My last 4 days...

Oh my goodness. The last 4 days have been CRAZY and the next 3-4 are planned to be just the same! Recap:

Saturday August 12th
That is the day that I sent the last update. I wanted to finish the introduction letter and project description so all of the heads of organizations working on this Internet project could sign the letter and put their stamp next to their name. (That's important here. Stamping. If you don't have a stamp, you might as well just go home because no one will take you seriously.) :) Anyway, I didn't finish it Friday because the woman I wanted to consult about it got sick and I ended up asking my coordinator at like 4 PM if she could look it over, and - obviously - she told me she would get it to me on Monday. So...I decided to finish everything I could without their help on Friday night and Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon, I hopped on a bus and returned to San Isidro after my marathon week of medical check-ups. I met with a community leader about the work I had done, went to the local pupuseria to chow down and socialize, and then went home and went to bed.


Sunday, August 13th
I woke up at 7 AM and threw on some clothes and made it over to the elementary/middle school to attempt to finally finish the world map. I stayed from 7 AM to 1:30 AM on Monday! I didn't eat lunch. I didn't eat dinner. I outlined countries. I identified countries that were missing or in the wrong place. (Hey, man, we did this by HAND!) I numbered all the countries. I painted an area to write the names of the countries and world facts. Then, I collapsed on a bench in the priancipal's office, waking up each hour for the next 2 hours FREEZING and then finally asked the security guard to walk me home at 4 AM, where I bathed (and the water felt WARM since I was freezing), and then got on a bus headed for San Vicente, about 4 hours away. Click here for more photos of this project.


Monday, August 14th
I arrived in San V and immediately went to the office to work on the presentation I was going to give that afternoon to the trainees. There were tons of people working on the 1 computer available to us, so I decided to use the cyber cafe down the street. When I got there, I found that (A) they didn't have ANY Microsoft products - only Internet and notebook and (B) I couldn't download ANY photos on the computer. So much for that plan...

But I did get to check my email and had some conversations with the family. So it was all good. :)

I returned to the training center and just talked to some folks, got all the new volunteer contact info, and then did some last minute prep for the session I had. It was about the world map project. I feel like the session was a bit boring, but I gave them a lot of info and showed them a variety of photos from other volunteer maps, so hopefully they took what they needed from it. We ended around 3:30 and I left for my site.

We got into San Salvador around 5:30 and I decided to grab a bite to eat out of town and stop by the office to print out the changes that the PC staff recommended for the Internet project. By the time I got to the office, it was getting dark out so I decided to just stay there and work. I saw that one person had sent me her comments, but she recommended that another staff member review it and that staff member told me she would do it first thing the next day. So I decided to sleep in the office (again) and get an early start.


Tuesday, August 15th
I woke up around 7:00 AM and made some changes in the Internet documents based on what the first staff member recommended. Later in the morning, the second staff member sent me her edits and I made some more changes. Let me just say, I saw JUST where my Spanish was when I got these edits back. Take a look at Click here to view the edited document in Word if you want to see just how many errors I made. The entire document is freaking RED!!!! :) Oh well. Thank goodness I have a bunch of super supportive staff members here to correct all my mistakes. And thank goodness the people in my community have figured out my gringa Spanish so we can communicate!

Anyway, back to the documents. I realized that I STILL did not have the legal information for the city council in my town. (I started asking for this a month ago, from about 3 different organizations.) So I decided to go straight to the source: the public record. Now, this entailed getting in a taxi (apparently, it's in a dangerous area of town), and then having the following fun experience:

Security Guard (a woman!): Welcome. What do you need?

Michelle: Good afternoon. I need to go to the library downstairs to get some legal information for a city council.

Security Guard: I need your identification.

[Michelle panics when she realizes she left her ID in the Peace Corps office with everything else she didn't need since she was going to a dangerous part of town.]

Michelle: Um....I left my ID in my office. (and KNOWS she is going to hear "fijate que...")

Security Guard: [a little apprehension] ....well.....ok....here is a badge. You can go into that room.

Michelle: [SHOCKED that she is allowed in without meeting the requirement of showing ID] Ok....but I was told that I needed to get the info from the library downstairs.

Security Guard: You need to start in that room.

Michelle: Ok, thanks. [Enters the room and waits for 10 minutes for an available clerk.]

Clerk: How can I help you?

Michelle: I need the legal information for a city council.

Clerk: When did it become legal?

Michelle: I don't know the exact date; I was told 2004, probably in November.

[Clerk begins opening EVERY PDF version of the official publication in November 2004 (about 15 in total) and searches each one for San Isidro, part of the name of the city council. She finds nothing and tells Michelle she needs to go to the library downstairs.]

[Michelle is escorted downstairs where she tells the next clerk what she needs.]

Clerk2: When did it become legalized?

Michelle: I don't know exactly. Just sometime in 2004.

Clerk2: What is it's legal code?

Michelle: I don't know. I need to find that information. I just have the name and that it was legalized in 2004.

Clerk2: Then I can't help you. You have to have that information.

Michelle: But that's the information I need!

Clerk2: Well, there is nothing I can do.

[Michelle calls the director of the munipal development program, the person that described where she should go to get this info and asks him to talk to this woman.]

[They talk and she agrees to help Michelle. Again, thank goodness for awesome staff members!]

[Clerk2 brings out a 3" binder with about 1000 sheets of paper in it. This binder contains ALL of the laws that were passed in 2004, including the ones legalizing city councils. She tells Michelle that she needs to read line by line to find the information she wants. Michelle does this (and constantly is wondering HOW she can convince them to hire her to build them a searchable database). After 2 hours, she finishes the book with only locating the legal information for a city council that is part of her town, but not the one she needs. She asks for the book for 2005 and is told that is in room #1 where she started. She returns to room #1 and explains what she needs to a new clerk. THIS clerk opens a DATABASE, that's right, I said a DATABASE, and starts trying to search for it.]

Michelle: Wait! You have a database with this information!

Clerk3: Only for 2005.

Michelle: Ok. Click here. Now here. Now here. Now here. Now type in Sonsonate. Now click here. Now move this. etc. [Clerk3 does everything she asks, but is unable to find the info. The name of the city council is about 200 characters long, and the space illustrating this name is big enough for about 25 characters, all of which are the same for each city council in the country. Michelle asks to take over his computer explaining that she will NOT change any data. And he agrees!!! Michelle changes the design of the form so they can actually view the data and does some quick searches. Nothing comes up. It wasn't created in 2005 either. PUCHICA!]

Michelle: I guess it's not here. Thanks for your time.

Clerk3: You really know what you're doing with computers.

Michelle: Yeah. Thanks.

[Talks with the coordinator for municipal development and the coordinator suggests asking for ALL of the legal information for the city council that Michelle found that she thinks is incorrect. She goes back downstairs and asks the woman if she can view that and the woman says, "not for 45 minutes." Michelle walks back up to the first room, because it's air conditioned, and looks over, again, the Internet proposal information. She gets thirsty and realizes the 5 gallon jug of water is empty but there is another one on the floor that needs to be put into the contraption that gives water. So she starts opening it until a woman runs over flailing her arms wildly saying that she'll get a man to do it. Michelle continues doing it and lifts the water up, turns it over, and places it perfectly into the container just in time for the woman to come back and see it happen. There you go...teaching the women that they can do "manly" stuff too! :) Michelle walks back downstairs and starts reviewing the detailed legal information of the wrong city council to make sure it's the wrong city council. And guess what? It is!]

Michelle: Do you have a phone number here that I could call once I receive the information?

Clerk2 (Michelle's new friend, Maria Dolores): Yes! I have a couple. Just give me a call and I'll get you whatever I need. (What a difference being friends makes! Geez, at first she couldn't help me AT ALL and now she's willing to do whatever I need!)

[So, after all that, Michelle leaves with a phone number, empty-handed of the info she wanted and waits at the office until people get off work in her site to, yet again, attempt to obtain this info.]

And now she's waiting.....waiting...waiting...waiting....and needs to shower....shower....shower...

Stay tuned for more fun with this one! :)