Let's catch up. It's been a while - Part I

Man, it's tough to stay on top of things. In an effort to cover a ton of info as quickly as possible, I'm blitzing you guys with a two part series consisting of massive amounts of photos and little intellectual thought.

Why?

Well, for starters I'm a month behind on my blog and in that time a lot's gone down. A quick list: visited El Salvador's congress with my buddy Will, helped my community complete a $1,000 USAID rabbit project, organized a free eye care event, hitchhiked around Guatemala for a week, spent Thanksgiving on the beach with an embassy family, hosted about 100 guests and couchsurfers at my house, threw two christmas parties, made shampoo with my women's group, and harvested honey with my buddy Cowboy Carlos.

Add to that the fact that mom and Ellie arrive tomorrow (yikes!) and you can see why I'm rushing to get this stuff out. So here's your whirlwind tour of what's new in the neighborhood...


Rrrrrrrrrrabbbits

Awww, aren't they cute? Thanks to the nice people at USAID, I eat one every week. Fact.




Eye care event

Imagine that, we have smoke-damaged eyes and can't afford $20 subsidized glasses. Arg. Next step: fundraising to help people buy said glasses.




Mental note: despite what Muhammad Yunus says, micro lending does not always lead to a Nobel Peace Prize

Hey, what happens when a Salvadoran NGO gives farmers $10,000?

a) They form a solid, well-educated board of directors who meet regularly, delegate tasks, and quickly deal with problems when they arise.

b) They quickly mismanage funds, don't deal with the problem for two years, and hope that the banks don't notice they put their houses up as collateral.

I'll let you guess which one happened in my community. As this one deals with money, I'm totally keeping my distance. But training the new directive and improving the organization's reputation in the community is eating up a lot of my time. It's been a valuable experience, but one which I'll definitely draw from the next time I'm swept into a discussion on micro finance.

Here's Salva soberly explaining to the shareholders how if they don't come to meetings they'll never see their money again. Good times!




Thanksgiving at the beach

Every year, embassy families working in El Salvador extend their wings and take us fragile little peace corps birds into their adoptive nests to eat and drink like it's going out of style. As last year's turkey day was a bust, I was due. And this year, my buddy Will and I hit the jackpot.

We spent the week with probably the most open and generous embassy family imaginable. For security reasons, we can't use names. But suffice it to say, they were embassy bigwigs with stories you wouldn't believe. "You know who's an asshole? Kissinger. Man that guy used to get on my nerves..."

While our friends were in San Salvador networking their way to the top, listening to christian rock, and talking about the virtues of jesus (all true), Billy and I spent our days chilling in the pool, drinking chilled Sam Adams, and collecting shark teeth along the exposed shore at low tide.

Our host spent most of the day playing in the national golf tournament just down the road, but when he got home, we talked and enjoyed the good life. Our friend Charlotte showed up, and it was the definition of vacation.

Don't worry, mom. It didn't top turkey day in Maui. But it certainly came close.