Last Friday, I got a shocking text and then a phone call from my APCD Claudia, saying that my Close of Service date had been moved up from September 15 to April 30.  This means I will have 5 months less to complete the projects, camps, trainings, and community improvements I had planned.  While I [...]

When I accepted the invitation to become a Peace Corps volunteer here in El Salvador, I did so with relatively open eyes.  I don’t think anyone takes a job in a third world country thinking their level of security will be equal to what it was in the U.S.  They may even take the job [...]

Aug. 29, 2011 So, once upon a time I had a blog, which I occasionally wrote in, and lately I’ve been thinking I should start it up again. I can’t honestly say I haven’t had the time to write, because we all know better, but I’ll have to blame it being a chronically poor journal-writer. [...]

For those who aren’t facebook experts, I’ve uploaded a few photos taken at my site, hopefully they’ll give a little insight into my community on the frontera

Tonight in my training community of San Isidro, San Vicente, our group of 4 volunteers went out to the cancha with a huge group of kids to launch a paper hot air balloon (made in one of our training classes) that we thought was surely going to just burst into flames.  We rehearsed with the [...]

So some of my lovely friends and family have been asking what they can send me, so here’s a little list to start, but truthfully I’ll be excited to get anything, even just a card with a photo- people in my site love seeing pictures of my friends and family from back home!  My address [...]

SO I’ve had a little more free time……   9.24.10 I got myself out of bed this morning, which for some reason I counted as a accomplishment, having been unable to sleep well last night.  After slowly washing some clothes in the hot sun this morning and helping my host sister Caren make about 40 [...]

Sunday, 9.19.10 I arrived in El Pital, my new home, Friday afternoon after a full morning spent in San Sal getting to know my counterparts and getting ‘oriented’ for the next two months.  Most of our Youth Development group seemed to be inagreement: we just wanted to get  out of this freezing conference room at [...]

Later today our group of 30 “aspirates” will officially be sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers in San Vicente.  The last two months have seemed to fly by- except for those long mornings spent in 4 hour training sessions or spanish classes.  I wouldn’t say these last two months have been easy, but then again [...]

I know…. I’ve had terrible, terrible blogger guilt for weeks about not writing, and honestly, after the first few weeks, I didn’t know where to even start: so much had happened, and I couldn’t possibly write it all! Later today I’ll have my final language interview to determine my level (novice, intermediate, advanced) and sublevel [...]

Hi! I made it into San Salvador this morning at 5:40am, and now I’m settled at our hotel in San Vincente after our bumpy bus ride and orientation classes that lasted until 1pm today.  I really like everyone in my group so far, and this country is beautiful!!!  Tons of mountains and volcanoes that we [...]

Hi!  In two days I’ll be flying to Los Angeles for orientation, and then on to San Salvador to start Peace Corps training for 11 weeks.  I wanted to have a easy way to update friends and family during the next two years, so hopefully I’ll be able to update this fairly often. Nothing very [...]