The Reason I am Sunburnt Right Now

Hello from the the hot and getting hotter country of El Salvador! I know that all of you back home are bracing for the (hopefully) last of the winter storms, but here I am bracing for the worst of the coming summer heat. It is in the mid 80s here every day, and although I make a concious effort to wear sunscreen everyday I some how managed to get a burn yesterday. Although I would like to say it was my first burn since I got here, 2 whole weeks ago. Here is the situation here. There is no ozone layer. None. Not sure how long this has been the case, but it is not good for the fair skinned. There is a serious lack of a garbage system here, so if the peopel do not throw their garbage in the streets, the burn it. My family is one that partakes in this practice, and not only does it smell terrible, it is killing the ozone and slowly my skin. Also another contributing factor is that there is a huge sugar cane industry here and the easiest way to harvest the cane is by burning the sharp-edged leaves off in huge fires. I witnessed one of these fires a couple of days ago from my front porch. A little scarry at how close these 20ft flames were to my famlies house, but apparently it is normal.

I have to say I think I am adjusting pretty well here, although the mosquitos are terrible and the medical people have us all convinced we are going to contract Dengue before our close of service. And I am not sure I will ever get used to riding the super overcrowded busses, that are either blasting love balads or reggaton, and flooring it up the sides of mountains at a super speedy 20mph. But the people are really nice, and the food is on the whole pretty great so I am not complaining. My Spanish is slowly getting better, but there is a ton of slang used here, it's almost like learning a sub-language. I am posting my current address and would LOVE mail!