Sept 17, 2005
Wow, wow, wow. What an incrediable journey we have had so far. San Pedro is a little town. We live one block from the centro of the community. The streets are cobblestone and fill up with litter as the day goes on. Each day they have street cleaners who come to clean them. Common custom is when done with it drop it. We look hard for trash cans.
The people are the heart and soul of the country for us. Their welcoming of us has been overwhelming with generousity and help. ROLANDO THE PEACE CORP DIRECTOR HAS introduced us into the community in royal fashion. We are treated as royalty by everyone which is a bit much to take. TREAVA ATTRACTS A LOT OF ATTENTION BECAUSE SHE IS SO LINDA, BONITA! I believe it is her blond hair that attracts everyone. Noelle and Vienna also attract attention because of their linda but people are not as outspoken about them. Culturely they seem fine to vocalize about Treava yet understand that with the older two it is better to say only after a friendship is established. We have visited the schools, old folks home and clinic and will begin to volunteer on Wednesday.
THE ADJUSTMENTS ARE MANY. The food is very different. For the first 5 days we had no way to cook so we ate out each day. After being at the market Noelle, Treava, Vienna and I became instant vegetarians. THE MEAT IS ALL OUT OFTEN NOT ON ICE AND WITH MANY FLIES. OR YOU CAN BUY YOUR OWN CHICHEN OR DUCK AND TAKE IT HOME AND KILL IT. if we get hungry enough we will do this. Pupusas have been our mainstay with frijoles soup and tortillas as another.
cooking and living are time consuming here. TO SANTIZE THINGS THEN COOK AND CLEAN UP IT CAN TAKE HOURS WHERE AT HOME IT MAY HAVE TAKEN 30 MINUTES. mOST PEOPLE HERE DO NOT COOK. tHEY EXIST AS A COMMUNITY . tHERE IS THE TAMALE WOMAN , PUPUsas woman, the soupa woman and they deliver to your house. A pupusas dinner for our family may cost us$2.50. I can't cook for that. Washing clothes is done by hand. What an incrediablr feat it is. hard yet is to dry the clothes in the humid environment. It may take 4 or 5 days.
The kids have been great for the most part. The lack of cleanliness was a huge obstacle to overcome. It´s amazing what a week can do to desensitize a person.
LOVE LISA
Hello every one! (its noelle) I miss you all so much! On saturday we played soccer and there is this one realy REALY good kid named pablo, he is my age, and he goes to a all Soccer school where thery practice every day for 2-3 hours. there soccer feilds are very differint, but realy nice to play on.

Missing you all

noelle

hey evey one i miss yu all el savodor is okay but the way they treat the animals is so so sad they kick and hit there dogs and they dont even feed them now i understand wy karla dosent like dogs we might get a dog but that would be so hard because we would have to leave it with some one that we didint no how they would treat it but we might be able to bring it home wit us i miss you all,vienna

Chris:

We noticed that we have a slight drainage problem during a recent thunderstorm as water streamed directly through our kitchen and down into the garden. We must talk to the neighbors about this situation !

My biggest adventure thus far occured last weekend when twenty of us loaded into the back of a small nissan pickup and headed to the beach for a basketball game against the local rivals. We ended up winning the game by about ten points after sweating about 3 bottles of water. Afterwards we drove the beach for a dip into the pacific.

The return trip to San Pedro was a bit on the wet side as the rain started falling just as soon as we left the Costa el Sol.

We are having a grand adventure thus far and having a great experience!