Greetings from the Little Thumb of Central America

Kelly with our Spanish teacher and the other two gringos in our community.

Where to begin? Our apologies for not sufficiently updating the site. Our previous attempt was thwarted and we´ve been very busy with training.

We are living with a host family outside San Vicente until mid-November to learn the language and culture. At that point, we´ll move to our permanent site. After two months, we´ll return to where we are now for two weeks of technical training. Finally, we´ll stay put in our permanent site. It is confusing. And there is a good deal of Peace Corps lingo, acronyms, etc. that goes along with it all. We will spare you them.

Our current host family consists of a mother, father, 18-year old son, and 4-year old son. The father works in San Salvador (90 minute commute each way). The mother cooks, cleans, cooks, cleans, repeat. The majority of both sides of the family reside in close proximity. They, like most families, have a few nephews living in the States (Houston, Miami, Boston, all over). Our host mother´s father runs a tienda that sells agroservicio products for working in the fields (the livelihood of most area residents). His wife owns the mill, in which most of the town´s women grind corn into tortillas. This all takes place where we are living. There are horses, cows, dogs, cats. Chickens, roosters, turkeys (often taking us off guard by their presence in the trees at night). And for good measure, the occasional gecko, iguana, cockroach. The only real threat is mosquitos, what with their love of malaria and dengue. We apply repellent several times a day and recently upgraded to a new and improved mosquito net for our bed. Frogs sing to us in the evening. Roosters wake us in the early morning. Spiders decorate the place. The bucolic scene of fruit trees (lime, orange, avocado, etc.), tropical plants, the volcano, and the clay rooftops is only partially eroded by the ever-present trash on the ground. It rains everyday. The dry season (the only other season) starts in November.

The pace of life is notably slower than it is in Pennsylvania or Delaware. It is considered rude to launch into business before making a significant amount of chit-chat. One must gain the confianza (confidence, trust) of the people before anything. We´ve been spending a good deal of time with the locals. Today we treked up into the fields to see them firsthand (mostly corn, beans, tomato, pipian-a type of squash). This afternoon we will play another game of soccer with the local kids.

The pace of life for a Peace Corps Trainee, however, is about as slow a really fast thing. The other two gringo trainees that live in our caserio are among the most advanced Spanish speakers in our group of 23. That works well for us, because they head into San Vicente for their language lessons and we enjoy a 1:2 teacher-student ratio. Our language classes run from 8-12. Even lunch is in Spanish. As it turns out, everything in this country is in Spanish. Except for the occasional pop song (Celine Dion, Donna Summers, Roy Orbison) and movie (Adam Sandler, Jack Black, etc.). After lunch, we learn about culture and work toward a mini-project with local schoolkids. We´ve already had several meetings at the school and one at the mayor´s office. This ends by 5. It´s dark (and therefore inadvisable to be out and about) by 6. We eat shortly thereafter. Then we launch into our copious amounts of homework. We enjoy Tuesdays, when our training group reunites in the city for meetings on safety, health, logistics.

On Friday, our group of four + teacher headed to the market for research on fruits and vegetables. Some of them, I swear, were invented by Dr. Seuss. Some are delicious. Some are incredibly bitter. All are interesting. Hopefully we´ll post pictures of the fruits later on.

Transportation. It is a 10-15 minute, 25 cent ride from our host family´s house into the city. There are buses, but much more frequently there are pick-up trucks. Unless they are packed, we take the pick-up. It´s not as scary as it sounds.

It´s quite an adventure. We look forward to learning more Spanish. We´re heading into the capital, San Salvador, later this week. We may also hike up the volcano and visit the beach. Good times ahead. Take care!

Love,
Bruce and Kelly

P.S. Aunt Amy, feel free to use any of this material in your class. If your students have any questions, we´d be happy to answer them.