Hello all! I have not forgotten about this yet! I have no time to update you on the exciting life I have right now (as I need to catch a bus bumpin reggaeton back to my site). Next week though! I promise!

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!

Pupusas!

So it has been almost a week since I have been here in El Salv. I have moved in with a host family in a small village type area called Molinaros, just outside of San Vicente. My family is awesome and huge. There are the two parents and 4 of their 6 grown children live with them, which is compleatly normal here, and then 2 grand children. And on our area of land there are almost all of thier relatives in other houses. Needless to say there is always someone around. Also  there is so much noise here at night, they keep saying you get used to it, but we will see. I think the church bells ringing at 3am every Thursday morning are likely to wake me up every week. And I am not sure I will ever get used to the roosters crowing all night long. Will some one please tell them that they need to wait until the sun is atleast up? Thanks.

So far I have liked almost every food my host mother has put in front of me. Pupusas are a staple here as are rice and beans and tortillas, and I love it all. But I can already tell that I cannot make it a long term habit or I will come home muy gordita. Running is not common here, especially for girls, so I am investigating other forms of excersize, such as hiking.

It is hard to believe that a week has gone by so quickly. I have a feeling all of training will do the same. Most of my days consist of 8hr Spanish lessons and charlas (classes) on staying healthy, keeping safe, and preping us for our perminante site. My Spanish is improving daily but I am still having trouble communicating everything. Sink or swim though. I will try to post some pictures soon! Hope everyone is well. :)

El Salv Fact- Instead of Mr. and Ms/Mrs. men and women are called Don and Niña

Hola!

My internet access is going to be pretty sporadic for the next few weeks. I made it safely to El Salvador. We took a bus to San Vicente and have been staying in a local hotel. It has been pretty nice to have air conditioning and showers so I will be sad to leave it today. But on the other side of that I am meeting and moving in with my first host family today! Yay! I am very excited about that. There will be a couple of other volunteers at my site for the first two months, so that will be good. Yesterday was a loooong,  a very busy 13hr day. I will go in to detail later but mostly we were in meetings on health issues (preping water, cooking, and washing veggies dehydration etc) and gang violence and I got my typhoid shot. Also we were issued mosquito nets and have begun taking malaria medication. The food so far has all been delicious. Good thing I like beans! I am about to run out the door to breakfast, but will be able to post again some time next week I think.

The End of The Wait

So here I we are, 4.5 days until I am off to staging in VA and I am about 50% done packing and 50% done with my quilt, and 85% done with the skirt I am making. Here is what I have of my quilt! I am done with the pattern on the top, I just need to add the padding and back, sew it all together and close it up around the edges. I need to finish it before I leave though, because if I don't my Dad said he was going to take over and finish....

I will post a pic of the 100% finished product.
(If I finish that is)

As for my packing, I have come to the realization that I am going to run out of space in my bags before I hit the 80lb weight limit. Oy. I have a feeling I will be asking my parents to mail down everything that I cannot fit into my bags. (Thanks Mom and Dad!)  Speaking of mailing, I do not have an address yet, but as soon as I do, I will post it. They recommend that people only send packages and mail via USPS. Nothing else, just USPS. 

So I put off buying a pair of sandals until I could figure out which brand I wanted to buy. I narrowed it down to either Chaco's or Teva's. But I still have not purchased them... I know I am cutting it down to the wire, but I cannot decide. I need to have a pair that have a back, as required by the PC, if you are planning on wearing sandals. Hopefully I will figure that out soon, as I am not super keen on wearing sneakers all summer.