I (mostly) managed to stay on point!
I somehow got all the materials for the fuel efficient stove construction presentation together just in time. It was actually quite impressive how it all came together. I should explain a little more. Peace Corps asked me to hold a training for 20 volunteers on how to build two different types of fuel efficient stoves. Why me? Cause I’m the only volunteer left in the country who knows how…that why. There were only two snags -1- that there was only one saw to cut the bricks with and -2- the guy from PC brought the wrong size tambo (kinda like a thin metal pot). The pots are suppose to be about 18” between handles when measure along the side and about 12 – 14” high. Both the tambos he brought were about 2 or 3 sizes too small. But hey, we made it work.
During the training, one of my town drunkards came to hang out. This is the one who thinks he’s my boyfriend. He basically sat down and mumbled the entire time. The volunteers who came for the training found him highly entertaining…if only they knew.
The training got cut a little short ‘cause we ran out of time. Bricks take a long time to cut. I grabbed a ride with the group back to Sonsonate and then hopped a bus to the capital to grab dinner with a few friends. The snafu came when I didn’t receive the message canceling it and got stood up….kinda sucked.
The next morning I walked over to Banco Custcatlan to close my account. Why? You have to close your account before leaving PC and since the account only had a $1.15 in it I decided to close it down early in the month. Now, for the past two years I have been collecting ‘puntos de oro’ or gold points in hopes of getting myself a cool $25 Visa gift card. I walk in there to cash them out and the woman behind the desk tells me that almost 1000 have expired. What?! She then tells me that they expire after two years. I say I’ve only been in the country for two years so how could they have expired. She had no explanations and her boss was conveniently not there….so I got screwed and had to settle for a $10 gift certificate to the super market.
So, by late Saturday morning you can imagine how mad I was and to top it off I had to walk everywhere in the rain without an umbrella. Cue the violins.
I finally made it back to my site, took a hot bucket bath and a nap and felt way better.
Saturday night was the election of the Queen for our Patron Saint Festivals. Normally it is done during a dance, but we didn’t have money for that this year…so they went with a beauty pageant type set-up. I enjoyed it. You could tell it was the first year they were doing it – the girls were nervous, there weren’t enough seats and a few other mis-steps, but overall good. I got to award one of the trophies for something (probably Miss Congeniality). The only other problem was out of their control – rain.
Of course, there was griping the next day of how a dance would have been better and so and so should’ve won – but you can’t please everyone.
Sunday I headed over to the soccer team to watch Ricardo’s team pummel the competition (7 – 1). I enjoy being the Madrina (Godmother) to a winning team. Next week is the semis.
After the game, I decided to walk back home. Along the way, I managed to pick-up a bolo (drunkard). I was just walking and he came right up and started walking next to me talking about how beautiful I am and how much in love with me he is. Now, what made this different then the other times was that he continue to walk with me. I went and bought pupusas (tortillas stuffed with cheese and squash), and he just waited till I was done and then continued. He did the same thing when I bought a can of soda. So, I walked back to Iris’s house instead of mine and waited out the bolo while eating. Iris and Lito (her hubby) found this quite entertaining.
Once he was gone, I headed home to clean and wash.
And now I’m drinking tea and getting ready for bed. I’m also trying to keep the lights on for a long as possible to keep the bats from dirtying up my nice clean floor. I hate bats.
I somehow got all the materials for the fuel efficient stove construction presentation together just in time. It was actually quite impressive how it all came together. I should explain a little more. Peace Corps asked me to hold a training for 20 volunteers on how to build two different types of fuel efficient stoves. Why me? Cause I’m the only volunteer left in the country who knows how…that why. There were only two snags -1- that there was only one saw to cut the bricks with and -2- the guy from PC brought the wrong size tambo (kinda like a thin metal pot). The pots are suppose to be about 18” between handles when measure along the side and about 12 – 14” high. Both the tambos he brought were about 2 or 3 sizes too small. But hey, we made it work.
During the training, one of my town drunkards came to hang out. This is the one who thinks he’s my boyfriend. He basically sat down and mumbled the entire time. The volunteers who came for the training found him highly entertaining…if only they knew.
The training got cut a little short ‘cause we ran out of time. Bricks take a long time to cut. I grabbed a ride with the group back to Sonsonate and then hopped a bus to the capital to grab dinner with a few friends. The snafu came when I didn’t receive the message canceling it and got stood up….kinda sucked.
The next morning I walked over to Banco Custcatlan to close my account. Why? You have to close your account before leaving PC and since the account only had a $1.15 in it I decided to close it down early in the month. Now, for the past two years I have been collecting ‘puntos de oro’ or gold points in hopes of getting myself a cool $25 Visa gift card. I walk in there to cash them out and the woman behind the desk tells me that almost 1000 have expired. What?! She then tells me that they expire after two years. I say I’ve only been in the country for two years so how could they have expired. She had no explanations and her boss was conveniently not there….so I got screwed and had to settle for a $10 gift certificate to the super market.
So, by late Saturday morning you can imagine how mad I was and to top it off I had to walk everywhere in the rain without an umbrella. Cue the violins.
I finally made it back to my site, took a hot bucket bath and a nap and felt way better.
Saturday night was the election of the Queen for our Patron Saint Festivals. Normally it is done during a dance, but we didn’t have money for that this year…so they went with a beauty pageant type set-up. I enjoyed it. You could tell it was the first year they were doing it – the girls were nervous, there weren’t enough seats and a few other mis-steps, but overall good. I got to award one of the trophies for something (probably Miss Congeniality). The only other problem was out of their control – rain.
Of course, there was griping the next day of how a dance would have been better and so and so should’ve won – but you can’t please everyone.
Sunday I headed over to the soccer team to watch Ricardo’s team pummel the competition (7 – 1). I enjoy being the Madrina (Godmother) to a winning team. Next week is the semis.
After the game, I decided to walk back home. Along the way, I managed to pick-up a bolo (drunkard). I was just walking and he came right up and started walking next to me talking about how beautiful I am and how much in love with me he is. Now, what made this different then the other times was that he continue to walk with me. I went and bought pupusas (tortillas stuffed with cheese and squash), and he just waited till I was done and then continued. He did the same thing when I bought a can of soda. So, I walked back to Iris’s house instead of mine and waited out the bolo while eating. Iris and Lito (her hubby) found this quite entertaining.
Once he was gone, I headed home to clean and wash.
And now I’m drinking tea and getting ready for bed. I’m also trying to keep the lights on for a long as possible to keep the bats from dirtying up my nice clean floor. I hate bats.
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