Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day in the United States and apparently a President’s weekend too (I kind of forgot about the holiday). The last two weeks have been crazy busy for me, but in a really good way. I spent most of last week traveling all the way to the eastern part of the country in the department of La Union where several of my friends in my training group live. It’s a lot less developed than the West…and…very dry. But, I went to help translate for an eye care campaign with a bunch of volunteers and a few doctors from the US of A. It was an absolute blast. We were in a small town called Santa Rosa Lima, which was ridiculously hot and gross, but it made me appreciate where I live a lot more.
I helped translate for the last part of the campaign, giving people glasses. People entered the church where they held the event, had initial exams, they did several surgeries and also replaced some people’s eyes with fake ones. It was cool to see them make a fake eye! The volunteers were also amazing people, I actually met two sisters who live in Cleveland but went to Camp Pearlstein and Camp Swift in Arizona when they were younger! Crazy small world. I loved being at the glasses station because for many it was the first time they were receiving glasses and things were finally…clear. It was an amazing experience, but very tiring working all day on your feet in the heat.
We did find a Chinese restaurant that all of us went for Valentine’s Day, (along with a JICA volunteer, from Japan, just like PC) some stranger bought us all beers randomly too (though we were pretty sure that was just so he could get lucky with his date). It was nice to eat semi-real Chinese food, it has been months. I traveled back to my site by spending a night at my old host family’s house in San Vicente (since it took me 7 hours getting there). It was absolutely wonderful seeing them again, there were changes to the house and I had a few hours of Spanish class before I headed back home.
First off, it’s closer to the highway where my bus stops so I don’t always have to find someone to walk with me every time I need to leave. The family includes a mom with four kids (so someone is always around the house which is a lot safer), one lives with her mother near my old house, one guy lives here, and the two daughters are absolutely adorable. They are too sweet. The father lives in the US. So, having a semi-house full of girls is just like home in more ways than one. I have a photo of the girls discovering my stock of nail polish that they went ga-ga over and painted all our nails the other night.
They built me a bathing area which is so pretty, with flat stone and a little curtain, so professional! Definitely a lot better than what I had before. My hammock is already up and swinging. The room is very small, but they have a fridge (such a luxury!) and a beautiful garden out front with a large gate and the best part…NO CHICKENS!! There are a bunch of little girls that live across the street and they come over and draw all the time. I am so much happier; I did not realize how much I was missing until I moved. It’s like I am in college moving from horrible roommates to best friends and it just seems like life is brighter. :-) Though, fortunately I luckily had all wonderful and amazing roommates throughout my four years. Other stuff, we are starting on the cement smoothing of the wall for the mural in my school this week, I am excited to show the men I can get dirty and do manual labor just fine (yea breaking cultural norms). This Friday Peace Corps Washington’s security team is visiting my friend Sarah’s site…which hopefully means we have the possibly to stay here post-April.
Whew, lots going on here. Most importantly, my mom officially bought her ticket to visit me in El Salvador! I am so excited for her to visit!
P.S. My new room is actually painted on the inside unlike my old one that looked like a dungeon and I can stick cards and photos all over my walls (it kind of looks like I went back to college) but it’s so nice to look at all the wonderful people I miss so much back home! Thank you for being such an amazing support in everything I do.
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