Considering Work, Doing Work

March 25, 2008

Curious about what I’m doing for work here in the campo? I imagine so. I’ve hardly uttered a word on it so far—although it would be a Phyrric task to separate what I’ve been talking about from my “real work” as a Peace Corps volunteer. I’ve spent most of my time here wandering around talking with people and helping with their daily tasks. In the course of the past four months, I’ve noted steady, marked improvements in peoples’ comfort with me and our ability to understand each other. These days I get more smiles, more enthusiastic greetings, and more shouts of my name by little kids. I’ve milked cows, baked bread, milled sugarcane, helped build a house, woodworked, cooed at babies, and played soccer with the people of my village. I’ve sat in their houses for so long that my North American discomfort with silence and overstayed welcomes has disappeared. I’ve accepted many cups of coffee. I’ve said buenas tardes umpteen kajillion times. I really live here.

To set all this aside in an attempt to isolate what my work consists of would sink the attempt from the outset. I won’t be writing these things on my quarterly reports, but they are essential. Two out of Peace Corps’s three goals focus on cultural exchange; fully experiencing what life is like here is high among my own personal goals as well. But even more to the point is that it’s impossible to do any work-ish work here without laying down a base of friendship and trust—the all-important confianza that was the buzzword supreme of training. I was recently discussing this with Samantha and Chris, the volunteers who live in the nearby pueblo. They’ve been here over a year and their experience is that it’s impossible to do work with people until you spend plenty of time just hanging out, cracking jokes, relaxing, and drinking coffee with them. If you don’t take these necessary steps to build confianza, they will act frustratingly standoffish when discussing work with you, and you will drive yourself crazy trying to get anything done. Our tendency as North Americans is to try to get to work right away, to show that we’re not lazy and we’re really here to do something. But this urge must be squelched. So as you can see, what I’ve been doing is a crucial part of my work.

But of course it’s not the whole kit and kaboodle. I’ve been slowly developing various projects, the primary of which is a tree nursery. And yesterday, finally, something tangible was realized. Last week I arranged with various landowners to donate tree branches and bamboo in order to make a fence and shade structure (ramada), and invited 20 men to a “work day,” uncertain whether anyone would show up. Twelve did, on Salvadoran time of course, and commenced working like a well-oiled machine. I just had to state the goals of the day and they fell to. Last September, before entering Peace Corps, I read a profile of the country that nicknamed Salvadorans the “Germans of Central America” for their strong work ethic. It’s a weird title, but there’s certainly some truth to it. We got way more done than I anticipated—the barbed-wire fence is up, lacking only chicken wire, and the skeleton of the ramada is also done, ready for bundles of grass to be tied to its top.

I spent most of the morning cutting branches for fence posts from a large tree that my musician friend Don Leonidas wanted heavily pruned to let light to the younger trees below. We did it arborist-style, letting the huge branches down gently to avoid crushing the saplings and fences below. The difference was that the man up top was using a machete instead of a chainsaw. Meanwhile two other crews were digging postholes and cutting bamboo for the horizontal members of the ramada. Our task took the most time, so when we finally arrived on Don Pipo’s loaded-down pickup (dragging the 25’ bamboo rods behind), the others were rested and got cracking on the fence. By 11:45 every hole had a post, and I saw fit to announce lunchtime. But everyone just kept working, and twenty minutes later food and coffee appeared, courtesy of Niña Sofía, whose land we’re using for the nursery. I should have known.

When we disbanded at about 2:30 I felt joyful and energetic and expressed it by working on my neighbor Don Carlos’s house with him for a while. He was doing the rafters, the funnest part.

I’m making invitations for the next work day; I anticipate finishing the fence and ramada. Then I can get started with the youngsters mixing dirt, planting seeds, watering, and extolling all the benefits of a tree nursery, tying the dirty hands and two-leafed seedling to the big picture. Boy it feels good to get started.

It Takes Sophisticated Pronunciation to Avoid Making “Beach” Sound Vulgar

March 16, 2008

To kick off the beginning of Semana Santa, my village’s church organized an excursion to the beach yesterday.  This is a common method of breaking routine and raising money for organizations like churches and community development groups.  I was curious about how much money was being raised, so I asked the guy who organized the trip.  He said the bus was $175 for the day.  There were about 30 people on the trip, each paying $6.  So according to my calculations the church got a whopping $5 from the excursion.  This does not encourage me to organize excursions to fundraise for future projects I may get involved in.

I decided late the night before to go on the trip.  The bus was scheduled to leave at 4:30 AM, so I set my alarm and filled my coffee filter for an efficient awakening.  Knowing 4:30 was an entirely unrealistic ideal, I showed up ten minutes late.  Ha!  We didn’t end up leaving until 5:25, as the sky was starting to lighten.  This is just the way El Salvador works.  The really strange thing, though, is that most people were there before I arrived, and I don’t think anyone new showed up for the last 20 minutes we were waiting around.  There is no sensible explanation for this strange Salvadoran custom.

At the beach we secured a low palm-leaf pavilion and rented a few hammocks.  The group immediately split up into age and gender categories.  The little girls went into the surf and stayed there almost all day, accompanied by a couple of mothers.  The teenage boys got some food and then claimed a section of surf near but not too near to the teenage girls.  The younger men (20-30ish) made a beeline for a hut a safe distance down the beach to drink beer.  And the church elders (who really aren’t that old) contentedly sat in hammocks.

The beach (El Espino in Usulután for you map nerds) was packed with similar excursions.  It was perfectly straight as far as the eye could see in either direction, crowded with palm-leaf and grass shade structures in a variety of shapes, watched over by palm trees.  The view was geometrically pleasing.

Most of the people there being from rural areas, hardly anyone wore a bathing suit.  Women and men alike waded around in t-shirts and shorts or skirts.  Ironically, the women’s attempt at modesty was by and large undone by not wearing bras, creating an unsettling wet t-shirt contest of all shapes and sizes.  Not many know how to swim well, and Salvadoran beaches are renowned for their riptides, so there was no one venturing out past about waist depth.  Except me, of course, until I found out that the body surfing at El Espino is relatively worthless.  Too shallow too far out for the waves to break right. 

I tried to spend time with all the split-up sections of my group.  I did flips in the surf with the teenage boys, to the muted interest of the teenage girls (thanks to my brother Tom for teaching me this trick in Brazil).  I built sand castles with the little girls, using Styrofoam cups as molds.  And I ended up drinking a couple of beers with the young men, the first beers I’ve had with members of my community.  We’ve been warned off alcohol consumption in site—the concept of drinking in moderation is rare in this country, and drinking one beer can earn you a reputation as a drunkard.  But at the beach it seemed more suitable, so I accepted the enthusiastic offer of a beer and ended up having quality conversation with the three young men I joined.  Eventually the organizer of the trip joined us for a beer, helping validate my decision. 

Though the conversation was overall good, there was one annoying aspect.  I was mostly talking with Chungo, a 30-year-old guy who lived for many years in the U.S. and speaks excellent English.  We habitually speak English when we see each other.  But at the beach we were sitting at a table with Juan, a monolingual Spanish speaker, so it seemed rude to me to speak in English, as Chungo was doing.  I responded to everything in Spanish, and suggested we speak Spanish.  But I gradually discovered that Chungo somehow doesn’t think my Spanish is very good, despite my ability to understand what other people were saying and respond in good Spanish.  He even translated for me, much of which I understood in the original and other things I wouldn’t have needed translated if Juan hadn’t been sitting farther from me and speaking in a low voice to Chungo.  It was frustrating.  I don’t understand the mental disconnect that allows Chungo to think my Spanish is bad despite my good Spanish.  But not so frustrating that it ruined my enjoyment.

I left the table eventually to grab some lunch and go for another dip, and it was soon time to leave.  To my dismay Chungo appeared falling-down drunk, with a beer still in his hand.  He had been talking eloquently about the merits of drinking moderately on occasion, to my enthusiastic agreement (I like to foster the concept where I can here), and now here he was, sloshed senseless.  I guess even where the concept exists the practice can be lacking.  I felt bad for him—it must have been embarrassing to be that way in front of all the kids and mothers—but for my own sake I was glad I’d left the table while he was still articulate, and didn’t become involved in the scene.

The trip was good overall, despite the minor dissatisfactory parts.  It was good to break routine and see some of my community members break routine.  Now I’m looking forward to Semana Santa, a serious routine breaker right here at home.  The village church has all sorts of processions and whatnot lined up—impressive for a village our size.  Your dutiful correspondent will attend and report.  For now the insects and peepers that have been getting louder over the past couple of weeks are serenading my way to bed.  They don’t sound all that different from the spring peepers and summer insects back home in West Virginia, and if I close my eyes and imagine just right I can transport myself back there.  It’s a great comfort.

Army Meets Peace Corps

March 12, 2008

Occasionally the U.S. Army carries out medical missions in developing countries around the world to improve relations, keep up its chops for potential disaster or combat situations, and, of course, help people.  They refer to these missions as MEDRETEs, pronounced med-ready.  Despite the high number of Latinos in our military, the doctors and nurses still need translators, so they ask Peace Corps Volunteers to volunteer.  I did, and spent the 6^th through the 8^th with a MEDRETE in El Sauce, La Unión.  Although I didn’t end up doing a whole lot of proper translating, I did get to be a participant observer in a fascinating spectacle and spend some QT with our men and women in uniform.

 

I arrived with Steph at the Destacamento Militar #3 (Military Detachment #3) in La Unión at suppertime on the 5^th.  The Destacamento is an enormous complex of barracks, bunkers, and hangar-like training buildings.  Much of it appears disused—empty hangars with piles of molding mattresses, overgrown guard towers, and a decaying zoo that once held mountain lions but whose only remaining inhabitants are three fat crocodiles.  Mascots, perhaps.  The Destacamento #3’s badge bears the name “Monterrosa,” in honor of Domingo Monterrosa, a renowned colonel who died in 1985 when the FMLN rebels booby-trapped his helicopter.  Monterrosa’s pride and joy, the Atlclatl Battalion of Special Forces soldiers, was famous for its bloodthirstiness.  I mean that in the typical sense of the word (it was disbanded in 1992 owing to its participation in the massacre of El Mozote), but also quite literally: the Atlclatl Battalion had a habit of drinking the blood of animals and smearing it on their faces to achieve a certain “mystique” (Mark Danner, The Massacre at El Mozote, p. 50).  So perhaps the zoo’s purpose was multifold: mascots and objects of sacrifice both.

 

After the supper of MRE lasagna (not bad, actually), I stayed up until 11:30 with some soldiers and the six PCVs who had been translating for the previous three days.  Four of the six were from my training group, so it was good to catch up.  They had obviously had a great time with the soldiers, and were not ready to go to bed on their last night.  I, having newly arrived, was taken aback by how familiarly they joked with colonels and privates alike, but I soon developed a similar rapport.  The soldiers were friendly and easy to talk to, and as civilians we didn’t have to worry about ranks or military decorum.  (This was sometimes problematic when referring to a third party, as the soldiers only knew each other by rank and last name, and we only knew most of them by first name.)  The mood was relaxed and jovial, as you might expect from a bunch of Reservists on a non-combat mission.  We played chess with Jesse, aka Sgt.______, whose father was a grandmaster; talked politics with Steve, a good-old-boy Oklahoman Republican; and finally went to bed in a crowded, hot room on horrible cots.

 

Being the only male among the PCV translators determined my job on the first day.  Steve and Scott, the very guy-ish duo making up the Civil Affairs delegation, had had my friend Meghan the day before and were looking forward to a guy instead, someone who could better participate in their shoptalk and off-color jokes.  Also accompanying us was a Lieutenant Luna from the Salvadoran Army who spoke pretty good English.  The three soldiers overcame cultural barriers by agreeing that women shouldn’t be allowed to drive, comparing notes on San Salvador strip clubs, arguing about whether skydiving or bungee jumping is more fun, discussing the merits of the Glock versus the Beretta, and bashing the wimpy 9mm bullet because it “just pokes holes.”  A corollary to this last discussion was the explanation that the Army switched to the 9mm so as to use the same ammo as the Europeans, who use it because “the French are too faggy [wrist flop] to shoot a .45.”  And a corollary to that was the history of the .45 bullet, which was apparently developed during WWII when Americans were fighting Samoans and other large Pacific Islanders, and needed more stopping power. 

 

We drove to El Sauce first —a full hour—to help set up the examination rooms and tents in the school.  There was already a line of locals stretching down the block.  In order to free up the school for the campaign the principal had arranged for a parade and a soccer tournament; when we got there the kids were in high spirits and soccer uniforms or costumes, and hadn’t yet vacated the premises, much to the annoyance of some of the soldiers.  I did a little translating between one of the colonels and the principal, adding courtesy words of my own here and there to smooth the process.  I next turned my attention to the communications person, a bitter, crass woman from Georgia appropriately named Lemmons, who was being driven crazy by careless kids stepping over the wire to her portable satellite antenna, threatening to bring it crashing down at any moment.  “That thing is worth more than I make in a year!  I swear I will shoot the next kid who walks through here!  I’m not even joking!”  I roped off the area and she showed me a little friendliness, which I got the sense was rare for her.

 

After everything was set up, Scott, Steve, Lieutenant Luna, and I set off for Anamorós, the site of the next stage of the MEDRETE, to scope out the school and distribute promotional material to the city hall.  The soldiers swapped stories, each one topping the last.  Scott once guided a raft trip on the Gauley River in West Virginia that Dan Quayle was on, as well as a group of lawyers who had gone to college with him, and had disliked him, and so mooned him from their raft.  Steve once got pulled over in his new Mustang GTI going 140 in a 20-mph zone, but convinced the cop to use his radar gun to see how fast he could get it going; the result: 170.  Lieutenant Luna once got robbed at gunpoint in his car at a stoplight; he had his gun in his pocket, which led the thief to shoot him, twice, point-blank, but somehow missing anything important.  The three had all been to Iraq, so they compared Arabic words and common experiences, like the gourmet meals provided by a government contractor and the kids selling porn in the streets.

 

Scott and Steve treated me to pizza and beer in Anamorós.  They were both horrified to learn how little we earn as PCVs, and the conditions we live in.  Scott commented that he had once considered joining the Peace Corps, and he was glad he got to meet us, because it convinced him he was right not to.  He told me stories about walking around Iraq with $50,000 in his pocket to spend on whatever reconstruction projects he found and deemed appropriate, then going back to get another wad when he was all out.  In contrast the penny-pinched Peace Corps demands all sorts of paperwork to authorize $35 for travel and meals during a weekend training session.  Speaking of money, I also found out that each MRE costs $9.50, which blew my mind, and that when the MEDRETE got here the soldiers were put up in the Sheraton in San Salvador, each in their own room, for 4 or 5 days!  The Peace Corps would never in a million years do something like that.

 

The next day Scott and Steve planned to take advantage of their freedom as the “civil delegation” to go to the beach.  I begged off, wanting to stick around the site and actually make myself useful.  I ended up working in the pharmacy (housed in the third-grade classroom) with Jesse the chess player, who speaks Spanish.  This meant I didn’t do much translating, but rather worked alongside Jesse explaining over and over again how to take the meds we were doling out—take one pill two times a day with plenty of water until they’re all gone.  This got boring quick, so Jesse and I resorted to joking with the patients.  Our crowning achievement was a prank on one of the doctors, the easily embarassed Captain LeFurge.  We got a young woman to say she loved him and give him a kiss on the cheek.

 

The pharmacy was perhaps the most important place in the minds of the people attending the campaign.  It’s where they got something tangible, something for free that could make them feel better.  If the doctors gave them a diagnosis but no prescription they were dissatisfied, so we ended up giving out a ton of vitamins, Tylenol, and Ibuprofen just to make them feel like they got something out of waiting in line.  Other common prescriptions: Loratadine, Colace, Zantac, Amoxicillin, Cipro.  The adorable old women were the best to give meds to—their earnest handshakes and thanks were so sweet.

 

Chess was played, MREs were eaten, jokes were told.  As the group of PCV translators before had done, we came to feel a fraternal ease with the soldiers.  They were a very diverse group in terms of race, age, rank, origin, and body type.  Probably politically too.  It made me realize how homogenous the Peace Corps is in comparison—most of us, at least here in El Salvador, are white and liberal.  It was refreshing.

 

I also spent the third day in the pharmacy, gradually getting more familiar with the names of drugs, dosages, and the doctors’ handwriting.  The cordon I’d put up for Lemmons had been working, sparing her the stress over her equipment, allowing her to warm up enough to make friends with a couple of kids.  That was a small triumph for her—she knows she’s mean and nasty—and she bragged to me afterwards almost as a form of thanks for the small role I played.

 

That evening the ranking Colonel offered me an official thank-you in front of the soldiers in formation—I was the only PCV they could find at the moment, and it felt a little odd to stand there alone with rows of soldiers clapping for me, especially when it was the other PCVs who’d been doing the more taxing translating for the doctors and the vet. 

 

A game of spades and a vicious argument about the proper rules of spades closed out my last night in the barracks.  The same 5 AM wakeup and the same MRE eggs we’d had every morning bid us goodbye, as did the soldiers in formation, again, this time with all PCVs present.  We got group pictures too.  (If I figure out a way to smallen my pictures I’ll start putting a few up here, but for the moment I’m stymied.  Does anyone know if iPhoto can do it?)  It was a hugely entertaining, tiring, satisfying three days with the troops, but I was ready to get back home to Morazán.