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September 15th-23rd, 2007: The Independent Savior
On September 15th, 1821 the Central American countries declared their independence from Spanish dominion and set-up the short-lived Central American Republic. Independence revolves around the schools here in El Salvador. Every day for independence week, schools hold assemblies dealing with various independent-related themes. More importantly though, every school with musical instruments has been annoying the crap out of all their neighbors for the last couple months practicing for the big day (I considered myself lucky that my school doesn't have band equipment, when I my ears began hurting before I had gotten within half a mile of the school in San Pedro). On the 15th there was an assembly in town and then the school bands marched around town playing for a couple hours. And that's it, the highlight of independence day. The musical instruments are put away and not seen again until the next year (who would actually want to have band all year round and actually learn how to play?).
"Traditional" dancing is a key element of all the assemblies and a thankfully non-military aspect of the celebrations
With the goal of capturing images of "everyday" life before I leave I am trying to take my camera everywhere. On bus trips you are constantly bombarded by vendors of everything from food to school supplies to herbal medicine. Some of the more passionate ones give long speeches extolling their product from the front before offering them for sale. My favorites are the herbal medicine men; according to them a one dollar jar of herbal cream can cure everything from cancer to impenitence; if I can't find work at home maybe I can export the stuff to the states.
One of the loose ends that needs tying up before I go home is to install the computers at the two schools that I helped get for schools in neighboring villages. Except for some minor problems I have them set-up in one of the schools and am going to try and drop by a couple times to do a brief introductory course with the teachers.
All the materials have to be carried down a long steep (and after it rains) extremely slippery path before work can even begin.
Spring Project
The first thing I did back in LC from my traveling and conferences was to call together the ADESCO and get rolling on the project to improve the community spring. 2 weeks later, it is quite astounding how fast things got going. I got word from Washington that all the money had been collected and the check should be arriving for me in the next two weeks. Looking for a bit of help, the project was give a further jump forward when the Alcalde offered to pay for 5 people to work on the project for a month. I agreed to front some money to buy materials and the ground was broken the next day!! I am really still in El Salvador? One week later I have made two trips to buy materials and my Bank account is down to $2.76 and I have glued my fingers crossed in the hopes of the money arriving early this week, before the spell is broken!
I spend nearly a thousand dollars on materials and the place (right next door to this bank) doesn't except credit cards (or checks for that matter) is it just me or is that insane that they expect people to go around with thousands of dollars in cash in their pockets. But I do thank God every day that ATMs have reached El Salvador. Everyday lines stretch around the block at banks as people queue up to cash in on the money their relatives are sending back from the states. I live in fear of having to go inside to deposit my check.
