Return

Well if anyone has noticed, the last post I've made here was the 25th of April. So WATCH OUT! Here is another. I have decided to briefly revive my blog by sitting down and making a spontaneous and conceding entry. After enough fan support and people basically telling me "Matt, update your blog" in various ways, I am putting finger to key and punchin it out! I have to say that I don't really have a good excuse for my hiatus. That's not to say I don't have an excuse, it's just not a good one. So I'll put laziness aside and try to recount the last nine months of action and comment on the best things...O boy this will be tough.

I will start with the most recent doings. For the past two and half months I have been participating as DJ in an English language radio show with fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and some local Salvadorans who have fluent English. Every Sunday at 8 am we've been hitting the airwaves on Radio Chaparrastique "La Grande!" to resonate a full half hour of English to help Salvadorans in the east part of the country learn, in my native language, aspects of American culture, including sports, holidays, slang, etc. For our Valentine's show, we had a lucky contestant win a date with your's truly in what we called "an intercultural exchange in love." It was actually just a nice night on the town (the town being San Miguel) with a buffet, gifts, flowers, coffee, the works. I don't think I have ever had such a nice date for Valentine's in the states. There is a picture somewhere that I will try to publish here once I get my hand on it. If you are interested in listening to the show, you can tune in at radiochaparrastique.net by clicking on one of the multimedia buttons on the home page. It's live, streaming radio, baby!

We are creeping into the "hot as hell" part of the year in El Salvador. The middle of summer. I am lucky to be living in higher altitude, because down in the steamy valley it has the kind of weather that makes you want to take off all your clothes and just sit in front of a fan all day in the shade with a cherry-limeade to sip on. Off course you might be asking yourself, "Matt, why use a fan when AC is the answer to your problem?" Of course if you really asked yourself that question your probably using a different organ than your brain for thinking. Let's not forget that I don't have electricity, so my cure for el calor is a forty minute hike to the water hole, or just taking all my clothes off and praying for a breeze. The sun hits more directly here since it is closer to the equator than in Indiana, meaning it feels even hotter and skin burns a lot easier. I now never leave the house without a healthy lathering of sun block and a short-rimmed sombrero (short-rimmed only because I like the style).

I had a well-needed visit from Dad in december. He came right after Thanksgiving, so I decided to make him celebrate it again, but this time with me, in El Volcan. I had one of my favorite families slaughter the turkey they had been fattening for the past year and prepare a wonderful meal out of it. The turkey fed me, Dad, my buddy Mike, and around ten other people in the family. We ate, had our bellies filled, hiked home, and rested. It was one of the best Thanksgivings I've had, considering I hadn't spent a holiday with my family in well over a year. Another push for heifer.org. I kept Dad busy, even though that wasn't really my plan. He gave a presentation on soil acidity to Salvadoran extension workers, which went really well. We gave the Beyrouty tag-team attack, as I translated. I also made him hike two hours to pick coffee. He said he will never throw out an unfinished pitcher of coffee without at least thinking about what back-breaking, peanut-earning labor went into providing it. Dad was a trooper. I wasn't surprised of course, he has travelled, and more often than not his traveling has been to developing countries. But he roughed it with me, and I was really put at ease for a while having him here, especially when we stayed at hotels with hot water and soft matresses. But seeing him so active and healthy made me happy.

New Year's and Christmas I experienced with my pueblo and close friends. From my neighbor's house I witnessed with close friends the crazy carpet-bombing spectacle that was all the eastern Salvadoran communities shooting off their fireworks at the stroke of midnight on the 1st of 2009. It was something to behold, though I saw the same event last year, it seemed more impressive this year. On the 30th, (my b-day) my neighbors slaughtered and served me a delicious chicken, in soup form (Campbells, eat your heart out). It had all the ingredients that the bush could provide, including a plant called Pito, which, after consuming an amount greater than or equal to way too much, I passed out for twenty minutes in a dreamless sleep. It is a plant used for sleeping, but tastes so delicious too. A quickly prescribed cup of thick, black, slurry of coffee later and I was awake again. It was a tranquilo birthday, the way it should be.

For Christmas, I passed it in the pueblo. That's Guatajiagua, for everyone who forgot or never knew. A good friend of mine put me up and we ate like kings. Turkey soup, grilled chicken, clam cocktails, chocolate-covered bananas, a couple of beers too. We watched jaripeo, a (what I perceive as a) bastardized form of bull-fighting and bull-riding. OK let's just face it, that's what it was. Two dudes dressed like clowns (aka rodeo clowns) await in the ring for the next raging bull to appear. As the bull leaps out of the opened gate, with a rider on top (aka bull-riding), the clowns use their red and yellow towels (aka bull-fighters) to taunt and dodge the bull while the rider hangs on tight. That was it. And yes it was entertaining. The best parts were of course when the bull won and trampled the human beings that were taunting it. Also the part where they offered five bucks to any niño who could ride a calf around for a while. That was hilarious!! And got the crowd hollering.

There is so much to mention, but I have to be brief about it. I am paying big bucks to use the internet cafe right now. I have decided that when I return to the land of my rearing I will go to medical school. My experiences here have played a major role in this decision, as well as support from my loved ones. One particular experience came in April when I was in a car accident that ended up destroying a community member's leg and pelvis. I spent a lot of time visiting him in the hospital and trying to help him find money to have operations. My time in the state hospitals was eye-opening. Public health care here, for lack of a better word, sucks. And leaves many people sick, uncured, disfigured, handicapped, and sometimes worse off than before their original ailment. Basic underfunding which leaves under-staffed, under-resourced hospitals to attend to a mass population results in a super un-satifactory system. Due to this experience, as well as others, I have made medicine my focus. I'm currently studying for the MCAT.

I will make a great effort to YOU, reader, to keep you involved in the happenings in the rest of my service in El Salvador. The next time I get another bot fly infestation, ameoba invasion, earthquake, bus held up, or any other fantastic experience here, I will be sure to rush to the computer to inform you about it. I have loved the comments and the insight. You rock!

Until next long break in hiatus...