake a la mode at the Shite Spot, Vietnamese food. I am craving Special K cereal, soy milk, gorgonzola pear pizza from Trader Joe´s, Spinach salad with strawberries in it, and In N Out Burger. Don´t get me started. The food here is good, but there are moments where you just don´t want to see any more eggs or beans.

So in a nutshell, I feel ready to leave (right now anyway, the day I leave I may be a mess) but I also feel confident that the friends I made here are going to be part of my life for a very long time. I am really really going to miss everyone, its difficult to single anyone out, the Oikos men and women, the kids, Marina, Manuel and Reina. I´m in love with all of them.

I was thinking about the idea of accompaniment today and the CRISPAZ program, and I think much of the time I have been oblivious, or it has been hard for me to understand if my being here has an effect beyond the need to feed and house me, etc. on the people I interact with. Of course when we joke about cultural differences, or when I walk by a pickup full of men and they all move to one side and start yelling things I am aware of the superficial effects of my presence as basically the only chillita from the US around. However, recently I have been really moved by many little things and I have started to realize that my presence here does actually affect the people around me. I feel really humbled by the unearned respect I seem to garner alot of the time, (I think when you are a white person from the states people often assume you are in a position of power, which on some level is of course true though perhaps not in the way they imagine, but its also just that I find people in my community to be generally super patient, nice, welcoming) but ANYWAY, its hard to explain but I feel like this respect, hope, affection is given to me often here and instead of resisting it or feeling inadequate to accept it (as I often feel) I am trying to accept it, appreciate it and use it to become someone who is worthy of the gifts I receive here every day. This in itself has been powerful for me, to stop being so self critical and just to live more in gratitude, in the desire be useful in my efforts when I go back to the states.

Last week Reina, Taty and I, as we often do, went to the soccer field to hang out, watch people, play catch. Taty immediately started climbing trees and jumping around on this seating area made of tires. We laughed at her and after a while we started talking about life in general. Reina told me about her divorce that had happened only a couple of months ago, from someone she was with for 10 years. We are only a month apart in age and actually have certain big things in common. At one point in the conversation we talked about a mutual friend of ours and how fickle she was and Reina told me that right now I was her closest friend. I had no idea that she even enjoyed hanging out with me, I only really knew for sure that she was patient with my spanish.
This is a woman who last week in El Transito told us all to stand up, (me, Ale and Marianita) then picked up a corn cob that had been all eaten, chucked it at a passed out drunk guy and yelled, ¨Corre!¨(Horribly inappropriate and mean but in the moment was really funny.) Usually her catchphrase is ¨fuerte! fuerte!¨ so the whole interaction was really sweet.

The day before my birthday, Aug. 1 I went to the beach with my friend Hector and we ate the most amazing shrimp and swam in a pool (the surf was too rough) that had this great mural all around it. (Including the artists rendition of the pivotal ¨I´m flying, I´m flying, lets make out¨ moment from Titanic, complete with little dolphins and stuff which I was amused by.) On my birthday a couple of friends from Oikos came by and with my family we ate tortas and cake. My friend Giovanni and several members of my host family started calling in saludos on Radio Izcanal which became increasingly funnier and more detailed. They started out as happy birthdays and evolved from there. One put my age at XXX, which was funny another said ¨Happy Birthday to Deborah Elizabeth Helt, she is an international observer here from the states living in Canton El Paraisal and has blue eyes, Isn´t that wonderful, etc.¨ It was so funny how into it they got sneaking around and calling the radio over and over. I have to admit though, I was relieved that the blue eyes one was the final one because I was starting to get embarrassed. After we ate and hung out for a while, Giovanni took my host family, a friend from the neighborhood and I in the pickup up into the mountains to look for a family that sells this homemade liquor called Chicha that my host mom wanted. We didn´t find it that night but bought something else called chaparra. I don´t remember the name of the community we went to but it had steep stairs cut into the earth leading up to the houses from the road and it was very beautiful. One of those places that looks like something out of your imagination.

Sunday morning we had a bit of a scare. Taty, the two year old woke up vomiting y tiene poopoo con sangre. Marina, Reina, Marianita, Ale and I rushed to the hospital her in a pickup and Marina brought a sample to give a lab for testing. The hospital in Usulutan was more simple than I expected. I think it was a better facility before the earthquake but I´m not sure. There were about 25 people waiting in chairs under a tin roof in the emergency area (which was basically outside). A man sitting next to me had what looked like a crushed, bloody hand wrapped in a thin white towel, which I tried not to stare at. After waiting for about half an hour we were moved to another small building that housed the exam rooms. The exam facilities were pretty threadbare here too. There were holes in the walls where air conditioners used to be and the exam rooms just had thin sheets over the doors that hung about halfway to the floor. Other than that though, the facilities were clean and ok.

After we dropped them off and waited some more we were told to take the sample to a lab. I was suprised that they didn´t have facilities at the hospital to do the test. Our friend Mauricio from the neighborhood drove us around Usulutan looking for a lab that was open while Reina stayed with Taty. It was Sunday and there was a festival going on in San Salvador so it was difficult to find any labs open, despite the fact that there seem to be tons of them. Finally we found one that was open and still we had to go running around nearby tiendas looking for someone who could give us change for a ten dollar bill to pay for the test. Half an hour later we had the results of the test which said that Taty had a straightforward but bad bacterial infection and not a parasite or whatever other thing was possible. I was relieved because when I had a bacterial infection I got better really quickly and the medicine was no big deal. So anyway, we went back to the hospital, Taty and Reina showed the results of the test, found out that Taty did not need a shot (which is always traumatizing for a two year old, especially one who is not used to being made to do things she doesn´t want to do) and got some medicine for her.

However, the adventure was not over because in her anxiety about Taty, Marina was having chest pains and needed an injection herself. So we waited about another hour for a doctor that never came to give Marina her injection. We waited outside the emergency area, sitting on some broken concrete rocks. Taty was already feeling better and had a cool white kerchief tied onto her head and looked so adorable. In her usual style she found the steepest, most broken series of rocks and started descending them over and over, before somehow finding a small rusted out chunk of old machinery parts, dislodging a giant rusty screw and using it as a microphone, charming the pants off of every person who was also waiting. She´s just a ridiculously cute child, the kind that draws a crowd.

Anyway, we gave up on the doctor and later in the evening when it was dark, we trekked back through some houses and trees to find a nurse she knows. Marina brought the shot and with the cows and dogs looking on finally got her injection.

If anyone is still reading this you are very patient and maybe need to get a hobby. :)
Much Love,
Deb

Recent News from El Salvador

Politically speaking it has been a tragic and interesting couple of weeks in El Salvador. Two weeks ago two priests were tortured and killed in Suchitoto, which created a wave of fear regarding the possibility of a resurgance of the death squads that existed during the war. A week later the parents of one of the founders of radio venceremos (the frente radio station), Marina Manzanares (radio name, La Mariposa) were also tortured and killed. At the National University, protests regarding the increase in bus fare ended in violence.

I don´t know the most recent information, nor would I know to trust it if I did. At least two police officers were killed, and dozens of people were hurt. Rumors and misinformation have been abundant, the coverage in the papers has been profoundly one-sided. (Ie. Photos of crying police officers, headlines screaming that shooters were fmln, no word on injured students or protesters.) Anyway, I want to give a brief sense of the political environment, as so much has been happening, but at present I don´t have a great deal of hard facts so I apologize for being so general.

There is an increasing amount of tension here around issues like the cost of transportation, the privatization of water, and of course immigration policy in the U.S. A huge proportion of the population here is economically dependent upon remittances so any alterations in immigration policy has immediate and often devastating effects on the majority of Salvadorans. You may not know that El Salvador adopted the dollar as its main currency, eliminating the colón. (Again, I am learning and hesitate to pontificate on the issues.) All I know for sure is that everyone I talked to about the change said that it was devastating, that the price of everyday items went up, often more than doubling in price. (If I have the chance to do more research, I will be happy to summarize more on this issue here but we´ll see. :)

So, in an overarching sense, conditions of poverty in El Salvador have not improved post peace accords. The situation is delicate here as many citizens cannot survive another economic blow. Crispaz has a summary article discussing the events I mentioned above at: http://www.crispaz.org/news/list/2006/0705.htm if anyone is interested.

Abby and La Florida

Wish I could post photos. Is very frustrating. I am in San Salvador again. Mariah and I hooked up with Tedde and Javier, met in the city, then visited Abby´s community in La Florida yesterday. The Institute de Permacultura, where she is an intern, was incredible. We met with Karen, the executive director and toured her house, which she joked was inspired by the hobbit houses in Lord of the Rings. (Again, pictures would be so much better, but what can I do.)

Karen gave us a great informal presentation on permaculture and the projects of the Institute. The political issues surrounding seeds and pesticide use in El Salvador are extremely incensing. The Institute works to educate, politicize and implement sustainable farming techniques using native seeds that do not self-destruct or deplete the soil. (I am going to encourage Abby to write in more detail about the issues because she knows more specifics but its really interesting stuff and Karen herself is just one of those inspiring people you meet only every once in a great while).

Abby´s host family´s house is nestled deep into the hills about a ten minute hike from the Institute. Its absolutely gorgeous, overlooking steep lush hills and is surrounded by fruit trees. I ate the most delicious orange I have ever had. We ate copious, revolting amounts of tamales and hot chocolate and played with the kids, platicando. Abby seemed very comfortable with her host family and completely at home which was lovely to see.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Look Mom, I got a shot in my butt in El Salvador and I didn´t cry or anything!

One piece of news with me is I got sick with a bacterial infection last week. I began feeling sick monday night and it proceeded to worsen, to the point where I basically spent Wednesday through Friday in bed, missing work, almost completely unable to eat for four days.
Two of my coworkers took me to the beach on Thursday and fed me fresh fish which was incredibly kind, but unfortunately didn´t kick the ebola. My family took great care of me and were hearbreakingly concerned and sweet. I have to say though, not that I ever want to do it again, but getting a bacterial infection and dealing with it turned out to be one of the most meaningful experiences I have had so far in El Salvador.

So how it went down was on Thursday night, after days of weirdness, I couldn´t sleep. I had a lot of pain in my abdomen, a fever and my body was responding to not having food for several days. I woke up that morning with my head on the opposite end of the bed, the sheets in a ball in another corner with my hands inexplicably palming the wall like a crazy person. By Friday, I knew I had something that was not going to go away on its own. I did ¨the test¨ and Reina delivered it to the clinic in El Transito without me (and made fun of me alot which was hilarious and made the whole thing better) and in the afternoon our neighbor, Mauricio, (who harmlessly flirts with me all the time but giggles like a kid when I say a bad word), took us to El Transito to get the results and visit the doctor.

I got out of the pickup first and saw, to my amusement/horror, that there was a large group of about twenty young men hanging out outside the test office, with its paintings of medicines and body parts, waiting for a bus at that exact moment and I just though, how perfect- I should wear a giant button, like moms with pictures of their kids who take gymnastics or are cheerleaders that says ¨Hi I am a white girl and I have diahrrea.¨

I went through the ¨hey look a gringa let´s yell cute phrases in English¨ gauntlet, and got my results which confirmed that I was enjoying the company of a veritable plethora of uninvited guests. We crossed the street to the doctors office and waited, taking celebratory pictures of us with the paper outlining the results of my poo test until the doctor (who was guapo, guapo, guapo let me tell you) invited us into the office. He took one look at my results and his eyes sort of widened and he said kindly, ¨Deborah, Usted tiene, mucha mucha infección.¨ This was sort of dementedly validating. He told me I needed a shot, and had me lie down and poked around and listened to my stomach. There was another option, some sort of really awful syrup I could drink three times a day that was slower and had more side effects so I sort of went back and forth for a couple of minutes and Reina laughed at me. ¨ok, I´m an adult, give me the shot. No wait, don´t. No, seriously, let´s have the shot. How bad are the side effects? ok, ok, ok, give me the shot. Reina, you look there, I´ll look there, don´t watch me.¨ ¨no llorando,¨ she said and I had to resist the urge to tell her to shut it. (in a nice way of course.) The doctor was so charming that the whole visit was full of laughter, and me dealing with my fear by cracking jokes so it really wasn´t bad. I was so sick so as to be beyond embarrassment or real fear of shots.

So the funniest part of all was that when the doctor got the giant shot ready, I laid down on my stomach and in order to be helpful just started to hike up my skirt from the bottom. (When the pool is cold you gotta jump right in is my motto.) Reina yelled, ¨Deborah, NO!¨ motioning that he just pulls the waistband down, saving me from unneccessarily mooning my new guapo, guapo doctor. (thanks Reina! you´re the best!) Anyway, the shot was fine, he didn´t charge us for it, I´m assuming because Reina told him I work for Oikos and he just could not have been more lovely and nice.

Overall the whole experience with the illness was incredibly eye-opening as to what people go through here and how expensive it is relative to income to recover from these very common but potentially serious illnesses. After I had recovered I thought to myself, I cannot believe people live with this type of pain and then have to pay $25 or more to recover when there is little work or the work pays a couple of dollars a day. It really broke my heart and sensitized me much more to the reality of these dangers for people here.

Much love to everyone,
deb

My neices are 20 months old this month.
awwwwwwwww. Couldn´t resist.















This much cuteness in one household is just wrong.
















La Laguna de Allegria

Photos from the press conference and
celebration to mark the building of a
bridge in Congo, a community within
San Rafael Oriente.

The men cutting the ribbon are representatives
of several organizations from around the world
that worked together to build the bridge. At the
press conference they pledged to continue working
together on behalf of the community.






































Allegria

Hector´s photos de Allegria y Berlin durante
nuestro viaje de la laguna de Allegria.

Hi,
Wanted to note two weird coincidences:

1. Tedde, the program coordinator at CRISPAZ stopped by my community yesterday to say hi and brought books and bugspray. One of the books that she chose by chance was Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. (My roomie Sara gave me a book by June Jordan that had essays talking about Their Eyes and I have been wanting to read it but I didn´t ask for it or anything.)

So, the weird thing is that the book, taken from the CRISPAZ random people leave stuff here library, has SARA SIEBERT bought this book for... written on the inside cover. Apparently she bought the book for someone named Joyce and somehow it ended up in the CRISPAZ library and then randomly in my hands in Concepcion Batres. (For those of you that don´t know Sara Siebert she is my really good friend in Los Angeles and my roomate for like three years.)

2. The second one I have to get clearance to tell, but let me just say that it involves someone who lives in El Salvador knowing someone who now works for AFSCME at UCLA. Ooh, you want to know now don´t you. Small, small world.

So, deb update is I am still visiting projects, starting to create materials for potential interns from the states, grad students, etc. Learning alot. Marianita accidentally erased about 50 pictures from my camera which was depressing, including shots of her performing this traditional dance at a great environmental fair that OIKOS put on. Sucks, but am trying to piece together important stuff from other people and just let it go.

As time passes I am getting to know the people in my neighborhood better and learning more about what people are dealing with. Some of it I feel is better shared in private conversations, but its a great experience to be slowly becoming part of everyday life here.

I went on a day trip with my friend from OIKOS, Hector. We went to a lagoon that someday I will be able to post a picture of, and a bunch of also beautiful towns north of here up in the mountains. (Cities Allegria, Berlin and others.)

I had a profoundly insensitive moment with two of my coworkers at OIKOS, reinforcing my awareness that I am totally immature and shouldn´t be allowed to travel or try to speak other languages. My friend Hector asked me to find the lyrics online to that George Michael song that goes ¨guilty feet have got no rhythm¨ and to Lady in Red, and I thought it was so, so, so cute I started laughing hysterically and couldn´t stop. A day later I was in the field with Hector and another friend Giovanni and I asked Giovanni what music he liked. ¨Rod Stewart and Phil Collins,¨ he answered and again, I don´t know if it was like a total mental breakdown or the stress of speaking Spanish all the time but again I just became hysterical for no reason. Ok, for the reason that Phil Collins reminds me of Disney movies. I just lost it. Zero to bonehead in 2 seconds. Giovanni looked slightly crestfallen, then like puzzled and Hector shrugged and said ¨She laughed at me too.¨ I tried to apologize, saying that it was music from my childhood, that I was not a typical person, that I only listen to angry depressed folk music, etc. but I just got the like talk to the hand. I think they have forgiven me but they may just be plotting revenge of some kind.

So, what else, I have been bonding with the baby. She comes under my mosquito net now at night for a few minutes and pretends to read with me and we hang out in the hammock sometimes and pretend to play cards and call eachother pelo loco about 25,000x per day. A couple of nights ago a commercial came on TV with two people making out while rolling down a hill together. (hard to describe, picture rolling down a hill, then picture two people sucking face while doing it.) She started rolling down the floor with her creepy white haired doll like exactly replicating the commercial then jumped up to her feet like ¨aren´t I funny?¨ and she was. (Perhaps this is a potentially disturbing example of her cuteness, I apologize.)

She almost killed a baby chicken yesterday. It was horrible and hilarious at the same time. She sneaks up on them and captures the little ones. It´s so cute, she has a little strategy, pretending she´s doing something else then pouncing. Yesterday the pollito was so freaked out it wasn´t moving and she had an attack of guilt and tried to make it eat corn, like putting its mouth to the ground. finally, teary eyed she gave up and left and the pollito, realizing she was gone, walked away shaken but basically unhurt.

I have been having a great time with Reina too who is also 26 and Taty´s Mom. We go on alot of walks, etc. (oh my god this is so boring, sorry.) I am going to San Salvador on the bus this afternoon to spend the weekend in the city and attend some staff meetings for CRISPAZ. Everything is good.

Hope you are all well.
I send my love and good vibes,
deb

Today is Wednesday, June 21. Today I spent the day in the office dealing with LA stuff, jobs, grad school stuff. Details. As per usual I am freaking out about decisions but oh well.

I hope everyone is well. I am well, but extremely hot and missing my family and neices alot. I figured I should say something on the blog but am not feeling too witty.

The past two weeks I have been accompanying the guys on trips to various communities to find leaders and do evaluations of different projects. I enjoy it so much, taking the pickup into isolated communities in the mountains and having great grammatically incorrect conversations. Yesterday I went to a community called Puerto Parada that had a latrine project that is just being completed. It was one of the first times I have been in places that are that isolated, practically surrounded by blindingly green, undeveloped land. One leader was spending the day camped out by a placid lagoon fishing/farming for shrimp. The place had a strange feeling about it for me. It was beautiful and sad at the same time, isolated and completely still.

I have a rather ominous pain in my stomach today. In my mind´s eye I have vivid fantasies of little work guys in yellow hard hats carrying clipboards around organizing my bodily functions like a construction site. The little men are conscientious and sincere and they work hard. (¨nice work on that dehydration issue, Frank.¨ etc.) However, every once in awhile, Ron the foreman just can´t get his men to fall in line and frustrated throws the clipboard aside and slams his hardhat on the ground yelling profanities and storming away, temporarily giving up, overwhelmed. Thats when Deb gets dihare, diha, how the &%$" do you spell that? I give up.
I have similar fantasies about little mosquito families, though I can´t decide if they are like rabid, drooley, vampirous little beasts or more like miners with mouths to feed, moving toward the work, aka. the great white juicy sleeping beast under the mosquito net.

Anyway, my Spanish is definitely getting better (I had a whole functional conversation on the phone today) and I am getting more and more at ease with my host family. One thing I can say now for sure that is hard is that recently I have become more aware of how entrenched ideas of whiteness and beauty are (here, everywhere perhaps) and it´s heartbreaking. When I hang out with the preteen girls in my neighborhood, sometimes I am aware that they look at my clothes and my skin and on some level sometimes it hurts them because they are surrounded by ideas that white skin is prettier. (not all the time and, of course I´m not a mindreader, its just a sense.) My host sister who is 11 calls me ¨Debora Buen Rostro¨ with a sort of accusatory flourish. At first I thought it meant like Deborah the major pain in my "·/&%, but literally I guess its like Deborah good face, which I have to admit eased my mind a little.

One kid who I am really close to drew a picture of me that said pretty and a picture of her and her brother and cousin that said, the ugly ones. I felt so heartbroken. I crossed out feos and wrote in spanish, very very very very pretty. She smiled at me but I don´t know what´s in her head. A gesture like that feels so lame and insignificant but at least she knows what I think. That and I know now to be careful with her in a certain way, knowing that she has those feelings. Its so wrong, just so wrong because if you met this kid you would probably think, that kid is radiant. She´s physically gorgeous but more important she´s tough, athletic, witty, sweet, funny, all of these things. She has a sophisticated sense of humor, a beautiful smile and is really humble. What do you say? I don´t know what to say. It sucks.

I´m off. it would be nice to hear from you people.
Later homies, I send hugs and smoochies.

Deb

PS Gema if you read this can you email me? I heard a rumor that the car was giving you ---- and I wanted to ask you about it. thanks.

June 12, 2006

I have been in my new home in Concepcion Batres for a week now and things are going well. I was sick last week before coming out but it passed almost as soon as I got here which was a huge blessing.

We dropped Mariah off in her community last Tuesday and visited the literacy center and radio station where she will be interning. They did an impromptu interview with us and much to my great horror I went into the booth first. The DJ was like a one-man show, lots of energy, fast talking and I was just praying that I understood his questions. It went fine, it was a total kick actually though I´m sure I sounded like a five year old (what did you see in san salvador? Uh, churches, and the market and the UCA!!! Tell us about yourself!! Uh, my name is Deb, I´m from Iowa!! Why did you want to come to El Salvador? Uh, because its an interesting place! and pretty! etc.)

So, briefly, at the last minute my host family was changed due to an illnesss in the family and I ended up living with a family who lives very close to my office. Manuel and Marina are the parents/grandparents, Reina is their daughter, she is 26, and she has a daughter named Tatiana who is 2 and hilarious all the time. Marina II, as I call her and her brother who I think is 12 are the children of Manuel and Marina´s son who lives in North Carolina.

Their house is comparatively more comfortable than most. I have a bed and consistent electricity, fans, tv, etc. We still bathe and do our business outside, but it is a really nice environment. The family is very open and confident which allows me to just be myself. I don´t feel pressure to understand everything all the time and we are communicating well so far. At least I don´t think I have offended anyone yet. :)

Marina and I hang alot and play UNO. She´s adorable, sweet, very mature and funny. I am like her giant, white pet in a good way. About six times a day she whispers with a big smile and sparkly eyes ¨Deborah, jugamos¨ Somehow she translates between me and all the adults. We (basically the whole family and the neighborhood kids including Tati) play baseball alot and Marina II is amazing. She´ll like go for the catch against all odds of physics, her gusto totally amazes me. She just kicks ass at baseball. Recently she figured out how to cheat at UNO, so I have to watch her like a hawk. I just learned the word tramposa (like trickster, shiester) which I use to address her almost all the time now.

I have tons more to say about them but will save it for another day. I am working for OIKOS an NGO that serves a set region near El Transito and Usulutan up towards the volcano Chaparrastique. Their three main goals involve the development of active citizenship, food security and natural disaster preparedness, which is a huge issue here. Its a hybrid of urban planning and community organizing. Everyone on the staff is really charming and I´m having a great time with them. Right now I can´t do much because of my language skills. I am making presentation boards for an NGO expo/feria tomorrow with another volunteer from Belgium. My job right now is to become familiar with the communities and go from there.

I hope everyone is well. Thanks for reading. I miss all of you.

deb