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...

The molienda... every dentist’s worst nightmare

What the eff is a molienda, right? And why aren't you talking about stuff I care about? Like softball equipment and stoves and computer classes for poor people and waterfalls and the recent, epic gringo visit?

Relax chief, we'll get to the good stuff. But only after the cultural stuff. Jeez. Eat your food, tina.

So a molienda, what is it and why don't we do it in the states? Well for starters, we don't harvest sugar cane. We pay other countries to do it for us. But it turns out, we're the ones missing out.

The molienda is sort of like a community get together, centered around a giant boiling pot of sugar cane juice. The molienda owners cook the juice over a wood fire for what seems like 20 hours but is closer to 6 and as the night progresses people eat the cane juice as it changes from juice to honey to foam to caramel, which they pour into pans and whip up with wooden spoons until it hardens into little blobs of sugary goodness, called batidos.

Each molienda is put on by a few community members who harvest sugar cane. They alternate nights, until the cane runs out. Usually about 3 weeks or so.

I like it because it's a chance for everyone in the community to come together and just sorta chill. (Tell me again why I went house to house for months doing my census when I coulda just gone to the molienda a few times... Arg.) They stand around like awkward teenagers at a high school dance, everyone stealing glances, and gossiping or talking chambre. Good times.

Here are a few pics to give you a sense of what it's all about.

Step 1. Extract sugar cane juice. Starting at about 11 am, they run these oxen in circles for a bazillion hours. I said I could do it solo if they bought me a case of Raptor (think red bull but a flavor freakishly close to robutussin and waaay stronger). Anyway, they decided to go with the oxen. Pansies.



My buddy Lupe. Cool guy.



Step 2. Cook said juice in a giant pot for about 6 hours. Everyone takes turns stirring it up with the straining bucket contraption.





Step 3. Have everyone in your community come to watch said giant pot of sugar cane juice until it's cooked.



Somehow, one of the guys in charge magically knows the caramel's ready to be whipped up into batidos, so they pour it into the pans and everyone has a go. Afterwards people choose which ones turned out the best and pay a couple bucks for them.



It's really kind of a cool event and almost impossible for people to "get" unless they see it for themselves. Unfortunately, Chris, Chuck and Glen literally arrived the night after my community's sugar cane ran out, but maybe they'll catch next year's...

NewAddressNewAddressNewAddress

Well, not really. Just got a different PO box. And it’s sort of ridiculous that this matters considering the new box is less than a foot away from the old box, but the grumpy postal worker lady assured me that eventually she would get fed up and starting tossing everything in the trash. So with grumpy postal worker lady in mind, my new mailing address is:

Gabe The Gringo
Apartado Postal #16
Myterious town which c’mon it’s been a year you should know by now
Santa Ana
El Salvador

Also, I realize I'm waaaaay behind in my story time, kids, but rest assured I got some good ones coming...