Greetings from San Salvador, one of those cities that makes you wonder who the idiot was who decided to put a city here. San Salvador is home to almost 30% of the population of El Salvador (mas o menos 5.7 million people), and we are all living in the shadow of an active volcano. I mean really... were they just too tired to cross to the other side of the mountains? Did they not know how close the coast is (<30km)? So the name "Valley of Hammocks" is because there are so many earthquakes, that most of the poor people in San Salvador just sleep in hammocks so the tremors don't wake them up.
There's much to share about my trip, especially as I enter my 5th week here, 4th week at Vision Mundial where I'm doing more than some gringo probably should be doing.
But more than anything, I wanted to put myself out there a little bit and admit that doing this living abroad thing is just hard. In part, it's because I came in highly unprepared to survive on my Spanish ability (it's getting better after a month... going to church in Spanish is kind of interesting. When you don't know the language, I focus on the structure of things to guide me along a lot, and i feel more like an anthropologist or sociologist than a wanna-be economist). But I think being away from family, close friends, and significant others flatly sucks too, beyond the language barrier. To all the Peace Corps vets, I don't know how the hell you do twenty seven months of this, because to me, the romance of travelling the world wore off a while ago, and it's been a month. So this isn't the "maybe I'm not cut out for this whole development thing after all" blog post... but maybe the one to offer some encouragement to anyone who is in DC or at home, cuz i'd certainly like to be there a lot of the days I spend here. Not all, but some.
There are so many good reasons for me to be here, but one thing I do know, is I'm certainly no field junkie (BRW).
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3 comments:
That first sentence nearly made me spit out my tea! Keep up the excellent work and keep us up to date.
I hear you my friend. I'm having an amazing experience over here that I wouldn't trade for the world, but I have to admit that every day I think about how it will be nice to come home. I haven't made up my mind about whether or not I could live overseas instead of just travel, but it seems doubtful to me as well. Still, I have no doubt you'll be glad you did this.
Great to hear some stories from The Savior. I'm too early in my trip to be able to reciprocate to your emotional state. But in past travels...including in El Salvador...I defitely felt it. I think what I took away is that I was not meant to be long term in my previous travels, so I didn't think I could stay in those places long term. My "real life" was put on hold while I was away, so of course I wanted to return to it. Friends were back home, girlfriends were back home, work/school was back home, and I wasn't prepared mentally for staying away from them. I guess I just assume that when/if there comes a time when I'm supposed to be overseas that all of those things would somehow work out.
Also, I think that being in a predominantly English-speaking country helps. There are fewer barriers to society which tend to make you feel like an alien.
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