A Week of Firsts

Well, I'm almost at the one week mark and it has certainly been an interesting experience thus far. I have spent the majority of my time at the office getting used to the people and the routines. Everyone remains amazingly nice and, with Eva out of town for a conference, everyone has been taking turns picking me up and dropping me off at the apartment. The majority of the week was fairly slow with me reading reports on the Mediation Project and the state of the justice system in El Salvador. Everyone is doing their best to incorporate me into the workings of the office as much as possible while I wait to have Eva return and for Mark to arrive. When both of them are in San Salvador I will be able to begin working on my main project for the summer, whatever that may be. [Side note: Salvadoran culture is extremely laid back and so the sharing of details before I came was pretty minimal. Luckily I was forewarned and I'm simply going with the flow and enjoying my chance to be in such a beautiful place for the summer until I do get the details I need.] So far my main function has been to aid in translating and proof reading messages from the office to USAID and other contacts who speak English.

Yesterday was a big day for me, however, because I was taken on a series of visits to several of the local mediation centers. This summer will see the beginning of a major evaluation program of the Mediation Project and a consultant has been hired by my office to evaluate the current efforts to publicize the work of the mediation centers and to make recommendations for improvements or additions. It was very interesting to finally see the place I had been reading about and to learn more about the way the centers function and their situation within the justice system. The fun part of the day was of course the fact that I spent most of it traveling with people who don't speak a lot of English and the Mediation Center Coordinators we spoke with didn't speak any English. Many of you know that the language issue was one that sincerely concerned me before coming to El Salvador. It is most definitely still a problem BUT I learned yesterday that my comprehension is not as bad as I had feared. I was able to follow the conversations fairly well and luckily we did meet up with a young man who works for the National Coordinating Office for the Mediation Centers who was able to roughly translate the parts of the conversation I was not able to understand. It was a very interesting but definitely exhausting day.

So that was my first week in my first formal office position. Those weren't my only "firsts" this week, however. On Wednesday I had my first pupusas. For those of you who do not know what pupusas are: they are a very traditional and popular food in El Salvador y son deliciosos (they are delicious). They consist of handmade corn tortillas filled with quesillo (a Salvadoran cheese) and they can also have chicharrón (pork), frijoles refritos (refried beans), ayote (squash), or loroco (an edible flower) among other fillings. Rocío was kind enough to take me to a local pupusaría where she bought me one of every kind of pupusa they had for me to try. Out of the four she bought I probably ate the equivalent of 2.5-3 of them. We also took a picture of me eating one to make Go jealous so here you are Go...



I have one last first to share that is a little embarrassing but I think it's a bit amusing as well. First, you need to understand that the climate in El Salvador is actually so mild year-round that most homes don't have heating or cooling systems. This also means many homes do not have water heaters, mine included. As a result, for my first week I was taking VERY cold showers thinking I didn't have much choice in the matter. Tonight, however, I was in less of a hurry to shower and I took the time to examine the unusual shower head and realized it had a switch on it and voltage rating. Lo and behold, the shower head is designed to warm the water! Now the water is by no means hot. I wouldn't even call it warm. But it is no longer so cold that I feel like I am getting a bucket of ice water poured over me through a colander. So, this is my first electric shower head and I had my first shower that didn't turn me blue since leaving the States. I hope you got a chuckle out of my ignorance because frankly I thought it was pretty amusing.

My best to everyone in their various summer locations. I hope to soon be able to tell you more about this interesting city and about my fascinating projects at the office. Adios!