Some Photos

Just wanted to throw up a few pics from the first however long its been. The first is the house I am currently living in, the second is the view from another trainee's house and the third is some local break dancers at a small festival in Santo Domingo.

I have crazy stories, but this one is better...

Ok, so yesterday I had my first "oh crap, this is for real" moment. We were talking to one of the workers in the alcaldia (which is like the city hall) when he invited us to tag along to an interview of sorts in the Canton. What it turned out to be was that there is a family there that asked the alcaldia for support and help finding aid. Apparently their father has been gone for over 4 years and their mother died some time last year of cancer. There are 8 of them living there ranging from about 5 years of age to 16. The Secretary of Family affairs sent an agent and some supplies to the family and we got to tag along. Its a sad story and I'm glad that I got to be there to see that the government and the alcaldia in my town were helping out. I don't think any of the other groups really got an experience like this yet.

This Is It

Ok, so this is now my blog for my experience in Peace Corps, El Salvador. I will update as often as I can or want to.

So far I am in the final part of the first week of training. What that means is I am living in the small community of Santo Domingo, about 20 minutes outside of San Vicente. Three other trainees live here in Santo Domingo, but we all live in different houses with different host families. Two days a week we travel to San Vicente for training at the Peace Corps training center, the other days we either have spanish lessons in our community or travel to various sites to learn about our future lives here.

I am happy so far. I couldn't have asked for a better family to live with or better trainees to have in my community. (Though there couldn't have been a bad group, I like everyone so far.) Obviously its an adjustment though. For example, I already got a mild bacterial infection, the water went out in my community for almost two days, its hot, it rains all the time and the language barrier can be a bit stifling. However the whole situation sounds worse than it really is. The four of us in Santo Domingo are getting along quite well and we have each other to laugh with when things get a little topsy turvy.