dia dos

the second and third days we were there were with out a doubt my favorite days. i mean i loved going to the city and then being with amy, but being in Precidio was by far the most rewarding part of the tirp. first i'll let you look at the pictures and then i'll tell you all about the day.

this little girl was so cute! she wore her pj's because she wanted to go home with us on the airplane. how adorable is that? it absolutely breaks your heart.




























emilytyne and bekah pushing kids on the swings









































kendall tying ribbons in the girl's hair


















lewis, jace and mr tamming putting together a little play house for the kids...the directions were in english, so we helped them out.



















cheyanne coloring with a little boy







































































i loved this little girl! her name is jenny (sp? pronounced yenny). she was absolutely content to simply sit with me on the tire swing. she was very quite and wouldn't talk to you, but if you asked her yes or no questions she would respond by nodding or shaking her head.













kristi playing with the kids on the tire swing. they loved all standing on the side and on her while she swung and twirled around.




































bekah chasing a chicken...so fun















hannah being adorable with the children!

we woke up on friday morning ready to set up stations for when the kids arrived. we worked at them with the different stations for crafts, coloring and games for about an hour or two then many of them went out to play on the soccer field (pictured right) with a giant parachute. i heard they loved it (i stayed with the ones who didn't want to go and colored with them). after we got to play with them for a while on the playground, which was a bunch of fun. after they left to go home for the day (around 12 noon) we all sat down to have some pupusas, which are basically two thick tortillas with beans or meat and cheese (SO GOOD!). we were each only given one and were all still hungry, but not wanting to be rude, we gladly accepted the food, ate it and then proceeded to go back to our cots, where us girls all began exchanging food and pigging out. right after we had satisfied our hunger one of the teachers comes in to tell us that lunch was ready. we all looked at each other and though "wait, didn't we just have lunch?". whops! miscommunication. the pupusas were apparently just a snack. at the time we all were a little grumpy at the fact that we then had to force ourselves to eat all that we could, but at the same time were totally laughing about it. later that afternoon the kids came back and we began painting murals all over the school (i'll post those pics later). we drew most of the things for them and then let them paint some of them. in the end we had some grapes on the kitchen wall that turned out black, some red and green cookies and a bright red (not pink) watermelon. the black grapes and the controversial red watermelon were courtesy of hannah and me! :)

probably another favorite part of the trip for me, was visiting the homes of the local children that attended the school. it was so nice to be able to see where they lived and meet their families. something that truly blew me away while visiting the various houses, was the fact that out of the seven houses we went to, only one house had both a mother and a father. there are just no men to be seen. i kept asking myself why? why is it so acceptable in thier culture for the man of the house to simply take off when they please. it is also very common to have children at a very young age (14, 15 16, 17...). one of the girls that worked at the school is 17 and she has a baby who will be 1 in the next few months. she is my age, yet we are at such different stages of our lives! it blows me away! to understand it better we asked some of the ladies why so many households were like this and the best way that they could explain it to us was in the way that, since most of them don't have the funds to get married, they simply have a "companero"; that translates to something like "companion" in english. the way i understand it is that they are simply friends; they live together, have children together, but they are just "friends" and the man can come and go as he pleases. but, that brings up something else. another family we met, the mother has, i believe, five or six children and the father, a couple months ago just decided to leave. he still lives in the community and wants to see his children, but his kids do not wish to see him. that got me thinking about another factor into this whole cycle that has been going on for years. with each generation and each family this happens to, why don't the kids see the hurt and pain it causes on both them and their mother as they grow up without a father, and make choices that are different from their parents? i guess they have just fallen so far into this pattern and habit that it is just difficult to break. i also don't understand why it is so acceptable to leave a woman when she is pregnant, but when you are father to five or six children, it is a different story. i mean, yes it is more of a burden to the woman the more children she has to care for, but is that really how they measure right from wrong? based on how many children you are or you aren't responsible for? i don't believe it is. and i also don't believe that i, being so immersed in the American culture, will ever be able to fully comprehend their ways and style of life. and i'm not sure that i should. culture is what makes us different, but being humans is what makes us the same. i don't know how i can explain it in words...it is more of just a feeling i have and perhaps i am the only one. it isn't that i don't want to understand their way of life, it's just that i'm not sure that i have the right to. i would hate to fully understand, yet still be so set in my way of life, almost having the attitude that i'm right and they are wrong. well, obviously i'm not doing any better by typing more, so to sum this subject up i will have to say that no matter how different two people or two cultures are doesn't mean that you can't make friendships. i honestly found it easier in the few short days i was there to create relationships with the people in El Salvador than i find it to make friends with a person i sit next to in class everyday. and i don't even speak the same language as these people. now what is that saying about our culture? i don't mean to sound preachy, but i'm just saying...

anyways, the rest of the day consisted of dinner, the adventures of showering and a very insightful group meeting. dinner was pretty good...tamales. and showering at night, in El Salvador, while the wind is blowing, with buckets of water from a concrete basin and with 4 girls is bound to be interesting. hannah and emilytyne couldn't bring themselves to pour the icy water on themselves, so i had the delightful duty of torching them...or at least that is what i felt like was doing as each time i poured a bucket on their head to rinse the shampoo out they screamed. my method was to just pour it on head as fast as possible and not think too much about it. you really had to be there, but it was quite a fun adventure looking back on it.
in our group meeting we discussed all that we had seen that day and basically what i was rambling about earlier.

i'm sorry this post is so long. i guess i just feel like i wish everyone could experience something like this and this was just my feeble attempt to bring you all some understanding. it truly is an amazing place!
i think i've gone on long enough now. thanks for reading!

El Salvador Day 1

alright, so i have returned from El Salvador and boy do i have a lot to say. i'll try to keep it short on my posts (i think i'll go by day), but i have so much to tell. some stuff pretty deep and serious, some funny and some just informational. so if you can try and bear with me...and if you can't, just look at the pictures haha :)

we arrived in San Salvador early (about 7am) on thursday morning and then drove out of the city to the different communities we would be working at (Precidio, Amando Lopez and La Cannoa). upon arriving, it was fully comprehended that it was espanol solamente from then on. at least with anyone who was from El Salvador...not many of them speak any English at all, but despite the language barrier, it was still really easy to communicate and establish relationships.









this is driving from San Salvador to the communities















we got attacked by a herd of cows! haha
















when we arrived at the various communities, we all split up into our three groups and went to a location and played with the kids for about an hour or two, which was fun. this is our group (the Precidio group) at La Cannoa.


Precidio consisted of me, hannah, cheyanne, emilytyne, bekah, kendall, myriah, kristi, lewis and jace. then our leaders were mr. tamminga and mrs. langton.




after we played for a bit all the groups went and met at Precidio for a lunch of carne asada and rice. then we all piled in the buses and went back to La Cannoa for the welcoming ceremony. on the bus i was sitting next to the door and then when the bus came to a stop, i wasn't paying attention to the fact that the door might open. well, you know how bus doors open by sliding and folding? yeah my foot got stuck in the door as it slid by and the door took most of the skin off the side of my foot as it went by, also then crushing my toe in its folds. sick! i didn't want to make a big deal about it (even though my foot was bleeding everywhere), so i just got off and then was going to ask mrs. langton for a band aid when she got off. when i asked for a band aid and then she saw my foot she began freaking out and since everyone was unloading luggage off the bus and no one was listening to her to get the first aid kit, she stands there and screams "we have and emergency!". wait? didn't i not want to make a big deal about this? although i probably needed a bit more than just a band aid, yelling "emergency" was a bit of an exaggeration. funny though. i should have taken a picture of it...i guess i still could except it has pretty much healed by now and doesn't look half as cool...maybe i'll have a sweet looking scar. :)



after i got my foot all bandaged up, we went to the welcoming ceremony.





this is me and amy, looking quite gross (you would too if you had just had a red eye flight) at the ceremony.











a sign welcoming us. it reads in English "welcome supportive brothers and sisters from California to the CDI friends Roxana, Amando Lopez and Precidio" or something along those lines.










the little girls dancing for us; they have been practicing for months! that really hit me hard. just how excited they all were to have us there...it just means so much to see that our group simply making the effort to come down there and visit them means so much to them. also how hospitable they are. they treat you like family and call you family, telling you to come back and stay with them whenever you would like.


































































these next few are some pictures at Precidio later that evening. after we returned from La Cannoa, we had dinner, which consisted of beans and plantains. let me tell you their beans are not really solid, but more of a pure texture and plantains are a certain type of banana that they fry. i could handle the bean pure fine, but the plantains we all had to force down. personally, i just shoveled them down as fast as i could to get it over with. *shudder* that is one thing about El Salvador that i don't think i'm ever going to miss.













where they do laundry and a bit further to the right is the basin where we took buckets to pour over our head for a shower...what a fun experience! (by the way that is NOT sarcasm...i really did enjoy it...great bonding opportunity haha)

















the evening sky. everything there is so serene and beautiful...except the roosters crowing every morning at about 4 am! oh, and the bugs, which is why we sleep with nets. a spider go in kristi's bag one evening; that thing would not die, i hit it with a shoe like 5 times! finally i got it on the sixth try :)






























the bathroom, where, i'm not going to like, we had many interesting and funny things happen.



















hannah had the brilliant idea for this picture :)














i'll try and post some more stuff later...i think i will try and just go from my journal and see how that goes. sorry for the inconsistancy of this post. check back later for more!

yes the tennis team can bowl!

on friday night for a sort of end of the season get together the tennis team had a bowling night! we still have our banquet to come, but it was just kind of fun to do one last "team bonding" thing. and yeah alicia and i planned it like two days before hand, so it was pretty amazing that almost everyone was able to come. :)
since bowling is pretty self explanatory, here are some pictures that i stole from laney's facebook.

sasha and laney...and if you look really close right between them...yep thats me! well, more like my eye and my tongue through their hair.

it was just funny cause they had no idea i was there until they looked at this picture on the screen

then they made me get in their picture as i tried to run away...i only wanted to be in it when they didn't know i was there. haha

me and laney, who for the record, is not taller than i.

brittany kisses her and i lick her...well, what did you expect? :)

we tried to get coach to take a normal looking picture with us, but one of us kept messing it up. like for example, me in this picture, looking off into the distance with a grimace. i have not a clue whypretty much the only decent one...we were trying to make her take her hands out of her pockets to look more natural. i told her to stop looking awkward...

...and her reply was "and this isn't awkward?", as laney and i hugged her.

great picture...the expression on her face really says it all. she totally loves us!

fun night!

now i've been spending my weekend getting all ready for El Salvador! we leave wednesday night! so crazy! i'll try and update before i go if anything remotely interesting happens.

and we would just all be dead...

this week has been ridiculous, with tomorrow already being friday. i feel like i was only in school for three days. oh wait, that's because i was. it was SO nice to have monday and tuesday off...much needed. there isn't too much that is new in my life. i did go see "The Changeling" over the long weekend. it had to be one of the absolute saddest movies i have ever seen...i usually don't cry in movies (at least when other people are around) but a tear or two did leak out every so often. although it was sad, it was still a great movie; one i highly reccomend as long as you can handle a bit of blood/gore.

third period today was completely out of control (as it normally is in ms. admiraal's class); even more so than usual. it started with amy proving proof that i am not the only one who injures myself in that class. last week i managed to be my usual dumb self and hit my head on the wall. i sit in the back corner and i believe allison said something funny, i was laughing and then leaned back and totally hit my head with a loud thud. this caused about half the class to turn and look and then immediately connect what i had just done. and the 10 or so people that didn't notice, were alerted by ms. admiraal going "ouch" and looking at me. nice! only me. oh, well makes for a good story right. today however, was much more entertaining than me just simply being a klutz. amy got to play that role, as she tried to sit on top of my desk, which is broken and not connected to the base. you can imagine the result. so funny! on top of that we had a disaster drill during the first few minutes of third period. we had to act as if a massive earthquake was hitting the school and i must say that in the event of an earthquake my desk in that class would not provide much protection, but rather the top may swing down and decapitate me. lovely thought, eh? after the "earthquake" was over, we all were to file out in an orderly fashion and line up on the softball field. admiraal looked intense sporting her first aid backpack as she jogged out of the building...random. while we were on the softball field, it came to our attention that our class water supply, which was in the first aid backpack, was leaking down her back. so, basically we would all dehydrate and die if we hadn't been killed by the probability that the ceiling miraculously didn't fall down and crush us. the drill made for an interesting day that's for sure.

i am becoming more and more depressed (not really); i haven't played tennis since season ended over a week ago and i am really missing it. i will make an effort to play in the near future, but things are super busy, as i leave for El Salvador on Wednesday. i'm so excited, but at the same time cannot fully comprehend that i am actually going...it still seems so far in the future.

well, best be off to study for my test concerning the United States Congress for the class of government. while i'm thinking of it, this may sound crazy, but sometimes i have the best times in that class. i don't know what i would do without august in that class...we make it fun. we are seriously the loudest people in there, which is saying something because neither of us are particularly ones to talk up a storm in class. oh well.
mmmm brownies are coming out of the oven now...i'm gonna go have one! :)

then things got crazy...

we were on our way to dinner and then everyone sees In and Out and goes "how fun would that be to walk in there all dressed up?" so, that's what we did...we got some pretty strange looks. funniest thing was andrea got up to go to the bathroom and we all ran to the car, got in and i moved it to the other side of the parking lot, then watched as she looked around for us, very confused. poor andrea! but, it was hilarious!































after in and out we got golden spoon! and, uh... just don't ask why we do the things that we do.

check out my sock tan!!! legit!
















totally could be on the cover of vogue or something...at least an advertisement for golden spoon. totally kidding! we were just having fun


















laney! doubles partner! yay















alicia, do you ever shut up? lol





















i like this picture! alicia looks really cute






































andrea, me and hannah. i love them!














matt, looking very attractive. absolutely one of the funniest things i've ever seen! it was totally unintentional...he didn't know the camera was going to flash twice. this is definitely a blackmail picture!!! :)










oh, much better...this one is cute.


i had a blast at formal overall! and even learned to "one two step" haha...i pretty much suck at it. but, even though i can't dance, i try and i still have fun! :)