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