Trashy trash

Still working on getting those Nica photos up. But it's been a long time sinced I've posted anything, so in the meantime here's some pics from our latest recycling day.

We organized it through our community's school and about 30 kids participated. Here's one of em. Before we split up for the day, his shirt caught my eye. I love it. This world is so damn small...



Salva doing his part. After a while, the kids turned it into a competition and insisted on carrying everything. Is it child labor if they want to do it?



Anyway, in total we collected a couple hundred pounds worth of plastic bottles throughout our community. We have a guy who buys them off us and the money goes towards the school. Less bottles for dengue mosquitoes to breed in and dinero for the bichos. There ya go.

On the importance of reducing household smoke emissions

<<<NYTimes article - April 15, 2009>>>

"... Decreasing black carbon emissions would be a relatively cheap way to significantly rein in global warming — especially in the short term, climate experts say. Replacing primitive cooking stoves with modern versions that emit far less soot could provide a much-needed stopgap, while nations struggle with the more difficult task of enacting programs and developing technologies to curb carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels."

<<<Stove Team International>>>

"... In fact, reducing black carbon is one of a number of relatively quick and simple climate fixes using existing technologies — often called “low hanging fruit” — that scientists say should be plucked immediately to avert the worst projected consequences of global warming. “It is clear to any person who cares about climate change that this will have a huge impact on the global environment."

Los osos de malas noticias *

For this story, you need to know a few things. First off, Jimbo, my notoriously hairy buddy often featured in my blog and fellow peace corps volunteer ≠ Kimbo, the equally notorious streetfighter who probably could grow a beard just by thinking about it. Maybe to avoid any confusion, I’ll start using nicknames.

So Ridiculously Hairy Jimbo lives an utterly horrible life in a picturesque town on the gentle slopes of a volcano, full of beautiful people who couldn’t be more open and nice. That's right, Absurdly Hairy Jimbo’s site is literally on the side of a 7,000 ft volcano. Horrible.

Because of this, or maybe because of the abject poverty, who knows, the kids up there have never played baseball before and have never used mitts, baseballs, or any sort of equipment. Cue Gabe with his giant hockey bag full of bats and gloves courtesy of my man Mark Erlandson. Thanks again, Mark!

To get the kids out and excited for physical activity that doesn't involve hauling 100 lb sacks of fertilizer, Surprisingly Hairy Jimbo invited me to come up and help run a day-long baseball camp for his community's kids. Nothing too complicated, just a few workshops teaching the fundamentals.

I jumped at the chance, convinced there would be a reward in my future for my selfless, humanitarian acts (read: cold beer). And I guess the whole helping salvadoran youth and checking out Suspiciously Hairy Jimbo’s community thing kinda influenced me too.

Jimbo did some great promo work beforehand, including using the nearby church's voice of god PA system (I gotta get one of those) to command kids to attend our camp, as if god himself were a baseball fan. In the end, over 30 bichos came, albeit an hour late. We rotated them through stations, taught them how to spit and grab their crotch, and got a few of them to at least admit beisbol was kind of a cool sport. But nowhere as cool as futbol.

Here are a few pics from the weekend.

Infield drills. More than a few kids took a couple hard grounders to the face. Como se dice "walk it off, kid"



Wendell giving some batting tips. Get that elbow up, punk!



Aw, look at that kid kinda sorta backing up his friend, just like I taught him



We ended the afternoon with a little homerun derby competition. How'd they do? Um, well, there's always tee ball...



Stylishly Hairy Jimbo, handing out the bribes, I mean snacks



Davebo showing em how it's done



Happy future MLB'ers



Improbably Hairy Jimbo and Wendell enjoying a bromantic moment together



A few excerpts from our 9 hour (I wish I were joking) game of cribbage, following the camp







All in all, an awesome time giving a little taste of the old US of A to El Salvador's youth. And if anyone has any football equipment, send it on down!

* Title translation: The Bad News Bears. Please tell me you've seen it.

What the hell just happened?

I think this picture of Chuckie sums it up best.


What a week. Words can't come close to describing it. But it's been almost a month and I need to get something up. So I'll let Chuck’s photos do the talking. Enjoy!

Chris and me in the back of Orlando's pickup, bombing through the mountains of Guatemala at 80 mph.


Orlando with his new baby, back in El Sal.


A few rockstar volunteers in training who were visiting my community for their immersion weekend. They're gonna be great PCVs.


Chuck's special delivery. Here I am opening up a box of keyboards and mice donated by Dana's (Chuck's fiancée) high school in Hingham, Mass. Incredible!


A tour of the community with my boy Carlos. Unfortunately, Chuck was the camera man for the week and there aren't that many shots of him.


My vote for the shortest woman in El Salvador. I've already contacted the folks at Guinness World Records. She's super sweet.




Playing the touch the cow game, which apparently I suck at.


After a day of hiking around my community, swimming in the river and meeting families on three hours sleep, we were a little tuckered out.


But we soldiered on... and headed to the beach. This country's small, but has a lot to offer.










Jimbo and his buddy Dave, who I couldn't help but call the human tennis ball for the week. Such a cool guy.


Um...


After the beach, we headed up to Juayua, where cool temps and strong coffee attract travelers from all over.




Los Chorros de la Calera


Chris in the famous tunnel, a 100 meter passage cutting through the side of a mountain where, for a five meter stretch, the ceiling dips and you're forced to dive under and swim through the tunnel dragging your hand on the ceiling until you feel air and reach a small cavern. If you're brave enough to attempt it, you're rewarded with an incredible swim out through a waterfall on the other side of the mountain.




Campo dance party!






Goodbye dinner with the fam.




The girls were obsessed with rabbit ears and back massages.


So we returned the favor. Sidenote: Chris and Chuck were rockstars down here. Eating everything, trying their best at Spanish (no tengo pene! - priceless), respecting the culture, embracing my salvo and PCV friends. Love you guys!


After trying a different route and quickly getting lost in the Guatemala mountains turning a four hour trip into a seven hour epic adventure, we arrived at Guat City's international airport.


The definition of a successful vacation.


I guess I'll just say that the trip was a powerful experience for everyone.

For my buddies, it was an exotic, crazy trek through one of the murder capitals of the world. (Still amazed they actually came.) For me, it really drove home the point that Gabe at 29 is a very different person than Gabe at 24. Maybe even than Gabe at 28.

It would be an understatement to say I view the world through a different lens, but having just passed my one year anniversary, it couldn't be more true.

Looking forward to showing the next group all the amazing things this country has to offer.

February was a crazy month

Actually, the definition of a crazy month. I think if I try really hard I can count how many hours I slept.

A week of translating for the eye campaign, a few days later the epic eyeglass express, the molienda every night, and the wrap up/graduation party of my first computer class (look at em, aren’t they cute?). Sidenote: we started with 8 and finished with 3. I pity the fool who tries to show up to Gringo Gabe's computer class 15 minutes late...



And to cap it off, a kickass AIDS workshop at Lauren’s site.

The AIDS event was just as you’d expect. Lauren convinced 8 of us to come to Juayua and give an AIDS charla to local youth and a group of health promoters. (Hey, wanna come and chill out for a few days in a ridiculously beautiful coffee town? Um... yeah!) Anyway, health promotors are sort of like traveling nurses in charge of rural communities. They work out of their community's local public health clinic, called a Unidad de Salud.

So basically the idea was that we were enlightening kids and health professionals about AIDS and the ways it's transmitted so they can then enlighten their communities. Cool. Got it? It's kind of PC in a nutshell. Anyone else picture Austin Powers in a nutshell? O...kay, moving on...

Here are a few photos of rockstar PCVs gettin' it done



Namitha and Emily... with their award-winning smiles



Dr. Rolando Cedillos, the country's leading AIDS expert, along with his world-famous stick figure sex drawings. We pretty much invited him just to see them again. Ok kidding. He's a kickass presenter and an all-around awesome guy. Fact. He also pulls off the nearly impossible, educating adults on a pretty touchy subject and making them laugh about it.











Maria's testimonial of her personal struggle with AIDS. Very powerful.



Here's Will wrapping it up. Basically reiterating that it's each person's responsibility to educate others and keep spreading the message. Sidenote: pay no attention to the little girl in the background fleeing the building like it's on fire. Billy gave a great speech in kickass spanish. Living in Spain and exploring the world generally does that.



In general, it was a huge success. But there was a moment that I just can’t forget. Kind of sums up a lot of our frustrations here.

As an ice breaker activity, we led a true or false game where we read off statements and people moved to either side of the room depending on whether or not they agreed with the statement. So for example, if I said kit kats are the greatest candy on earth and you disagreed with that because you're a rational human being and c’mon they’re good but clearly sour patch kids are way better, or reese’s cups, or even milky ways. Anyway, sidetracked for a sec. The idea was that you moved to the side you agreed with. Got it.

Well one of the statements was "prayer can cure AIDS" which I would call a no brainer along the lines of can mosquitos give you AIDS. Yet 30 of the health promoters moved to the true side leaving about 10 people on the false side. 3 of which were PCVs. And when I cleared up what I meant, two more crossed over. Arg. These are health promoters! This country’s first line of defense. These are the people educating the people who don’t get an education. Double arg.

Anyway, it was a kickass time. I love it up there. And we even managed to blow off some steam afterwards at the waterfalls...