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




fish drying in cuco




parents!



mom & her grandbaby

dad at the radio venceremos headquarters in perquin

family & teachers in el mozote

mom learning to make tortillas

mom & dad talking to the students about their life

view from the balcony at cocotera

kayaking the mangroves

enjoying the pool

turtles!!

juayua food festival

mom & i at paseo el carmen

NICARAGUA!!

December 26th my fellow volunteers and I hightailed it out of site and fled to Nicaragua for a much needed vacation. First, Tyler, Jamie, Kara and I headed to Granada. We didn't do anything of merit in Granada besides wander around the beautiful colonial city, eat at every establishment we could find (falafel! bagels! $1 shots of rum!), and learn how to roll cigars at a small factory. 

Granada

granada cathedral from the top of another cathedral

jamie, me, tyler & kara

rollin a cigar

granada cathedral and cart horse

Playa Popoyo

After Granada, we hopped on a bus and headed to the coast to visit ex-PCV friend Cory, who now lives and works as a professional surf bum at a beautiful hotel on Playa Popoyo. We ran into some Nicaraguan PCVs and spent New Year's Eve with a beautiful view of the ocean, tossing dynamite "fireworks" and generally having a pretty good time. Also, Tricia met up with us down there, fresh from a United States Christmas and laden with amazing gifts for those of us who were Central American campo-bound (cheezits, chocolate, scented hand sanitizer, etc).

best purchase of the trip: banana leaf hats for $2

the magnific rock in front of cory's hotel Magnific Rock

Tyler and I classing up the beach

New Year's Eve!

Leon

After a few days at the beach, we picked up and headed up the coast to Leon, another of Nicaragua's big cities. We brought Cory along and met back up with a traveling couple we had met in Granada. In Leon, we continued our trend of behaving like bums and spent most of the time wandering around (the rest of the crew decided to try their hand at "volcano surfing", but knowing my accident prone-ness I chose to sit that one out), and ended our stay there with a much needed trip to the Flor de Cana factory. Flor de Cana is a very delicious, very cheap rum that is fabricated right there in Leon and which we drink by the gallon here in El Salvador. In Nicaragua, this already ridiculously cheap rum was about half price (we're talking $4 for a litre, and this is good rum), so when we realized that we were spitting distance from the birthplace of this magical ambrosia we scurried on over for our own personalized tour. 

whole gang

Jamie and I arrive in style

FLOR!

so so so much rum

ready to sample...

Esteli

The last stop of our trip was Esteli, a self-proclaimed "cowboy" town in Northern Esteli (actually close to the Honduran border, and therefore en route to El Salvador) with a few PCVs from Nicaragua. We didn't spend much time in actual Esteli itself, although it is the leather and cigar capital of Nicaragua, but from there we took a trip to the Somoto Canyon. The Somoto Canyon is a gorgeous, sheer rock canyon that the Somoto River runs through. We did a trip in which we hiked down into the canyon, then floated a few kilometers down the river in life jackets. It was a stunningly beautiful trip and we had a lot of fun doing it, and disclaimer: the pictures do not do it justice.

Esteli center

Nicaragua and El Salvador PCVs

Tyler being a gentleman

pouncing into the water gracefully

floating!!!

After Esteli and the canyon trip, we morosely re-boarded the Tica bus for the lovely 12 hour journey back to El Salvador and "real life". It was not the most relaxing trip in the traditional sense of the word, but it was a really fun vacation and I can finally say I've seen another Central American country!

Navidad

I spent Christmas in my community. The main festivities were pizza and Christmas cookie making in my host mom's adobe oven (sparkly sugar and cookie cutters courtesy of a wonderful care package from my mother) and then the community celebration on Christmas Eve (still not sure why it happens on the 24th and not the 25th, but I've given up asking). This included eating TONS of chicken sandwiches (french bread, fried chicken, vinegar cole slaw, salsa, beets, and hard boiled eggs...so delicious), and then the nativity play in which I made my acting debut as a mute angel (after toiling tireless all afternoon over my paper and cardboard wings). It was a fun, but very tiring, holiday.

maricela saucing 

my helpers

confused by cookie dough

festivities

waiting fort he goodies

cookies and pizza

the finished product!

toiling

the angels

i literally have no idea what theyre supposed to be

a very preggo mary

just me in my natural habitat

Dia Internacional Contra el VIH/SIDA

On Dec. 1 (International HIV/AIDS Day), Tricia, Mike and I brought a group of kids from our HIV prevention group to San Salvador for an event put on by Peace Corps. They put on an HIV prevention/stigma reduction play based on an HIV positive couple in the salvadoran campo and their experiences, and they did a great job. Now, we are trying to give continuity to this project in the new year, with some new kids and some new activities in Morazan. 

superstars

the whole group in san sal

quite an audience

fin

Graduation!

On Thanksgiving day, Centro Escolar Caserio Los Fuentes' kindergarteners and 9th graders graduated! I was the guest of honor along with a new teacher, Profe Celina. In honor of this honor (haha), we chose to have hot pink and black polyester dresses made. They were a huge hit in the community, but the material paired with the skintight design (thanks to custom-made tailoring), had me almost passing out after my 5th chicken/rice/salad celebratory lunch that afternoon. 

entering the church for pre-grad mass 

mesa de honor

twins!

my incredibly eloquent speech

sorry...

Well, I'm clearly horrible at keeping my blog updated. The following few posts will be photos and mini descriptions of the BIG EVENTS in the past few months. Sorry I've been so remiss!