El Salvador!

Hello from the Marriot in El Salvador, the nicest place I have stayed on the entire trip. We came to El Salvador to meet up with Bianca's friend Sam who is serving in the Peace Corps here. We were told we would be staying in his hut in his village, so imagine our surprise when the first place he took us was a Marriot to spend the night. That was a little over a week ago, and we are back here again preparing to leave for Nicaragua tomorrow. But first, a run down of my week in El Salvador.

The area around the Marriot is called Gran Via and looks like it belongs in the US. Bianca and I felt like we were going through culture shock when we first walked through it because it just seems like a regular outdoor shopping mall from home, something so different than anything we had encountered in the past two months. Sam explained to us that in El Salvador there are only two classes, the incredibly rich and those that live in the campo (rural areas where they just work the fields). Sam's village where he is working is located in the north of the country, and the people are lucky to make 6 dollars a day working in the fields. He feels really annoyed by the disparity in the country, and going to his village for the week really brought that home for Bianca and I as well. Before we went to the village we spent an awesome weekend traveling around to a waterfall swimming hole and a delicious food festival. We ate so much, I swear I gained a whole person just that weekend. It was so much fun to hang out with other Peace Corps volunteers for a little and get to hear about all their experiences with their villages. One of the funniest parts of it was asking them if they were fluent in Spanish now. They all responded the same way: "We don't speak Spanish, we speak campo so we speak poverty." Bianca and I weren't really sure what that meant until we arrived in the village. We could not understand anything Sam's host family said, and he explained that they don't use any of the proper grammar or words, they just mumble Spanish and that it took him almost two months to begin to be able to understand them. Even with that language barrier, his family was so warm and welcoming.

I am not going to lie, the week in the village was really boring. Peace Corps volunteers are put into all types of situations and Sam is working in a village that has one need at this point, a well. They even told Sam that they really only need him to get them a well, then he could go. His town is one where many families have relatives in the US who send remittances back to them so they are able to afford a lot more than poorer villages. Sam told us how hard this has been on him, as he doesn't have a lot to do day to day. While we were there, we woke up every morning very early thanks to the many roosters and cows and donkeys all around and their annoying concerts every morning starting at 3 am. For some reason their roosters don't know they are only supposed to crow at sunrise, instead if one crows, then all the roosters in town have to follow for at least five minutes, even if it is 12 or 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning. It was non-stop noise all night, not to mention being freaked out by the sound of the rats scurrying around on tops of the walls of his house and the tarantula infestation. I didn't sleep very well for those few days.

The first morning we were there we woke up at 5 am so we could walk 45 minutes to where the family keeps their cows and milk them. I milked the cow for a couple seconds but I was not very good so the oldest host brother took over and finished. I wasn't too disappointed... cows udders feel rubbery and gross. We finished milking all five cows, then had to wait on the side of the road for a half hour for more people to deliver their milk to our family. They have a collective and join all the milk together to sell it, then split the profits based on how many jars you contribute. We then walked back to the house and hung out with the family for a little while. Sam's host parents have 8 kids, two of which are in the States right now. Five of them are still living at home and are all boys, and all of them were cute and really embarrassed at first to talk to us, but they warmed up over the course of the week. Sam's host mom on the other hand took no time in warming up to us. She cooked us all her best meals and called us her sisters the first night. That poor woman is in desperate need of some female bonding time, and she took all the chances she had while we were there, hugging us and sitting with us constantly. It was really sweet. We spent the rest of the week doing typical campo things, walking around talking to villagers, shelling beans, and sitting around... a lot. We also visited another volunteers site which was up a huge hill that was more like a mountain we had to climb. He lives in a much smaller village that does not get any remittances and the difference was apparent immediately. All the houses were much smaller and made of mud with dirt floors and tin roofs but his village was also much friendlier. In Sam's village, his host family were the only people who were really kind and open, the rest didn't want to have much to do with us. It was interesting to see what money from the US actually does to a place. I think in reality the smaller village was better off and happier with their life because they were less aware of what "they were missing out on" from the US. Overall, it was a great experience to see the village and I definitely was reminded once again how lucky I was to be born in the US to a great family and always have so many opportunities open to me.

After a tearful goodbye with Sam's host mom today, we are back in the capital and staying in the beautiful Marriot before we get up early to take a tourist bus to Nicaragua. Luckily it is a relatively short 10 hour ride, so we will be in Nicaragua by tomorrow afternoon! Miss and love you all, and I will write again soon!