The Beginnings

I`ll do my best to get all caught up. For about 5 months now I´ve been living here in El Salvador; three months of training in San Vicente and about two months at my site, the little cowboy cantòn, Cacajuatalejo. Training mostly consisted of Spanish classes, tech sessions, a few field trips and nights out with the other trainees. Also, I spent a good deal of time with my host family in the little community of Molineros. I got along splendidly with my host family by the way, but I´ll write about them another time.
I had fun getting to know other volunteers in my training group; 26 of us in all. Having peers to share the beginning of this experience with was comforting in many ways. Although all of us here decided to take this job for an assortment of different reasons, we didn´t have to start this thing alone. Essentially, 10 weeks of training gave me time to get my feet under me and begin to adapt to , well, life in a foreign country.
I swore in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer on November 31, 2006. We went to the American embassy in San Salvador, rose our right hand and swore to uphold the constitution, etc. Had a party afterwards. It was great. So now we´re volunteers. After 10 weeks of hand-holding, we are on our own. That was certainly a vulnerable experience; rolling into my community on a bus late on a Friday afternoon. I hadn´t made any sort of temporary boarding arrangements before this, and I distinctly remember that feeling in my stomach as the bus pulled away from the dirt road intersection in the middle of my Cantòn (village), my new home. All i could think was - well now what?
Of course much has happened since my arrival to Cacagua (short for Cacahuatalejo), and I´m excited to share some of what has progressed. Until then...