Thank You for Paying your Taxes

I have officially been in El Salvador for over 24 hours and SURVIVED. We officially started our training today as well, so thank you so much financing it. :-) We had a wonderful welcome at the airport; a ton of the staff came to the airport to greet us. Jaime Kuklinski, who is the country director for El Salvador, met us right when we got off the plane. He, along with David, who is the assistant country director and came on the bus with us to the training center. Everyone so far seems super helpful, caring, and supportive of anything we need. After going through immigration and customs which was a piece of cake when you have people in Peace Corps collared shirts moving things along, we loaded the intensely colored school bus for the 45 minute ride to the training center. Sweating through my entire shirt from the humidity along with everyone else in my 15 person group, there were two current PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers) who came on the bus with us and have been with us the entire time; until we move into our host family houses tomorrow for the rest of training.


Once arriving at the training center, we had a few more introductions, and packed our pack backs for two nights in a nearby hotel. Then had a brief health orientation and went to eat dinner. We had a DELICIOUS meal of avocado, rice and bean mixed a tomato/radish type slaw, and a roll of bread. It was amazing.





We then went back to the hotel after dinner around 7 pm and it was already pitch black outside. We checked into our hotel and after we all showered, we felt like people again. It was glorious. I never felt so clean in my entire life. Our plane in Miami ended up getting a “scratch” on it somehow, so our flight was 3 hours delayed, so we had to all get off and move onto another plane, then wait for the bags to get loaded and be filled up with gas. We had woken up that morning at 2 am to get to the airport, so it had been a LONG DAY.

Anyways, back to El Salvador. Our hotel is pretty nice, it has internet, hence why I am typing away to you, (yippee!) and it’s very clean. I have three roommates from my group, who are all awesome. The people in my group are truly amazing. I am so glad we have a small group. Last year’s summer El Salvadoran group was 32, but because of budget cuts, it’s now 15. :-) Oh well. I am really looking forward to getting to know them all individually.

Today was a blur honestly, we had a lot of presentations, met some current volunteers, did a lot of sessions, had a security and safety presentation, health interviews and a typhoid fever shot (I did not hurt), as well as Spanish interviews to see what level we were at to learn more Spanish. Our day started early, at 6:30 am for breakfast, getting to the training center by 7:30 to start. But, this evening a family came to the center to make all of the staff and our group El Salvador’s national dish, puposas. Here’s a photo of them preparing them, here is also the Wikipedia page for more information. :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pupusa


We move into our host families tomorrow for our 8 weeks or training in San Vicente. Then we are off to our communities!! I am really excited for everything, I am SO HAPPY to just finally be here. There is no turning back now, everything I packed is packed, I am here and I am as ready as I will ever be!

In closing, the next few weeks are going to be tough and overwhelming with ups and downs, so thank you for continuing support in my decision to do this crazy adventure. Thanks for paying for my monthly stipend thus so far!

Buenos Noches!

-the wonderful youth development ladies in my group! :-)