After several months of applications, essays, interviews, doctors appointments, phone calls, emails and much, much waiting... I am finally in El Salvador!
We arrived this morning around 6am after spending one day in LA for orientations. We are now in a town called San Vicente, which is about an hour east of the capital, San Salvador. We are staying at a local hotel located just a few blocks from the Peace Corps training center. Everybody here is really looking forward to Friday, because that is when we will be moving in with our host families for the remainder of training.
El Salvador is just like I remember it: beautiful and filled with some of the warmest people you will ever meet. We are in the rainy season right now, so it is fairly muggy, which I can already tell is going to be a bit of an adjustment for me. But it definitely provides for some spectacular greenery that covers the mountainous regions of the country. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but when I do I'll try to post some on here.
I have yet to see a single mosquito today, but we've all already started our weekly doses of anti-malaria medication and been given the ubiquitous mosquito nets for when we arrive at our host families' homes.
There are still lots of unknowns that will only be answered with time. A lot of things depend on where our host family for training lives and which site we eventually get assigned to for the 2 years of service. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in a comment; I'll do my best to answer them! Hope everyone is having a great week!
Hi Kelsey, we sure missed you and the other missing relatives at the recent reunion, but we got to hear about your departure and arrival. So, what's for breakfast in El Salvador? And what does your local mailbox look like? Take good care, yr cousin Jan
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you have a blog!! Sounds like things are going really well so far. I'm so excited for you! Keep posting; I wanna know aaaaall about the next two years. I'm expecting lots of good stories :) Can't wait to see some pictures, too!
ReplyDeleteHi Jan! Good to hear from you! I was bummed I had to miss the reunion too! That´s funny that you ask about the mailboxes because I haven´t seen one yet. I´m not really sure what people here do for mail because all of ours gets delivered to the training center in town. As far as breakfast goes, we have mostly black beans (whole or "licuados," put through the blender), plantains either fried or boiled, casamiento (a mix of black beans and rice), tortillas, pan frances (french bread), coffee, scrambled eggs, and other things that I can´t remember right now. I´ll try to make a list of other things (and maybe even take pictures to post!)
ReplyDeleteMiss you and hope all is well with you!
Hey Linly! Thanks for writing! Definitely keep me posted with what you're up to, too! How many more days til you leave for Sicily?!?!