Last week, I received an email from a friend regarding this subject and wanted to discuss it. Here’s the email text:
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Rick Herrold Social Security:

My Mom was a homemaker and dad worked all his life and paid into SS. Dad has passed away and now my Mom can barely make ends meet. While the possible 'illegal' alien in front of her at the grocery store buys the name brands, my Mom goes for the generic brands, and day old breads. She doesn't have out of state calling on her phone, because she can't afford it and shops at the thrift & dollar stores while the 'illegal' aliens go to Macy's, Gap, J.C. Penny, Banana Republic, etc.

She considers having a pizza delivered once a week 'eating out'. She grew up during the depression, watched her husband go over seas to fight in WW II a year after their marriage, and then they went on to raise, feed and clothe 5 children, scrounging to pay tuition for parochial schools.

I'm sorry, but I can't see how the Senate can justify this slap in the face to born and bred, or naturalized citizens. It is already impossible to live on Social Security alone. If they give benefits to 'illegal' aliens who have never contributed, where does that leave those of us who paid into Social Security all our working lives?

The Senate voted this week to allow 'illegal' aliens access to Social Security benefits. Attached is an opportunity to sign a petition that requires citizenship for eligibility to receive Social services. If you do not wish to sign the petition yourself, please forward on to anyone you think might be interested.

PETITION FOR President Bush Mr. President:
The petition below is a protest against the recent vote of the senate which was to allow illegal aliens access to our social security! We demand that you and all congressional representatives require citizenship for anyone to be eligible for social services in the United States.
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This was followed with 488 names. I’m assuming that many of you have received this email also.

I’m sure there are tons of emails regarding this subject floating around, but this one, in particular, made me think a lot about the topic. I would like to share some of the immediate thoughts that crossed my mind after reading this:

1) Wow. Social Security really is in trouble.

2) Everyone in the states is guaranteed the right to an education and immediate (emergency) healthcare, right? So who is paying for the illegal immigrant bills? Aren’t legal citizens the ones paying for everything? If illegal immigrants are going to live here (and they are as long as jobs are available), then shouldn’t they at least have the option of helping to pay for all of those services that they receive? Or shouldn’t the law be re-written to not provide those services to them? But if that happens, how many steps will emergency rooms have to go through to prove that a person is indeed legal before treating them? Is that even a possible alternative? Probably not. So, if it’s true that illegal immigrants should have the opportunity to pay taxes on their illegal payments, then they should legally be entitled to all of the services the country offers, including social security, right? (Although, it’s duly noted that social security IS in serious trouble, but that’s an entirely different entry...I mean, we can’t just say we’re not going to provide that benefit because we can’t manage it, are we?)

I guess I went into some detail in #2. But it seems like this is the first step to getting tax dollars from the millions of illegal immigrants benefiting from living in the country. And while the emailed story is, of course, very upsetting, there are probably a lot of good reasons to begin offering this service...at least that’s what I’m thinking at the moment. If illegal immigrants are going to be benefiting from our services, let them pay into them too!!

Furthermore, I think the stories about illegals buying the "name brands" and stuff like that needs to be clarified. Again, I’d like to bring up a former community member who is now living illegally in the states. He was the president of the city council. He volunteered to build the new classrooms in the school receiving no money. He attended every possible training/educational session he could trying to get the best job possible to support his wife and three kids. In the end, he ended up in a place where he couldn’t find work anywhere, regardless of his efforts to obtain all the certifications possible. So he left for the states on a 5 year plan to earn enough money to be able to come back to his family and provide for them. At graduation, the principal read a letter that he sent addressed to his daughter. I was bawling all the way through it. Stuff like, "I’m so proud of you today. Of course, none of us want me living away from you, your brothers, or your mom, but it’s something I needed to do to make your lives better..." I mean seriously, can anyone (including me) imagine living in another country without even the opportunity of SEEING your kids/spouse? For years on end? I definitely can’t imagine it. And while I’m sure his case is an anomaly, it’s probably safe to say that the illegals buying the "name brands" falls into that category also. (As a side note, I’d like to know how people know these people are illegal...it’s not like they’re branded...big assumption.)

Trust me. I see how much money from the states benefits people here. And I know illegals living there have it tough. They work hard labor jobs, live with like 5 other people (as they do here), never have the chance to watch their kids grow up, and usually can’t speak English so everything is hard to do. I’m not saying I’m a fan of people living illegally in the US. Or even that I’m for or against this bill that has been presented. I’m just saying that it’s worth thinking about all sides of it before deciding. And I thought it might be beneficial to hear from someone seeing how things are currently working outside of the states.

I hope I didn’t offend anyone! Feel free to email me/comment about this. I´d love to hear feedback!

As always, you can help out our technology center project here in El Salvador by clicking here. Make sure you donate to the El Salvador Community Technology Center, volunteer M Gullett! :) Thanks in advance! To read more about this project, visit here.

Thanks in advance!!

So, the long and short of what's going on: I went home for the funeral in December and when I got back to my site, I found out the building for the cyber cafe had been given to a different organization. I met with the owners and explained to them that we still needed a building, blah blah blah, and well, now we have an even BETTER building. I got some estimates this past week for the repairs that have to be made (it's a lot since the building is made out of adobe currently and there is no electricity), and I think I'm going to be soliciting you (friends and family) shortly to help out with the costs for the repairs. Basically, the general plan now is to create a sort of cooperative. Community members/organizations can donate $$ to the project costs and in return, will receive X% of the earnings (the X% will change depending on how much they donate up front). And all of you that donate will have the option of choosing an organization that you want your portion of the money to go (school, church, clinic, farmers' cooperative, etc.) I still need to formally present this idea to the community (I'm more concerned at the moment with getting all the info for the reconstruction), but we're moving full speed ahead.

And a fellow volunteer from my group, Jared, is spear-heading a project to bring in computers for the school system that cost the community $70 per computer. We have solicited for computers for the elementary/middle school (where there are no computers currently) and additional computers for the high school. And the thought is that 11 of the computers we solicited for the school can be used for the cyber cafe, thus being one of the investments that the school makes, gaining them return money in future months to help purchase and maintain their computers and other technology equipment. More or less, that's where we stand. I would LOVE to hear your feedback about this plan sometime.

Final World Map Photos
Well, I had planned on putting final touches on the world map while the kids were on break in December, but since I went home, it waited until the week before school. But, finally, the map is done and everyone seems to love it. See photos below.

If you're interested in reading about my December trip home, click here.

View #1 from Cerro Verde (with Nathan)

View #2 from Cerro Verde (with Dad)

Singing Happy Birthday to Dad on top of Volcano

Dad freaking me out with the Christmas present re-usable mouse traps...

Dad and Sam's thoughts on top

To read about the week, visit here.

In the last meeting we had, they gave presentations on how they think the Ciber Cafe should run. How much to charge per hour, what costs will exist, who should perform which tasks, along with a list of offers for the year and projections of how much $$ the ciber would receive from those offers, by month, etc. It was a HARD task for them. And I definitely gave it to them straight. I made them show me the presentations the day before and just tore them apart. Why are you using PowerPoint if you're just going to fill up the slide with words? Why is that font larger than the others? What is going to happen when that worker is sick and can't come to work? What is the point of that offer? Why do you think it will generate those hours? Why do you keep saying, "HE will do this and HE will do that? Can't a woman do it too?" Stuff like that. And I was so proud of them on the last day when they gave their presentations to the community members and defended their decisions. After the presentations, we sat in a big circle and talked about the last 5 months - what went well, what didn't go so well, and made each of them critique their classmates, telling them what they thought they could do better in presenting themselves, working with others, etc. And at the end, I made them tell me. And I thanked them for spending the last 5 months working with me and believing in the project and told them that they made my year and I was so happy I had the chance to work with them and get to know them. Then I was about ready to cry knowing that I may not see them again until graduation (March) and gave them all hugs.

But...I guess it's all for the best. I really hope I've made a difference in all of their lives. I hope they continue to dream, the continue to throw their trash into TRASH CANS and not the street, they continue using and learning about computers, they continue working on projects that benefit their communities, they act as good workers and role models to their peers and family members, and they continue to be happy.

If you're interested in viewing their presentations, you can click below. I liked group 1's presentation the best, but the community in general liked group 2's better. (They were created in PowerPoint, but those files were too big to upload here, so I saved them as PDFs.)

Group 1
Group 2

We're having some funding issues, but I'll get them resolved soon enough. We're doing this project!! I received a REALLY nice email from one of them that is working in San Miguel now. You can read what he wrote here.

As it appeared on my floor...

After I pounded it to death (so I thought) with a broom

After I nailed it with my shoe outside upon realizing it was STILL alive

I hope you can see this...it´s kind of dark.

And apparently, the photos are on my other flash drive. GEEZ. Coming soon...

Allie and the Pig

Allie, a Peace Corps volunteer, lives in a quaint little house in a small community somewhere in the middle of northwestern El Salvador. As most Peace Corps volunteers do, she lives as the locals live - eating eggs, beans, and tortillas, speaking another language all day everyday, waking up at 4 AM when the roosters start crowing and the bread man starts his bicycle route, announcing his presence during his route with a cross between a horn and a bell going off every couple of seconds. And she´s learned to live with all the stray animals exploring around throughout the day - cows, horses, pigs, dogs, cats, lizards, frogs, snakes, mice, etc.

Many people don´t know what it´s like to be a Peace Corps volunteer. Allie had finished one year in country and still had one ahead of her. This is exactly the point in time when Peace Corps volunteers tend to lose their patience and sanity and Allie was no exception. The pig across the street just gave her a reason.

Allie woke up one morning feeling that her mattress and pillow had been indoors too long; they were started to smell of mold and mildew as most things in El Salvador do during the rainy season. So, like everyone in El Salvador does, Allie found a spot in her front yard where she could sun her mattress and pillows to dry out the humidity/rain water that had accumulated during the last few weeks. The area, of course, was covered in mud due to the rain that had fallen the night before, so she brought out 4 chairs to hold her mattress up while it dried.

Everything was great. There they were, drying out in the hot sun. She decided to go inside to pack up some things for her upcoming trip to the capital.

Just as she entered her room, she heard an odd sound outside. She waited for a moment, and then out of curiosity, walked to the door to see what was going on outside. As she approached the door, she saw her mattress laying in the middle of the mud, her pillow a few yards away, with feathers covering the muddy ground, and the next door pig happily trotting away.

As you can imagine, when a person is already feeling unraveled, this tiny problem grows in magnitude to something that you would think would cause the end of the planet´s existence.

As any normal 1-year PCV would do, she angrily stomped outside, yanked her mattress and pillow up into her arms (causing more feathers to start flying around her), and furiously marched across the street to her woman neighbor´s house where she just began screaming at the top of her lungs and waving around her pillow (again causing feathers to fly everywhere).

"LOOOOOOK at what your STUPID PIG did to my stuff!!!!! I HATE your pig! I´ve told you before to keep that stupid thing TIED UP! WHAT is wrong with you??! WHAT am I going to do NOW??!! The next time that pig comes anywhere CLOSE to my house, I´m getting out my machete and STABBING IT until it dies and then I´m CUTTING IT UP into a thousand pieces!!!! THAT´S what I think about your PIG!!!"

Of course, all of this yelling and feathers flying caused interest from the other neighbors, so by the end, she was covered in the white pillow feathers and had an audience of her community members standing in front of their homes watching the gringa entertainment. Just as she finished describing her killing methods, she gained a moment of clarity and thought, "What am I doing? I need to breathe."

She lowered the pillow and mattress and just concentrated on breathing while looking at her neighbor woman. The woman just stared back for about 15 seconds, then slowly turned to the pig and....started yelling at the pig.

"What were you thinking??!! Look at what you did, you stupid pig!" And then started whipping it as the pig started squealing and running away.

Allie just lowered her head, turned around, and walked back into her house dragging her mud-covered mattress and now lifeless pillow.

She continues to dislike the pig. As far as we know, the pig has not returned to visit Allie. Stay tuned for more developments in the next year.

Why? Because they´re having their fiestas.

What are fiestas?
My understanding of this is that each city in the country has a patron saint and once per year, that city celebrates and honors its saint by having these "fiestas". They are week-long affairs with lots of vendors, rides, food, dancing, parades, etc. And of course, one of the most important components is the "queen". A young girl (preschool/kindergarten) is crowned "Miss whatever", a middle school girl receives "Teen whatever", a high school girl receives the crown for "Queen whatever", and an elderly woman receives a crown, but I forget what they call that one. It´s SUPER important. I mean, they even cancel school for these things. My town had their fiestas in May, exactly during the time when I was home for my baby bro´s bday, my dad´s graduation, and 2 weddings, so I didn´t get to see most of it.

Anyway, I´m hanging with my host family for a couple of days while we enjoy the festivities. I brought them a gift this time - Spanish Monopoly. And they LOVE it! We´ve already played TWICE!

Tonight there is the big dance, so my family and me (and the other volunteers who have lived here with their families) are going to dance it up. It should be a good time...more to come on that.

If you´re interested, I have some stories from my last few weeks available here.

When I entered Peace Corps, the motto was "The toughest job you'll ever love". (Now it's "Life is calling. How far will you go?") I've been thinking about that motto over the last month or so. Everyone says that Peace Corps is really hard. But why is that? Trust me, it's not hard because of the change in living conditions (cold bucket baths, everything open). And I don't know that it's even hard because of the change in culture, although that does test you. I think that the people that are inclined to join Peace Corps tend to be self-motivators, self starters...people that like to control their lives. And when arriving in country, because we have no knowledge of ANYTHING (language, cultural norms, etc.), we have ZERO control. And the loss of control lasts and lasts and lasts and lasts-MUCH longer than you would think. So, the people that are strong enough to get through the experience lose it mentally. I remember an aunt of mine trying to explain what it was like to have a child for the first time and she said, "You know why it's hard? Because you have NO control. None. You have to do whatever he/she wants to do." (That was referring to the first few months right after birth.) That's pretty much a description of what it's like as a Peace Corps volunteer. THAT'S why we all leave with MUCH more flexibility than we came in with. And THAT'S why it's the "toughest job we'll ever love".

Click here to read about my experiences over the last few weeks.

(This document is in Microsoft Word.)
Download file

Below is what I died doing ALL day Sunday, August 13th! (I mean ALL DAY! 7 AM-1:30 AM Monday!)
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STEPS 5-6) Outline the countries & Write the number/name of each country. .
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I've written all of the numbers and I painted an area to the right of the map for the names. There will be one block of color for each continent (North and South America make up 1 continent here - America). I know you're thinking it shouldn't have possibly taken that long to do, but I wanted to number in a sequencial manner, meaning I needed to identify EVERY country first, including ALL of the hundreds of islands in the world. Trust me, it's not an easy task!

After the America outlining

My outlining system

After Africa and Europe

After the numbers

The continent blocks

The final product that day

The last 4 days of my life (as I'm sure you can tell from my marathon map making day) have been CRAZY! Read about them here.

If you're interested in seeing HOW we're going about this, click here.

If you're interested in viewing draft 1 of our project description, view the English version or view the Spanish version (which I'm SURE needs to have some Spanish corrected because I pieced things together and wrote stuff myself.

Please feel FREE to let me know what you think, give me suggestions/advice, etc. Whatever. I can use it!!

Have you been thinking about visiting a 3rd world country in Latin America? (If you know me, you SHOULD be!) Well, I'm here to share all of my newfound knowledge about things here with you. Today's lesson? Dengue.

WHAT IS IT?
Dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) are acute febrile diseases, found in the tropics, with a geographical spread similar to malaria. Obtained through a bite from an infected mosquito. (Not all mosquitos carry this virus; and it can only be spread through the female of the type that carries it.)

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS?
This infectious disease is manifested by a sudden onset of fever, with severe headache, joint and muscular pains and rashes; the dengue rash is characteristically bright red petechia and usually appears first on the lower limbs and the chest - in some patients, it spreads to cover most of the body. There may also be gastritis with some combination of associated abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. The classic dengue fever lasts about six to seven days, with a smaller peak of fever at the trailing end of the fever (the so-called "biphasic pattern"). Clinically, the platelet count will drop until the patient's temperature is normal.

You can read more about this fun disease here and/or read about my experience here.

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2) PAINT OCEAN BLUE IN THE AREA WHERE THE MAP WILL BE.
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3) DRAW THE MAP ON TOP OF THE OCEAN BLUE.
We used a projector to project the image on the wall.
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4) PAINT THE COUNTRIES.
I talked to all the kids ahead of time and had interested students from 3rd-9th grade sign up, and then i assigned each of them an hour to come in and paint a country. Each student arrived, signed in, selected their country by pulling out a piece of paper from a container with all the countries, and then went to work painting it.
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4) OUTLINE THE COUNTRIES.
Where we are now...check back soon for more updates...
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Visit here for commentary on each of these steps.

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GUSTAVO
Gustavo is a high school student in my community. He´s 17 years old and loves computers. The computer training in this country is, well, sub-par in my opinion. I´m trying to inspire the youth to work on this internet project that I´m working on to (1) teach them about project planning and implementation and (2) get them excited about technology. The other day, I was in the computer lab in the school, and began talking to Gustavo. I´m used to showing kids different things they can do in various programs, but this kid was teaching ME stuff! I was like, "Man! You know what you´re doing with these things! Where did you learn all this?" And he was like, "I don´t know. I just like computers." I was like, "You´re going to the next technology committee meeting, right??" And he said he would. And I told him we should start a computer club.

This kid is SMART when it comes to computers. And he lives out in the country, like me, and attends the high school in town. Our high school costs $5 per month to attend. In comparison, the high schools in capital cities and the country´s capital cost about $25-500/month to attend. So, you can imagine the difference in education that these kids receive.

I don´t know much more about Gus than that, but I´m determined now that I know that to support him as much as I can and teach him as much as I can!

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SONIA
Sonia is 37 years old. I met her in September during a visit to the Cooperativa (the office for the organization of local farmers). I was supposed to be meeting with someone else, but was having some digestive problems with food I had recently eaten so was spending my meeting time in the bathroom. When I came out, there was a short Salvadoran woman standing outside waiting to use the facility. I was in no mood to chat small-talk, but she was insistent on finding out who I was and why I was there. After I told her I would be living in San Isidro for 2 years, she became ecstatic and told me that she had studied at Cal Poly Pomona in the US. And at the time, I was ecstatic that I may have met someone that could speak English. But, no, she can´t. I wondered at the time how she managed to attend a US university without the ability to speak English, but didn´t really press to find out why. I found out later.

Sonia and I began to hang out a lot. She lives in a typical country home - dirt floors, a little electricity and water, and tons of family members squashed together. I think she has the ability to get a really good paying job here, but she enjoys working for and within the community and enjoys the closeness her family shares. She´s full of energy and motivation to get things done. She is a leader in her church. She is the only woman working in the leadership of the Cooperativa (the other women, like most Salvadoran women who work, are secretaries). She used to be a teacher in the local schools and was selected to be 1 of 2 people from the entire country to receive a scholarship to study at a US university for 6 months (Cal Poly). Because she started working at the Cooperativa, she stopped teaching full time. Oh, but decided to volunteer (for free) on weekends to teach high school students that work during the week. She´s involved in all of the community´s activities. Everyone in the community respects her. When we´re in meetings and people say, "We can´t do that", she responds with, "Why not? We CAN do it!" I love Sonia to death. She has become my best friend in the community. She has confided many personal things to me and I to her.

Two weeks ago, she stopped by to chat. But the "chat" consisted of her informing me that she had just found out she only has 2 months to live. 3 years ago, she was in a bus accident where the bus rolled over. Two people on her bus died in the accident and she was checked out - everywhere except her head. And now she has a cyst between 2 membranes in her head. She has been told by medical personnel here that it´s inoperable. She decided to only tell me (and also included statements about how she thought all Americans were distant - never close to anyone - and how I taught her that she was wrong because I´ve inspired her so much).

After bawling my eyes out uncontrollably (nice support, huh), I was like, "We´re going to see a private doctor that specializes in nuerology." So we´re going in the next week or so. That´s one amazing woman that I want to stay around for awhile.

There are more - these are just the ones I´ve been thinking about today. Just thought I would give you a glimpse into my world...

Visit michellegullett.blogspot.com for additional stories.