Made it!

I finally made it to El Salvador!  We had a long trip here, starting with an afternoon of staging in DC.  We did a bunch of group activities to get to know each other and also got to meet the Regional Director and some other Peace Corps folks that work at headquarters.  Afterwards, we all went out for the "last supper" in America.  I had a cheeseburger, fries, and a Blue Moon.  We had to wake up at 2:30 am to head to the airport and finally arrived at the airport in La Paz, a city outside of San Salvador, around 4 pm El Salvador time.

Upon our arrival, a lime green school bus was here to take us to San Vicente where the Peace Corps training center is.  Walking into the open air was like hitting a wall.  the humidity was overwhelming; even worse than North Carolina!  There we were introduced to the Peace Corps training staff and signed some forms before heading to dinner.  After that, we were all so worn out from travel and not sleeping the night before that we crashed around 9pm.

This morning my roommates and I all woke up 2 hours early because I forgot to set my alarm to Salvadoran time.  I got up, started brushing my teeth, then looked at my watch and realized it was only 4 am.  Thankfully, my roommates weren't mad at me and thought it was funny and we all went back to sleep.  Breakfast consisted of a fried egg, salsa, beans, and plaintains with coffee.  During training we had more introductions and an overview of what we will be doing for the next 8 weeks, language interviews, and a "survival Spanish" lesson.  My interview was pretty rough but the survival Spanish was a breeze.  At least I know enough to get by for now and hopefully in the next 8 weeks it will get a lot better. The Safety & Security and Medical sessions were also little intimidating.  Everyone tells us, " It's not a matter of if you get sick, but when."   I'm not looking forward to that but it's good to know the Peace Corps is preparing us for everything.

Tonight for dinner we had pupusas, the national dish of El Salvador.  They are corn tortillas with beans, cheese, and other fillings topped with slaw, marinated vegetables, and salsa.  We learned all about the origin of their name, how they are prepared, and one of the host families came and prepared them in front of us.  I hope she's my madre because her pupusas were delicious!

I have been in El Salvador for a little over 24 hours and I love it so far.  The staff seems amazing and I like all of the other volunteers.  Tomorrow we move to the site where we will spend the rest of training, which probably won't have running water and other amenities I'm spoiled to, but I am eager to meet my host family and see what my pueblo is like.