The First Few Days

Hola!

The past few days have been crazy! Our trip while long went well. We made all of our connections and got all of our luggage. We bought phones in the airport... but of course they don't get service where we are. Oh,well.

We are working in 3 communidads, and we are staying in one, Amando Lopez, for the first few weeks. It is certainly a change of pace. We sleep on a thin mat on a bedframe, and have a mosquito net. Mine has certain design flaws, aka holes and a flimsy closing, and I usually kick it open at night, even when I cover the holes with a t-shirt. I have about 30 bug bites... hope I don't get dengue fever lol!!!! Our house is two rooms, with the mom and children in one, and me and the other GlobeMeder Matt, in the other. Thankfully Matt speaks spanish because I don't at all. But I'm trying to learn the basics. There is a seperate kitchen with a stove and table. Outside there is a sink area, a shower area where you take bucket baths (fill a bucket with cold water and use a bowl to apply said water), and farther away a latrine. I'm still getting used to the latrine things. At some point I need to get over my bug aversion lol!!! There are a few other houses in our little area where other extended family lives.

So far the little group (that I've met) consists of Mercedes (our "mother" technically), her daughter Ana, and Ana's children Rosanna (10), Jeffrey (8), and Marbelli (2). There is also Mercedes sister Clara and her daughter Marbel and marbel's infant son, as well as Clara's son Raphael (21). There's another guy Salvador, but I'm not sure if he is a son of clara or Marbel's husband. It is certainly an adjustment, but it isn' bad.

The food is ok, lots of tortillas and beans and bananas as one would expect.

We are working at day care centers, where we helped to fund garden projects, only one of which has started. The kids are adorable. We went to one yesterday and a different one today. And we are visiting the third tomorrow. Its amazing how different they are even though the ommunities seem similar!!!

I've learned soo much about this country and the communities, which I'll talk about on my next entry!!!

Sunday, everyone went to San Salvador, but I had a really bad headache at 530 am when they left (we thought it was for a 6am meeting, not a trip to the city, so I stayed thinking I wasn't missing much). It ended up being a cool day though becuase I got to know Rosanna and Jeffery (somehow without spanish).

Another cool thing about here is that everyone drives pickups. Since there are 5 of us, one of us has to take turns riding in the back,which is of course fun. Luckily we are in a rural area, so even though the roads are bad, we are more likely to run into a cow or bicycle than another vehical. Its funny because one of the biggest public transport formsare big rucks with people standing up in back! Its also funny how, like Kenya, there are tons of farm animals along the roads. I've seen cows, pigs, dogs, cats, chickents, turkeys, and other creatures!!!

Sorry this post kind of rambled. It will be more structured in furture. I'm excited to share not only my experiences, but also what I have learned from the people here!!!

 Also, check out our group blog: http://psuglobemed.blogspot.com/

 Paige