A bunch of visitors.....

This week I had a whole bunch of people out visiting.

Let’s start with this past weekend. Saturday I headed into Sononsate and had lunch with another volunteer…pizza. I’ve been having a lot of pizza recently, but I won’t go into it. It was nice to see her and I think it did her some good to talk with another volunteer. She is still a newbie and is having some slight difficulties in her community. Some are taking advantage of her and charging her more for things then they should. I can understand that.

Sunday was just a day of getting the house in order and watching some futbol. My team won….did you have any doubt? How could they lose with my ball? Also, I cleaned up as much as possible – the boss came out during the week.

Though, the most annoying thing was cleaning up the poison. My brilliant rats ripped open the bag of poison to eat it. That would have been great except that they ripped it open next to my plates and dishes = I had to wash all my plates and dishes.

Anyway, back to the week. Monday I had the second meeting with my artisans – but this time only about half showed up. Those who came, signed the contract and are ready to go. Ohh..if you didn’t know, for anyone who is going to benefit from this program, they have to sign a contract stating that they will pay for the labor, supply two bags of clay (which they all have since they work with the stuff) and that the materials will only be used for the stated purposes – they can’t change they’re minds and use the bricks to build something else. It also appears the solicitation will include the construction of one new oven. I suddenly went from under budget to a little over budget. But such is life.

This week I had my boss come out for a site visit. Peace Corps does site visits with volunteers at least 3 times during their service. It’s a good time to reconnect and talk about what’s going on, what you want to go on and where you hope things are going. I always enjoy talking with the jefe – he’s a really relaxed guy and someone you really feel you can talk to. With him came another volunteer – Stephen – just hitching a ride and Rachael was down translating something. I had four people in the house (including myself) and only three chairs. So, I sent Rachael off to Iris’s house for the final chair. Oops.

¿Que más? I had two trainees come out for immersion days. I’m not sure if you remember me writing about this about a year ago, (I know, a full freaking year) but Peace Corps sends trainees out to a volunteers site. The volunteer then sends those trainees to live with families out in the countryside. It’s only for two nights – one full day. It’s the first experience they have living by themselves. I had difficulty finding the second family, the first one is going to Iris’s parents house. The second one is going to a family of another friend. I don’t know them, but I’ve been assured they’re good people.

So, my two trainees (Stephanie and Kara) arrived around 11 am on Thursday. We went straingt to my place so they could put down their stuff and relax. It was nice to get their first impressions and answer any questions that came to mind. We ate lunch with Heidy and then started to get ready to drop them off. We were suppose to leave at 2pm – that didn’t happen. The driver was off someplace and nobody was exactly sure where. Thankfully – Lito stepped up and gave us a ride. I dropped Kara off with the Iris’s family and Stephanie went to the family of Don Kokie. I then spent the rest of Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning worrying about them.

During this time of worry, I worked on a few other things. I got my haircut ($1 special, of course), was stood-up for a meeting…things of that nature.

Finally, it was Saturday morning. Iris’s mom couldn’t get to the drop off spot till 9am – which was fine because at 8am I still didn’t have a ride to go pick them up. Thus, I hunted down Don Justo and asked for one. He said the driver would be right over. He came about 20 minutes late….which was fine, we would only be about 20 late in picking them up. But, of course, we didn’t go straight to picking them up. We went in the exact opposite direction in order to go pick someone else up. So, we were an hour late. All well.

When we got back to my place, we just relaxed a little. I made some pancakes, they took some showers and eventually, we got ourselves out the front door. We headed into Sonsonate…the local ‘big’ town. Of course, we hit up Pizza Hut for lunch before heading over to Super Selectos – the supermarket. I picked up food for dinner, a new pot (my old pots were rusting and I’ve gotten tired of scrubbing rust off of my pots) and whatever else the girls wanted. We also managed to go see a movie – Ocean’s 13…the only one that wasn’t dubbed. It was nice to sit in the air conditioning and watch a movie in English – you could almost forget where you were. Afterward, we ran back to my place, cooked dinner and got ready for the dance.

My community was having a dance on Saturday in order to present the candidates for queen (queen of the patron saint festivals). We only stayed about 2 hours, but it was enough to have a good time, dance and fend off some bolos. I think we got back to my place around 10:45ish. We were all ready for bed when we heard the evangelicals start singing. It wouldn’t of been so bad, but we could still clearly make out the music from the dance. It was like a battle of the bands…right in my house! I think I slept like a rock anyway.

That brings us to their final day here…Sunday. We woke up, had some more pancakes and hiked it over to the waterfall. It took about 40 minutes to get over there. Those girls walked so fast – I’m so slow nowadays. I’ve just gotten use to the pace that Iris walks. Anyway, we got over to the waterfall and there were more evangelicals there singing. It was so weird. We still got in and swam.

After all that, they took showers and I then threw them on the bus to head home. It was really nice having company out, but it was sooo tiring as well. I was just so nervous in taking care of them and making sure they had a good time. I believe they did.

I spent the rest of the day…..watching futbol and working. I went down to the field to watch my team play, but the game got cut short. Someone of the other team got really mad at the ref and punched him. So, that team automatically lost. Thankfully, a large fight was avoided and there was just general discontent after for a while. Once everything settle down, I went home. Once there, it was time to get the house back in order. I still haven’t finished washing everything. What a pain.