"Why would you want to go to El Salvador?"
I was standing in line to check in at the Charlotte Airport and found myself behind a Salvadoran man returning to El Salvador after visiting family in the US. Because he didn't speak any English, his sister was standing in line with him trying to explain what to do once he got past security and to catch the connecting flight. When I realized we were both heading to El Salvador and thus had the same connecting flight, I volunteered to help and make sure he made it on the plane etc... The line to check in was rather long so we had a while to chat. His sister soon realized I wasn't going to El Salvador for vacation, and she seemed quite surprised by this discovery and so rather confusedly, she asked, "Why would you want to go to El Salvador?" Her question didn't necessarily surprise me, but it did make me uncomfortable in a way I don't know how to explain. Even though I found myself saying to her that I thought it was a beautiful country with a lot of truly great people, on the inside I was asking myself if I really knew what I was getting myself into this year. And the truth is, I don't.
My first day in El Salvador was fairly uneventful except for the fact that my luggage didn't arrive - along with 20 other people's. I think they just got tired of loading the plane and decided not to load the last half of the luggage. I ended up getting the luggage 2 1/2 days later so it wasn't too bad (luckily I packed some extra underwear and a t-shirt in my carry-on.) That afternoon my project mentor/boss and I went out for ice cream and I got some of my favorite coconut ice cream from my favorite ice cream store - right next to the office where I work when I am in the city. Last year, every Friday night when I came into the city from the community I would head straight over to get a large ice cream cone!
Even though I knew the Salvadoran culture is very relaxed, I still kind of expected to "jump right in" to the project. However, in case you haven't lived in El Salvador, things are laid back. For my first 3 days here, every morning people asked me if I got enough sleep (little did they know that I get more sleep in El Salvador than at home). And they acted surprised when I was at the office ready to go at 8am with everyone else the day after I arrived.
Despite my first week being very relaxed, I did jump right into everything the second week. On Friday of my first week, Don Armando (my boss/mentor) told me about an organic agriculture workshop going on Monday through Wednesday of the following week. A few other FUNDAHMER employees were going and he thought it would be good for me to attend as well. I agreed and so there I was at this conference with 5 other people I barely knew and 20 other Salvadorans I had never met. I, of course, was the only non-Salvadoran and thus the only non-native Spanish speaker, as well as one of the few women there. Plus, I was also the youngest and the only one without years of farming experience or years organizing farmers. To top things off, I didn't realize we were sleeping at the conference until 10 minutes before we left. As you can already tell, I was slightly overwhelmed. I do think the workshop is going to prove to be extremely helpful as we spent around 20 hours in the classroom and 15 hours in the "practical." And it was a good experience, but a hard experience. I will just say that I thought more than once about pretending to be sick so someone would come get me.
The first day at the workshop was the roughest...if anyone I knew even a little had asked me how I was doing, I probably would have burst into tears, but fortunately (or sadly) no one was there. The second day was better, even though I was exhausted because we got up to start working at 4am and we were meeting until 10pm at night. By the third day I was feeling a bit more confident and was even making a few jokes with some of the other people.
I got back from the conference on Wednesday night (of my 2nd week in El Salvador), spent all of Thursday in meetings (literally), and then left early Friday morning for the community. The meetings on Thursday were a bit long and tedious, but worthwhile. I felt better afterwards because we had more or less established an advisory committee for my project, as well as a few long and short term goals. One of the first things I was to do is a survey or diagnostic of the community to see what each family is growing to eat and to sell, and what kinds of potential various crops have. I am also going to include in the survey all the projects going on in the community, attempting to identify some difficulties and successes of each project. This will help me get a better idea of how the community works and various needs within the community.
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