Just my latest thoughts...

Don´t go!
There are amazing people here that my program director refers to as "rockstars". They´re the people in each community that keep it going. They inspire their peers. They demonstrate leadership from day to day. And they get stuff done. They´re the people that support us day in and day out and make our experiences here so much better. I´ve identified a couple of rockstars in my community.

The other day, I visited one of them at home. And when I walked in, his wife said, "Michelle, I´m sad." I said, "Why?" She said, "Because Bill (I´m going to leave out actual names) is leaving on Tuesday." I said, "What do you mean, ´leaving´? Where is he going and for how long?" She said, "He´s looked everywhere for work here and can´t find anything. We need $80 a month to send the kids to school, eat, and keep the house. And we´re running out of money. So he´s leaving to get work somewhere else and is going to be gone 5 years." Then she just started bawling. I couldn´t believe it. This guy, her husband, is the president of the city council, active member on the school board, volunteered to (and did) help build the school for free when an outside contractor was hired, has helped me IMMENSELY by introducing me to people, helping me find a house, and helping me set up the house. His wife is a health promoter in the community. They don´t make much money, but work to improve the community constantly. And now he´s leaving. And I had his wife in my arms sobbing about it. I tried to console her and tell her everything would be ok. And she just said, "We have 3 kids. What if something happens to him?" This is a situation I´ll never forget. My mind was racing trying to figure out how we could get him to stay. But in El Salvador, there just aren´t jobs. People will college educations can´t find work. It´s a bad situation. And this man, who has a high school education, who has taken every possible further education that has been offered to him, who helps anyone and everyone that needs it, is leaving to support his family. This is a problem.


What happened to spanish?
This week I am in training again. They call it IST (in-service training). It´s a time for me to demonstrate the improvement in my non-existent spanish. Ok...actually I can talk to people now. But since I was in the states over Thanksgiving, spent the last week in the capitol welcoming the new group of volunteers, and now am spending this week with people from my group, I know my spanish is getting rusty. So that will make spanish class all the more fun, I suppose. :)


Revelations...
I´ve noticed recently that I get REALLY stressed, depressed, agitated, frustrated, or maybe a combination of those when I´m in the capitol. Last night, as I was going to sleep, I was trying to figure out why. And I decided that it´s because the capitol APPEARS to be just like life in the US. It appears that way until you actually visit a business. Customer service and problem-solving are pretty much non-existent here. And in the US, businesses would cease to exist if they acted in the way they do here. So I tend to get EXTREMELY irritated during these interactions. I´ll give you examples from yesterday (only ONE day!):

A) Bank visit:
Have to wait in line FOR-EVER because everything you could possibly need to do with your account (minus a withdrawl), requires you to visit a person, meaning that you need to plan an hour or more when you need information, need to make a deposit, have a question, etc. And if you want to make any changes, then you´d better have 50 forms of identification, your dead mother with you, and be ready to accept the 100 fijateques that you´re going to hear.

B) Food visit:
Fast food doesn´t mean fast food. It means, food from the US that will be given to you when we´re ready to give to you. And oh, if you want something different (in my life...cheeseburger, only tomato), that will involve the ENTIRE staff talking to each other to communicate what you want, you receiving a bun, cheese, and tomato and having to ask for meat, causing the entire staff to have another pow-wow, this time with yelling involved about how it wasn´t done the first time, and finally 10 minutes later, just what you ordered. Now, of course, this only occurs if they, in fact, have in stock what you´re ordering. It´s a lot to ask businesses to actually predict what they will need on hand for customers.

C) Grocery store water purchase:
Want to buy a quick bottle of water? Easy, right? Walk into the store, wait in line to leave any bag that you have with this guy in the front (kind of like a coat check in the states), walk to the water aisle and pick up what you want. Walk to the front and wait in line for about 10 minutes, get to the front to pay for your $0.50 water with a $5 and listen to the cashier say, "I don´t have change." So stay there, right, because obviously she´s going to get some. Wait. Stare at her. Watch her stare at you. Then hear her say to the boy who is bagging, "Can you take her to another aisle please?" Watch the bag boy pick up your water and $5 and walk away with it. So you follow and watch him take you to another aisle...to the END of the line...so you can wait another 10 minutes to purchase it, assuming that this cashier happens to have change. You either take exact change or plan not to purchase.

If the country was totally different than the US, I think it would make it easier to take. But because it APPEARS to be the same, it really makes me want to scream, "GET WITH THE PROGRAM; PEOPLE!!" But, then I have to remind myself, ok, I´m in another country. It´s different here. This isn´t so important. Breathe. (You can all see me doing this, right?) Anyway, my latest revelation.

Miss ya all!