Spanish Volunteers work with OSCA

In September two volunteers from Spain came to CSM to replace Teresa who had been working with OSCA. This Spanish NGO program is run through the Fundacion Segundo Montes. Maria and Pilar aare both university graduates who studied horticulture.

The girls work mainly with the FSM but have been collaborating and supporting OSCA as well! Yesterday at the temple, Pilar gave a presentation about organic farming and its benefits to youth of OSCA. Behind the temple there is a plot of land where the Pastoral eam planted pineapples in April (with help from the USF students delegation). There is some more space and the OSCA youth are getting organized to learn about hortilculture and start planting.

They decided yesterday to plant cilantro, tomatos and cucumber and will start cleaning up the land on Tuesday at 4pm with the help of Pilar.

Pastoral Team raffle

Last Saturday I went shopping in San Salvador in Centro with Celina from the Pastoral Team , and her daugther! We bought prizes for the raffle to raise money for the roof. Celina and I bought the prizes to the meeting on Wednesday and later that day I typed up posters to advertise the event and sign up lists.

The Pastoral Team is mobilizing to sell raffle tickets and the drawing of the winners is for the Vigil on November 14th at the Temple in San Luis. Tickets go for $1 each.

Prizes are:
brand new, three burner kitchen camper stove with system
iron with protector
vegetable cutter
bread toaster

The team is excited to be raising funds for the temple!

SILEM Nursery in Guatajiagua

SILEM opened a nursery in Guatajiagua, Morazan a few months ago.am pretty sure that your internship is over and that you will be coming home soon. I am sure that we will chat more about this on the call on the 4th. The reas The nursery is currently located at the Casa Comunal and will be moving in about a week to SILEM´s own building. I want to note that in Guatajiagua live indigenous that speak Nahuat and Spanish.

Today a group of about 13 went to Guatajiagua and painted the building red and white! The inside walls are white with red childrens handprints in a line along the wall. The outside is red and white.

Leli Ventura and other members of her family, Marvin (who works at SILEM), Balmoris and two other youth from OSCA, Teresa (a girl from Spain who has been visiting the community CSM for three months) and myself spent the entire day painting! We left SILEM (in San Luis) at 8am and returned at 6pm.

It was a long day and the nursery only needs a new floor and a few more finishing touches!

red handprints

delirious after many hours of painting

OSCA September 19th

Yesterday, September 19th, OSCA started their first monthly series of youth conferences to be held on the third sunday of each month. OSCA invited youth from municipalities from the north of Morazan: Delicias de Concepcion, Meanguera, Jocoatique, Villa El Rosario, Arambala Perquin, San Fernando and Torola. About 50 youth attended and OSCA supplied the refreshments and food. Name tags were handed out at the entrance of the meeting space, el Ranchon Comunical in La Planta, Jocoaqitue.

The conference lasted from 9 until 1pm. Balmoris and other youth from OSCA asked questions, such as: What are problems for youth in your municipal? What are solutions to these problems? How can youth organize to fight these problems? The idea of the meeting was to find out what youth are worried about most and how they can organize themselves to relieve these issues.

These series of conferences will bring youth together for a day from all over the north of Morazan to meet each other and talk about issues they have in common. The youth that come are those that want to make a change or raise awareness. Many of the conversations were focused on how excited they were the OSCA has formed. The conferences will be held in a different location each month and a big white sign that says OSCA is put out front of the meeting place. This is in hopes of spreading their name and message (as their mission statement and vision are also put up with the sign).

After a short break at 10:30, Balmoris asked the group of 50 youth to write down problems that they see in their communities. Many problems of youth in Morazan pertain to youth n a national level: unemployment, lack of opportunity for higher education, economic dependence, drugs, alcohol, dilinquency and influence of foreign fashions. I do want to note that noone in the group of 50 mentioned teenage pregnancy or lack of sex education in schools.

My favorite part of the meeting yesterday was when we split into small groups. Each group of about 5 of 6 received a paper and a marker and were asked six questions:
1. What qualities should a youth network have at the level of Morazan.
2. Who is incorporated?
3. What should be the areas of action that the youth group should work in?
4. What groups should respond?
5. Are we as youth ready to former this network?
6. What will be a support for the functioning of this network?

Each group answered these questions and presented their responses at the end. It is a good excercise for OSCA to realize what are youth´s priorities in the community.

The conference ended with a thank you, a vote of where to hold the next meeting (San Fernando, third sunday of October, 8:30am) and the link to OSCA´s new blog!

Ínternet in CSM

As I write this blog entry, there is a line waiting for the computers! I am at the newest ciber cafe in San Luis, CSM that opened in August. It is located where the bank used to be next to SILEM. There are flat screen monitors, high speed internet, webcams, headphones and speakers at each of the 7 computers and most students prefer to come to this ciber cafe to do their homework.

Internet is becoming huge in CSM. There are three ciber´s in the market of San Luis alone! Also in San Luis the FSM, SILEM and a few private residents have access. In Quebrachos there is a ciber cafe at the Youth Center. In Hatos I my old homestay family just bought internet and are paying $30 a month as there is no internet cafe´s in Hatos I or Hatos II.

Schools teach Computation Classes starting from grade 4 but this does not include internet research skills. The highschool curriculums are utlizing internet more and more but I worry they they are not teaching students how to use it properly (as there is no internet at the school). Another problem is that it is mandatory to do research for some classes, and access is not free at the cafe´s for students.

Apart from school, the internet here is greatly used as a cheap communication for family and friends living outside El Salvador, music investigation and a ton of playing Halo…

Independence Day

September 15th is the Day of Indepence in El Salvador. The schools have been preparing for a parade that will take place this Sunday. The march starts at the Esso gas station in San Luis II and ends up in the soccer field in San Luis where students will perform for the community. They have been rehearsing for weeks. There is school vacation until Thursday.

Butterly Greenhouse Inauguration

Yesterday, September 10th, the ceremony for the inauguration of the Butterfly Greenhouse took place at La Posada Los Torogoces in Quebrachos. The activity lasted from 9am (well actually it started at 11am!) and ended at 2pm.

In attendance was Sylvia Saenz, representing Waltor Claros the mayor of Jocoatique, Miguel Ventura, Governor of Morazan, Juan Lucus, President of the Fundacion Segundo Montes, and representatives of FOMILENIO. Balmoris Hernandez was the Master of Ceremonies and the youth of OSCA created a slide show with music to present the work that FSM has done to prepare the mariposero. A plaque was given to FOMILENIO from FSM in thanks for their support.

FOMILENIO is an organization from the US that works promoting economic development in the departments of the North of Morazan. They have donated sources to create the butterfly greenhouse that is CSM´s newest tourist spot.

Butterflies

Last Thursday I was invited to go on a butterfly excursion with three girls from the youth group, OSCA. The girls are in training to start tours of the Fundacion Segundo Montes mariposero (where butterflies live). They have taken several friends on 8 different tours in the past few months.

We started at the Fundation Segundo Montes, where OSCA holds their weekly meetings. We picked up Marvin who has been working with the FSM´s butterfly maintenance. Marvin has been in employed for 8 years and maintains the houses where the different types of butterflies live. He is an expert and explains the different types of butterflies, what living conditions they need, what their names are and other such information. He is training the three OSCA girls to take over his job because he plans on returning to Ahuachapan within the year to live with family.

The group headed to Villa El Rosario to the Rio Araute. We had two nets and caught 14 butterflies near the River. The girls were excited because there are three common butterflies called ¨Julia Verde¨, ¨Julia Cafe¨ and ¨Julia Retinto¨….at the end of the day they gave me a gift of a Julia Verde (which is still in my house!) We brought the butterflies to a safe home at the Posada Los Torogoces (a restaurante/hostal owned by the FSM). We ate lunch at Los Torogoces and ran into Catalina Montes who was lunching! Also eating was Mia and Juan Lucus (who was voted to be the FSM´s President on Saturday, September 5th at an Election of the FSM´s members).

After, we went to another butterfly sanctuary where there are three large spaces for butterflys, a fish pond and a beautiful view of the mountains. Artesans from the FSM use the butterflies to create art for their cooperative.

The day actually ended with the three OSCA girls and I at the ciber cafe. They have created a blog! It is still a work in progress but we uploaded two pictures from the day and they are in the process of writing an introductory blog entry. Here is the link!

Pastoral Team Meeting – August 26th

This past Wednesday, I attended the weekly meeting of the Pastoral Team. Present at the meeting were Leno, Celina, Elena, Yolanda, Lucinda, Flore, two Spanish women and myself. The first part of the meeting was spent presenting the mission and work of the Pastoral Team to the Spanish visitors. The second half was spent preparing for the upcoming celebration at the Temple on Sunday. August 29th is the feast of John the Baptist. It is also the anniversary of the massacre in 1985 in Colomoncagua.

Catalina Montes comes to visit the community (which is named in honor of her brother, Segundo Montes) every year. She meets with various organizations and teaches English and mathematics classes. A youth, Teresa, accompanied them on their trip here and will be here until September working with the Fundacion Segundo Montes.

During the meeting I realized that the Pastoral Team is having a hard time adjusting Miguel Ventura´s even BUSIER schedule as the new Governor of Morazan. They have more preparing and more work to do and when Miguel cannot attend a Sunday celebration one of the members of the Pastoral Team (or Aparicio from ALGES) will lead the celebration.

The Pastoral Team also painted the front wall of the temple red and white last week and have continued to present the roof project to visitors and internationals that have visited the temple.

Thank you to Scarlett

I want to thank Scarlett for coming to El Salvador for two weeks in July as part of her internship program with Voices on the Border in Washington D.C. Scarlett visited CSM for two nights and met various members of the community.

Scarlett and I attended a meeting at the Temple in San Luis on Thursday, July 13th. Present was the Pastoral Team and it´s members, Miguel Ventura and Father Bernardo, a priest from France who visited the Pastoral Team last year. Last year he committed to supporting the Pastoral Team each year to supply them aid for materials, supplies and various celebrations. Scarlett was pleasantly surprised by the length of the meeting (which lasted from 9am-2pm) and the participation of community members and their willingness to share their testimonies, thoughts and prayers with each other.

The community welcomed Scarlett and many have asked about her since she left. Here is a picture taken by a friend in Perquin.