Almost Famous

I said it might happen earlier, but today I was in La Prensa Grafica which is a local newspaper as part of an insert for SalvaNatura. So my press debut has happened in El Salvador and I think I may have a future in eco-tourism modeling and Angie agrees with me. In reality it never mentions my name or that of Peace Corps, but I'm in pictures all the same. Several other volunteers have already mentioned that they saw me in the paper. I tried to get my hands on a few copies for posterity sake, but so far I have only gotten one copy. I will try to buy more on my way back tonight.

As stated in the last post, one year in country has come and gone, so quite a few of the volunteers from my group met up and celebrated at playa El Tunco (The Pig) which is named after a rock which bares no resemblance to its name's sake. It had all the hall marks of a classic beach bash; friends, alcohol, playing in the waves, creeping girls out with mustaches, sunburns, non-potable water, basically the works. Seriously though, I had a good time mostly because I got to sit back and hang out with lots of people I talk to often, but see very seldom. Mostly I played Euchre, my new favorite card game, which I only get to play in large groups of volunteers. A very Salvo thing happened when I got there, my sandals broke within two hours of arriving, and before most people were around, so I spent the entire weekend walking around barefoot. I did this because, like I said my sandals broke, but I also happened to have left my shoes at the hostal in San Sal. So I made like the locals and walked around sans footwear, which amused the other volunteers. Then on the way back a large truck managed to spill corn on the highway and a scene that could only happen in El Salvador ensued. The other cars pulled over, but not to help out or for any other humanitarian reason, but to stop and collect some free corn for themselves. At first it was a bit of a "whoa, what is going on?" moment, but we saw it for what it was after a few seconds.

Now I am crashing in San Sal for the rest of the week helping my program director get started on a documentary for our Municipal Developement program. It is a good effort and more reason for me to play with computers. The only downside is that the revolving door of volunteers makes it so I have nobody to hang out with on a regular basis.