Ghanaian Visa Triumph

In the midst of teaching classes, sponsoring NHS, and tutoring, organizing a trip for Ezekiel and me to see each other has been an additional full-time job with the potentially incredible payback of getting to hang out for 3 weeks in Ghana!!!  After participating in Ezekiel’s US visa application on two separate occasions, I have become acutely familiar with painstaking processes, and I am trying to leave as little as possible regarding this Christmas break meeting to chance (i.e. no US Customs Officials are involved in the process).  While one may balk at the vacation potential of spending 3-weeks in Ghana, compare it to Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and Iraq and Ghana looks like an outright tourist trap complete with centuries of peace, a coast and elephants!  Plane tickets are relatively inexpensive (from Nigeria…nowhere is cheap from El Salvador), Nigerians can travel there visa-free and there are hippos!!!  What more could we ask for?!?  Each step of “Destination Reunification” could be its own convoluted drama but I’m going to simply focus on a task that has now been successfully completed: obtaining a Ghanaian visa.

“I’ve gotten visas before; it wasn’t that bad.”  Why must I set myself up like that?  I forgot when I got a visa before, I wasn’t living in a foreign country.  After getting permission from the US Embassy here in El Salvador to send my passport to Houston via courier service, (which I learned is simply a fancy, general name for FedEx…I definitely thought it was an actual person you sent with the envelope!)  I started my paperwork investigation.  However, before I could send my passport to Houston, it had to first spend some quality time in Salvadoran immigration offices to ensure my legal status here.

I got my trusty passport back on a Friday afternoon from Salvadoran authorities and naively thought I would be able to go to the bank, get a money order, take it to FedEx and send it off that day!  Being unrealistically optimistic means that set-backs can really blind-side you.  When I arrived at the bank, I was informed that Citi Bank of El Salvador doesn’t have any money orders.  When I looked dismayed, she made a couple of calls only to inform me that all of El Salvador did away with money orders a few years ago.  I settled for a giro, which I know from past experience is a 30-minute process minimum from start to finish, but I had personally cashed one at a US bank, so I figured it was a good alternative when there seemed to be few others.  No problem, I reassured myself.  I was there, it was getting done and of course the Ghanaian Embassy would accept this instead of a money order.  It’s guaranteed money!

As I was leaving the bank, I realized I had forgotten my passport photos necessary for the visa application at my house.  Instead of a 5 minute walk to FedEx from the bank, I had the opportunity to walk 20 minutes back to my house first and then 15 minutes to FedEx…in the rain.  I tried to convince myself since I was missing my run, this brisk walk was a good replacement.  My umbrella was conveniently sitting right next to the pictures when I got back to my house.  My sweet roommate offered to give me a ride to the FedEx office, but since I KNEW that it was open until 6pm every weekday, I declined knowing that time wasn’t an issue and now I had my umbrella!

When I arrived, I breathed a sigh of relief that the door confirmed it was indeed open until 6pm on Friday.  The relief quickly vanished when I saw the employee clearly closing everything down.  They had changed the Friday closing time a few months ago without changing the sign on the door.  Giving me a look of equal parts pity and annoyance, she told me that they closed in 3 minutes, but she was willing to execute the transaction until she realized I wanted to send my passport to the states at which point she gingerly told me that she couldn’t do that, but the office next door could.  With hope quickly diminishing, I went next door only to be told that they can send it, but I would have to arrange ground service in the states after it arrived in order for it to be shipped back here.  Feeling completely dejected, I happened to catch the glance of the FedEx manager that I’ve come to know well through my Nigeria visa shipments and she came out to greet me!  I explained my situation, and she said though they’re not really allowed to ship passports but if I could guarantee there would be no problems, she’d do it!  Having no idea what problems there could be, I assured her it wasn’t even a possibility and excitedly followed her back to the first FedEx office to ship my visa application!

Unfortunately, by that time, the 3 minutes remaining before had vanished and all systems had been shut down.  They informed me I could come back on Tuesday and send it.  Fine.  After binge grocery shopping (buying everything you see in sight that looks at all appealing, indulgent and out-of-the-ordinary which resulted in new trail mix, a $3 pomegranate, bad-for-you plantain chips and milk), I remembered that the school was being fumigated that night and had to walk home an extra-long way.

With renewed vigor, I signed out of school during my planning period on Tuesday and went back to FedEx sure that I would have my visa in no time!  I was greeted the same friendly FedEx faces only to be told, “Why didn’t you come this morning, the flight has already left for today.”  I didn’t come in the morning because I was working!  They told me the next flight was Wednesday morning, but when we started calculating that it would arrive on Friday, I knew that wouldn’t work because the Ghanaian Embassy in Houston is only open Monday through Wednesday from 1-3pm.  If sent Wednesday, it would be returned to San Salvador after three days.  Finally, we decided that I could fill out all the forms, pay the money.  My FedEx friend would keep it for me and mail it on the Friday shipment so that it would arrive on Monday.  That’s right.  I left my passport in a FedEx envelop with the friendly employee trusting that she’d keep it safe for 3 days and send it out on Friday.  I made sure to tell her “Please keep it safe, and don’t forget to send it!” as extra insurance! :)

Over the next few days I dutifully tracked its movement from San Salvador to Houston.  On Monday, I received a call from the person with whom I’d been in contact about my rush visa telling me that everything arrived and had been processed successfully, but she was worried that the Ghanaian Embassy in Washington DC would have problems with my Salvadoran giro check I’d sent, so she asked if I had any family in the states that could get a cashier’s check from the bank and send it made out to her name and she’d just send a check herself for me and return the giro so I could redeposit it in my bank account.  I was overwhelmed by her kindness and trust that I’d actually send her the check for $60!  I enthusiastically and gratefully agreed to her suggestion and promised I’d get the check to her as soon as possible.

My passport complete with a shiny Ghanaian visa sticker returned to me in El Salvador safe and sound two days later, so I went directly to pick it up, happy to be in the same country as my passport again only to receive a bonus surprise that they had over-charged the return shipment price by $50, and I get a refund!  Sweet, except, I had to have the detailed receipt, and it was definitely at home.  Two weeks later, I finally had a free Saturday morning during banking business hours to do redeposit my ill-fated giro and obtain my reimbursement.  After explaining the giro situation to a customer service representative, under her advisement I wrote a letter explaining the Ghanaian Embassy wouldn’t accept this perfectly good giro, waited in line to speak with a cashier banker, watched her dutifully fill out three more forms and staple my letter of explanation in Spanish to all the forms the $60 was officially redeposited.  I was feeling overly confident thinking I was going to accomplish the FedEx and banking task in the same day, but alas I was wrong.  The person who needed to issue the reimbursement isn’t in the office on Saturdays, but I should come back during the week.  Needless to say, the following Tuesday, I once again signed out of school during my planning period went back to FedEx and was given my hard-fought $50 reimbursement.

Interestingly enough, this was only one part of planning for the Ghana trip.  However, this one (long) snapshot is pretty representative of how each part of the process has been.  Trying to find malaria prophylaxis here in El Salvador that works in West Africa, trying to buy a plane ticket with an American credit card, Salvadoran IP address, for a Nigerian passport holder, the surprises never cease!   Filled with more obstacles than I could ever imagine but interspersed with unexpected and extravagant acts of kindness, goodness and helpfulness by friends and strangers alike, this is more than trip preparation…this is life! 

Show up!

Many days I wonder why I agreed to be the National Honor Society sponsor, namely when I’m resolving the 4th miscommunication in two days or listening to the 18th valid excuse why a student can’t participate in an activity at the last minute or searching unsuccessfully for that illusive place between relinquishing leadership and responsibility to the students, but still being aware of everything that’s going on.  However, brief but illuminating moments can provide affirmation that transform feelings of helplessness and inadequacy into peace and enlightenment.

Saturday we had an NHS event meant to develop leadership skills at a retreat center about 45 minutes from the city.  After a busy week, I was not looking forward to chaperoning an event from 7:45am to 4pm.   Despite being a part of multiple planning meetings, I didn’t really understand the program we were to be working with nor did I grasp our role in it.  I only knew that it didn’t seem as organized as I would have desired, but I am the club sponsor, so I showed up.

The first hour was filled with complete confusion: listening to questions that I couldn’t answer, realizing forgotten supplies, and wondering where the illusive contact person was.  After I realized I was being snippy with the students, I decided to remove myself from the set-up situation and go listen to the lecture being presented by two of the officers to try to figure out what was going on.  Over the next 5 minutes, I watched my students lead an interactive presentation regarding the importance education with a group of 25 students, who were a part of an after school program for underprivileged students where they learned English, computer and leadership skills.  While the leaders and the audience were the same demographically, they had clearly come from completely different worlds.  It became quickly apparent these two groups of involved, passionate, and articulate students had incredible potential to impact their community and a unique opportunity to affect each other throughout the day.

Before the presentation was finished, I rushed down inspired and excited to where the majority of my students were waiting around texting everyone in El Salvador.  Even though I felt completely unqualified as their leader and unaware of what was going on when the day began, my tiny peek into the mixing to two worlds gave me insight into my role.  These students have been exposed to charity their entire lives and are very comfortable “helping the poor” nearly exclusively in a hand-out and at a comfortable distance.  However, I challenged them to shift the focus from “leading” this incredible group of their peers, to joining them in the games, in the discussions, in the experience.  At first, they were resistant stating they needed to explain the games and put on the games FOR them since it’s THEIR day.  I said I was certain that they’d rather be participating as one large mixed group than being laughed at from the outside.  Then, my students contended they were supposed to be developing leadership skills.  I continued stating that often leadership is coming up next to someone and getting to know them, learning from them and eventually you will have the opportunity to share what you know.  I shared a few positive experiences that I’ve had getting to know people in Nigeria, Iowa and here in El Salvador in this way.  It might take a lot longer and not even happen at all in a 6-hour Saturday session, but they are valuable and effective leadership skills to learn.

Soon after I had shared my leadership epiphany with them, the participants came down to the field to being their games.  My students had a hard time joining in and during the first round, I went to each of the six different games reminding them 1 coordinator per game was enough, the rest of them should be playing!  Interacting with peers from a different social class on an level playing field was tough and placed them out of their comfort zone, but by the end of the game hour, they had warmed up a bit.  However, when lunch started, they immediately segregated themselves again, and I reminded them this is a great opportunity to hang out together.  They were less than enthusiastic, but humored me.

The final portion of the day included small group discussions about the role of education in maintaining democracy in El Salvador and increasing its transparency.  The schedule allotted 45 minutes, but I was skeptical groups of 6-8 high school students would really talk about the role of education in democracy for 45 minutes on a Saturday afternoon.  I was grossly mistaken.  When the student leader sounded the siren on the megaphone signaling the end of small group discussions, I had 3 of my students come up to me and ask why I cut them off so soon.  They were having “inspired discussions”!  I suggested that after each group presented their small group discussion it could be opened up as a large group discussion to end the day.

All of the discussion was done in Spanish, so I had to focus intently, but it was worth the effort.  Listening to all of the students grapple with difficult issues presenting meaningful stances and worthwhile counters was heartening.  One of the final comments was given by of the participants who called everyone to action.  “What good is a seminar like this if we don’t act and act now in our schools and communities?  We have the power to make change happen.”  My students were similarly inspired by the day and the interactions they had had.  “They really appreciate their education!”  “They are so passionate about their beliefs.”  “People at are school aren’t like this.”

The participants, my students and I all showed up, somewhat begrudgingly, on a Saturday morning having other things we’d rather be doing but knowing it was the right thing to do and we were all positively impacted.  Maybe it was in a way that we’d anticipated, likely it wasn’t.  However, it reinforced a belief that I hold.  You don’t have to be overly talented.  You don’t have to have all of the answers.  You don’t have to spend a ton of money.  You do have to show up.  You never know when something powerful is going to happen and you wouldn’t want to miss out!

Ants & Me vs. Cookies

Saturday night I was reveling in the solitude of being alone in my house with nowhere to go and no plans to fulfill.  It was heavenly in a way that can only be appreciated in a life full of enjoyable and worthwhile chaos.  After a most delicious dinner of popcorn and a fruit smoothie, I “needed” one last bit of sweetness (the smoothie had ended much before the salty popcorn) to complete the perfection.  Excitedly, I remembered that our maid, Mila, had made traditional cookies (alfajores) on Thursday, so I opened up the aluminum foiled-covered plate and found that the cookies were crawling with hundreds of tiny ants.

I would be lying if I said I was surprised.  In reality, she’s been experimenting with small different recipes of these cookies for weeks now and always places them on a plate with foil and I always find ants on them.  Curiously, there have been different sized ants with the different recipes.  However, one would think if I (and my roommate) knew this happened we would adjust storage methods, but it hasn’t happened yet.  Instead, I brush off the ants and partake.  This ant infestation was particularly abundant with significantly more ants than usual, so it was a challenge to brush them all off and to prevent them from crawling all over me, but after repeated turns and brushes, I was successful!  My meal had been a little short of protein, so I figured ingesting a few ants would just balance out my food pyramid a bit.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon which inner voice I was listening to, all of my ant brushing energies were used up after one cookie and I decided after some cost-benefit analysis that the efforts of brushing off a whole other cookie was not worth the payoff of eating a second.  I did transfer the rest of the ant-covered cookies to a sealed Gladware container and am going to see what happens to the remaining ants.  Many people here view ants as the enemy, but I prefer to think of us as a team working together to reduce my cookie intake!

Free at Last! (Sundried Tomatoes)

When I moved to El Salvador, one of my friends talked about mini-pizzas that she often made using sun-dried tomatoes as one of the ingredients.  I decided that sounded yummy and proceeded to purchase a jar back in October.  Since I live in El Salvador, I was only able to get the GINORMOUS jar (varying sizes of imported items isn’t a priority).  I figured, they don’t go bad, no problem.

One night not long after the purchase, I decided to open the jar to partake.  The jar was wet with condensation from being stored in the fridge, so I dried it off and made a few unsuccessful attempts at opening the awkwardly large jar.  I was extra hungry so I decided that a pizza could be just as delicious without sundried tomatoes and I would enlist outside help with the jar later.

As time passed, despite having 30 neighbors within a 100m radius, I consistently forgot to enlist outside help with the jar.  It was always just a little too late to go knocking on a door, so I started trying out different techniques: prying with a knife, pounding the heel of my hand on the bottom, running hot water underneath the lid, and letting it sit out of the refrigerator.  These techniques were not only unsuccessful each time I applied them to my jar but when I applied them to my roommate’s identical, unopened, awkwardly large jar, as well!

This past week, we decided we were going to wage war against the sundried tomatoes and WIN and enlisted the help, not of a man, but of Google.  Science was going to help us conquer the stubborn jar.  Many of the suggested techniques were not helpful because we did not have required materials such as rubber gloves, dryer sheets, triangular-shaped bottle opener, wooden hammer, nut cracker or screw-driver.  The others had already been tried unsuccessfully, except for one.  Place the jar upside down on the stove and turn the burner onto low heat.  We were a little concerned that the tomatoes were going to explode everywhere but decided they would at least be opened!

After a few minutes of heating, I took it off the stove and because the metal lid was hot to the touch, I used a towel to attempt the opening.  My roommate watched with great anticipation as I applied every ounce of strength in me to turn the lide and it still wouldn’t budge.  We were highly disappointed as we stood looking at the jar feeling nearly defeated.  How can the jar win?!   I decided to give it one more try and before I could apply any ummph, the jar popped right open!  The jar didn’t win; we won!  Science was our assistant!  The heat had reduced the vacuum inside the jar and it had simply just taken a few more seconds once the jar had been turned over to work.  Celebration ensued in Casa 4D!  The following evening, I made the most delicious pita pizzas with sundried tomatoes, pesto, artichoke hearts, and olives!  They tasted EXTRA delicious because of the nearly 8 month, hard-fought battle with the jar of tomatoes! :)

Drop by Drop

In January, while I was volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, I saw many people carrying water and realized outside the city many do not have access to running water in their home. I wanted to contribute to the efforts of these people to improve the quality of their lives.  There is a never-ending list of opportunities to donate money to a variety of worthwhile projects through my school; however, when I recognized the obvious connection of water quality to the chemistry curriculum, the opportunity to attempt a more involved, hands-on project with my chemistry students seemed propitious.


Though I have always loved the concept of service-learning, which goes to great efforts to ensure both service and learning components are seamlessly integrated throughout the course of a project, I had never had the opportunity to be involved with one before.  Now is the perfect chance!  Though ideas had been bouncing around in my head for months, I knew I had to do something to commit myself in some way, so I contacted Habitat to initiate the partnership. 
In my initial musings, I thought this would be a 3-week project but I recently discovered a hiking trip to Monte Cristo, (national park in El Salvador that includes a cloud forest!) the weekend the culminating trip to Ahauachapan would take place.  I really wanted to go, so I decided to spend 4-weeks on the project solely based on Monte Cristo.  The Sunday before starting this month-long project, I went to school for 6-hours and finally put together a rough outline.  After all the planning, I was thankful to realize 4-weeks was actually much better educationally-speaking as well! J


The project contains 4 main components: chemistry content, water testing, committee work and reflection.  Within the chemistry content component, the students do a majority of the work at home from notes and practice worksheets posted online with dedicated in-class time for questions, lecture over the most difficult topics, a quiz at the end of each week and a lab or demo to support the material each week as well.


A water testing component required the students to research a particular water test, then in groups, perfect a particular method of testing based on water testing materials we had in the science department so they can perform the test when we go to Ahuachupan.  I definitely created this entire project without first actually searching and seeing what water testing materials we had available.  Whoops!  Thankfully, people found random water testing kits in the back of their closets, attachments to previously under-utilized electronic probes and kids were able to create testers from sundry items laying around the lab.  I hope the quality of the water is good, and we don’t find anything suspect!


The third component is committee work: fundraising, service learning and water quality.  Fundraising has the task of raising money.  It costs $500 to connect one family to running water, the kids wanted to have a goal of $500.  I told them they need to think bigger.  They said, $1000?  I said, “Really?!”  I told them we need to think big.  They decided on $5,000.  They started making a list of the companies I see all over San Salvador.  There were a few I didn’t see up there, so I suggested them.  They informed me the owner of those don’t have 10^th grade kids.  “Wait, all of those companies are owned by your parents?!?” I asked.  Yep.  Wow.  We’d better raise more than $500.  


The Service Learning committee is in charge of creating activities for the class (or student body) to do to raise awareness of the life of a person who doesn’t have running water.  My students have maids and drivers.  They have seen poverty their entire lives because they are used to living around poverty and they feel bad about people live in poverty.  However, they have rarely experienced it. This is their chance to simulate situations to feel the strain of carrying water and the mental dilemma of realizing this isn’t an activity for many, but a daily reality!


The final committee of Water Quality is in charge of communicating with the community leaders to find out the needs of the community with respect to water quality and education and they are then going to make posters and brochures for people to share about purification sanitation practices.


The final piece of the project is reflection.  They are answering a weekly survey providing me feedback about how the logistics of the project are going, and they are responding to a weekly blog to help them connect the different portions of the project to each other.  It’s my hope that the blog responses and in-class reflection sessions are helping them process what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how they are doing it.  Then, we are attempting to reflect on how to take these skills and apply them in a different context so the serving and learning don’t stop here! 


When I started this almost two weeks ago, I was pretty nervous about how it was going to work.  I had NO IDEA!  I had been emphasizing collaboration between the different committees as well as collaboration between the common committees from all 4 of my different classes.  Unprompted, the kids from various committees arranged for all of the students to get passes from me to meet in my room during study hall to subdivide all the tasks within the different classes.  They created an email address, facebook page (“Like” it at Gota por Gota [Drop by Drop]) and twitter account (@Gota_por_Gota) for the project and are making a video to show to potential sponsors.  It’s super exciting to see what kids will do when you give them ownership and an opportunity to make a difference.


It will be interesting to see how many students elect to go on Saturday, May 19^th when we culminate the project by going and starting to dig the trenches for the pipes and provide some educational materials and brief demonstrations.  I have decided it will be optional and I’m not going to offer extra credit.  These students need to have the chance to feel good about doing something purely for others and receiving nothing for themselves in return.  Let’s see if they’ll go help a community because they’ve become invested, and it’s a good thing to do!

Denied, but Hopeful!

Well, my child-like hope was temporarily dashed when Ezekiel wasn’t granted a visa to come to the US this summer.  However, after some tears and 24-hours of complete frustration, we decided even though it wasn’t our plan to get denied, it must have been God’s.  Therefore, we are moving forward with more knowledge and experience and going to reapply for a visa for Christmas break.  This time we are enlisting the help of my senator’s office and trying the Abuja office to see what happens.  The relationship is too valuable to abandon.  The lessons God is teaching me through this process are innumerable.  While I’m waiting to see what the future will bring in this area of my life, I decided that I needed to add some more purpose to my life that has been filled with countless adventures since moving to El Salvador (see next post)!

Waiting with Anticipation

After successfully gathering important financial, identification, and educational documents from three different countries Ezekiel finally has what he needs to take along on the 19-hour van trip to the US Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria where his interview with the US Consulate will take place on Thursday. He is requesting a Tourist/Business Visa to visit the US for a month this summer and we are praying that it is granted!

I have some friends who have gone through the US visa acquisition process and all warned me of the steep challenges ahead. I’m pretty sure that ignorance is bliss because I just nodded in agreement that I’m sure it’s difficult, but I figured I’ve navigated plenty of bureaucratic processes through college, living abroad, traveling and doing taxes. How hard can it be?! I missed one minor yet important detail in my thought process: I’d always been navigating the system as a US citizen which gives one a plethora of invisible and often overlooked advantages, not as an outsider!

However, after all that work, now all I get to do is wait! The last time I remember being this excited about waiting for something in a very child-like way was 3rd grade. I was anticipating Beach Day at school for weeks because not only did we get to bring towels to school and do beachy things, but both sets of my grandparents were going to be coming that night after school to celebrate mine and Alex’s birthdays. It was the best thing EVER for an-almost 9-year old girl! As an almost-30-year old girl, I’m looking forward to hearing the news that Ezekiel has been granted a US visa at his appointment at the US embassy in Lagos tomorrow at 9am in that same ridiculously child-like hopeful way. The only difference is that I was sure that my grandparents would be there when I got home, but this time I can only hope and pray!

Monday: CLOSED

When my friend Amy emailed me to let me know that she was going to be doing a mission trip in Guatemala for a week and wanted to tack on a few more days to visit me in El Salvador, I was super excited! It makes me smile when I think about how I met Amy back in 2008 in Michigan at a training preparing us to live in internationally as International Volunteers through the United Methodist church. She picked me up from the airport and drove me to the training. We hit it off immediately and when we arrived and hour later, everyone else at the training was certain that we’d been friends for years not minutes. Since then, I went and visited her in Michigan in 2009 after we had both returned from our respective international experiences, we met up in Chicago in 2010 and did a little international community tour of Chicago and now she is coming to visit me in El Salvador! I love it when happenstance meetings turn into extended friendships!


I was a little nervous about being a tour guide…and driving. Therefore, I rented a car…and a driver…and we were off exploring! Silly me figured that Raul, the driver, would know where the beach Costa del Sol was located, so ignorantly didn’t figure out directions from the airport. As Amy and I were catching up on the happenings from her mission trip and my new life in El Salvador, Raul mentioned that #1 we were running out of gas quickly and #2 he didn’t know where the illusive restaurant Las Olas was located. We used Salvadoran GPS: rolling down the window and asking someone for directions to the restaurant and a gasolinera. The man graciously hopped in and took us up this sketchy looking road to where we arrived and someone got out with a Gerry can. I’m about 99% confident it didn’t contain premium gas as the owner of the rental car had requested, but I was happy to have gas, so I took a picture (because having a tourist friend in town gives me the green light to act like a tourist, too)!

Monday, I took a personal day and we went to the volcano right outside San Salvador and had lunch. Afterwards, we decided to go check out some ruins about 45 minutes outside the city. They were closed. So were the ruins a little further out. We were not defeated that easily, and decided to go downtown to check out the cathedral where Romero is buried. It was closed for renovations. Fine, we’ll settle for the National Palace. It was open, but had closed 20 minutes earlier. El Rosario Church…open…unique…and amazing! It thankfully redeemed our afternoon. Lesson learned for when more visitors come: save the beach for a Monday!


Good times with a good friend! I’m so glad that Amy made the stop! :)

Long Silence

February 7th was the last time I blogged. That is a little behind the one blog per week that I had been aiming for. I think adventuring seems to have gotten in the way of reflecting or sharing. Since the last post here’s a brief overview of the happenings

*My friend Amy from Michigan came to visit for a long weekend! She gave me my first taste of hosting here in El Salvador. It was wonderful to see her!

*I went with some friends to Isla Ometepe in Nicaragua with some friends to run a 25K up a volcano!

*We had a random 3-day weekend at school, so we went to the Mayan ruins of Tikal in northeast Guatemala!

*My long-time friend and former roommate Angie came for a week to visit during which time we stayed at the beach, and I drove for the first time as we explored some of the mountain towns and got lost on every one-way road in San Salvador. We’re basically navigating rockstars if your standard is eventually reaching your destination…even if it’s closed!

*At school, I agreed to be National Honor Society Sponsor for next year and therefore was involved in the selection process this year. I’m looking forward to the built-in service opportunities this will provide!

*I went through the formal evaluation process at school including 8,000 observations and written reflections over everything. Who doesn’t love evaluations?! :)

*All sponsor documents, nearly 50 double-sided pages of difficult to acquire official information, were collected and have been sent to Nigeria in hopes of helping Ezekiel secure a visa to come to the US to visit this summer!

Each of these events contains a multitude of stories that I want to remember so my mission over the next few weeks is to get some of the most memorable parts of these happenings written down so that this crazy eventful time isn’t forgotten! This is a unique chapter in my life that is affording me the opportunity, friends, time and just enough financial resources to have some amazing experiences, so I’m taking advantage of it while I can!

Earthquake!

El Salvador experiences earthquakes as a common occurrence. Typically, they aren’t dangerous and often undetectable due to the depth or distance from the epicenter. However, to me, earthquakes are novel. Prior to living here, my experience with earthquakes was contained to disasters seen on TV, standing in an earthquake simulation at the science museum in Portland, OR and teaching earthquakes as torsion waves to my freshmen in Clinton and watching them try to create earthquake-resistant structures from blocks. My students here occassionally ask me expectantly if I’ve felt any of the earthquakes since living here and I always get a little deflated and reply negatively…until Thursday!

*Disclaimer* I know that earthquakes can cause a lot of devastation and shouldn’t be taken lightly, so please interpret my excitement and enthusiasm knowing I only want safe, science-experiencing earthquakes!

I was sitting on my bed skyping with Laura and it was approximately 10:24pm when things started shaking like someone had bumped into the wall (except, I have concrete walls that clearly couldn’t be easily “bumped”). Then, I realized, EARTHQUAKE! It was SUPER exciting!!! It lasted for maybe 30-45 seconds and definitely felt like someone was taking my entire house and shaking it continually for that period of time! I was kind of freaking out to Laura asking if she could “see” it, but we determined that there wasn't an appreciable difference from when I shifted my legs beneath my computer…but this wasn't shift legs, this was REAL! I feel like I have now completed one more part of the Salvadoran initiation process!

The picture below gives the stats of my first official earthquake. I think I could definitely feel the combination of transverse and longitudinal movements creating the torsion wave! :)

Eggplant Lasagna Debacle

Sarah and Laura both suggested I check out Pinterest, so without really know what I was getting into, I stumbled upon an infinite resource of yummy recipes that are just begging to be tried! I feel like I’m most attracted to recipes that seem a little out of the ordinary and delicious, which tend to be plentiful on vegan and vegetarian sites. I am neither vegan nor vegetarian, but I don’t like cooking meat other than fish, so it works out! After my first survey of Pinterest recipes, I decided to purchase the ingredients for eggplant bread lasagna. I was intrigued, lots of people said really good things and I happened to have 2 small eggplants leftover from the exploratory purchase the previous week.

I was going to replace the bread with whole wheat lasagna noodles, but they didn’t exist at my ever-changing Super Selectos. I should have taken the clue and turned back then, but I didn’t. I bought bread at the bakery across the street and continued on. The first step was to heat some olive oil and medium to high heat while chopping 4-6 cloves of garlic. I decided 4 was sufficient since I get tired of mincing garlic after about 3 cloves, so I added them to the oil while I finished the 4th not really questioning what “sweating” the garlic meant. When I turned around a minute later to add the 4th, my first 3 cloves were officially charred completely black. Oops. (Even after googling sweating garlic, I’m not sure what went wrong.) I decided charred garlic would just add a little extra flavor and pressed on.

After adding the other spices and chopped tomatoes to simmer, I sliced my eggplant. It was suggested to cut them into 1/4” slices. I don’t have a ruler, so I guesstimated and figured it wasn’t a big deal that some of my 1/4” slices were paper thin at the top and closer to the thickness of a deck of cards at the bottom. Well, 20 minutes later when I removed them from the oven, I discovered it was a big deal. About half of my eggplant slices (the paper thin parts, surprise, surprise!) were completely charred to the bottom of the pan. Hmmm…no problem, it’ll just add a little crunch!

It said to toast the bread in the oven, so I sliced my bakery-fresh artisan roll and placed the slices in the warm oven. My dear friend Angie called, so we skyped as I added some shriveled mushrooms, a baggie of 2011 carrot coins and tried to deplete my excess of white beans in my simmering sauce and scraped the eggplant slices from the pan. We were having such a delightful chat that I forgot about my bread in the oven until I smelled a faint aroma of burning…a different one from the garlic… and eggplant. Shoot! They weren’t badly burned, so I decided they were going to be covered with sauce and baked anyway, bringing them to the perfect texture. I paused our skype conversation until the lasagna had been assembled and put in the oven to bake.

As I began to build the lasagna, I noticed a shortage of eggplant. The recipe called for a large eggplant. I figured 1 large=2 small. I figured wrong. I was supposed to have enough eggplant for 2 layers. My charcoal-crusted eggplant ran out before the first layer was adequately laid. This perplexed me. So, the paucity of eggplant made me realize this recipe was now going to be toasted bread with homemade marinara that had become a dumping ground for all my cast off vegetables. I took a deep breath, threw some ricotta on top and put it in the oven to hope for the best and finish my conversation. 40 minutes later, I removed it from the oven only to find that the bottom layer of marinara had completely blackened into the bottom of the pan because I’d had to move the rack down one level from the top because it was too tall to fit otherwise.

Well, in the game of cooking, you win some and you lose some! I’m actually pretty impressed that I managed to burn four different aspects of this lasagna for four different reasons. Pretty impressive! While it definitely wasn’t the taste sensation I was hoping for, I have eaten it for three meals and there’s still a part of me that’s looking forward to that last serving! :)

Life Lessons via Turtles

The evening I spent watching turtles hatch from their eggs, emerge onto the sand free to start their life served as allegories to my own life. The first turtle was strong and came through the sand strongly and relatively quickly. As we waited for the second one, it was tempting to try to help it because we knew that the Canadian family was waiting to see the release, and it was getting late. According to our timeline, the turtle needed to finish its hatching process NOW. Under the guidance of my mentor and against my better judgment, I may have brushed a little sand away to make his escape route slightly less obstructed.

Fast forward to the runway of sand between the turtles’ current position and their final dwelling place in the big black ocean: Turtle #1 stood there for a moment clearly apprising his current situation and enabling his nature kick in telling him to “Go toward the water!” Eventually, he started moving in the right direction with a marked amount of zeal. Similar to the circuitous routes of life, he didn’t take the most direct path either. However, he kept moving, eventually reached the water, and was swept away to fight the odds. Only 1/1000 baby turtles survive to adulthood. Only time will tell if he’ll be smart enough, strong enough and fast enough to survive the big, bad world of ocean life.

Turtle #2 on the other hand was confused. He sat completely still before turning his back to the water and walking away. Time without number, we turned him back around, lured him with red light and patted the sand, creating vibrations in the sand to attract him, but nothing was working. After about 30 minutes, he made a few promising steps toward the water but started veering severely to the right, so much so that soon he was going completely in the wrong direction again. We created a barrier to the right to increase the appeal of going straight or to the left. He continued to plow into the barrier. I tried to talk some sense into him. “Buddy, whatcha’ doing?! Can’t you see the big open expanse of sand to your left? Why do you insist on trying to go where there is no way?”

At that moment, I had a brief flash of enlightenment. I wonder how many times God has looked at me repeatedly ramming into some circumstantial barrier and said, “Hey buddy, whatcha’ doing?! Can’t you see all these better possibilities that are available for you if you would look around instead of having tunnel vision!” It seemed so obvious couched in this turtle scenario, but it becomes so much more muddled in the beach of life where everything just looks like sand in all directions!

In addition to my moment of enlightenment, I was also receiving a lesson in natural selection before my very eyes. Humankind is the one species that has found a way to outsmart natural selection, but it is a harsh reality for every other living creature. Despite the fact that turtle #2 eventually made it to the water’s edge, I’m confident he’s not going to be the one beating the 1/1000 odds of survival. Now, I did have a slightly guilty conscious wondering if I had not brushed the sand away and instead let it hatch in its own time, might its future have looked different? Hmmm, maybe allowing events to take their natural course is a better idea than pushing them through on my personal schedule. Could this be a second flash of enlightenment in such a short period of time?! I may have ushered these turtles into their first hour of life, but they served as a vehicle for some much needed wisdom in my own life.

Work, Play and People

Since Saturday, December 17th, I had been going non-stop, bouncing from one place to another in order to maximize the number of people I could connect with. I woke up for breakfast at 8am on Tuesday morning fully aware that the pace of life on the beach is much more relaxed compared with the pace that I had been living for the previous two weeks, and it was a bit of a jolt to my system. I repeated the mantra “Relax, Carolyn. They’ll tell you when and what you are supposed to do eventually. Be patient.” many times before I was able to fully embrace it. Hours later, the leader took me out to the “vivero” or turtle hatchery, located about a quarter of a mile down the beach, and gave me a brief orientation.

The Olive Ridley sea turtle species is endangered; therefore there is a concerted effort to protect the nests from all types of predators. ASVO volunteers dig up the nests once they are laid along the beach and put them within a fenced-off hatchery that is monitored 24/7. Typically, a nest yields around 100 eggs and the gestation period is between 45-51 days. We as volunteers were responsible for keeping the hatchery area clean, recording size and mass data of hatched turtles and then releasing them into the ocean.

My first duty was the following night from midnight until 6am with a partner so we could take turns being on duty and sleeping in the hammock. Sweet! I was thrilled to hear that a nest was “due” to hatch that night! By the time I got there, we could see 4 little turtle heads. We checked the nest every 15 minutes to monitor the progress using only a red light so as not to disturb or confuse the turtles. It was super exciting to see one of the turtles completely pull itself out of its shell in the sand and emerge victorious during one of my check-ups! With a gloved hand, I took it from its nest and placed it in a bucket of sand so that it could be taken to the shelter to be weighed and measured. Since another one was likely to be surfacing within the hour, we decided to wait until the second one was born before releasing them into the great big ocean!

There was a family from Canada who had come back to the hatchery late that night so they could watch the release of the newborn turtles. We placed them on the shore about 15 meters from the water and encouraged them to go toward their future home by shining a red light, tapping the sand and a healthy dose of verbal encouragement! One seemed surer about life outside the nest than the other. As I watched the two brand new baby turtles take on the world for the first time about 2:30am, many allegories to life became apparent (see Turtle Life Lessons later).

Another morning, a group of us went to the recycling center in Montezuma and helped to smash, sort and bag 3 days’ worth of plastic bottles from this tiny tourist town. Wow. A few lessons I learned: #1 Don’t leave the caps on your plastic bottles when you recycle them; they’re not recyclable! #2 Don’t leave liquid in your bottles; it has to be emptied, and it’s much grosser days later. #3 Recycling center attendants need to be paid more. I processed waste for about 3 hours one time in Costa Rica meaning it was novel with an element of glamour and fun, but day in and day out it would become difficult, unpleasant work that deserves to be appropriately compensated.

In addition to this time spent volunteering, I had plenty of opportunity to hang out on the beach and play in the waves getting to know the other volunteers who were from college students from Costa Rica, Germany, Italy, two professional dancers from Belgium, and a Canadian science teacher who’s working in South Korea. For the most part, we spoke Spanish with a little English thrown in to clear up a few misunderstandings. One morning I hiked down the road about a half mile and found an amazing trail leading up a river through luscious rainforest to gorgeous waterfalls complete with a refreshing swimming hole, rock jumps and a rope swing, which I most definitely sampled. None of the other volunteers were interested in going, so I joined up with a great group of people from Toronto, and we had a great time! Another day I spent the morning reading on the beach, then explored the other end of the beach with another volunteer where we discovered THOUSANDS of shells, a nearly empty beach and huge rock formations with some awesome tide pools mini-ecosystems!!!


Soon it was time for the bus ride/ferry expedition back to San Jose followed by the marathon ride back to San Salvador. This time my travel companions were a vegan who’d attended the University of Iowa and was currently living in Chicago as an investment banker, a guy who works at my school in San Salvador and was traveling back home served as my border buddy and my seat buddy was the grandfather of a Salvadoran family that served as an example to me as the kindest, patient, loving family that I’ve ever had the opportunity to witness, EVER. After having traveled around Costa Rica as grandma, grandpa, mom, dad and 3 kids ages 2, 4, and 8 for two weeks they were now on the 20-hour bus ride back to San Salvador. They were nothing but wonderful to each other. Everyone helped out and took part to make everything run smoothly and the children behaved impeccably! I kept waiting for someone to get cranky and impatient but they NEVER did! At the end of our journey, I told them they were an inspiration!

While I may have officially “traveled alone”, I honestly never felt alone. I met so many kind, friendly and helpful people along the way who were willing to explain a million different things to me and share sweet life moments: how to conquer border crossings, how to dive under a wave to prevent being crushed, when to switch buses, how much a taxi should cost from point A to point B, how to tuck in the pulls on my backpack to appear less desirable to thieves, waking me up in the bus so I could see the amazing wind turbines around a Nicaraguan lake, and watching in awe as the sun set during the ferry ride. While there isn’t a single person who can reminisce about the entire journey with me, I did get to experience the joy of sharing unexpected moments of delight and connection with an interesting and diverse smattering of humanity. What a treat! :)

Costa Rica Bound!

Sometime around mid-December I started thinking about the week I would have available after returning from the states and before school started. No groups of people had really formed going anywhere, so I decided this was the perfect opportunity to set out on my own and travel solo for the first time. I started searching for volunteer opportunities available in Central America, and then quickly added the term “cheap” to the beginning of the search string which eventually led me to the ASVO program in Costa Rica. Within a week, my position had been confirmed at Montezuma http://www.asvocr.org/english/montezuma/index.php. I wasn’t 100% sure what I’d be doing, but knowing I would be on a beach in Costa Rica with room and board covered for $25/day volunteering with an environmental project was enough to make me excited!

I arrived home at 1:30am after my New Year’s celebration with some Salvadoran friends, finished packing, took a taxi to the bus station at 2:30am and by 3am was on the road headed south to Costa Rica. Three meals, three border crossings (which included 6 stops), innumerable immigration officials, and 20 hours later (11pm) I arrived at the bus station in San Jose, Costa Rica! I wished my dear Guatemalan seat buddy good luck with his upcoming semester of study and he left me with his sister’s number in Costa Rica in case I had any problems! My border buddy, (a lot of time was spent waiting at borders outside the bus and many friends were made) a dreadlocked nurse from Australia independently backpacking around the world for the past 8 months, and I decided to share a taxi to our respective hostels.

The following morning I connected with my program organizer who told me to get on another bus at 2pm to arrive at my site on the beach on the Nicoya Peninsula by around 8:30pm that night. I knew another bus ride was in my future, but I hid my shock that it was going to be that long. Considering I’d just survived a 20 hour ride, what’s another 6.5 divided with a ferry ride?! I was able to take advantage of the 4 hours I had in San Jose and covered the entire downtown walking tour route taking in as many sites as the “Everything is closed on Monday” capitol would allow! I ate traditional Costa Rican cuisine consisting of chicken, potatoes and carrots in broth and rice from a local restaurant while chatting it up with the owner and dishwashers at the bar. They provided some great insight on Costa Rican culture and a few kind Spanish lessons as well!

I successfully found the new bus station on foot and thoroughly enjoyed the vibrant greens, lush vegetation and rolling hillsides as I traveled across the country. The ferry was HUGE and carried a couple of busses, many cars and hundreds of people! What a welcomed change of pace to be on the water during the sunset surrounded by gorgeousness instead of the inside of a bus.

On the last leg of my journey, I sat next to a Lebanese chef who owns a restaurant in a nearby town. We had a congenial conversation ranging from his famous falafel recipes to his life in Miami and how life changed for him as a resident post-9/11 to his life in the Lebanese army back in the 80’s and challenges and hardships that came with that experience. We shared about our families and our love of travel. It was exhilarating! However, I was so thankful when I finally arrived at Montezuma and was met by two people from my program to walk me to my final destination!