If pooping in your pants is cool, then I’m Miles Davis

Oh jeez. I don’t know where to start.

The past few weeks have been loco. Just plain crazy fun. For starters, if any of you guys happened to be at the local hospital in Santa Ana for the past couple days, you might have been surprised to see me. That’s right. Sick again. And pretty bad this time. Like every 30 minutes bad. Like mid-sentence apologize to whoever I'm with and run bad. But now when someone asks me have you ever sprinted from the middle of a soccer game into the woods, desperately snatching at every large leafy substance you see along the way, to have explosive diarrhea leaning up against a cow, I can say Yes, yes I have!

The good news is, I’m back on cipro and things are settling down again. My suggestion to you all if you do ever find yourself in this condition, is not to “gamble,” as it's known, and to suppress all urges to cough, sneeze, or even attempt a laugh. You will regret it. And so will the passengers on the bus next to you for the remaining hour of the trip.

Also, if any of you happened to be watching Hola, El Salvador yesterday morning, you might have been surprised to see a guy with a striking resemblance to me whitewater rafting with the Channel 12 news reporter. Yep, that was me in the Manchester United jersey and goofy helmet. Some guys in my community (who actually all live in East Boston) invited me for the day because their cousin owns a whitewater rafting company and resort 10 minutes from my community. I went expecting dinky rafts and a tranquil river and couldn't have been more wrong. It was amazing. I'd gone rafting on the Kennebec when I was 15, but this was infinitely better. Rafting through a canyon, watching the bats skim for bugs along the surface of the water, and having a big guy right behind me barking commands in Spanish at me was unreal. I can't wait to do it again... with you guys. Hint hint.

A side note: despite its short life, it sounds like the stache made quite an impression. Jewish pornographer. Disco king. All-around sketchy dude. Ha. You guys are pretty creative. No argument here. I actually was the one who couldn’t handle it in the end and mach 3’ed it off. Well, to be honest, I couldn’t handle how much everyone loved it. And not because I looked like Magnum PI or any of the dudes from tombstone. The other volunteers were clearly enjoying it in the bad way. I also hated that whenever I sat next to a mother and her daughter on the bus, the mom subtly clutched her daughter closer and watched me out of the corner of her eye. So the stache had to go. But don’t worry, it will return! Sort of like Indiana Jones, except I won’t be all wrinkly and apparently suck (haven’t seen it yet, just what I’ve heard).

Okay, back to what’s new. Last week, in addition to enjoying the consequences of eating delicious delicious street food, I convened a general assembly in my community. Sounds fancy pants but really it’s just an official sounding town meeting, the point of which was to share the results of the census that I’ve been doing. Long story short, a good amount of people showed up, and it turned into an hour-long discussion on what we wanted to see change in our community. We agreed to form a Health Committee (to organize health campaigns) and a Sports Committee (to organize tournaments and raise funds to repair the field). Perfect! I was stoked. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Another thing. I was telling Glen this a while back. Not sure if he even remembers. But it's this new feeling I’ve had lately now that I’m at my site. It’s weird. Kind of like every moment mattering.

Unlike our first couple months in San V, my life here isn’t with a “training family” or host community that I’m just passing through and practically never gonna see again. I’m here for good. So as a result, every conversation I have is super intense, and every activity changes my relationship with the person I'm with. It's pretty cool. Also, since my family here is my family, I try to spend as much time with them as possible and I don’t get a lot of down time to write and connect with everyone. That's the downside. Sorry. But that leads to the topic of visiting...

Okay, visiting. This is starting to come up a lot. Airfare from Boston to San Salvador is hovering between 700 and 800. Really, really pricey. But, airfare from Boston to Guatemala City a few hours away is a mere 350. Who knows why. My philosophy is who the hells cares why! Let’s take advantage of it!

Mi dirección

A bunch of you keep losing my mailing address so here it is, minus the town where I live. For security reasons, we're not allowed to post our exact location. But just email me and Í'll tell you:

Gabriel Cohen
Apartado Postal #19
Mysterious Town
El Salvador
Centro America

Small padded envelopes (with a few cds, etc.) go right through. But I've heard packages will get opened/taxed. Somebody actually told me that if you're sending me something new, you should open it up and make it look used so they won't throw BS customs tax on it. That kinda makes me laugh.

One month down

This Friday makes it one whole month at my site. Yippee! What a blur. To be honest, I couldn’t tell you what I’ve done each day. That's kind of funny. I should be keeping a better journal. But what I do know, however, is that I pass out in my hammock every night beat tired but really, really happy. Tired because I spend most of my days walking around, visiting families doing my community census. And happy because I am having the time of my life. I honestly don’t think I’d change a thing. I love it all. Even my bats. Somebody told me they’re slowly poisoning me, but secretly I love them. I love that they’re eating all the moths and mosquitos in my room and then crapping it out on me while I sleep. It’s beautiful really. And my house and host family are sweet. Really, really cool. But there's so much more. Hmm, maybe the best way to tell you all is to break it down. Okay, here goes...

The location: For security reasons, I can’t spell out exactly where I live. But what I can say is that my mysterious community is relatively small (about 150 houses) and is just outside a decently-sized city a stone’s throw from the Guatemalan border. Most of you know by now anyway so no biggie.

The fam: I live with a young couple and their four little girls. The dad actually lived in Boston for a number of years and worked three jobs to save up money for a life back here. Actually, what’s sort of amazing is that everyone in my community has done that. It’s crazy. There’s a huge salvadoran population in East Boston and every time I mention that I’m from there, 20 people are like oh yeah, I have three uncles there and my dad’s in JP right now. Crazy.

The digs: I have my own house. Yep, my own house. I’m pretty much in heaven. It’s huge, has a bunch of porches, a flush toilet (no more temple of doom pit latrines!) and the community even chipped in and got me a fridge. It’s ridiculously nice. Just imagine relaxing in a hammock in the shade on a hot day and eating chilled mangos. It’s indescribable.

The work: At first, I took a tour of my community and asked myself what the hell I was doing here. They have big houses. Everyone’s got electricity and a fridge. The women get together and play softball twice a week. But then I starting doing my census and asking questions and realized there’s actually A LOT of work to do. Oh, your kids go swimming in the river? That’s nice. Oh, and your family drinks the river water? Um, I guess that’s nice too. Oh, and you don’t have a latrine so you just sort of go over there, huh? Suh-weet. Now we’re talking.

So what else do you guys want to know about? The layout? The food? Just keep sending those questions.