Sunday, January 1, 2012

El Salvador Day 2!



Wow! El Salvador is amazing! Although it is very hot, you can easily forget about the tempurature by looking at the beautiful scenery. Everyone is doing very well; we are all healthy and enjoying ourselves immensely! (you can breathe now Mom and Dad, I'm fine.) Yesterday, after we arrived, we met Pastor Ivo, changed and went straight to Church. The service consisted of some beautiful music en espanol, I definitely wish my Spanish was better so I could have understood more of it. The El Salvadorians celebrate the New Year by getting a day off work and setting off a lot of fireworks! We also got to hear about an interesting tradition about eating 12 grapes at midnight, one for each coming month in the next year.
Today, we were given a briefing on the culture and customs of the area and we discussed our plans for the week. We also went on a walking tour of the city, courtesy of Jose. We walked through the ocean side community, we saw the pier, the docks and all the shops and houses. I got to practice some Spanish as I bought some surprises for my sisters back home. (hope you like them girls!) We finished the night with some activities at the Church.
Tomorrow we will get to go to the school and meet the kids, they have off today for the holiday. I'm very excited to see the school and interact with the kids. I'm not sure what to expect, I keep hearing expect to be stretched.  I think this will be an eye-opening and life changing experience.
The food is amazing, by the way. And the people are fantastic! Definitely enjoying the 'warm climate' culture, everyone is so friendly! As soon as you meet someone they start to talk to you, see if you need anything at all and they want to create as warm of an environment as they can. Relationships are far more important than time, you may be late but you had an interesting conversation along the way. I've seen a lot of poverty already, but everyone is so grateful and generous with what they do have, it's amazing.
That's about it for today. !Feliz ano nuevo! Happy New Year!
-Emma

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