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...

The eyeglass express... mission accomplished

Well, it took years off my life, but we did it. The eyeglass express was a success. Here are the stats. In total, 3 microbuses, 70 people, 2 false eye fittings, about 100 pairs of glasses, 14 hours on the road, 1 tired ass gringo...



Up at 4, on the road by 6, in Perquin by noon, eye exams for 70 people by 4, and back home by 10:30. Needless to say, I collapsed in bed like a sack of dirty laundry. Here are some photos from the experience...



The group



Very patient considering we'd travelled across the country for this



It took us hours to wind through the different exam rooms but it was sorta fun



Old dude. The bad news is, in addition to essentially being blind, he suffers from pretty bad dementia...



The good news is he would periodically break out into fits of laughter, which of course would freak me out and cause me to laugh my ass off too



Notice the kid on the right, who could not be more freaked out by this crazy old dude right now



Don Lucio makes it to the consult stage



Sidenote: Linsey off on the right is talking with my boy Carlos, my neighbor and checkers nemesis who literally came for moral support and ended up translating for three false eye fittings. Incredible guy.

Gotta do the before shot...



A closer look...



The fitting...



And there ya go. The final product.



Thanks for your supportive calls, emails, jedi mind messages. I appreciated them all. I'll write more later.

What you’re getting here is realtime intel. None of that month later bullshit. Depending on when you all check my snoop blog, this is happening today. Or tomorrow. Kinda cool.

Okay, see this guy? The one who looks like robocop?



His name's Rob. He's from Saskatchewan. Which means he's got a cool canadian accent and says "eh" a lot. He's also an f-ing rockstar eye specialist who flew down here for two weeks on his own dime with 50 other eye specialists and volunteers from all over the place to take part a free eye care campaign that's been going on for the past two weeks in a tiny rural town in the eastern part of the country.

The two-week trip was organized by Eye Care, a group of eye specialists who travel to developing countries to provide free treatment. Think Medecins Sans Frontieres, but without the pretentious french name.

They're here giving free exams, glasses, surgeries, etc. And it's INcredible! By far the most powerful and touching part of my PC experience so far. Giving back sight to elderly people who haven't been able to read or sew or see a picture of their grandkids in the states is what this shit is all about. Got teary-eyed too many times to count. I have way too many photos to post right now and I could write pages on the experience, but I'll quickly write what I can...



This 15 year old girl was born with a defect in her eye. Her mom didn't seek treatment when she was younger and she lost her eye. When she came into my station, we put her in for a surgery consult and through the kickass work of our friend Linsey, she was under the knife the next day.

Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do for her sight. Everything died years ago. But they took out the dead tissue, inserted a glass prosthetic, and bam, normal girl on her way towards a normal life. A life where no one stares at her on the bus, where no one makes fun of her at school, a life where she can just be a 15 year old girl. I get all tingly just thinking about it.

Anyway, seeing that girl got me thinking. About how more than 500 people were passing through every day and Don Lucio in my community is just sitting there in his adobe house waiting for another eye to fall from the sky.

So last Thursday I called my mayor's office back home, typed up a letter, faxed it over and just like that, we were in business. I had to make all sorts of promises, considering I was setting this all up from 300 miles away, but it worked!

I actually just came from a meeting at the mayor's office an hour ago and officially we have two microbuses approved for 60 people tomorrow at the asscrack of dawn. Tomorrow. Tuesday. Boom. Can't tell you how psyched I am.

I'm just posting these photos to give you a sense of what's going on. I'll fill it all in and write more when I can...





Jimbo clearly hard at work. Just kidding, Jbo was a translating machine all week



This guy was getting fitted for a false eye. It's amazing to see these guys go from embarrassed and disfigured to perfectly normal and smiling in just a few seconds.



Ojos! Lots of em!



Lauren was a rockstar in the bifocals room



A tipical agricultor



Hmm, not sure that's the best pair for Steph



Relax ladies. There's enough of me for everyone









Me and Elli proving that bifocals are awesome. She's gonna make a great jewish grandmother some day, I just know it



Jimbo translating like a champion



Linsey in a surgery consult



Camera one... camera two... camera one... camera two...



My old roommate Chris fitting a campesino with a new pair of specs



Lines out the door and Linsey strutting her stuff. Can't say enough about this girl. The definition of a rockstar volunteer. She lives in this community and worked her ass off to coordinated this project and make it a success. Nice job, chica.



And look, I even set the camera down to work too!

Winnie the Pooh never said there'd be days like this...

So guess who spent yesterday morning happily stealing honey away from millions of angry little bitches... until they decided to turn on him. I'll give you a hint. His right hand looks like it spent the past month at an all you can eat chinese buffet. Picture Sebastian the crab from the Little Mermaid. Or the giant marshmallow dude from Ghostbusters. But it was worth it.



Here are the guys pulling out the bee colonies. By the way, while I was crying in the corner about my three little bee stings, these guys were literally getting stung over 20 times. And laughing about it. Res-pec! (...said in an Ali G voice)



My buddy Carlos cutting off the honeycombs



The whirly-gig machine doing what whirly-gig machines do...
whirl. gig.



Me and Carlos with one of the colonies



So I got a marshmallow hand for the week, but on the bright side, I can check off another item on my life list. So there ya go. And now I have a legitimate medical reason to take 4 benadryls a night and pass out at 8 pm.

Inauguration day

Sort of an extra special day for those living outside the states. Guess I can only speak for myself, but watching the inauguration, naturally you’re forced to think about where you are, what you’re doing, why you’re here. All the things you generally don’t stop to think about. Seems we just get so caught up in our day to day lives here that you rarely take a minute to really think about things.

So today served as that reminder. That I’m working. And that I'm serving my country. (Cue patriotic music.) Serving the country that I criticize and mock so much. And will continue to criticize and mock to my dying days. But that same country is paying me to live in central america, to learn how to harvest beans and corn, to play checkers with my community's drunks, to eat and sleep and learn and just be here.

Hearing Obama take his oath of office, and seeing that ridiculous ribbon on Aretha Franklin’s head, and watching all the salvos watch it with me in that coffeeshop just made me proud to be an american. Even if it lasted for only a few moments.

Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

A festivus for the rest of us!

Who knew this country was into Festivus?! The aluminum pole, the feats of strength, the airing of grievances. Anyone... anyone... Bueller? Probably only a few diehards got that one. If you didn’t, google it and study up.

To be honest, I’d actually forgotten it was the holidays. Christmas here just isn’t the hoopla that I expected from such a religious country. Or maybe it’s just cause I’m out in the campo and celebrations here are just more subdued. For starters, they celebrate xmas on the 24th, and pretty much don't do anything out of the ordinary. They cook up a chicken, eat a big lunch, stay up late shooting off fireworks and don't even give gifts. Man that was a nice contrast from the typical production up north. Sorry, but you already knew I was a cynic. It was refreshing and the definition of stress free.

So on the 24th, instead of eating lunch leftovers for dinner with my neighbors/host family, I surprised an 82 year old woman in my community whose house I always pass by and who invites me (constantly!) to hang out with her. I never have time and I always feel crazy guilty. But I frickin made some time. It was xmas after all.

So I went and surprised her. Not literally... should would have died, so old and feeble is she. Joking. Sort of. So there we were, hanging out in her smokey kitchen, me showing her I got skills and can tortillar, and her just sort of sitting there rambling, which is what old people do out in the campo. The catch was I literally can’t understand a single word she says. It's a combination of missing teeth and her being really, really old. So I just sat there as she talked, eating chicken stew, downing tortillas with salt and lime, and nodding every once in a while to give her the impression that meaningful understanding was going on inside my head. At one point, I actually just started laughing at the situation I was in. And then she started laughing too. Good times.

Then on xmas day, everyone just chills in the community and enjoys a day off. No presents. No tree. They eat leftovers and just sort of hang out.

I was all set to do the same, but my diputado buddy called me (the equivalent of a congressman) and told me to grab my boots cause he'd be there in 15 minutes. And before I knew it, I was bouncing around in the back of a pickup truck, bombing up a rocky, dusty road on my way up Montecristo, the nearby 8,000 footer I live at the base of. About two hours later, I was walking around pine forests, clean air and enjoying life without burning trash piles.

It was only a day trip with his family, so we didn’t get to summit, but just hanging out there was well worth the trip. This is the view from one of the miradors, or lookout towers. Nice huh?



Gabe dicking around on said mirador.



Then two days later, ass still bruised from the last trip, I found myself once again bouncing around in the back of a pickup climbing up into Montecristo. My buddy Mario and his wife Jenny invited me on their annual family trip and what am I gonna say no?! Course not. So I tagged along with about 40 of their friends and family (understatement of the year: families are BIG here).

Sidenote: Mario and Jenny are quickly on their way to achieving awesome friend status. Jenny is my age and super sweet. Mario is a few years older and a cool dude. More importantly, he's a normal guy! Sounds stupid, but they're rare. Ex. He doesn’t sit at the kitchen table ordering his wife to bring him another tortilla, doesn’t raise his voice for no reason, doesn’t down guaro and stumble around with his shirt off. Just a chill, chill guy. You guys would love him. Always refreshing visiting them.

Anyway, camping. Honestly, compared to the backwoods camping we've done back home, it was a bit of a letdown. But that’s just cause we’ve been spoiled by the Appalachian Trail, Montana, Hawaii, the Atacama Desert in Chile, smores in my backyard, etc. We're just used to kickass bonfires and total seclusion. But since El Sal is so damn deforested, the country goes out of its way to protect their little slice of untouched wilderness, ie, no huge Steve-style bonfires. Sad. But the views were incredible. And I just felt this wave of happiness and comfort hit me, like I was back in my element. Picture Gabe lying in the middle of a field, shivering, staring at the stars for hours. Happiness.

Here's a couple pics of when someone got the incredibly awesome idea to go for a latenight swim in the river. Air temperature: 45 degrees. Water temperature: 20 below zero. Bad idea. Forced smiles... but I'd do it again in a second.

And on the way back, Mario bombed down the mountain roads in his beat up suzuki pickup car thing. Need to take a picture of this pint-sized beast, but it sorta looks like a pickup that got crushed in the middle of a 20 car pileup and now would be dwarfed by a mini cooper. Plus this thing is so beat up it honestly looks like a wheel could go at any minute. But the little guy, which I named the torito rojo, is tougher than he looks. To give you a taste of what it was like, I posted a video...

There's so much more I want to cover. And it's been almost two month since I’ve posted anything. I suck, I know. Maybe I'll just try to give you a quick rundown of what I’ve been up to:

Turkey day

... started off bad, but ended pretty good. If you’re all getting sick of hearing about stoves, then skip ahead...

Anyway, my pueblo's mayor hooked us up with free transport for our stoves again but the catch this time was we had to leave at the asscrack of dawn. I'm talking 4 am people.

So now picture Gabe, crammed in the cabin of a big rig flying down the highway towards the coast, half asleep, half deliriously happy that he can check off something new on his life list, but also trying really hard not to think about the fact that he’s lying on the truck driver’s mystery mattress in the back of the cabin. Nice.

Anyway, that trip the other PCVs and I hauled over 150 stoves for our communities, so it was productive. But it took forever and I had to scrap plans to meet up with friends out east for turkey day. But I did make it into the capital, met a dude at a hostel who taught me thai, and treated me to KFC, including an entire family meal. I'll say it again. An entire frickin family meal. Did it in the spirit of good ole american overeating. I think it was something like 149 pieces of chicken and a comically large vat of mashed potatoes. Ug.

But, official weigh in at the PC med office the next day... survey says... 178 pounds. With clothes and flip flops. I’m lean and mean. Cough.

Carnival

Then a few days later, I took off for Carnival in San Miguel. Btw, who knew El Sal was home to the second largest Carnival in the world behind Brazil?!!! Somebody please fact check that. But be warned, Carnival in El Sal... not so much fireworks and girls dancing in crazy caribbean outfits. More of a citywide street party/mosh pit/lame parade. Here’s the final tally from the night:

Hours it took me to get there from my site: 8
Number of street french fries purchased: 3
Number of times pickpocketed: 2... as far as I know

Fantasy Football

And to wrap up, guess who won his Fantasy Football league... for the second year in a row? This guy. Nice job, Gabe. Who gives a flying f, right? Well in addition to the bragging rights and devastating blow to my friends' egos of losing to a PCV checking his email and fantasy picks once a week, if that, I won 160 bucks. Kind of nuts that that's more than half my monthly salary!

Now I’m having fun thinking of all the things I could do with the cash. Bungie jumping? Hang gliding? Deep sea fishing? Buy a horse? I’ll be sure to let you know...