Ugh...I´m in that stage...

My group arrived here on June 8th. 11+ months ago. And everyone that I have talked to in my group is irritated at the moment. In the past week, I´ve had 2 breakdowns of just total bawling my eyes out from the frustration. I am going back to the states tomorrow. Many more of the people in my group have already gone home for a visit, or will be in the next month. We´re sick of everything. On the positive side, I hope this means that we´re all going through a stage. One that will hopefully pass soon. From my viewpoint (I can´t speak for the rest in my group), here is what is going on.

I´m sick of taking the buses. I´m sick of sweating my butt off every single day (or not sweating my butt off because it´s like 5 million percent humidity). I´m sick of never feeling clean. I´m sick of always being broke. I´m sick of EVERYONE staring at me because I´m different. I´m sick of hearing, "Ah, Michelle! Tengo muchos días sin verla!" ("Ah, Michelle! I haven´t seen you in a LONG time!" when I feel like replying, "Yeah. there are 5,000 people living here. You´re not going to see me everyday, FYI.") I´m sick of having 2 personalities (my normal gringa personality and my "I have to think about everything I say before I say it so I don´t offend you and/or so you don´t decide to stop working with me" Salvadoran personality. I´m tired of everyone having to know always, what I´m doing, where I´m going, what I´ve been doing, where I´ve been going, etc. I´m sick of people being all excited about something, and then doing NOTHING when it comes time to actually work. I´m sick of seeing (and smelling) trash everywhere. I´m sick of asking someone something and hearing (because they ASSUME I´m speaking English), "No entiendo." ("I don´t understand.") I´m pretty much sick of everything. Now that I´m done with venting, I´m going to explain what happened last week with the Technology project.


1.5 weeks ago
Peace Corps offered a Project Design and Management workshop. I was super excited about it, because I knew there were lots of people in my community that would benefit from it. I initially invited a woman that´s involved in the leadership in her church, is the only management women in the cooperative (the association of farmers), and has attended a university in the states through a leadership scholarship targeted towards poor youth in Central America (only about 10 students from all of Central America are chosen). I also initially invited a man that is working on developing tourism in my town, and who works in the cooperative. They both initially were excited about it, but of course, late in the game, informed me they couldn´t go. So I took the President of the city council, and a woman that is working on the cyber cafe project (as is the president of the city council).

We had a great time at the workshop and made a list of TONS of things that we could do when we returned to get the cybercafe project off and running. Our Fiestas Patronales (week-long religious celebration where tons of vendors come in, music is blared, and carnival rides are available) are this week, so many of our ideas from the workshop centered on using the fiestas opportunity to fundraise.


6 days ago
So, the last meeting before the fiestas was last Tuesday night. I was leaving for Nicaragua on Thursday morning, so I spent the entire day (even though I was super sick) getting everything ready to allow vendors to "sponsor" the project (giving us X% of their profit). We were going to have kind of a battle of the businesses kind of thing. And the winner could win something like candy from the US, or...I don´t know...something else. I made up all of the materials that we needed and talked to a few businesses in town to get feedback to make sure everything would run smoothly. ALL that needed to happen Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, was committee members getting sponsorship from the vendors. (And, the person from the committee that got the most sponsorship would win a prize too.) Anyway, the meeting started, and 2 people showed up - the 2 people I took to the PDM. We started calling the other members of the committee and everyone had an excuse: "I don´t feel good." "I have lots of work to do." in addition to no answers.

Do you know what was decided? Since we didn´t have enough people to find sponsorship (the President is organizing the entire event and I was leaving for Nicaragua), we decided to do a raffle. The most money we can POSSIBLY get for this little raffle is $20. And as far as I can tell, no one besides me will be able to sell tickets. That´s it. That is the entire fundraising idea for the entire event. The meeting ended and I was so frustrated I broke down. And I continued breaking down at other times during the week. Thank goodness I got a trip to Nicaragua to get away. And thank goodness I´m leaving tomorrow for the states.


Today
I know this isn´t a huge deal. I just feel like there is a pattern here of people saying, "Oh yeah! Let´s do it!" But to actually get things done is nearly impossible. And I can´t do everything myself. I mean, I could, but what would the point be? I´m here to FACILITATE things happening. And I can´t so much "facilitate" when people are unwilling to do ANYTHING. I know I´m being broad right now. There are a few people who seem dedicated. But we need more. And right now, that is my problem. Figuring out how to hold people accountable for what they say. I could post something in town that shows what everyone has promised to do, but I really feel like people wouldn´t even care if others didn´t follow through. So what exactly can I use for motivation?? It´s definitely a problem that I will be considering during this trip home. So, when you´re tempted (as I know you will be) to say, "So...how is everything going in El Salvador?", just be ready for my response of, "It´s definitely full of ups and downs and I´m kind of in a ´down´ right now." :)

I can´t wait to see you all!! My trip to Nicaragua was pretty sweet. I´ll post photos soon, but until then, if you want to read about my thoughts (they´re positive), visit here.