One month in!

By now many of you have probably lost hope that I will be the faithful blogger that I aspired to be in my first post. Sorry about that!

On September 17th I moved to a little community in north-east El Salvador to be an actual volunteer instead of a trainee. I'm about 5 weeks into my time here and I'm loving it. I work here as a youth development volunteer, so I've been spending considerable portions of my day in the school here. As expected, my work here has been unpredictable and different than I thought it would be. Thankfully, I'm a big fan of surprise so I've gotten along just fine.

Believe it or not, one of the biggest things I've been working on has been a robotics course for teens in my school. I definitely didn't see that coming. I guess we received a grant from Microsoft before I arrived that provided us with a 2 lego robot kits and some user-friendly programing software. The kids learn about basic mechanics, problem-solving, and teamwork by building and trouble-shooting these robots. The programing software is in English, so I can be of help here and there. It's a very interactive classroom, so it's been a great way for me to get to know kids here.

Getting to know my community is a full time job, if it can be considered a job. When I'm not in the school, I try to walk the street of my town slow enough that people invite me in for coffee and bread. It's a great strategy as far as I can tell. My community has been extremely welcoming and inviting. I've made good friends here, and though many of them are old enough to be my grandparents, we seem to get along well enough. In the last two weeks I was invited to come watch a cow get slaughtered at the top of our hill. Talk about a quick course in animal anatomy. In less than 2 hours the whole thing was divided up into it's different pieces. By 5 am nearly all the meat had been purchased by people passing by.

I was also invited over to make some of the most delicious tamales that this world has tasted. The corn was picked by us, schucked by us, milled by us, and poured into the corn husks by us, steamed by us, and eaten by us. I enjoyed being a part of the whole process. Locally based agriculture isn't a fad here like it is in the states. The reality here is that you eat what you grow and what your neighbors grow. I like it.

There's another school about an hour's hike from my town that I've started getting to know. It is a much more impoverished community, and it's one where I hope to spend time and energy helping the community develop as much as I can. The school has 3 classrooms and three teachers for 6 grades. The young ones come in the morning and the older kids come in the afternoon. Unfortunately, since the school only goes up to 6th, anyone who wants to study further has to walk an hour (depending on where they live, maybe more) to my town. Many of them already walk an hour through the mountains to get to this school in the first place.

Obviously, my work in the two schools will look very different. In the town where I stay, I can teach employability by means of resume workshops and typing classes, but in a village where many people don't have an 8th grade education, a resume is not a very effective tool. My work there (I don't have a clue what it will look like yet) will start by thinking about how they can leverage the resources they do have (active parents, good laborers, lots of outdoors) to form programs and projects that benefit the community. We may try and reorganize the village council to be more active in the community as well.

Since I'm running out of time, I'm going to be more concise about the things I like most here. Keep in mind that these are broad generalizations that, of course, don't always apply. Either way, I appreciate them.

1. You don't need teeth or clean clothes to be well respected. The leaders in the communities here are not the people with money, they are the people that have their lives together and are interested working for everyone's benefit.

2. The mountains.

3. Roots. The elderly in my community don't know how many generations of their grandparents have lived in my village, but they assume all of them, and rightly so. Families have deep roots around them. They know everything about the history of their town. They know who their third cousins twice removed are. Family is family.

4. Knowledge of the land. The people know how good a harvest will be by how the corn sways in the wind (they say the corn sways more if the roots are loose, and if the roots are loose the corn doesn't grow as well). Everyone knows exactly how many days it's been since it rained, and they're darn good at knowing when it will rain again.

5. Peacefulness. On my walk home yesterday I stopped at 2 houses for milk and coffee. What should have been a 75 minute walk turned into a 3 hour tour through the mountains. Less things are rushed, and smaller things are appreciated. It's okay to be quiet for a long time in a conversation. There is little to no sense of awkwardness.

I miss home quite a bit. I miss fall and I miss my family and friends, but I'm happy here. I'm at home here and I like my neighbors. I hope you all are well and I look forward to hearing from you when you have time to write. I'll write you back.

My address is:

Jesse Flanagan
Voluntario de Cuerpo de Paz
Lista de Correos
Nueva Esparta
Departamento la Union
El Salvador, Centro America

Much love,
Jesse

Hey all,

Sorry it's taken me so long to get another post up. Training has been busy, and responding to emails is sooo tempting when I get to a computer with internet.

Training ends next week, and I'll finally get to head out to my permenant site. I've been placed in a tiny community a stone's throw away from Honduras in the North East corner of El Salvador. Word has it that my site, due to its altitude, is actually cold sometimes! Don't doubt that I'm looking forward to that. I'll be a 7 hour bus ride from the capital city, which may be inconvenient from time to time, but I'm looking forward to being in such a gorgeous place.

Due to some trouble in my training community, I was moved by to a different town about 1 month ago. I now live with a different family in a different town in the department of San Vicente.

My new family, in my opinion, is the bomb. Given the opportunity, I expect us to be friends for a long time. I live with a young couple and their 6 yearold daughter. Aside from being incredibly hospitable, they have made me a part of the family. They often test me on just how "Salvadoran" I am by giving me coconuts to cut with machetes or bowls of corn meal to make tortillas with. So far I've passed every test. If for some reason I don't pass a test, they'll find out I'm a gringo (american) and send me packing. I hope it doesn't come to that. :-)

We farm 1.7 acres of peppers, tomato, and corn. That, along with a good factory job supports my family. Both my host brother and sister are incredibly hard working. My sister is in law school. It's a humble set-up, but it does the job.

The country is experiencing a bit of turmoil right now, but everyone involved, including Peace Corps, is doing they're best to make sure everybody stays in good shape. The goverment passed an anit gang law, prohibiting anyone from being associated with a gang. The two biggest gangs in E.S. teamed up and issued a public petition asking for the law to be repealed. Weird right? A local preist is acting as their quasi spokesman.

The gangs put out pamphlets threatening all kinds of stuff, and have successfully scared good portions of the country into staying put. Some schools are shut down, busses aren't running, and many of the markets are closed. The army is all over the roads making sure nothing happens. things are already simmering down, and the busses are starting to run again. Thank goodness.

I need to take off for my community, so I'm going to cut this short without editing. forgive the errors. But I hope this post finds all of you well!

Take Care!

-Jesse

I´m here!

Hello all!

Sorry it´s taken me so long to get a post up. I arrived in El Salvador about 3.5 weeks ago, and I´m loving it here. I live in a small village in the department of San Vicente, which is about 1.5 hours west of the capital city, San Salvador.

I´m in the middle of 2 months of training, which mostly consists of spanish classes and hanging out it my community. There are a few other Peace Corps Trainees in my community, but our group of 30 is pretty well spread out within the department.

In my group there are Sustainable Agriculture/Environmental Education Volunteers, and there are Youth Development Volunteers. We all meet together once or twice per week to do more technichal training at the Peace Corps Training Center. We´re going to learn how to make shampoo so that we can help women´s cooperatives start local businesses. We just got a tutorial on how to teach english so that we can give lessons/classes. We´ll be learning about composting, mentoring, and grant writing. The work load is extremely diverse... which I absolutely love.

Like most experiences, the highlights of this trip are clearly going to be the people I´m serving with, both the Salvadoran people and the Peace Corps Trainees/Volunteers. The kindness and generosity in my village is fantastic. I can´t walk through a door without 1 or 2 mothers and grandmothers trying to feed me. They seem genuine when they tell me that I don´t eat enough... but I´ve been around enough grandmothers to know that they´re a tricky people who will never be satisfied, no matter how much I over eat.

I almost forgot to mention how beautiful it is here. I don´t mean to make you jealous, but I live on the side of a giant and gorgeous volcano. I ride to the PC office in the back of a pickup truck (that´s the main mode of transportation here) and I enjoy a wonderful view. My view is sometimes obscured by a insect that finds it´s way into my eye ot mouth, but it´s a good view nonetheless.

To be honest, I had some reservations about blogging. I feel strange asking you to keep up with what I´m doing without having an opportunity to know how you are doing. With that said, feel encouraged to write me an email every once and a while to let me know how things are going. I can´t promise that I´ll always write you back since I don´t make it to the internet very often and my emails are sometimes more than I can handle.... I´d like to hear from you though. my email adress is jesse.a.flanagan@gmail.com.

Keep in touch!

Jesse

My mailing address

Hey all,

My mailing address from July 20th to September 3rd wil be:

Cuerpo de Paz/ El Salvador
3 Avenida las Dalias
Condominio Petaluma
Colonia San Francisco
San Salvador, El Salvador
America Central

I will always appreciate hearing from you and I will do my very best to respond to any letters you send my way. Thanks!

-Jesse

Welcome to my blog

Hey Friends and Family,

Thanks for checking out my blog. I hope that this blog allows me to communicate with all of you, and gives you the opportunity to communicate with me. Until I get to El Salvador, I won't know what kind of computer access I'll have, but I hope to be able to write down my thoughts and activities now and then when I'm able.

I leave El Salvador on Monday July 19th with the Peace Corps as a youth development volunteer. Being a youth development volunteer means I'll work primarily with youth ages 10-25. Possible projects could range from job training programs to sports camps. I really won't know what my job looks like until I get settled.

Feel free to leave comments or questions on this page. I'll do my best to keep you informed. Thanks so much for your interest in my travels! I look forward to hearing from you over the next few years.

-Jesse