Training

Hey
wow, two blog postings in two days. amazing. Yesterday was a good day. I went with mike and a few other members of our group (including the director) to first go to a women´s organization. that was really cool beacuse they worked with up to 5000 women with subjects like credit but also unionization. it was sad because the day before the embassy had told us that CAFTA had done a lot to help unions, but then they told us that there were actually none (we later found out that there is only one union in El Salvador). It was sad because they told us how the jobs had been shipped to china since the quotas had been lifted and that they feared losing their jobs. therefore fewer and fewer complaints were being logged because people were afraid to tell their supervizors and get canned. but the organization was very strong and it was really impressive to hear their stories and they way that they were still happy about life.
In the afternoon we met with a doctor at the state run hospital (Hospital Rosales) who is also the president of the only union which is medical union. They have been fighing for better wages for the doctors and nurses but are also fighting against privitization because it would raise the price for normal people. He said that the government had been trying to privitize it (and thus be able to put more money in the pockets of the ARENA elite) for a while, but they are well organized and so they can stop the onslaught. He had a very impressive story of how he had been laid off for his work. We also got a tour of the hospital which was cool to see the work it was doing but also sad to see the people that were there who were in bad shape. In the evening, we figured out that the business trip from whitworth was only a couple blocks away and we headed over there to hang out.

today we spent basically all day in training. it was good because i now understand how the voting process works and feel like i am ready to observe it. it was long and tedious, but it will be interesting. there are definetly some major problems with the system. there is no public transportation on sunday (voting day) but instead the government gave the parties a lot of money to arrange free rides for anyone who was going to need it. so therefore the parties are driving people to the polls. also, everyone has an ID card here called a DUI (yea, giggle a little). They come to where they are supposed to vote and show the DUI and get their ballot, but besides the pictures, there is not much of a way to distinguish if the person is actually the one in the picture (everyone is dark skinned, has black hair, dark eyes, and a mustache). so, those are just a few of the problems. So, i will have stuff to do.
after training a few of us went to a museum of popular art and saw some cool miniature figrues. it was awesome. then tonight we are having a big CIS party. should be a blast. then tomorrow (friday) we´ll be off to the town to start getting ready to observe (I am now going to a town called Ilibasco not Cojutapece). anyway, lots of love and check out new pics
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027089&l=2fc02&id=59400432