I’m not sure if you guys noticed this yet, but Obama won the election. Crazy. I’m gonna say that again. Obama won the election. He’s gonna be the next president. Still shocks me a little when I see that. You guys are probably over it by now, but we live in a bit of a bubble down here so it’s still news to me.

As usual, the onion pretty much summed up how I feel.

<<<I love the onion>>>

Anyway, it was an amazing night for us down here as I’m sure it was for all of you bleeding hearts up north. Rest assured we were fortunate enough to watch it as it happened, albeit through a haze of dollar beers and dollar-fifty whiskey shots.

I'm not gonna bore you with too many details, but imagine PCVs from every corner of the country descending on the capital and taking over, since we're a classy bunch, a TGIF’s our buddy rented out (15 pieces of flair!) to experience it live. For a while you really didn’t even feel like you were in a third-world country. We were surrounded by gringos in an american restaurant eating buffalo wings and watching the polls come in. But then you stepped outside and boom - pollution, poverty and prostitutes. Yikes. Here are some pics from the night.





Boston Joe, aka Zagats El Salvador, aka Peace Corps El Sal's unofficial party planner



I liked Will's latest description of Jimbo's beard: "looks like he's eating a hamster in one bite." So true. God knows how many creatures are living inside of that thing...





The moment they announced the win... pandemonium.









To help with the shock of actually winning an election... Wait, hold on a sec. Have I ever won an election? Hmm, let's see.

Gore - nope.

Kerry - nope.

Gov. Romney? - hell no.

Ah, now I remember. Deval. Okay, I got one.

Anyway, after so much craziness with the election and all, a few of us went to the beach to celebrate our friend Lauren’s birthday and oh yeah, history being made. We rented a house for 50 bucks and celebrated our freedom the only way americans know how, with copious amounts of booze and fireworks. Good times.













AIDS is bad

I know you know that. And even people around here know that. But if you ask them what exactly it is, or even better, how to prevent it, you get some pretty interesting answers. Especially the people who go off on how AIDS can only be cured by prayer... hmmm...

... and so to help counteract stuff like that, Peace Corps just threw a weeklong AIDS workshop up in the western hills. The idea was for volunteers to invite active people in their communities to be trained and hopefully help out with future workshops in the communities. Naturally I invited Salvador and we had a kickass time.

In general, we were bombarded with an impressive amount of lectures and workshops during the day. Pretty much all you could ever want to know about AIDS, the history of the disease, and most importantly, techniques for discussing the topic, which is pretty damn taboo in such a conservative country. But then at night we were free to relax by the fires and just hang out.

Below are some pics from the conference and the charla we gave at a local school to practice what we'd learned.

I sorta look like a monkey...

The whole experience was pretty cool and both Salva and I left feeling pumped to organize some events in our community. He seemed to be really impressed by it all and, at the very least, it was a weeklong vacation for him, which he desperately needed (he's like the definition of a workaholic). Now let's see if I can actually bring any of this to my community...

Computers in the Campo

Something else you all might find interesting... Eventhough we lose power every so often, and a decent amount of the community poops in their backyards, our school has computers! Sort of. You can see in the photo that they're not exactly in tip top shape. Four don't even work, and the six others haven't been used in over two years and kinda smell like cat piss. Nice. But I talked to a kid in my community who's actually a computer geek and we're fixing up the computers to start teaching some informal computer classes. Only a couple times a week, but it's a start.

This is all part of my plan, Operacion Abre la Puerta, which will hopefully figuratively and literally open the doors of the school to the community, who have pretty much written off the school director as corrupt and useless. Did I mention they've tried to sue him twice? And half the community sends their kids to a school half an hour away? Anyway, I've started teaching english classes there once a week to get parents back in the school and maybe, poco a poco, parents will get more supportive. We'll see how it goes.

Our school's computer room, aka, put everything you don't want to deal with room.



That's it for now. I'll keep you updated as much as I can. In other news, with all the traveling I’ve been doing this month, I’m flat broke. No seriously, I have a dollar left in my bank account... and I need it to last until December 1st.

Wish me luck!