I´m Literally Dripping Sweat on the Keyboard As I Type This...

This is my first time to ever enter a Salvadoran internet cafe. It´s been five minutes and I´m fairly positive I never want to step foot in one of these places again. This is what I imagine those booths in the red light district of Amsterdam being like on the inside. For some reason all the computers are in these small, cramped closets, it is super-sweaty hot, and I´m fairly positive there are diseases crawling on the walls. However, I´ll try to persevere.

I´m also now convinced I´m going to look into the mobile internet cards you can purchase here. There are fairly cheap, plug into the USB thing in a laptop, and pick up internet anywhere.

As for life since my last post, I have now been living in the small community of San Esteban Catarina for about 6 days. It is just a quick 15-minute, $.30 bus or pick-up ride from San Vicente, which is the town Peace Corps training is based out of. The 30 Peace Corps trainees in my group are now spread out in the surrounding area, with between 3 and 5 trainees living in 7 different small communities around San Vicente. 4 or 5 days a week we have about 6 or 7 hours of Spanish class in our communities and spend a few hours on various community activities. 1 or 2 days a week, always at least Tuesdays, all 30 trainees unite in San Vicente for larger lectures and activities at the training center. This is when we get our weekly dose of new immunizations, talk to the Country Director, chill out a little, and catch up with each other´s adventures. This past Tuesday I found my new favorite place in the world. It is a little bakery where you get little pastries for $.08. I had 6 Tuesday. Literally, heaven on Earth if you can ignore the fact that your in a shack with 6 Salvadoran women, a blazing hot oven, and about 22 cats. But really, the pineapple pastries are to die for.

We usually get Sundays off and are expected to spend time with our host families working on our Spanish and becoming more integrated into the community. I am already a proud member of San Esteban´s basketball team. I showed up last Sunday while they were playing, and I now will be playing with them every Sunday afternoon for the next two months while I live here in San Esteban. Basketball here definitely is run a little differently, but it is great to be able to hang out with some guys at least close to my age and do something that resembles my old American habits.

San Esteban is a pretty sweet little place located on the side of the still technically active volcano known as Chuchotepeque. No worries though, no one here seems to remember the last time anything deadly came out of it.

I have really enjoyed the activities I´ve been getting involved in around the area. Sunday I went to work with a pretty strange dude named Adelmo who has no teeth. He has a small farm where he grows green chiles and tomatoes. I´m still not sure if he even speaks Spanish, I literally didn´t understand a single word he said, but he put me to work weeding and chopping around in his fields with two huge machetes, so I considered it a real success. I did also manage to learn a little about the basic crops and farming techniques around, which I´ll need to know when I start my work as a Sustainable Agriculture Volunteer. Tomorrow morning I´ll also be going to work with a farmer in the morning. I talked to him earlier today, but I´m a little fuzzy on the details. I know he has a corn farm, the most popular crop in El Salvador, but I don´t know what his name is or where his farm is. Just gonna be meeting him at the central park and seeing what happens I guess...

I´ve also been working to get to know the community in other ways. Today was the second straight day I spent at the local parochial school. Yesterday I met with the director and just chatted a bit, but today I went and observed a class then talked more about the differences of the Salvadoran and American education systems. Although my Spanish is far from perfect, it is really amazing how much I am able to converse with people already. Being completely immersed in a place where no one speaks English is definitely a quick route to a headache, but it has also been invaluable for my Spanish skills.

Saturday I´ll be visiting a current volunteer about 75 minutes away. He is a Sustainable Agriculture Volunteer, has had some real success, and I´m looking forward to seeing more of what life is like once you get to your permanent site. It should be pretty fun and a great chance to spend a day speaking English with a fellow American.

Sorry to end this post. I´m not literally drenched in sweat. Doesn´t make sense because today has been one of the nicest days since I arrive, but this internet cafe is just too much.

However, in an interesting update for my loyal readers about the random Salvadoran man I met last week with the Texas for Obama shirt...I saw him again Tuesday. He had on an Austin Tennis Academy shirt. It´s getting weird now. When I tried to talk to him, he told me he was from Texas, but from looking at him, I´m fairly positive, about 99.9%, that that is not true. I´m heading back into San Vicente Saturday morning. I will definitely be keeping my eyes open for him.

I hope I get another chance to write soon. I have tons of great stories and cultural adventures to tell about. Training is just a real busy time, but apparently once this is done in two months, I´ll have all the time in the world to spend communicating with people back home.

Thanks for the emails and stuff I´ve gotten the past week. It is always great to hear from you guys. Also, I have pictures to put up, but apparently putting a memory stick in a Salvadoran internet cafe computer is a 100% positive way to get the thing a virus, so I´ll have to figure out how I want to handle that. Pictures to come in the future...