Fresh Year, Fresh Start

In what I feel is a somewhat appropriate turn of events in my life, immediately following Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, two holidays that stress making a fresh start, I have picked up and moved to a new town in El Salvador. Most everything in my life is all upside down right now. My house is similar in size to my last one, but not as nice. I finally have water 24 hours a day, but there is no light in the bathroom and I don't think I can drink it this time around. I'm paying more for my house, but the backyard is shared and I don't really have a place to let my dog run around except on my poorly fenced in porch. In addition I don't have a backyard where she can do her stuff, so that means at least a short walk every time I come home and her constantly hanging out at the door for one reason or another. The people are friendly enough, but I am dealing with a bit of the opportunistic trying to take advantage of the new "gringo" in town.

So far though I am happy I pulled the trigger and got myself to a new town. I have been given a chance to start over that most volunteers never get and I am hoping to take full advantage of it. I am hoping to identify all those things that I did which contributed to the failures in my previous site and do whatever I can to prevent them. Already I am happy to be living so close to my counterparts. Last night I had a pleasant talk with the new mayor while walking home, something that never would have happened before because the mayor didn't live in town and furthermore, he seemed rather indifferent to me from the first day. The school has a good amount of computers, so I had a meeting to check them out this morning and see what sort of state they are in and what programs are on them. I hope to get a few more good learning programs on them and possibly shake up how they are teaching computer use a bit. In addition I would love to get internet in there.

Meanwhile I am exploring Santa Ana, the closest city, for the first time today accompanied by a few of my Volunteer friends.

I would love to write everything on my mind with regards to the time of the year and the move, but I don't know that people want to read a post loaded down with theology or that I have the cash to pay for the time that would require at the internet cafe. Suffice to say it feels good and I wanted to share.

I missed it before, but L'Shana Tova. And for today, I hope everyone has an easy fast. I'll be staying with my Peace Corps country director for Yom Kippur and attending the Temple in San Salvador.

Check out the photos I just uploaded of Engineers without Borders that came to my area and stayed at my house. Just click the Webshots gallery link on the right. -->

Night By Candlelight

So I am sure we have all been caught in power outtages before, they happen right? Well I got caught in a pretty long one, from just before 6 p.m. to around 11.

First and foremost I want to stress that cooking by candlelight is not an easy task. I had started to cook just before the sun was going down, chopping vegetables and whatnot. As it got dark I moved on to carrots, right then it started to rain fairly hard. Just as I was peeling the carrot with my rediculously sharp American knife, the power went out. So for the record, attempting to peel a carrot without any light and with a very small, very sharp knife is most likely a very bad idea. I was simply too lazy to go get my candle, expecting the power to come back on any minute. I mean usually the power goes out for 5 minutes max. Well I was wrong and I had to give up the good fight against the carrot and give in to the candle and my head lamp. Some boiling pasta and a simmering sauce later I realized that my head lamp needed new batteries and I most likely could not get them in the pouring rain and pitch black outside, if a tienda were even open.

So I sat back to enjoy my sorta cajun, sorta seafood pasta by the meager light of a candle and I sat thinking about what I would do for the night. There really ins't much to do with the power out, as you can guess, so I settled for just eating my pasta in the by candlelight, wondering why that passes for romantic.

Once the reality actually set in that the power wasn't coming back on any time soon, I busted out my lame little headlamp and decided to read until the batteries gave out, which lasted about until 9 p.m. By then the only things left in my house with power were my iPod and my computer, so I settled in my hammock and put on some tunes, reflecting on exactly why many Salvadorans get up so early. Not that I never thought of it before, but it became painfully clear that they get up early not to work early, but because they go to bed so early. After six it is pitch black, and lots of Salvadorans either don't have electricity, or never got accustomed to using it to stay up late. It is only the young kids and the drunkards that are ever out past 8 or 9 in my town anyway, that is why I am almost always back in my house by then.

So feeling well adjusted, but not exactly exhausted, I leaned over and blew out the candle a little earlier than I had planned. It was a relaxing evening, interupted only by the blast of the lights I forgot to turn off waking me up.

Now I am desperately awaiting any sort of contact from an Engineers Without Borders chapter because I need to arrange them housing and food, but I lost the dates and I know it is coming up. Additionally, I have no idea if I will be able to be around during those days or not because of the High Holidays and other administrative concerns. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they told me the 17th, I don't know why that date sticks out in my head, but it does. Also the 12th sticks out, but I am hoping it is only because it is both Rosh Hashana and Rebecca's birthday.

P.S. I put up some new stuff at DeviantArt