let me see you waltz, child

as the school year here starts in january, november means graduation season. right now we are entering "summer," even though we are above the equator. curious. the point is, this is a great country because they make their children waltz. the school in las delicias goes from kindergarten to 9th grade, and at the ceremony only the kindergarteners and 9th graders dress up fancy and are made to waltz and sing. and oh yes did they dress up fancy. here is the kindergarten:

behind them in that photo is the stage where there is a "table of honor" where the teachers and the "queen" were seated. the queen was a kindergarten girl in a red gown with a crown and a wand and a sash, of course. the criteria for election to such a post are not clear to me. all of the kids were made to dress identically, except for a few who did not. many kindergarten girls wore high heels. ehhh.

and then they waltzed!

vilma's daughter gets her waltz on!

the waltz was mostly a fervent rocking back and forth with a forcefully executed spin every few measures. also, no smiling.

recovering from aforementioned spin

vilma's daughter woke up at 5am to have her hair done. just like my kindergarten days!

then, obviously, the 9th graders waltzed too. no pictures of that - it is not cute awkward like with small children who are concentrating very hard and wearing stiff fabrics.

there were of course normal graduation exercises - the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place students in each grade had to come up to the stage and receive certificates. then they had to come back to receive medals. rather inefficent. only one song played repeatedly for three hours, except for the brief intermission where the principal presented a brief budget report. now that is admirably efficient use of time. this is not all pomp and circumstance, it's also how many toilet paper rolls were purchased in the last year. actually i think that'd be zero, i don't think the school provides that. BYO, even you, "queen."

everything i know about basketball i learned from space jam

first of all, i'd like to announce that i just made some highly delicious curry squash fritters. i am announcing this to balance the recent sardine tragedy. i am indeed quite skilled and creative in arranging and heating and mixing foodstuffs most of the time.

i have actually been doing a lot of asserting my skills and abilities here, obviously in work, but also in leisure. probably because of machismo here, i've noticed that women tend to spectate instead of participate. certainly this happens in the states too. the guys i've been hanging out with aren't saying things like "you can't do that," nothing of the sort. they are just a bit surprised when i am good at something it seems. we went bowling a bit ago and the other girls kept saying "i'm so bad at this." who cares. is bowling really about being good at bowling? there are a whole slew of activities of this ilk - recreational things that you never really practice often, so no one is skilled at them particularly. later i played pool with two male friends and one of their girlfriends. she wanted to just watch. i let her for the first game and then i forced her to play (in a friendly, new friend way). she was my partner. she got one ball in and i got the rest in and we won and it was glorious in all ways.

it is important to me to be able to hold my own in such activities, especially playing against males. you might be saying, oh, it's because i grew up with 4 brothers. not really. we were not competitive, we were quite harmonious, right, brothers? i'm not particularly competitive, but when it comes to these activities where i see a lot of women apologizing for being bad, or not wanting to participate, i feel i have to demonstrate that yes, i am quite good at this and i enjoy playing and i will crush you without mercy. especially here in el salvador where gender divisions are more stark, i have something to prove. yeah - i just beat you at ping pong - don't look surprised. after twiddling around on the guitar in my house for the last three months, i can play some songs. this has been useful at parties where a guitar comes out. i am not watching the whole time, i am playing too, i am improving my skill.

yesterday i even accepted an invitation to play basketball. it's true. i played in a four on four game. i was marking an old man who was wearing blue armwarmers or whatever those are. at one point he was smoking a cigarette while playing, but he was nimble. i took shots, maybe a dozen of them, and got zero in, but many hit the rim, so that's close at least. i made sure i did not apologize or make apologetic faces. no apologies. the guys i were playing with were about as welcoming as i could expect, and only occasionally did not pass to me when they should have. but mostly good, fun, highly participatory, and a bunch of little girls in the park cheered for me. next time no cheering from the sidelines, niñas. get out there and block that old man's sneaky loop shot, even if he smells kinda weird.

most of the women i'm talking about are from the city, went to good schools, middle class families, etc. i was out with two guy friends last night and one said, i like going out with you because i don't need to watch you or take care of you. um, of course not. who do you need to watch, i asked? he said, well a lot of the girls i go out with are shy or wouldn't know how to deal with it if, for example, some guy was bothering them, but i know you would handle whatever on your own. uhhhh yes, i am fierce obviously, but i am concerned that you think the rest of your female friends can't handle it. i find the idea that women need to be protected or supervised hidden in many other attitudes. and i bring them out and challenge them, to women and men alike. in many of these sporting activities, i find men telling me encouragingly "don't be afraid" and i quite emphatically say, i am not afraid. there's nothing to fear here except fireballs in my oven, electrocution in my shower, earthquakes, and hurricanes. ping pong? no problem.

dispelling debunking dissecting delighting

i've had some good discussions in the community this past week. a talk i gave about male reproductive health (to the micro health insurance women) first became a praisefest for vasectomies and then became a very active discussion about homosexuality. the older, more strictly religious women kind of tuned out and looked a little offended. the younger women started throwing out lots of "but isn't homosexuality caused by..." ideas. many different ideas floating out there. "isn't homosexuality caused by getting raped as a child?" one asked. another responded, "no, i have a nephew who was raped as a child and he's pretty macho now." oh...good response i guess? mostly the beliefs were that homosexuality was a result of an event, accident, or habit formed in childhood, or that people decide to be gay or lesbian all of a sudden. i didn't have to do much talking - the women were very animated and many of them defended the fact that you are born gay or lesbian and that there's nothing wrong with that. i was pretty impressed and delighted. but again - the older generation was not participating.

we've also been doing a series of talks/activities about budgeting with the micro health insurance women. this week we talked about buying on installment plans versus saving up and paying everything up front. one woman had paid for a $500 refrigerator on the installment plan and the total was $800. whoaaa. a lot of goods that are very cheap in the US are expensive here. this rack, for example, might be $50 here. there's no target or ikea here to go pick up your plastics for $5.99. i guess it costs a lot to ship large empty plastic containers that are not stackable. after this discussion, i gave out newspaper advertisements and each pair of women analyzed their ad - at what gender/age is this directed, what is the message, what are they selling, is there a clear price, what does the small print say, etc. they were really into it. "this ad is full of lies!" yes.

i don't remember whether i ever had any kind of "anti-advertising education" or whether i just developed my own bitterness towards ads of all sorts. cell phone companies here, as in the states, are brutal with surprise fees and restrictions and nothing is ever clear. sometimes ads appear here in places that i am not accustomed to - an extra panel above a street sign pointing you towards a kfc, a giant floor-to-ceiling sign in the class room at the gym sponsored by dove that warns that "communal soaps leave residue on your skin." rut roh! the newspaper also runs what i believe are supposed to be sincere articles about things like "chili's adds new menu items." sorry- that is not news. both here and in the US, i think there should be more consumer education and many more restrictions on ads. but you all knew that already.

just call me rachael ray

i just did something i may never forgive myself for. so don tito, one of the guardians of the clinic, gave me 6 very cute eggplants today, so i says to myself, i will eat some. i cut up 3 of them all nice, throw out one when i find a wriggly maggot in it, fair enough right. get out the ol fryin pan and throw it some olive oil and garlic and red pepper flakes whabam eggplant. cookin. throw in some scallions. cookin. throw in a whole lot of hummus - rather edgy perhaps. oh yeah and cumin. i go to get the pasta to start that up and next to it i find that tin of sardines in spicy oil that i bought on a strange whim a few weeks ago. i suppose my thinking was, i need protein, i like spicy oil and this tin looks fun to open.
i guess i didn't consider the consequences. the tin was in fact fun to open, but in doing so i sprayed spicy red oil all over my khakis. i was inexplicably dismayed to discover that the tin was actually full of tiny fish. but i had no choice now, i thought. i poked at the little fish and found out that they had spines, and then i went through and poked all the spines out while the eggplant-hummus was getting a little fried. then i put the sardines in with the eggplant hummus. what the hell was i thinking? hindsight is 20/20, as they say. but i knew it was a terrible idea even as i was letting the little fishy parts rain down on the eggplant chunks. i was looking hopefully towards the spicy oil as the rug that ties the room together, you know.
with great skepticism i scooped a whole bunch of the mixture over the pasta and mixed it all around. it looked kind of, um, sinewy. look i'm sorry you have to read this. but you have to. it didn't taste as weird as i expected, nor as fishy. while i was eating it, i was thinking, this is not so bad. towards the end my opinion was transforming. my eyes were tearing a little bit from the spicy oil. the hummus, because it is not translucent, masked the eggplant and the sardines, so when i picked up a chunk with my spoon and bit in it was sort of an awful surprise. juicy or fleshy?
i ate it all. then i went back to the kitchen and gazed upon the large remaining portion of the hummus eggplant sardine paste. it had gained a crustular appearance in the pan while i was away. i stared. do i...containerize this...to eat...again...later? do i have to? i can't eat this later i shall not. but to just throw it out? rather harsh. OH perfect! i will feed it to the clinic dog tomorrow, i thought, as i scooped it into a black plastic bag. i am teaching her to play fetch - what a delightful reward. OH wait. i am taking the bus tomorrow morning - no one likes to sit near that person on the bus with a bagfull of yesterday's sardine hummus baba ghanoush paste for an hour and a half. i twisted the bag closed and held it in my hand. it was warm and squishy and lumpy and i threw it in the trash and went to wash the spicy oil off my pants.

horchata!

so i'm coming home to visit for thanksgiving starting next thursday. yayyy hello everyone! i bought bags of horchata mix in the market to bring home. horchata is a rice drink. the bags look like this:

i told vilma, a member of the micro health insurance program, about my plan to bring horchata mix home and make horchata for everyone to try. she informed me that i would need a mill to grind up the ingredients, and suggested making the horchata powder in her house. ah ok yes let's do that! i bought 4 pounds of rice and giant cinnamon and the 2 pounds of horchata ingredients. vilma had the fire going when i got there.

first we toast the rice

until it is toastylike

meanwhile i hang out with some of vilma's kids

and they play with my camera

anderson making his angry face

next we toast peanuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and some little black seeds

mmm we ate some of the peanuts

then we break up the cinnamon and toast that too

everything is toasted. to the mill!

the mill! i think that is a leafblower motor?
you pour in the stuff in that gray cone and it comes flying out into the tray all ground up

scooping out the powder
vilma made the miller put it through twice so it would be finer and less chunky

the mill looks good in profile

powder is ready and delicious smelling!

kickin it back at vilma's
the whole process took about 3 hours

so get ready america - if customs/security allows, here comes 6 pounds of unlabeled brown powder in my carry-on!

planet earth

as some of you have heard, hurricane ida passed through el salvador this weekend. right now the death toll is around 130, mostly due to flooding and mudslides. rescue crews can't reach some towns because of damage to roads and bridges. to read more go here. the president has declared a national state of emergency. although more than 60 people were killed in san salvador alone, i haven't seen any kind of crisis mode within the city. the low, vulnerable part of the city is pretty far from me. yeah, it poured on saturday, and friday, and thursday, but i haven't seen any major damage. it's weird to be only reading about this online and seeing pictures when it happened so close. the clinic is fine - it didn't even rain there on saturday.

to put it in context of el salvador hurricane history, in 1998, hurricane mitch killed more than 10,000 people here. earthquakes have also been equally fatal, killing a little more than a thousand people in 2001. since i've been here i've felt a few little earthquakes - people say "está temblando," it's shaking. the first earthquake i felt was at 11 pm and i was home alone. suddenly everything in the room starting shaking. er-should i get under a doorway? maybe a table? should i unplug my computer? once i decided to just stand up the earthquake had stopped. it is unnerving though, because you don't know when it will stop. when i've felt earthquakes in public, people kind of freeze and look at each other seriously until it passes. even though people here are more used to little earthquakes than i am, they also know the serious danger which any earthquake could bring.

yesterday i went up to one of san salvador's volcanoes with my friend. it is called el boqueron, which translates mysteriously to "anchovy cured in a brine made partly of its own blood." it might more sensibly come from boca (mouth), as volcanoes are sort of the mouths of the earth, but actually are more like pimples if you think about it, am i right. on the road up to the mountain, there were in fact many little mudslides and a lot of debris from the hurricane. the last eruption of el boqueron was in 1917. it is all foresty and fresh and lush up by the crater. check out the crater. it is about a quarter mile deep. there were clouds forming in the bottom of the crater, and when the sun hit them, they rose up and engulfed us and evaporated. SUPER cool. i didn't bring my camera because my friend told me we were going to get coffee but instead we went to a volcano. MLIA.

sunshine on my shoulders

this week i got pupusas with dary (from that epic thunderstorm) and his brother henry. dary is out of work, he said something vague about being dismissed from his job at the church. sketch. henry is 17 and in 9th grade. he was sounding out words while reading the sports page. that is sad. dary and henry did a lot of chatting with people we ran into or who came around the pupuseria. they also kept looking around nervously ("for the police, we ran away one time because henry lied about his age"). henry showed me his blackberry (!!!?) which he said is "borrowed," which is suspicious, but it is full of pictures of their family, so i guess that is good. we also played the fun english-spanish game i like to call "translate this song in real time." i used to do this at the gym i went to in madrid. the uruguayan step aerobic teacher LOVED house music. we stood in the middle (for stereo balance) of the giant aerobics room listening and he looked at me earnestly as the singer yelled "i want to dance dance dance" and i replied in monotone "quiero bailar bailar bailar." likewise, henry held his blackberry up to my ear and i translated such classic as "every breath you take" or whatever that song is actually called. conversation didn't flow particularly smoothly, but at least in el salvador silence isn't awkward. even when you don't have a lot in common as far as background, there is always music, sports, and the universal language of sass. thankfully i am conversant in sass, and people love it when you sass their brother.

yesterday i met up with a big ol group of people from couchsurfing, which is a fabulous organization. of course, we went bowling. possibly the only bowling alley in all of el salvador, but it was quite authentic. i started off with two strikes, talking big about my jersey heritage, but my game suffered after we ate some weird pizza. i felt like i was in any old bowling alley in new jersey, except the bathrooms were impeccably clean. it was a lovely group which included a french canadian guy traveling from mexico to argentina, and an english guy traveling from argentina to mexico. criss cross! somehow i did not pay for this excursion - there is a custom of men paying for women when going out, even between friends and apparently also people you just met. i do not like this custom. it makes me uncomfortable. but it is rampant among the upper class. a veritable EPIDEMIC. it's not really a showy thing - when it's happened to me, i go to pay and i just don't owe anything. i think it is seen as more of an obligation for the men to make sure the women are having a good time. i do not like it.

later we went to some new bar/club where a band was playing "hey jude." there was free champagne for women (wednesday is ladies night in many places). the place was swank because there were umbrellas on the ceiling - you know they are trying. one french canadian woman who has been here for a few years noted that in el salvador, the number of people who have money to go out, even $5, is so small that by now she pretty much knows everyone in that scene. interesting to think about the divide between people who have money to go out for fun and, well, the rest of the country.

i found a store tucked into the bottom level of a shopping mall called "delights from the middle east" and i ate a wonderfully buttery date-filled cookie there today. i also had breakfast at the market in santa tecla - two big fried plantains and cheese pupusas and hot chocolate. super rico!!