The El Salvador I know

It’s funny, though I am quite a journey away from Canada, daily life in San Salvador seems very similar to life in Toronto. Here in San Sal, most mornings I wake up to a sunny sky, dogs barking, neighbours getting ready for work (just like Toronto) and when I walk out of our gated neighbourhood to go to school at 8:00 AM or to go to aerobics with Sam at 6:00 AM, buses are crammed full and the streets are packed bumper to bumper in morning traffic JUST LIKE TORONTO. But there are also many differences here. Unlike Toronto, San Salvador is fairly small so for the majority of places I go, traffic never affects me because I can walk. When I do need to take a cab or a bus, sitting in traffic is never a problem because:

1) I do not have to worry about arriving anywhere late because being on time is not a universal concept here (sometimes this is a blessing; at other times, this can be stressful)

2) The most a cab has cost me here is 5 dollars (Why do taxi meters start at $5.00 in Canada?)

3) Cab drivers always want to chat with you and when you’re on the bus, you always run into someone you have seen before or know and chatting with them makes the time fly by.

The food.


Have you ever read a travel brochure that advised you not to eat food sold on the streets in foreign countries? Who are the people writing these brochures? Before I came to El Salvador, I received warnings from my doctor, read a million warnings online, and was repeatedly told by my father to avoid, at all costs, all food sold on the streets. ALL. No exceptions, because you don’t know where the cook’s hands have been. Was that it dad? The fact of the matter is that’s probably true. I don’t know for sure where their hands have been but I think that it is the unwashed hands and the knife that was just dropped on the ground and has directly gone to flipping over my pupusa that adds the bien savor! In reality, I question whether any of the people who have written these warnings have ever travelled before. If you have ever been into a food market in El Salvador, you would never advise someone not to try the different vegetables being deep fried and dunked in sauce! Every time I pass a stand in El Salvador, my mouth salivates and next thing I know, I find myself saying “que es esa?... que? No importa... si, dos por favour!” And you know what? Every single time without fail, it has been worth the traveler’s diarrhoea!


Here in El Salvador there is a lot of food made with corn flower. It’s what they have an abundance of, it’s what’s cheap, and it’s what keeps you full. Making tortias or pupusas out of corn flower here is a tradition and you can find it almost anywhere! Fresh fruits, vegetables and lots of beans are also typical sides to all corn dishes. A typical breakfast here is eggs, beans, platanos and tortias. Lunch for me is usually 2 pupusas and dinner in our house is usually done Canadian style, some pasta, rice or bread with some local vegetables that we have cooked in our own way.

One huge different I notice between Canada and El Salvador is in the fruit. The fruit is extremely fresh here! Most people have some sort of fruit tree in their yards and for those who don’t, sometimes you can find a perfectly ripe mango on the side walk that has fallen from a tree in someone’s yard. Though I haven’t picked any of these up yet, I have friends who have and not only have they lived to tell the tale but they continuously pick up the fruit (that I have never before seen done in Canada).


Adventure


When I first arrived in El Salvador, over research of the country restrained me from going out and trying new things. One thing I have learned from this trip is that yes traveling has its dangers, but you can’t let fear of these dangers keep you in your home. This isn’t to say that you should let your guard down but the point is to get involved in the community, meet the locals and feel more at ease in the knowledge that there are good people everywhere!


Living with all Canadians has its positive and its negative side. One negative is not much Spanish and Salvador culture is brought into our house so lately Sam and I have made it a goal of ours to go out and find Salvadorian culture.


In the mornings, we’ve been going to the park to run the track and take aerobics classes, and in the afternoons, we have been discovering new comedors, chatting with locals and trying out dance classes and the experience is definitely starting to feel more authentic!

Day 13. Setting the scene

Life in El Salvador.

To those of you who I haven’t been able to connect with since I left Canada I am here in San Salvador –Safe, sound and extremely happy!
My current situation
Right now I am living with Rosa, Jose, and Guillermo X2 (and Sarah, the other intern the long lost yang to my ying) -I am not living with anfitriones but rather acogedores – it’s the difference between living with people who are renting you a room from living with a family who has opened up their house and their hearts to you. I make jokes in Spanish and they actually laugh! I didn’t know I could make a joke in Spanish! Every time my host brother & host nephew? spend time with us at the dinner table chatting away, every time my host dad laughs, and every morning I wake up to my host mom cooking up a storm in the kitchen I can’t help but to think- wow I love you host fam!
It’s funny I have only been here, in San Salvador, for thirteen days and I already feel like a local! Though the country seems to have a terrible reputation for a high crime and murder rate there is so much more to El Salvador than that like:

-When we have nice weather it’s the perfect weather
- I have never seen such a beautiful sky/ mesmerising ocean
- There are fruit trees everywhere to the point where you can pick up local groceries like mangos off the ground on the street! (though we always wash first to avoid parasites)
- The food is amazing! I LOVE PAPUSAS!
-The bus is 0.20 cents and comes literally every 5 minutes or less.
- The people are extremely friendly
- and the history here is so moving you will be listening to me rant and rave about injustices for quite a few year when I get home and you will know the history of El Salvador just as well as I do.

My Job

Since I arrived at CIS, I have become a substitute teacher with Juan and Sarah for a teacher who had to leave her term early. Other than that I have just recently finished my teachers training and today I put a good hard days work into making a nice start to the big project of designing a lesson plan book. Tommorow I will repeat this same hard days work all over again as when it was time to save "the computer" made our file disappear never to be seen again. Well you know what they say – what you may spend a life time creating, others may destroy in a day – Create anyway. So I will be back at it tomorrow, making it better than the original and saving in both hard and soft copy this time! (Yes mom as soon as my file disappeared I could picture you saying “always save as you go” pft – why are mothers always right?)

My Stability

Though I am loving it here there are times when I doubt how safe I feel. The other night I was out at a bar when all of a sudden BANGGGGGGGG. All of us sitting at our table tensed up and slightly crouched downed. My heart raced as I thought it was a gunshot for sure, and I just prayed I wasn’t about to be caught in the middle of some act of crime. When no more bullets flew one of the guys I was with looked up at the tin roof and noticed there was a giant dent that hadn’t been there before. When we asked the guards what the noise was I couldn’t help but to laugh at myself. There was a mango tree over the roof and I almost resumed fatal position under a bar table for a giant mango that decided to fall from the tree right then.

All jokes a side, though I feel very safe, I am still being careful. Recently two big murders have happened in our area and unfortunately one of the girls I hang out with from CIS got robbed today. Inside all this makes me really angry because most people here like in every country just want to live in peace but they can’t because history has turned the country so. Optimistically- my friend is fine, Just her stuff was taken and this is part of the experience becoming, this is what locals go through daily.

It can happen anywhere though, and thus my opinions of El Salvador have not changed since I have arrived – It is a beautiful country with many great people.

Buenas noches todos!

Besos,

Liseita

Pre departue/ arrival thoughts

Have you ever wondered how you got to where you are in life or why you are where you are? I'm currently situated in a hidden gem called El salvador. I could have found a summer job in canada and been making a lot of money right now. I chose not to choose that path. Sometimes experience has a greater worth. This is my story of how I got here and my experience on my 3 month journey through El Salvador.

In 2005 I was bitten by a bug. The travel bug that is. It was my first trip out of North America. I went to England with the Girl Guides of Canada and every since that trip I have had a strong desire to travel. Why such a desire? Though I have been to the U.S., Spain, San Andres, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Cuba since 2005 I have never been able to clearly describe why ... until 2010.


Thurday May 20th 2010. I entered the office of Larissa Stong to receive feedback on my resume and interview. She tore my resume apart. Was it a terrible day? ABSOLUTELY NOT. In fact it was quite the opposite. Through valuable criticism of my resume I became aware of the reason I love to travel so much. The reason...

To learn.


In my cover letter I used the line "I want to help..." too often. The truth is I meant to say I want to learn. I want to be surrounded by passionate people who have opinions to share with me and things to teach me; skills, values, customs, traditions, stories, language - Everything. I want to hear about their lives, what they stand for and for those who are fighting for a more just world, I want to join their battles, I want to learn their tactics, acquire skills I don't have, develop those which others can teach me to develop, and contribute by being a good learner and by teaching what skills I have come with.
























So here I am descending upon El Salvador (the picture is not actually mine but this is similar to what I saw as I was landing).

To York International -Thank you for this opportunity.
To interns, family, friends and randoms reading my blog- Enjoy.
And Last but certainly not least, To El Salvador, your people and specifically those at CIS - Estoy aquí y lista. Ensañeme.

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