Chaparrastique

Finally, a nice picture of the San Miguel volcano! Still need to climb it, though. Maybe once it's not rainy season anymore.

Last Day!

Not really. I haven't gotten much of my wrap-up work finished yet, and I'm still going to be "working" through the end of July. But I can now technically say no and not feel bad too about it at all.

I've opened up a new Yahoo! 360°account...don't like it much other than the fact it automatically links to friends that you invite, which is kind of fun.

Off to Guatemala next week to travel with Cristyn and go to another conference in Xela at the Instituto Guatemalteco Americano branch there (which I have to say I always want to pronounce like this. Then back to try to find an apartment again in San Salvador.

And a trip to Perquin to see the museum and swim in the Rio Sapo tomorrow. Hopefully the roads won't kill anything else on my car.

ELF Highlights: Fellows Joining Forces in El Salvador

From June 6 - 9, Fellows Allyson Kellum (Honduras) and Erin Lowry (El Salvador) teamed up to present workshops for teachers and professors in three locations in El Salvador: San Miguel, Santa Ana, and San Salvador.

The workshop in San Miguel drew public and private school teachers and Peace Corps volunteers to learn about interaction in the classroom. It combined theory with activities the participants could take into their classrooms. One teacher reported using one of the activities with his class a few hours after the workshop, excited by how successful it was!

In Santa Ana, a group of professors, teachers, and Peace Corps volunteers gathered to improve skills and techniques geared towards promoting communication in the classroom. This included questioning strategies, using drama, and a collection of interactive activities. Although shy at first, the group opened up and participated unabashedly by the time drama was introduced and practiced.

Three workshops were held in San Salvador. The first was attended by teachers and was based on "Teaching Jazz Chants to Young Learners," which is produced by the Office of English Language Programs with the help of Carolyn Graham. In the beginning, many teachers struggled with the rhythm of English, but with explanations and practice throughout the workshop, improvement was made. Participants had the opportunity to practice chants and to create and present their own chants.

The second workshop in San Salvador covered the same topic as in San Miguel, interaction. Again, it received positive feedback from the participants, and consisted of public and private school teachers, instructors from the binational center, and university professors.

The last workshop was for public school teachers who had been attending a methodology training course funded by the Embassy; many of the participants were in the first workshop and had traveled to San Salvador for the workshop and graduation ceremony from the training course. The workshop was geared specifically towards some of these particular teachers’ weaknesses, based on Fellow Erin Lowry's feedback from the course and observations of the participants' classes. Participants enjoyed Fellow Allyson Kellum's demonstration of how scaffolding can be used to communicate the meaning of a children's song with drawings and gestures, instead of translations into the Spanish. In addition to the song and scaffolding techniques, they also learned about eliciting, presenting new vocabulary, and classroom language.

The results of the cooperation between the Fellows and Embassies of the respective countries— educators were able to share what they know with others, gain insight into the theory behind teaching, and take several activities directly into their classes. The majority of participants expressed a desire to learn more, a need recognized and already being discussed by the Fellows and Embassies.

Participants: 195

Click here to read other highlights from the field...

Honduras, ¡que macanudo!

Last Wednesday, I headed to Tegucigalpa, Honduras for yet another conference for language teachers at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Francisco Morazán. I presented on blogging in the language classroom again. Other than that, though, it was a fairly eventful trip.

I had to pay my first bribe to police ever, for not having a fire extinguisher and the organge triangle things in my car. Our conversation went something like this:

Police guy: "Do you have all the tools you need to repair your car with you?"
Me: "Yeah, they're in the back."
Police guy: "Show me."
I get out of the car and show him the spare and the jack.
Police guy: "Where's your fire extinguisher?"
Me: "What fire extinguisher?"
Police guy: "What will you do if your car's on fire?"
Me: "Run the other way and hope it doesn't explode."
Police guy: "What about a cone or triangle? What will you do if you get a flat?"
Me: "Change the tire on the side of the road."
Police guy: "What if the car stops in the middle of the road? How will you get the traffic to stop?"

And so on. I was thinking, 'the traffice wouldn't stop even if my car was blocking the whole road, so what does it matter if I have a traffic cone?! They'd just run me over! And isn't it dangerous to carry a fire extinguisher in the car...couldn't it explode?!' He threatened to take my liscence from me, which didn't matter much to me, since I have my US liscence, too. And then asked for money.

I just about threw my back out again carrying my laptop around on Friday, which meant I didn't get to go to the cloud forest on Saturday, which was disappointing. I did go to Valle de Angeles, a cute little town maybe 45 minutes from the capital. I think I visited at least eight grocery stores in Tegus looking for various foreign food products that I haven't been able to find in San Sal: canned pumpkin for November, various Thai spices and sauces, and so on. Tasty soy milk. Water chestnuts. Bamboo shoots. Yum yum. All the countries I've visited this year have a much much much better grocery selection compared to El Salvador, which means I come back with pickled chilis instead of souvenirs in my suitcase.

The weekend ended with another trip to Ojojona, which has a fabulous climate and more cute things to buy that I'm not sure how I'd ever pack to take home. I bought an anafre for 40 lempiras (next to nothing). You put hot coals in the bottom half to melt cheese or beans on top for a tasty snack. There was a stop in Santa Ana for pupusas (yes, Salvadorans, pupusas are just about as popular in parts of Honduras as they are in El Salvador, and they're just as tasty).

On the way back, I took a wrong turn (not my fault, wasn't marked) and ended up in Choluteca, not far from the border with Nicaragua. Oops! Even with all the random craziness, I still really like Honduras. Besides the groceries, the people are wonderful and the culture has some of the aspects that I'm still missing from life in Caribbean Colombia. Just the music in itself made me want to stay for a while longer...

They Came, They Toured, They Offended

On no longer limiting the term "ugly American" to American tourists. Check it out...

Flor de Izote

Not many countries have an edible national flower, but El Salvador happens to be one of them. Izote, which is a type of yucca, provides tasty goodness in pupusas or with scrambled eggs. Beyond that, I don't think they're used for much, but they sure are pretty!

La ruta de las flores

Some of my favorite places so far in El Salvador are on what's known as la ruta de las flores. This Saturday, I went to Juayua to eat at the weekend food festival, and then on to Apaneca to visit another waterfall, close to a hotel appropriately called La Cascada. It's started to rain again, so there were actually some flowers on the roadside this time. I also saw a monkey that was not in a cage, a first for my time in El Salvador. It was hanging out in a tree on the path down to the waterfall. It's too bad that the country has been completely stripped of its vegetation for the most part; I can't even imagine what it must have been like here a hundred years ago, or even fifty. About 4:30 the fog started to roll in. San Miguel is such a drastic change from these places!

Beach of the Week #2

Los Cobanos, located in the western part of the country in the department of Sonsonate, was the first beach I was at this week. This one was actually for "work"; there was a Fulbrighters conference there at a resort called Los Veranderos. The beach was not so nice...small, lots of rocks, pieces of jellyfish, etc. Back in the fall, the resort had built a breakwater, which proceeded to damage the reef there.

Beach of the Week #1

El Espino, located in the deparment of Usulutan, is supposedly the most beautiful beach in El Salvador (at least according to my Let's Go book). It was certainly pretty, but I think what I enjoyed most is that it wasn't crowded.

Common Road Obstacles

Common road obstacles include cows, rocks, children, dogs, pot holes, speed bumps, and police stops.

Marañones

Marañones, fruit juice yumminess, and the weird
grey things on top of the fruit are cashew nuts!

First Weeks in San Miguel

The last three months of my fellowship are going to be spent in the eastern part of El Salvador, in San Miguel. San Miguel is the third largest city in El Salvador. I've already been back to San Salvador twice, going a third time on Wednesday, and went to Cuidad Barrios today. Planning to go to Gotera and San Fernando, up by Perquin, on Thursday. It's really, really hot in San Miguel right now, which is draining me of energy by noontime, leaving me pretty much useless in the afternoons. My room is vaguely unpacked, but I'm going from having a whole apartment to myself to sharing what is not really a complete apartment, so there's not space for all the junk I've accumulated. I finally decided to just not unpack everything.

Things I like about San Miguel: really friendly people, the volcano, the licuados, the track that's three blocks away from where I live, the smell of meat cooking in the streets, the tortillas, the fact that they play more salsa, merengue, and bachata here, and the market that I can also walk to. Oh, and it appears that you can domicilio most anything, a feature of life in Colombia that I truly missed.

Things I don't like: dehydration and living at work.

Semana santa travels

So, this holy week/spring break was spent road trip style in Honduras, El Salvador, and maybe an hour in Guatemala. Opie came down from Detroit, so we packed up my car and headed off to Copán with Edwin, another friend from San Sal, to meet up with ELF Allyson and Malcon. Copán is really very close to San Sal, only about 3.5 hours away, and a nice place. I wish we'd stayed around there longer...they had bagels, and other strange foreign influences for being such a small town. Copán ruins were okay, but I should have brushed up on my Mayan history before going, since we didn't pay for a guide. Getting into the ruins was unfortunately extremely expensive as a foreigner, and the pass only good for one day.

It was then on to el lago de Yojoa, a very nice waterfall at Pulhapanzak, Comayagua, and the capital, Tegucigalpa. In all, it was a great trip in my car, although I wish we could have seen more. What did I learn about El Salvador in the process? (1) the roads are way better here, (2) the tortillas are yummier east of the Lempa River, (3) they spray your car with pesticide when you cross the border back into the country, (4) their police stops actually manage to slow people down for a little bit on the highways, even if they don't have the cute life-sized cardboard cutouts of police officers set up at each stop, and (5) not everyone likes pupusas that much!

Check out the pictures from Honduras below:

Semana Santa 2007

Recent Travels in El Salvador

In an amazing change of events, I've actually begun to see more of this country. Turns out there are some
nice things here, some of which you don't even have to leave San Salvador to see.

I went to Puerta del Diablo with Samary a couple of weeks ago, but forgot to take my camera with me. It's close to los Planes del Rendero, famous for its pupusas, but you can see the ocean and the mountains from there.

I've also been on la Ruta de las Flores again, and got to stay in Juayua this time for lunch (see the pic of me eating rabbit, tastes like chewy chicken, really), as well as the opportunity to visit some nearby waterfalls. Ahuachapan, Chalatenango, La Libertad again, El Cuco, Coatepeque again, Tazumal,and San Miguel are also on the list of recently visited places. I'm so very glad that I met this group of people that I've been traveling with, after months of not even going out to the grocery store sometimes!

Semana santa is only a few days away, so I'll be off to Honduras for the week, to Copan and who knows where else. It's time for a vacation, and then when I get back, I'll be moving to San Miguel to work at the branch of the Centro Cultural there. I'm not overly excited about moving again, as I'm just getting used to life in San Salvador, but I'm sure the experience will be great! It's too bad that I'm not used to the heat any more, because San Miguel is going to be very, very hot very, very soon! Last week sometime it was up to 41 (something like 103 degrees?!).

Work has been good, busy as usual, although I'm ready for the break. My project has been renewed for another 10 months, which means I'll be back in El Salvador again next year! I'm excited about the prospect of not having to change countries again, and about being back someplace that I'm fairly familiar with.

Somewhere west of Puerto Libertad

This was yet another car trip to La Libertad, which is really only about a half hour or forty minutes away from San Salvador, at least when there's no traffic. I was highly regretting my choice of standard transmission on the way back though, when that half hour became three hours! And supposedly semana santa is even worse, when the whole country either heads to the shore or to Guatemala. I'll be on my way to Honduras instead, with a friend from Ohio.

And how had I managed to be here for seven months without having been to the closest beach? Good question...that many months without real sun turned my skin from pasty to lobster waaaaay to quickly. At any rate, nice conversation, fun with sea urchins and hermit crabs, and a hamaca.

San Salvador's Cathedral

My car and where I've gone with my car...

So, my most recent salvadoran learning experience has been looking for a car, and then actually buying. I thought I'd found one, but they sold it mere hours before I got back to take it to the mechanic. Friday night I stopped by a lot close to my house, and found another one, a 2001 VW Gol. So, I went back Saturday morning with a friend, she test drove it, and I ended up "reserving" the car so I could take it to a mechanic on Monday to have it looked over.

And now I have it, ha ha ha! And a license! And I've only stalled it once (it's a standard, which I haven't driven for a while), and that was because I forgot that I wasn't driving an automatic anymore. This is exciting, since traffic is not much fun in San Salvador (check out this person's rantings for more on that, in Spanish), but I've yet to drive anywhere other than work and back on a weekday because I'm not yet sure how to deal with the craziness. By craziness, I mean the following: (1) no one follows the traffic rules unless the police are around, and maybe not even then, (2) most roads have no names, and if they do have a name, most people don't know it, (3) which makes it really, really hard to find anything, unless it's a large enough landmark to be visible from Google Earth, (4) drivers have no respect for other drivers, or pedestrians, (5) you're not really supposed to make left-hand turns in most places, and (6) there's very large, steep hills with lots of these kinds of drivers.

I took my first road trip yesterday with a friend to Coatepeque and Santa Ana, which are about an hour away from San Salvador, and not so awful far from the Guatemalan border. I was excited to drive my car, she was excited to drive the lancha, and there was good food involved, so it was a success overall! Only bad thing was that I had two sets of camera batteries die on me, so I lost some pictures. I also haven't seen much of the country other than a beach or two outside of travel for work, so it was nice to get out of my house, out of the city, and away from my computer. I came back exhausted, then went out and danced. It's funny how after months of not having much of a life, I all of the sudden have things to do (not even depending on the car, really).

Then today, I went with some people from CCS on the ruta de las flores, which involved more food, towns with cute plazas and beautiful churches, and a nasty breeze, since the weather all of the sudden changed last night and got cold. The lady visiting from New York thought it was amusing that we were all cold, coming from snow and negative digits. Only bad thing is that I slept most of the way back, so between that and numerous unmarked turns, I'm not sure if I could find these places on my own!

Happy Valentine's Day Podcast

Since I'm taking another course in using technology in the classroom through TESOL EVOs, here's my second annual love poetry podcast, featuring William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116.



And here' s the link to last year's edition. Happy Valentine's Day! On another note, someone at work decided that it would be a good idea to have wine and cheese to celebrate at lunchtime. It's two o'clock now, and there's some very happy administration wandering around!

Travelling Woes, and Thanks

So, here I am, still in San José, Costa Rica. I came last Tuesday on TicaBus from San Salvador, a ride that took about 20 hours and $20 in border crossings. I've done long bus rides before, but I must say that this one was particularly uncomfortable. I presented at the annual NCTE conference at the Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericanco, which was a good experience. I talked about Blogging across Boundaries: Connecting Students through Online Journaling on my own and presented Moving out of the Comfort Zone: Innovative Teaching through Self and Peer Evaluations with a co-worker from CCS.

And why am I still in San José, even though it's now Monday afternoon? The other ELF had just left, and I was packing my suitcase (not even a big one, for those of you who have seen me moving from country to country with large cardboard boxes, just a little carry-on). I was sitting on the floor in the hotel room, zipped the suitcase closed, and then reached over to push it upright...when I threw out my back. This was about a quarter 'til 10...took me 40 minutes to get back up on the bed and roll over to the phone. Which didn't work, because I didn't have the list of numbers to be able to call down to reception. Finally, at noon, checkout time, they called up to see what had happened to me. I couldn't hardly move at this point, let alone stand up. So, the reception girl basically ignored me for another two hours, until the bell boy got there, and they helped me move to another room, since the one I was in was taken for that afternoon. A friendly maid from Nicaragua lent me her cell so I could call my friend that was still here, and brought me some tea and pain meds that she had been taking for back problems.

My friend came and took me to a clinic here (Clinica Biblica, is that a sign or what); via a very nice taxi driver who didn't even charge us. I was there for five hours, I think, in which they gave me various iv's, pills, and something called an infiltracion directly into the ligament in my back. From there, the next twenty or so hours are a little blurry. The doc said no going back on the bus, and that I shoud rest until Tuesday. So, tommorow it is, back on Taca to San Salvador. And, to top it all off, Citibank decided to deactivate my banking card completely and not bother to tell me about it. Everywhere I went it came up "negado." I spent an hour talking to them this morning, and they're going to overnight me a new card. What a mess! I'm glad that I had another card with me. And I'm so thankful for the people here that have been helping me out...Greg, Frank, Ana, Scott. It's nice to be around Christians again!

Should we call him Elvis or Yesaidú?

The crazy names that parents give their kids in Latin America...check it out in today's New York Times. I had a class with at least two Darwins in it in Barranquilla, some Leidys (also with several other spellings and various pronunciations), a Boris, and a Janer. I've ran into some different names here in El Salvador, too, like Iluvny (I love New York), and several Elvises. And you gotta love Yesaidú (Yes, I do)! But I like the fact that parents are free to use their imaginations to come up with new names and spellings! I applaud the man that named his daughters Yusmary Shuain, Yusmery Sailing, Yusneidi Alicia and Yureimi Klaymar!

Lo que siento por ti

"Pero si no sientes lo mismo que yo
Quiero pedirte un gran favor
Daría toda mi vida
Si te ofendí
Por que perdones a tu amigo
Que se enamoro
De ti "

Alux Nahual

Resolution #11 for 2007: try to not take my bad culture shock days out on certain other people that most definitely don't deserve it, even though I know they understand it just happens sometimes!

Ferias y Fiestas de Colombia

This is what I love about Colombia. The first puente (long weekend) of the new year, del Reyes, and this is how many places have a party going on:

Riosucio
Manizales
Cartagena
Popayán
18 antioqueño towns
2 tolimense towns
Boyacá (Duitama, Moniquirá y Cucaita)
Coveñas (Sucre)

Back here in El Salvador, there's no puente, which means I have to work on the day that my beloved Buckeyes play Florida for the national championship. Actually, there's no puentes, ever. They don't know what they're missing!

http://www.eltiempo.com/vidadehoy/viajar/feriasyfiestas/index.html

Resolutions for 2007

1. Buy a car
2. Find a church I like (when I get a car)
   
3. Stop eating tortillas at lunch
4. Publish at least one paper this year
5. Sign up for estimated tax payments
6. Go to the gym (if I get a car)
7. Keep up with salsa lessons (if I get a car)
8. Get back to work on the third language (if I get a car)
9. Read more
10. Convince salvadoreños that pedestrians should have the right-of-way and that arms, hands, and heads shouldn't be used in place of a turn signal.
    

Colombia Vacation, December 2006

Colombia Vacation, December 2006

Las cuatro fiestas

Colombia, here I come again! For as much as I didn't like vallenato in the beginning, that changed when I could listen to a song and understand the lyrics first-time 'round. Diomedes Diaz, you said it:

Por la rivera se ven
arbustos y cocoteros (bis)
Y los negros pescadores
en canoa vienen ya

Como lanzaban hundiendo
sobre lobo su cañal
Las noches iluminadas
me recuerdan a El Edén
(Por todas las desprendidas)
estrellitas que allá se ven

Rema rema
que va llegando Juan
Rema rema
que va llegando ya
Rema rema
rema ligero Juan
Rema rema
que vas llegando al baile

Que linda la fiesta es
en un 8 de diciembre (bis)
Al sonar del Traqui traqui
que sabroso amanecer
Con ese ambiente prendido
me dan ganas de beber
La pascua que se avecina
anuncia la navidad
Un año nuevo se espera
que dan ganas de tomar

Toma toma
tomate el trago Juan
Toma toma
que vamos a bailar
Toma toma
tomate el trago Juan
Toma toma
vamos a amanecer

Pero que sabrosas son
las fiestas de carnavales (bis)
Con carretas y disfraces
las comparsas vienen ya
con el golpe de tamboras
a la ........
Con la batalla de flores
el desorden se formó
con carrozas y a las reinas
alegran el corazón

Baila baila
baila la cumbia Juan
Baila baila
que llegó el carnaval
Baila baila
baila la cumbia Juan
Baila baila
Vamo' a carnavalear

Que linda la fiesta es
en un 8 de diciembre (bis)
Al sonar del Traqui traqui
que sabroso amanecer
con ese ambiente prendido
me dan ganas de beber
La pascua que se avecina
anuncia la navidad
Un año nuevo se espera
que dan ganas de tomar

Toma toma
toma el trago Juan
Toma toma
que vamos a bailar
Toma toma
tomate el trago Juan
Toma toma
vamos a gozar

Por la rivera se ven
arbustos y cocoteros (bis)
Y los negros pescadores
en canoa vienen ya
Como lanzaban hundiendo
sobre lobo su cañal
Las noches iluminadas
me recuerdan a El Edén
(Con todas las desprendidas?)
estrellitas ya se ven

Rema rema
Rema ligero Juan
Rema rema
que vamos a llegar
Rema rema
rema ligero Juan
Rema rema
que voy llegando al baile

I've never seen what he sings about, but the spirit of the song brings back good memories and makes me excited to go on this trip. Although I'm going to miss family and friends back in Ohio, and new additions to my life in El Salvador, I'm thrilled to get to be a part of the holiday season in Colombia this year. Now, if only I could stay until it's carnaval time!