This weekend was awesome. We were all assigned to visit a currently PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) at their site for the weekend, see the projects they are working on, live with a family and have an “ultimate” Peace Corps experience. I completely lucked out and was assigned to El Guardia or known as Barrio el Transmito, which is a small community just outside of the La Palma (located in the Chalatenango region of El Salvador). I was about 15 minutes from the Honduras border, surrounded by mountains and experienced pure fresco for four days. It was amazing.
The volunteer I stayed with was lovely, soon after I arrived a saw her school, we walked to La Palma for a delicious Mexican lunch (close enough to Mexican at least, I ate an enchilada). I am just going to tell you the highlights of the weekend instead of listing everything we did completely, that would just take forever and a day. We had a yoga session (even though it has just rained the room she uses leaks, plus the electricity went in and out the entire time) with a few 7th grade girls which was a blast, but also relaxing. We bought and made a delicious dinner together my first night there, including a homemade tomato sauce (yep, that was me), spaghetti, sautéed cauliflower (which we had to bleach for a few minutes cause bugs started crawling out of it, but it’s all good), as well as caramelized peaches for dessert (also mostly me). It was delicious. We sat and talked and ate, then talked and ate enough for a good 3-4 people.
I was also able to see her theater group that she has received a grant to formulated with middle school kids. They were given their parts during this meeting and putting on three short plays. Katherine actually translated all of the plays into Spanish herself. The kids were so into it; I loved seeing them passionate about something fun and exciting.
We also met with her women’s group, who made a soup like drink substance called Atoll (speaking could be VERY off), which is a corn based drink and looks sort of milky in a way that is served hot with beans, ground seeds into a mustard like sauce and a few drops of chili sauce (like tabasco). We walked around for 2 hours selling it to everyone on the street we could find. The group was raising money to attend a training in order to sell and market their already successful shampoo making project in a more profitable product. These women were amazing. I stayed with a family that was very generous, but was pretty quiet all weekend. You would think a grandmother, the mother, plus four daughters would have lots to talk about at all times, but not so much. They were very sweet, but as much as I tried I knew I could not really gain confianza in one weekend (Confianza is a saying here for respect, comfortableness, getting to a level of being open with another person).
I truly had an absolutely fantastic time. It took me an hour by bus to get to San Salvador (the capital), then 3 hours to get to her community and back of course. I literally wore jeans all weekend and actually felt cold for the first time I have been here, which was just a lovely feeling (FINALLY). Oh, my other new food experience besides atoll was quesadillas. These are not like what you imagine in the United States. Here they are small bread like pastries sometimes with nuts and made with lots of saturated oil. They are actually delicious when warm and great in the morning. :-)
Another highlight this week was our day in training today in San Vicente. We had a Salvadorian dance class for our entire training group. Our Spanish teachers joined in as well as our training director and our country director drove from San Salvador to dance with us! It was pretty the best thing EVER. They had an amazing dance instructor come in to teach us everything from salsa, meringue, and a few other types I cannot remember for the life of me. I have not sweated as much in that hour and half than my entire time here, even the first day when we arrived in the middle of the afternoon carrying our entire life for two years! Anyway, I posted some photos of our dancing skills, it was amazing for everyone to just get loose and let themselves go (literally)! Hopefully no one in my training group will get upset at the photos I post…
We also had our Site Interviews today. We met with our program advisors to talk about the kind of sites we wish to be assigned to in about a month. We talked about the kinds of communities that are requesting volunteers and also communities where volunteers are being replaced. I still have NO IDEA where I will be, but it was helpful for them to get to know what I wanted and to potentially match that to a community wanting a volunteer like myself. But, other than that, I have been getting a ton of Spanish homework and feeling very ready for training to…end. We have our free weekend this weekend (FINALLY) and we rented a house on the beach not too far from here. I am so excited!!!
Thank you again mom, Amanda and Becca Varon for all your lovely shipments of candy, tank tops, headbands and enough bug stray to kill a small pueblo. I really appreciate it. If you are considering mailing me anything, I highly suggest doing it…THIS WEEK. It takes a good 2-3 weeks to get here and I will be leaving San Vicente to my community in a little less than a month (September 14th is my Swearing In Day!!!), so I will receive a new address around the end of September. So please, if you are thinking of mailing a package, mail it this week, please! I did also update my wish list if you need ideas…No need to pay extra for UPS or Fedex or whatever because it all takes a long time to get here anyways. Make sure it’s in a padded envelope too. I would appreciate letters too! Thank you so much! No need for it to just be packages, postcards even!! :-)
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