Just your average Peace Corps week...

Lots of sleeping, a package of Sudafed, a package of throat lozenges, celebrating el Dia de los Muertos, multiple killings of wildlife, big purchases for my new house, massive cleaning efforts, 2 games of Spanish Monopoly, countless games of cards, and lots of coloring with the girls in my temporary house....another week has gone by.

Lots of sleeping, a package of Sudafed, a package of throat lozenges...
Yep. Grepa. Flu/cold. Whatever you want to call it. I´ve been feeling miserable. But that only means it gets better, I guess. :)

Celebrating el Dia de los Muertos...
Not as big as it is in Mexico, but still pretty darn cool. EVERYONE goes to a cemetery somewhere with TONS of flowers, paint, and decorations. I went to the one where most people from my community are buried. Most people take a pick-up since it´s about 5 kilometers away, but I walked it with some other people from the community. That gained me tons of respect from people I talked to. They were like, "You WALKED up here??" So this cemetery is at the top of a hill, and everyone decorates the headstone and burial area for their loved ones. So when you get up there, you just see THOUSANDS of flowers, families painting the tombstones (they usually just have crosses here) with bright colors, and families just hanging out in general. And I thought the kids would be irritated they had to go for this traditional event, but they were just as into it as the adults. Everyone really values the lives of people. I walked around and talked to numerous people about who was buried in the area(s) they were decorating, and it ranged from brothers/sisters, aunts/uncles, grandparents, mothers/fathers, children, cousins...just about everyone you can think of. It´s really important to them to recognize lives that have passed, regardless of time. Some people had been dead since the 50´s. It´s a REALLY cool thing here. You can view photos from one of the San Salvador cemetaries at http://www.laprensagrafica.com/multimedia/galerias/2005/11/20051102difuntos/20051002%20016.htm.

Multiple killings of wildlife...
Yeah. 2 in the last week. I was standing in my new house in an area that is open to the outside (and doesn´t have light) talking to my next door neighbor. And I saw something move in the shadows and said, "What is THAT?" He just backed me up and said, "Don´t walk over there. Wait here for a moment." And when he returned, he had a flashlight. We shined it in the area, and I saw, for the first time, a real live scorpion. Now, that´s my sign in the Zodiac, so I guess I should be a fan, right? Well, I´m not. I´ll be fine if I never see another one again! My neighbor, Carlos, grabbed a broom and cut it into 2 and I watched its little poisonous tail go crazy trying to sting the broom. Yes, I definitely don´t want to encounter another one of THOSE! #2...laying in bed listening to music when I looked up and saw a HUGE spider on the wall above me. That made me jump out of bed VERY quickly! I just stood in my room looking at it and then picked up one of my hiking shoes. And I looked at the sole of the shoe, then at the spider, then at the shoe and thought, "That thing is BIGGER than my shoe!!" And I´m a size 10! Of course it was late and everyone was in bed so I wasn´t about to go waking people up for a spider, so after 30 minutes of just staring at it, I decided I was tired and it was time to kill it. So the hiking shoe swung, and managed to hit it (even though it started scurrying like mad when it realized what was going to happen). I got a broom and swept the corpse outside immediately! When I told my family about it the next day, they were like, "You killed it yourself??" They were impressed.

Big purchases for the new house...
I have a refrigerator and a bed now! Super exciting...

Massive cleaning efforts...
No one has lived in my new house for about a year, and I don´t think it has been thoroughly cleaned for much longer than that. So I´m all about getting it spiffy. Which means...I have to clean all of the brick walls by hand. There are 12 walls, varying from 6´ to 12´ in height. So I´ve spent hours with a ladder (if that´s what you want to call it...more like part of a fence that I can climb), a bucket, and a brush, cleaning brick by brick each wall. My neighbor stopped by to talk to me and was like, "You´re going to clean ALL of your walls like that?" I said, "Yeah." She said, "You have A LOT of patience!" So...I´m getting some credit for a hard work ethic, I think. But it is VERY time consuming, and I can´t wait to be done with it! After cleaning part of one wall, however, it became apparent how important it is. I have to use about 4 buckets of water for each wall, and each time I dump out the used water, there is about an inch of dirt and mud on the bottom of the bucket!

Games, games, and more games...
Just what it sounds like...fun fun fun. :)

Oh, and I just read some of Tara´s recent blog entries. (We lived in the same training host community.) They cracked me up and summarize just how we´re all feeling down here. You can view these entries at:

http://tarasinelsalvador.blogspot.com/2005/10/things-i-will-be-happy-about-when-i.html

http://tarasinelsalvador.blogspot.com/2005/10/things-my-brother-tells-me-i-should.html

So...that´s about it for now. Nothing too exciting...just an average Peace Corps week! :)

Miss you all!!