Hello
Trip Start
Sep 18, 2005
1
3
Trip End
Dec 03, 2007
San Vicente,
El Salvador
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
My name is Armeda and I was in Ms. Hartline's class many years ago. I went to McKinleyville High and then attended Humboldt State University where I earned my bachelors in Cellular/Molecular Biology (basically I know a lot about cells). I had originally planned to go to medical school and later do humanitarian work (work to better the human condition) but decided my Junior year in college to go to graduate school. I moved to Texas to work on a PhD in Biochemistry (more cell stuff) and help humanity doing lab science. I soon realized I wanted to be helping people directly while living with them. I decided to join the Peace Corps. I moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to do a year of classes to earn my masters in conjunction with the Peace Corps.
So, what is the Peace Corps? It is an organization founded by JFK in 1961. United States citizens volunteer to live for two years and three months in a third world country where they learn the language and culture of the people and teach the people of that country what people from the United States are like. The official mission of Peace Corps is: To help the peoples of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained men and women; To help promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the peoples served; To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of the American people.
I have been sent to El Salvador, a country about the size of Massachusetts and is located in Central America.
Chickens in basket
It is still recovering from a 12 year civil war spanning the 1980s and a large earthquakes that destroyed anything standing after the war. Most people don't visit El Salvador because of its reputation for violence and of course the war being so recent. It is still relatively dangerous but as long as one knows how to stay safe it isn't too bad but it is still considered a "high crime threat post." Natural disasters are another thing that many fear and are plentiful at the moment. During our second week in country we had a volcanic eruption, torrential rains from hurricanes, flooding, landslides, earthquakes, encounter with a deadly coral snake, a car crash of Peace Corps language staff, and a rather unpleasant cold (from a weakened immune system from being cold and wet all the time).
The volcano Santa Ana started erupting two weekends ago but evacuations weren't done until after the first explosion and many areas were badly damaged. Evacuations started to occur soon after. The hurricanes that have been hitting the gulf area are also bringing a great deal of rain here along with the normal rainy season leading to flooding. Flooding occurred quickly because the ground is already fully saturated since we are towards the end of the rainy season. This led to landslides, which have become a huge problem. The landslides cause very dangerous conditions for traveling and all Peace Corps trainees and volunteers were restricted from traveling until the danger alert went down (this lasted a week).
Drying clothes
This may not seem like a big deal but our canton (very small village) has one store that sells chips and a few caramels and is only available for business if the people in the house next to it are outside to get us stuff. Our town is a compilation of houses along two roads and has no town center so it can get boring fast. Our Spanish instructors were still visiting us in our towns until a group of them were in a bad car crash after hydroplaning and all personal were grounded. The roads here are like the 101 in the mountains. When you crash you either go off a cliff or hit a wall of rock. The scary thing is that people drive in the wrong lane on blind corners and our only form of transportation to and from our town is on the back of a pickup. During the week I was coming home from some friends' house when I saw a little snake. I wasn't sure if it was dangerous or not but I decided to show my host brother just in case. He came out and looked at it then said it was incredibly deadly and grabbed and broom to hold it and a machete to cut it in half. He went and woke up his mom to show her and she said it had come because off the rains and it was rare to see them. I later told a Peace Corps staff member who told me it attacks the nervous system and your as good as dead if you get bitten. The good thing is that their heads are pretty small so it is relatively hard for them to bite unless they get a finger or toe.We were eventually allowed to come back to San Vicente (our training town) for a trip to San Salvador (the capital) to visit the main Peace Corps office.
Flooding
While we were between buses we had a 6.2 earthquake (it was a 4 in San Salvador). By the time we made it to the main office all unnecessary staff had been evacuated because there was another fear of landslides because the again the ground was saturated which would lead to more landslides with earthquakes. Additionally, the office had flooded quite a bit already that week. We found out later that day there had been a volcanic eruption in Guatemala as well. My old roommate is living on a volcano in Guatemala and I have not been able to find out yet if it was his volcano and if he made it out safely. Communication has been pretty difficult here with all that has been going on.Life here isn't all disasters and struggling to survive. I have a great host family. My host mom makes great meals, my host brother is awesome to talk with (and his Spanish is easy to understand which is important) and my host sister is really good at teaching me how to make tortillas. We have three cats right now. The kitten is 8 months old but looks to be about 2-3 months old. Her mom is pregnant right now and will be having her kittens this month. The kitten was the only survivor of 4 kittens but I hope more survive this birth. The third cat is a male cat who loves walking me to the latrine at night. We have a hammock in our living room and I love laying in it (I am actually laying in it while I write this eating a juicy orange and the little kitten is laying on me). All the trainees are split up with 3-4 living in each community surrounding San Vicente. A married couple live right next door to me so we hang out a lot. Their mom makes chocolate covered bananas so they always hook me up. Last night we were able to watch a movie (my computer wasn't working during the hard rains because it was too humid). Today we will likely watch a movie at their place (with my computer) and their mom will make us popcorn on the stove (the best kind). They have their own computer but it requires a three prong plug-in and the walls here only have two. Well, that is a quick introduction to who I am and what I have been up to my first couple weeks of training.
Feel free to ask me questions about things you would like to know more about.
Sincerely,
Armeda
