Immersion Weekend

Tomorrow morning I´ll be taking off bright and early for the most adventurous part of training so far: immersion weekend.

Getting to my site for the weekend is certainly going to be my most exciting task yet. Partly as payback for the mansion I´m currently living in, which is hands-down nicer than any other trainee´s home, and also partly because I´d already requested of my Program Director a future 2-year site as remote as possible, I´m being sent to the most remote volunteer site in El Salvador. My journey will begin with a bus heading east towards the large city of San Miguel, but I will be getting off in Moncagua, before the bus actually reaches San Miguel. That is where it really gets interesting. My site, a very, very small community known as El Volcan ("The Volcano" for you non-Spanish speakers) is only connected to the rest of the world (by pick-up truck, no less) two days a week, and Thursday happens to not be one of those days. These means I´ll probably be hitching a ride from Managua heading north to either Chapeltique or Guatajiagua. GoogleMap that if you want...good luck. From one of those towns my adventure will continue, with a walk up a volcano that will take anywhere between one and two hours, depending on, according to my Sustainable Agriculture Program Director, my "level of determination." I´ve decided I´m definitely going to be bringing two of my machetes to insure my security doing the second half of my journey. In all seriousness though, I am real excited to get to meet some different Salvadorans and spend time talking to new people and testing out just how good my Spanish has gotten.

While in El Volcan for the weekend, I´ll be mostly just hanging out with the current volunteer who is already there, following him around and seeing more of what actual life in Peace Corps is like, and testing out a truly remote post to see if that is really what I want. I´ll probably stay with the volunteer one night, but I´m also going to be staying with one or two other families for a night or two. The region I´m visiting is known for mostly bean and coffee growing, so I´m excited to get my first chance to work with and talk to farmers of those crops.

It´ll also be a great chance to meet people in another part of the country. Their accent is bound to be different as well as their political leanings and philosophies. Morazon, the department (equivalent to states in the US) I´m visiting, is located in the northeast corner of the country and historically is known as one of the homes of the FMLN and guerrilla movement during the civil war and as the site of most of the worst massacres that took place during the fighting.

I´ll be sure to take many pictures...I´m sure I´ll have plenty of chances during the plenty of walking I´ll be doing. Also, as could be expected, El Volcan is located very literally on the lip of a huge volcano, so I´m sure I´ll be enjoying some great views. I´ll probably be returning to the relative civilization of the San Vicente area by Monday, so hopefully I´ll get a chance to update the blog with some pictures and stories.

Also, in probably my proudest moment as a Salvadoran, I officially reached VIP status at my favorite little bakery yesterday. The ladies who live there greeted me with two extra free pastries. This meant in addition to my usual haul of three pineapple cakes for $.25, I also got a banana pastry and some other thing that still has yet to be identified. I couldn´t of been happier.