EL SAlvador: Parents' visit!

Mid-February, I was lucky enough to have a wonderful visit down to El Salvador from my parents! Much like their visit last year, it was a whirlwind. However we got to do and see a lot of great things.

We kickedd off the visit with a trip to Playa El Cuco, which is an eastern beach only about an hour and a half from where I live. We got to enjoy the beautiful beach, eat fried fish adn ceviche, and see millions of fish drying for the Holy Week typical food of tortas (cakes) made of dried fish (gag).

After Cuco, we headed up to the arctic north of Perquin, where my parents got to experience my home away from home, aka the Hotel Lenca, with it's hot showers and cheesesteak sandwiches. We went to the Civil War museum, and my teachers met us up there for lunch and a trip to the memorial at El Mozote, a tiny rural village nearby where approximately 1600 villagers were massacred during the war.

Next, we headed to my site! My parents were super troopers, sleeping in my house, eating (and makign!) tortillas, and tromping all over the place in the horrible horrible heat. Everyone loved meeting them, and the language barrier was not as bad as I expected (except when Don Mario asked them to give a talk about their lives in front of all of the students and I had to translate it all).

After visiting my site my dad had to head home to work, so my mom and I jumped site ship, too, and headed to Barra de Santiago, the westernmost beach in El Salvador. Barra de Santiago is an interesting beach because it is a peninsula that has ocean on one side and an estuary on the other. We stayed at a beautiful eco hotel sandwiched between the two, from where we were able to kayak the mangroves, release baby sea turtles, and laze in hammocks to our hearts' content. It was a perfect way to relax after a hectic few days in my community.

From Barra de Santiago we headed north up to the artisan towns of Ataco and Juayua, where we enjoyed cold weather, souvenir shopping, and goat cheese! In Juayua we got to experience their food festival which happens every weekend, where tons of vendors fill the streets selling grilled meat (frog, chicken, rabbit, you name it), corn liquor, and all sorts of other things. There's also live music and tons of artisan shopping to be done. From there, we headed to San Salvador for my mom's last night in the country. We managed to squeeze in 1 more culinary adventure with a trip to Paseo El Carmen, a beautiful stretch of a few blocks in the city that are blocked off to traffic and filled with sidewalk seating and street vendors of all sorts of food late into the night.

Sunday my mom was up and out, leaving me to wallow away my sorrows in the nice, American hotel (wifi, cable TV to watch the OSCARS ON!!, hot showers, laundry facilities...heaven).

Now, I am back in my community and work is picking up. Tricia, Mike and I will be kicking off the second half of our HIV project next week. Also, this weekend one of the new Peace Corps Trainees will be coming to stay with me to observe life in a real PC site!

Adios