How do I sum up my trip back home? Well first off, it’s taken me until now to be able to write about it...

Gotta say this right off the bat, I had a great time. Good people, great food, and comfortable beds. Although I did secretly miss my hammock.

It's impossible for me to describe what it was like to be back in the states after 6 months abroad. In so many ways you feel good to be home but in so many other ways you feel like some sort of a martian, out of place in the land of gringos and organic lettuce. For the most part, life is exactly as you left it, but something's off. You suddenly realize you feel completely different. Not that you don't enjoy every minute of being there. It's just that you feel a little off. And that's when you realize the reverse culture shock is kicking in.

Plus, seeing everyone was so bittersweet. I had so much fun, but sometimes it was tough to detach and just be in the moment without thinking about what an average Tuesday night looks like back "home" in El Sal. Or what the next steps are for my water project. Or if the community member I asked to fax the list of names for the stoves is actually gonna do it (she did it - yay!). You basically just walk around like a zombie with your consciousness split in two like a grapefruit. Partly because you're on vacation, and I've never been able to leave my work behind. And also because you've worked so hard to adapt and create something of a life down here, you just feel disrupted, like your legs were kicked out from under you.

Anyway, this is coming out all wrong. I had an awesome time. And everyone should know that. The challenges of readjusting were real, but they're already in the past. Maybe you guys will feel the same after you spend a week here. Who knows. And on that note, here's a brief recap of the craziness that was my two weeks stateside.

The wedding of all weddings

What’s a really good way to make your wedding day unforgettable? Have a hurricane pass through on the same day! Sweet. It was honestly a weird experience going from bucket baths and riding in pickup trucks through Guatemala to then be standing there in a blue blazer eating cucumber hors doeuvres and sipping prosecco. That’s like the definition of culture shock. But it was worth it in the end to see everyone and finally be at one of my friends’ weddings. I’d missed too many important ones before to pass on this.







Chuck getting the talking to from the new bride. Wait wait wait. Whaddya mean I can’t bring two loaded coolers down to the lobby?



Other highlights from my trip

Dipping my toes into the Atlantic and remembering how f-ing cold it is. Puts hair on yer chest!

Visting Chuck's dad, the famous Mr. Mac, and helping Chuckie make the big move.

Seeing Mearns and Bridie, who are now, sadly, cat people.

Mearns donating the "burrito bat" to my community. Photos on their way, big guy.

Playing the would you rather game with Travis, the guy who I’m pretty sure invented the game, and seeing Jillian, who is the breath of fresh air in the smokey bar that is my life.

Trader Joes. Frozen indian food and cheap wine. Sigh.

The tripple cripple! It’s no longer a pub crawl from Fenway to Allston-Brighton, but it’s still a hell of a good time. And I got to see Mo once again. Speaking of which, thanks again for the dr. bronners peppermint soap. A cold bucket bath + peppermint soap is better than a pot of coffee, by the way.

Lobster night at Ellie’s. Deep down I secretly wanted lemon chicken and ice cream with chocolate mud, Ellie, but I guess lobster's pretty good too.

Seeing my mom and her new place, which is completely empty except for some carrots and hummus in the fridge. Mom, you work too hard.

Golfing with my dad and the boys. Did I mention culture shock?

Monday night football with the guys. Wow, I’ve lost my tolerance.

Seeing Scott’s baby photos. Scott, do you always carry a photo album of your newborn wherever you go? You’re such a proud papa.

Trying to get my friends to eat "rabies meat"

Seeing my sister-in-law’s ginormous belly. Jamie, I’m still pushing for Gabriella...

Going to the James’ Gate every other night, and trying as many different beers as possible to retrain my tastebuds what the hell an IPA is...

But then remembering that I can only have three beers now without passing out.

So fun. Here are some pics.









So many good times, it’s tough to write them all down. In general though, I just liked being around you all and hanging out like the good ol days. Awww. Sappiness.

Jimbo's visit

So when I got back, my head was messed up. Couldn’t really focus and finally broke down and talked to my boss. No surprise, she was pretty cool about it. Basically told me to ride it out and maybe talk to my gringo friends in country to help me get back in the groove. Meanwhile, she’s also helping out my buddy Jimbo to not stress so much about the challenges of his site. Basically told him to go on vacation and chill with another gringo for a few days. See where this is going? Well of course you do. This section is called Jimbo’s visit after all. Anyway, it worked. Jimbo helped me talk it out and drink all those beers I accidentally bought when I heard he was coming. And I helped him see that half my projects are failing and he needs to chill the f out about his site.

All in all, it was an awesome weekend. Went for a run, played softball with the new equipment, and caught up with a good friend. Here are a few pics from the visit. And yes, ladies, he is single. But you gotta act fast. I’ve never seen anyone grow facial hair like this guy and he’s doing two more months of that thing. Yikes. Hmm, so maybe you should wait a bit. I dunno.

Jimbo teaching my 6 year old host sister tic tac toe...



And then proceeding to peg her in the face with a baseball. Good times. We iced her face and she seems to have recovered. Only has a slight lisp now... and can’t pronounce certain words, but she’s doing great.









Ha ha. I love this photo of Jimbo out in right field. Jimbo’s facial expression = priceless.



Softball equipment from heaven

Quick story. You never know what you’re gonna get when you place an ad on craigslist. There’s just so much crazy shit on there, it’s like playing some sort of lottery. Well, I won the frickin lottery.

Mark, an incredibly generous man, who keeps impressing me more and more with his kindness, responded to my post and met me downtown to donate what I thought would be just a bunch of gloves. I had no idea what was in store for me. When I showed up, he was waiting there for me with a huge hockey-sized bag full of equipment. Mitts, bats, batting gloves, and a ton of softballs. Real ones. The ones that sting when you catch them. Had to leave a bunch of stuff behind in the states (food, clothes, chainsaw!) to get it all in under the weight restrictions, but when I brought it back, my community flipped. They just couldn’t believe how much stuff somebody just gave us. And without asking for anything in return. Well, he did want something... photos. Can you believe that? What a great guy. Well, my friend, here’s your first batch



Hey, Jenn Bos, does that glove look familiar? Thanks again for donating it!





Bottom line, I think if our team had a name, they’d vote to rename it after him.

Also, just last week, a local newspaper took our team's photo from my blog and some quotes lifted from my emails with Mark and wrote an article about Mark and his donations. It was awesome.

<<<Check it out>>>

The catch, I told them to hold the article until after my Country Director gave the go ahead. Doh. She was actually the one who told me about the article and congratulated me on the project... and then gently reminded me I dodged a bullet. Phew. No harm, no foul. I'll let you all know of any new developments, but hopefully good things will continue to come from this.

Oh man, so much more I want to write about... hunting armadillos, my weeklong birthday celebrations, building a retaining wall, my ADESCO elections... but this is getting ridiculous. If I were you, I would've stopped reading 10 minutes ago.

I hope all is well back home. Miss you all and can’t wait to see you again.

G

ps. and you thought I was joking.

pps. they sort of taste like turkey, oddly enough.

Update on contacting me

Okay, prepping the mother of all blog entries to somehow capture the awesome craziness that was my two weeks back home.

But in the meantime, a bunch of folks were telling me I need to clarify how the hell you all can contact me. So here we go...

Gabriel Cohen
Apartado Postal #19
Mysterious town which I cannot name but exists, I swear!
El Salvador

For security reasons, PCVs are not allowed to post their exact locations. I'd literally get a phone call a few days later from the country director nicely telling me to delete that shit immediately. So if you want my exact town, just email me. Or bug Ben, or Kate, or Zach and Liz. They've gotten stuff through no problem.

Also, calling me. You can call me directly here on my cell. No need to worry if you don't know spanish, who's going to pick up, etc. You can pick up one of those international calling cards but the connection's generally crappy and I've heard they rip you off. I'd suggest using <<<skype>>> which costs 17 cents a minute and seems to have a perfect connection. You gotta set up an account and buy "skype credit" on their webpage, but even you, non-techno savvy father, could pull it off. Vamos a ver.

Okie doke, that should do it. Off to do rural and healthy things. Peace.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...

No, not your immigrants. I'm talking about your baseball equipment! The picture above is of my community's pickup softball team. We play every other night, and for many of the women who play, it's their only time to have fun out of the kitchen.

As you can see, there is only one glove in the photo. And even in the week that's passed since I took this photo, it's disintegrated even more. Pretty much just a heap of cheap leather and plastic. The rest of the girls play barehanded and believe me, it hurts. They're so much tougher than me it's crazy.

So, with that in mind, please do me a huge favor and search your basements, attics, garages, yard sales, whatever!, for any kind of softball equipment and donate what you can. If something ends up costing 5 bucks, don't worry, I'll pay you back or buy it off you. I'll be back in Boston in a week (woo hoo!) and am leaving a ton of space in my pack for mitts, softballs, anything you guys might not be using that, TRUST ME, we will put to good use down here.

Lastly, just to review the basics of El Salvador's economy...

The average pay for a day's labor = $6
The average cost of a meal = $1.50
The average cost of a cup of coffee = 25 cents

The average cost of a softball = $5
The average cost of a mitt = $40

Think about it...

Coffee coffee buzz buzz buzz

Lousy picture of my host mom's kitchen, but at least you can get a sense of how smoky a salvadoran kitchen gets...


Step 1. Buy a pound of coffee. 80 cents here. No idea what raw coffee beans cost in the states.
Step 2. Toast it in a comal for about an hour.
Step 3. Grind that shit up!

But, um, yeah, the whole "growing it yourself in a shady high-altitude cloud forest" thing... you’re on your own.

This is our new dog. I know, she’s adorable! She even winks! No, wait, that’s a severe eye infection from a recent bite wound. Well, at least we’re gonna nurse her back to health. No, wait, in the short time she’s been living with us, she’s actually lost weight and acquired a decent amount of puncture wounds (our yellow lab is literally tearing her to pieces whenever it’s feedin time). Great.

See? Sweet wound, huh?

You can't really see it here, but the bite wound is huge and nasty, with this big white thing in the middle. My buddy Salva said it was actually part of a bone sticking out and he dared me to touch it (I didn’t, but it wasn’t). Side note: I’m not one to back down from a bet, but in the two weeks we’ve had this mutt, it’s already managed to bite pretty much every member of our family, including our 3 year old and 5 year old. Nice! Great for a family with little girls. Rest assured that, at least as of this morning, I’ve managed to remain ten fingered.

Also, a handful of you keep reminding me that I’m not really doing a good job blogging. Thanks for keeping me on my toes. Also, you’re all pricks. But despite your prickishness, you’re right! So in-between reading my dilapidated (but loved) copy of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and listening to an unhealthy amount of Kings of Leon, this is how I spend my time:

Sports

When I’m not nursing a leg injury (Nomar Garciaparra, I’m sorry I ever doubted you), I play pickup softball and soccer every afternoon. Side note: being injured sucks. Especially when it’s your kicking foot in a country whose national sport is soccer. Anyway, being out there every afternoon has been awesome. And nothing builds confianza better than getting cleated in the knees and getting right up to knock the guy down the next time he tries to come near you. The rest of the guys love it.

Reforming my ADESCO

An ADESCO (more or less Association for Community Development) is a group of people elected by the people of the community to work on community projects and make community-wide decisions. Did I mention community? Because that part’s pretty important. ADESCOs are a link between the people in rural communities and the mayor’s office in town. And they’re sort of like student council for grown ups, ie, with the power to impose taxes and/or solicit the American government for gringos. I find them actually kind of fascinating. They came about after the civil war ended in the 90s as a compromise between the two sides (leftist peoples party and the right wing govt). They were a way for communities to have more say in how their government was run. At least I think that’s why they were formed. I might have been dozing off during that part of training. Anyway, they work on infrastructure projects, raise money for families in need, and in general, have their finger on the pulse of the community. I actually live with my ADESCO president, which is sort of an added bonus, as I'm in a position to hear insider info and (gently) influence the way we handle certain issues. Anyway, our ADESCO isn't exactly firing on all cylinders so I'm working on getting us to meet more regularly, set agendas, review member roles, and fill vacant spots for people who no longer participate. Very time consuming!

Coordinating stove projects

As you guys know, these stoves are pretty amazing. And the people in the community are really buzzing over them. Right now I'm in discussions with the NGO that makes the fancy stoves (not the homemade ones) to come and give a demonstration. If you're interested in more info, here's a link to their webpage <<<www.stoveteam.org>>> Anyway, they're throwing our community into a current grant ensuring us 20 stoves at $20 each. The catch: I have to buy at least two stoves at full price to cover their transportation costs from the coast. Damn, I hate losing arguments. But they got me over a barrel. Or a stove. You decide.

Cooking group Thursdays

Like I said, starting to slip. The good news is, I just got a copy of Cooking in the Campo, PC/El Sal's unofficial cookbook. 80 pages of campo recipes. Should help a ton.

Killing time in town

Basically, I make the same list every visit. Post office - internet - picture frames - supermarket - licuado. A licuado fyi is a fruit smoothie. Okay, stop laughing. I freely admit to loving fruit smoothies. They’re like mandatory here. Probably the most nutritious thing in my diet. Milk from a gallon jug the licuado lady buys across the street at the supermarket (not local milk from a plastic bag), clean blenders you can watch her clean with soapy water, papaya, bananas and pineapples she washes and cuts up right there for you with a clean knife. Ah, what am I talking about? You guys won’t understand until you’re here and can see what every other place is like!

Working on my house

Latest projects. I cut 2 liter plastic bottles in half and swapped them for tiles in my roof. Now, my kitchen and bedroom are a ton brighter. For free. Well, the money thing isn't really an issue, as my monthly electric bill is sub 4 dollars, with a fridge. Also, building a set of stairs for my side entrance and planting a vegetable garden (more on this last one later).

Watch movies with Salva

Poco a poco I’m introducing my counterpart to the greats of american cinema. It started with 300. A classic. No, really. If Homer were still alive, he’d give it two thumbs up. Then the Spartans would probably have him killed for being a pansy poet and not a soldier. But I digress. The next movie: Kill Bill V.1. For some reason, he didn’t want to see the sequel. A shame. Way better than the first one. And last week Juno. Side note: don’t watch Juno with your salvadoran counterpart. Ever. The hipster humor just doesn’t translate.

Also, last week Salva and I threw a fiesta for the kids in our school to celebrate how much trash we collected during our recycling day. (Over 140 lbs!) Which ended up being a ton of cash. In the future, this money will go towards school supplies. But just to get them excited on the whole idea, this time around we blew most of the money on pinatas, jello and 14 loaves of banana bread. Well, that last part I contributed. We ate, played a trash pickup relay race, and afterwards I gave a short charla on the importance of recycling. It was great.

Joyful onlookers. Hey, wait! Get the hell off my truck, you punks!

Lastly, just a quick recap of a mini adventure from a week ago. Last Friday, my host dad took me up into the mountains to visit a few of his cousins who live in the pine forests. He mentioned that it was far. I had no idea it would be two hours far... in the back of a pickup. But it was amazing. You guys ever heard of microclimates? It’s when, for example, you're sitting in the back of a pickup truck slipping it’s way up into the mountains passing through clouds on a muddy road 4000 ft. up when the rain just opens up out of nowhere and you're nearly washed away off the side of a cliff, but then you come up over a hill and 30 seconds later you're drenched in total sunshine. Only to repeat the process ten more times. So cool.

Anyway, we eventually got to our faroff destination and arrived at the party only to see... drumroll please... everyone hammered off their asses on guaro, aka backcountry hooch, aka moonshine. Pretty funny. Especially the guy who fell asleep inside a barrel. Well, partially inside a barrel.

They served us bbq'd deer, goat and beef. And all with insanely hot chiles. Then we put on sweaters, drank coffee they grew themselves, talked about hunting, and enjoyed the view. Good times.

I suck at blogging

Apparently, some people do this everyday. And they’re good at it. I can’t imagine how. I mean, there are actually people out there who sit down everyday to type up crap that others, supposedly, will read and care about. Everyday. Man, that sounds tough. I’m having a hard time writing once a month. But no, they sit down, write something up, hit enter, and get like a million hits or whatever. Wow.

I think in the end, I don’t want to be good at something as ugly sounding as blogging. It just sounds lame and techy. So that’s my rationale; there are better things to do in life than type up what I ate for breakfast (incidentally, choco flakes, coffee, and pb&j on toast) and how many times my weak little stomach has gotten sick (246 if anyone’s keeping count). Anyway, here’s a giant entry that I’ve been meaning to type up for a long time. Sit back and relax. It’s gonna be a long one.

San V

So as some of you may know, I just got back from two weeks of "technical" training. Supposedly, now I’m equipped to literally fix every problem that might ever come up in my community. Basically, I’m awesome. I achieved this awesome status by going on a field trip, sitting through an impressive amount of charlas on environmental topics, community gardening, dental hygiene, and sex education, to name a few. And that's kinda it. Hmm, trying to stay positive about technical training is proving harder than I thought. Let’s just say it was great to see all my buddies again, and also to enjoy every outlet of fun and diversion San V has to offer. Like this for example.





But I don’t want to sound entirely negative. There were some good points to the two weeks. And here they are, in no particular order:

Peace Corps + Habitat for Humanity = Super Volunteerism

Somebody that day actually pointed out how funny it was we were doing Habitat as PC volunteers. Kind of like Adam donating blood the same day he had jury duty. (Speaking of which, Uncle Sam salutes you, kid brother.) Anyway, it was only for a day, but it was an awesome experience working on a Habitat house. Very fun and very tiring. Everyone likes to get their hands dirty and we frickin got em dirty. Mixed concrete, laid down cinderblocks, and set up the rebar supports. Good times. I threw on some photos to prove that we didn't just sit on our asses.



Jimbo enjoying this pose entirely too much...



Super efficient stoves. It’s science.

We also visited a few volunteers’ sites to check out their communities' stove projects. Basically, your average salvadoran woman cooks using an open flame in her house. This is bad. Very bad. When I visit houses doing my census, I'm always amazed at the burnt adobe walls and stalagtites of ash coming down from their tile roofs. I make a point of talking with them for a sec about the walls and how they aren't the only things getting turned into jerky. Hint, it's your lungs!

But there's an easy solution. More efficient stoves. The ones we saw and later constructed burn up to 80 percent better than an open flame and don’t give off smoke, so you can use them right in your kitchen during the rainy season and won't fill the whole house with smoke. Pretty cool. Anyway, here's a photo of one of the stoves.



They cost 50 bucks (ouch!), but a rotary club in Oregon pays 30 bucks for each stove so the family only has to pay $20. And if that's too much, they can pay in installments so they only have to raise 5 bucks a month. It's like the definition of a win-win situation.

We also went to a muni volunteer's community to learn how to make similar stoves but out of cheap materials people can find in their communities. They're essentially the same design as the fancy-pants one designed by an oregon professor, but they're made out of woodchips, dirt, tiles, and molasses. Yep, molasses!











Lastly, we found all this work to be extremely tiring. So a few of us took part in some alternative workshops being held at the local beaches. These included surfing, 4 am pool hopping, and my personal favorite, the how many people can you cram in a hotel room workshop. Very educational.











The photos below are from Playa El Espino. A very cool beach. Not really anything to do besides collect seashells and walk endlessly for miles in either direction with a beer in your hand. Wait a sec. That’s the whole point of going to the beach!



Also, beach cows? Okay.



There was something beautiful about a cow enjoying the sunset as much as I was. For a brief moment, I thought about being a vegetarian.

Thank you, DuPont

Hi all,

Two minor, semi earth-shaking events occurred this week.

1. I bought a teflon pan.
2. I introduced banana bread to my cooking club.

Okay, so you’re all really wowed right now, I know. Let’s start with the damn pan.

So yeah, I bought a teflon pan in town. It cost a dollar and it’s red. There was a blue one too, but at the time, the red one was calling my name and found its way into my basket. Why is this exciting, you might ask? Well, you see, pretty much everything in this country is fried, sautéed, or cooked in oil. Eggs, fish, pupusas, chicken, plantains. All fried in oil. Lots of it. Not saying that’s bad. We do it in the states too. It’s just the way it is. Consequently, or maybe it’s just a funny coincidence (you be the judge), all the women (and men too) have a nice little buddha belly going on. They’re great. When you guys visit, you’ll enjoy them as much as I do. Trust me. So despite running around cleaning the entire house, or tending to their cows and kids all day, all the women here have these sweet panzas as they’re called. Even the little kids have their panzitas.

Anyway, back to the pan. So with my beautiful new shiny red pan, I whipped up some eggs and chorizo for lunch the other day, and I didn't use any oil. Egad! When my mom saw this, she nearly freaked out. “It didn’t stick! And you didn't use any oil?” “Yep, I know. It’s the magic of Teflon. Thank you, DuPont.”

So, this may all seem like nonsense to you all, but when every meal a family of six eats is fried up in a pan with a ton of oil, it adds up. You see where I'm going with this... the panzas. That's right. So it’s kind of a big deal when you get rid of all that oil. Or maybe not. Maybe their bodies will sense what the gringo is trying to do and start demanding calories from other things, like an extra tortilla, or demanding more sugar in their coffee. I dunno. All I know is it was a bit of a Aha! moment in my family when my mom saw how well the pan worked. So yay. Small victory!

Now the banana bread.

Okay, for any of you that know me, you know that I’m kind of a fiend for the banana bread. Don’t know why. Everyone has their fetishes I suppose. Well mine is the pan de guineo. When I got here in my community, one of the first things I noticed is that there were banana trees everywhere. You can literally just pick them off the trees, or if you buy them, they cost nothing. Like 20 for a dollar nothing.

In general, however, people are sort of obsessed with plantains, banana’s bigger, blander, older brother (no offense Ben!). They love them and fry them up every chance they get. When I questioned my mom the other day why we don’t fry up bananas for breakfast and always use plantains, she literally didn’t have an answer. It was one of those “just because” moments. Anyway, I made my choice years ago, and plantains can go screw.

So when my cooking group asked me (oh yeah, I formed a weekly women's cooking group - it's fun) what kind of stuff I like to make, I listed off a whole bunch of stuff. I also casually mentioned banana bread. When I said this, they all sort of jumped. "What's banana bread?" Ah, here was my opening. I told them everything. Long story short, next time we met (Thursdays at 2, if you're in the neighborhood), we all brought the ingredients, I wrote the recipe on a giant poster, and we went to town. Check it out...


In the end, it was a big hit. And helped launch the women's cooking group, which I'm sure will run out of steam after a few months. But, it's fun for now!


Hmm, what else? Some other news that you all might find interesting. My town hosted a motocross competition a few weeks ago. It was nuts. And pretty amazing considering gas is 5 bucks a gallon here. But hey, he looks like he’s having fun, right?


And we had a community-wide recycling day at our school. No surprises here. Exactly what you’d expect. We broke into teams and collected all sorts of plastic bottles and pieces of aluminum. The idea being that they’d see that the crap they throw on the ground is actually worth something, and that picking it up is easy. In the end, we filled up two “jumbos,” or what they call a frickin huge bag here. The final weigh in. Two jumbos: 100 and 45 lbs. And at 10 cents a pound, that works out to be $14. Not a lot, right? Well considering that the average daily pay for a salvadoran is just over 6 bucks, it's kind of significant. I'll let you know how it all goes.

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.