Monday, August 14, 2017

It Just Takes Some Time

Related Song: 

"The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World 
Backstory of this song: A high school girl e-mailed the band saying that she didn't feel like she fit in at her high school, because she was not punk enough. The band wrote this song as a response to be yourself. Jimmy Eat World didn't think it would be a hit, and it almost didn't make the album. The bandmembers thought it was too simple of a song to have mass appeal. 

There are times when a song perfectly describes a mood, feeling, or just in general seems to understand your current existence. Since moving to El Salvador, that song has been "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World. There are times when I feel like I should be more settled and further than I am. Our house still has bare, white walls. Even though school has started, I still do not have everything up in my classroom. There are feelings too, like everyone else is forming frienships faster than I am. There are times when I have just needed the chorus of "The Middle" to tell me that it is going to take some time, and that everything, everything will be all right and be just fine.  Here are how my socially anxious thoughts fit in with the lyrics of "The Middle." 



















Sunday, August 6, 2017

Hola, El Salvador

I have been in El Salvador for almost two weeks now. The first week was mostly getting settled for both living and working in a new place. I filled out a lot of paperwork and went to trainings. I saw my classroom and started getting ready for the first day of school. Everyone has been super nice and helpful. There were lots of shopping trips to get everything settled for my house too. The second week we had off, because it is Agostinas in San Salvador. The week is used to celebrate Jesus, the patron saint of San Salvador. Here are some of the other adventures I have been on while in El Salvador. 

1. The Beach


El Salvador is the only country in Central America that does not border the Caribbean Sea. It still has plenty of beaches though. My first Saturday in El Salvador we took a trip to the beach. There are five other new international teachers and four teachers who are part of the welcoming committee. We loaded up two vans and went to the beach. The school pays a membership to a resort called Atami. We rented a couple of cabanas for the day, then spent our time by the water. There were pools, wave pools, and of course the beach. It was beautiful and relaxing. 

2. A Volcano


There are twenty-three volcanoes in El Salvador. We visited the San Salvador volcano, which is located in El Boqueron Park. We can see this volcano from the complejo. It was about a forty-five minute drive. We drove most of the way up and then took a short hike up to the four view points. The volcano is 5,905 feet high. The crater pictured is about three miles in diameter and 1830 feet deep. There was also a small museum about the last eruption of the volcano in 1917. On the way down we stopped at a restaurant called La Pampa, which had good food and a great view of El Salvador. 

3. The Market

I have been to two markets so far. The one pictured is a local food market. We got warnings that you will "get gringoed" and get charged more. I don't think we did though, because I got a ton of fruits and vegetables for $11. I'm excited to start cooking again! We also went to the main downtown market (on the walking tour below). It had food, clothes, and miscellaneous things, kind of like a night market in Taiwan.

4. A Walking Tour (And Lots of Churches)


As I was looking for things to do for our week off, I found a free walking tour of the downtown area. I went with four of the other new teachers. The walking tour company was called EC Tours. The company was originally started to fight the negative stigma of El Salvador being unsafe. They even promote tourism in El Salvador with the hashtag #dontskipelsalvador. Before the tour, we had been given some general warnings about being safe in the downtown area. During the tour, our guide congratulated us sarcastically about surviving the most dangerous part of San Salvador. On the tour we learned more about the history of the country. We also visited several churches. El Salvador has a Catholic heritage, but religion in general plays a big role in the culture. According to the CIA World Fact Book from 2014, 50% identify themselves as Catholic, 36% as Protestant, and 12% as not religious (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/es.html). I met someone who said she lived by a church. She had to time when she left and arrived at her house, because 10,000 people attend the church services. The church pictured above is the Basilica Sagrado Corazon de Jesus. The church was built between 1900-1913. The church structure is made of metal. It was designed and shipped from Belgium. 



 Here is another church we visited on the walking tour. From the outside, it doesn't look like much of a church. The Iglesia El Rosario was designed by a sculptor and finished in 1971. Though it doesn't look like much on the outside, the inside is beautiful with  rainbow colored glass windows lighting the sanctuary. It is the #1 site on TripAdvisor in San Salvador. 



This is the view looking out from Iglesia El Rosario. Much of the downtown area is currently under construction, because the mayor wants to revitalize the area and promote tourism. 

5. Agostinas

As I mentioned, this week we have had off because San Salvador celebrates Agostinas. Some of the other teachers and I went to one of the celebrations. It reminded me of a fair back home. It was very crowded. There were buildings with vendors. Outside there was bandstands with music and performances, rides, and food stalls. One ride in particular was very entertaining to watch. It is called Tagada. People sat on the inner edge of a bowl-shaped ride. There are no seat belts or restraints. The ride spins and then will bounce and jerk around. It was entertaining watching people trying to hang on and trying not to fall into the middle. We also saw part of a hot dog eating contest and a man with a pet squirrel. I didn't take my phone, so I don't have pictures. :(

Here's to many more adventures in El Salvador! #DontskipElSalvador

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Turtle Time

"Turtle Time!" A man yells running up from the beach. 
Everyone stops what they are doing. Card hands are left on the table mid-game. I pause the podcast that my mom and I are listening to together. The guides put out their cigarettes and lead the group with flashlights towards the beach. This is the moment everyone on the island has been waiting all day for. 

Ten Hours Earlier . . .
My mom and I were sitting on a small jetty in Sandakan, Borneo with a bunch of other strangers. We all seemed to be eyeing the docked boats warily wondering if we would be getting on one of them. Our guide, Darwis, picked us up from the hotel earlier in the morning. We were running late, but Darwis ensured us that the boat wouldn't leave without us. He told us to sit while we waited for his signal. Mom went to the bathroom and came back quickly, saying she could wait. He finally gave the signal, a small wave, and we carried our baggage to the small motorboat. It was about an hour ride to the even smaller island off of Borneo called Selingaan Island, or as it was nicknamed Turtle Island. 

We had arrived in Borneo three days earlier. I had decided to go on one last trip in Asia, before going home for a few weeks. My mom met and came with me. This is a poor life choice, I had thought to myself as I was taking the bus from Taichung to Taipei for the last time. It had been an emotionally draining week. I had said goodbye to my students, my friends, and the country that had been my home for the past year. I am not a crier, but I started crying almost immediately when I woke up. It continued on and off for most of the day. Though by evening on the first night in Borneo, I was glad that I had chosen to go to Borneo before going home. It was a place that I had looked into visiting even before I had left for Taiwan. It provided a good distraction, and animal distractions are the best. 

When we arrived on the island, we were met with beautiful sandy beaches. Before we were shown to our rooms, Darwis pointed out a board hanging over the dining hall. It showed various statistics on the turtles on the island, including number of nests made and the number of eggs laid during the year. It also showed the time that turtles had come to the beach to start laying their eggs. The previous night it was recorded at 10:50 pm, so we could possibly be in for a long night. We had a couple hours of downtime before lunch, so Mom and I went to our room for a bit. 
       "Do you know what this reminds me of?" I asked as we walked to our room. 
       "What?" Mom responded.
       "A bunch of strangers meet on a secluded island. Only one boat on and one boat off. I've read this book and seen this mini-series." 
My mom didn't believe me that someone was probably going to get murdered within the next twenty-four hours. I told her to just wait until someone didn't show up at mealtimes. Everyone showed up to lunch in the dining hall that I noticed.  
The sunset on Turtle Island. 
In the afternoon, most people on the island went to the beach. You could rent snorkelling equipment, but we opted for just straight swimming. It was a good choice, because the allocated beach area was very shallow. It was hard to swim without knocking into or stepping on some coral. After swimming we walked around the island. It took us less than an hour to circumnavigate the whole island. Darwis took us to the beach to watch the sunset and explain to us what would be happening this evening. As he was talking to us, we saw some turtles start climbing onto the beach. We had to leave the beach, so the turtles could start building their nests. There would be nobody allowed on the beach from 6 pm to 6 am, except for the rangers who helped collect the eggs.  Before dinner we watched a brief video on the history of the island's turtle conservation. The hatchery was started in 1966 to protect the endangered green sea turtles and hawksbill turtles. Both species are endangered, largely due to people selling and eating their eggs. Everyone showed up to dinner. After dinner, we just waited until a ranger spotted a turtle who had laid at least five eggs. It didn't take long.

"Turtle Time!" A man yells running up from the beach. 
Everyone stops what they are doing. Card hands are left on the table mid-game. I pause the podcast that my mom and I are listening to together. The guides put out their cigarettes and lead the group with flashlights towards the beach. This is the moment everyone on the island has been waiting all day for. We run to the beach following the flashlights. There are a couple turtles that we notice, but we are told to keep moving until we get to the one with the ranger. The turtle had a small pile of eggs already in the nest. They can lay between 80-165 eggs in one night. The mother turtle is working hard to push all of the eggs out. The excess salt from the green sea turtle's salt gland make it look like she is crying. When she is finished, the ranger collects her eggs in a bucket. The mother works on burying the nest, not knowing that her eggs are no longer there. The ranger then checks her shell for any harmful coral that needs to be scraped off.The ranger also checks the tracker that is on the turtle. It has been seven years since she has last been to the island. She moves about a foot in front of the nest before taking a rest. We are led off the beach to the next part of the program. 


The mother turtle is working hard to lay the eggs. 

A ranger helps collect the eggs and helps the mom make her way back to the ocean. 
Earlier in the day, we passed a gated area with green material in holes. We were told it was where the eggs stayed in the hatchery. It was unclear how this worked though. For the second program, we get to see it first hand. The ranger takes the eggs that have been collected from the mom and puts them in one of the holes. Then they get buried in the sand. The green material around the hole protects it from any predators. The eggs need to incubate for two months, before they will finally hatch. A stake marks the number of eggs and the date and serves as their "birth certificate." "Congratulations, you are all godparents now," one of the rangers says. 

One of the two hatcheries for the eggs. Each hole marks one nest. 
The final program is releasing the baby turtles into the ocean. The ranger has a basket of turtles that hatched during the day. We surround the babies in a semi-circle. They put a light on the ocean to help guide them, but some turtles need a thumb to help rotate them to the right direction. It takes several tries for some of them to make it to the ocean. Only about 4% of the turtles will survive into adulthood. The put the light on the water and we can see all of them swimming around. 
One of the baby turtles making its way to the ocean. 
Before we go to bed for the night, Darwis gathers up our group. He tells us that we are not allowed on the beach until 6 am, but there was a chance that we could still see some turtles laying eggs after that. He says that we could take a morning walk, just for the chance of seeing more turtles. The next morning we wake up and start walking around the beach. We make it about halfway around without seeing any turtles. We questioned whether or not to just go back to our room. Then we see a ranger waving towards us. We both start running as we saw a turtle making its way to the ocean across the beach. We get there just as it goes back into the ocean. It is followed by another turtle. Closer towards the middle of the island, I see some sand being thrown. I go over to investigate and spot a turtle burying its nest. There are two other turtles that we find still on the beach. We watch them until it is time for breakfast. The board shows that twenty-nine nests were made during the night. The rangers collected 1945 eggs and released 452 hatchlings. It was a memorable twenty-four hours and a highlight of our Borneo trip. Each day it got a little bit easier to be away from Taiwan.

One of the turtles making its way back to the ocean.