Our flight was scheduled to depart at 6:25 am to Miami. We had a short layover in Miami and then on to San Salvador. I woke around 3 am but waited to get out of bed until 4 am. Because I had a little delay at check in (due to the fact that my last name on my ticket did not have a hyphen in it and my passport did-I didn't book my ticket), it would have been better if I arrived at the airport earlier. Luckily, they didn't make me change my name on my ticket. I was told that was a possibility. Anyway, I made it through security. I think it helped that the person looking at my information was also named Melody. It isn't often that happens. :) She concentrated more on my first name and didn't seem to care about the hyphen situation. In fact, no one did. Fortunately, I made it shortly before they started boarding the flight. Both of our flights were on time and everything went very smoothly. We arrived in San Salvador around 1:05 their time which is an hour earlier than ours. It was time to take a quick trip to the restroom before going through customs. As we had been told, there is no flushing of toilet paper in El Salvador. This I was less than excited for. All toilet paper must be put in a basket next to the toilet. Fortunately, most have covers. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but among many other more important things I came home thankful for, I am thankful we can flush toilet paper in the U.S!
I was a little nervous to go through customs in San Salvador. Even though I have taken Spanish several times over the years, I am still very much a beginner. I haven't noticed it being this way in the U.S. but in San Salvador, they separate the lines-one for the visitors to the country and one for citizens of El Salvador. I guess I fit in pretty well because when the worker looked at me, he waved me to the line with the citizens. I just thought they were trying to distribute the lines evenly or something so I followed his gesture. I am not sure if he said anything. If he did I didn't catch it or understand it but one of the people in my group was obviously paying more attention than I was and called me back to the other line. We had a good laugh at that.
We were told that Cesar would be our guide, host, translator, etc and would be waiting for us at the airport. We didn't see him inside so we continued on to the outside. It was very warm and humid and there was a sea of people from El Salvador waiting for their friends and family right outside the doors. Fortunately, Cesar was there standing with a sign and he took us to his van. All of our bags were loaded in one van and we took another. As we waited for the van to pull up, everyone was talking about the heat and humidity. Cesar told us that we were closer to the ocean at the airport and that it would be cooler in San Salvador. The drive was about 45 minutes to an hour.
We were headed to Casa Los Pinos, where we would spend most of our time. We didn't really know what to expect but I think we were all very pleasantly surprised. It was a large house. I believe there were 8 bedrooms, each with several beds and a bathroom. We separated into rooms. I stayed upstairs with 2 others, Lynn and Erika, both staff at Augsburg. I have pictures I will share but the house was decorated very nicely. For the most part, it had a very homey feeling to it. There were family pictures in the living room. I immediately took notice of one of the pictures of the owner, Betty's, granddaughter. It looked just like Mariah when she was younger! I am going to locate a picture of Mariah and I hope to post them both. There were some pictures upstairs that definitely indicated Betty's political interests. We would later hear about her involvement in the armed conflict.
Photo of Mariah. I think they look so much alike!
I didn't know it yet, but I would actually feel very spoiled there. We had every meal cooked for us, dishes were taken care of, and our rooms and bathrooms were cleaned daily. The staff, Marta and Rosie, worked very hard and we all really liked them. We also got to know Betty and her son, Medardo. They lived at the house so we saw each of them every day. Medardo was the only one who spoke English as he had left the country to live for some time in Canada. He had just recently returned but we did our best to speak with the others and a couple members of our group could help translate if Medardo wasn't around.
Cesar gave us a schedule of our days in El Salvador and a fact sheet about the country which we spent some time discussing. He walked us through the neighborhood to a nearby mall so if we needed or wanted to, we could return in the future as long as we walked with at least 1 other person. I didn't realize there would be so many American restaurants. There was a Burger King, Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and Mister Donut.
The first day was pretty laid back as everyone was tired from the long day of traveling but some of us did go to a nearby bar/restaurant a few blocks away. While it was covered, it was open to the outside and it was really nice out so it was great to relax there. I was hoping for a margarita but they didn't seem to have any. The others had beer or lemonade. I was a little nervous about eating or drinking out so since there wasn't a margarita, I just decided to skip it and just visit. I found out that some of the students we went with stopped there later and asked for a margarita and they ended up being served some strange food item that was in a large glass that looked like a margarita glass. None of them speak Spanish so I am guessing they were gesturing and that is what they ended up with. They described it as having cold chicken and salsa in it as well as other things. They didn't eat it and it cost like $7 or $9 dollars and they ordered 2. They were pretty disappointed but we had a good laugh at that. I was glad I wasn't served that! I am sure it helped that Erika was with us. Her Spanish skills were excellent which was very helpful in many situations.
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