Am I even in another country? Oh, right...

Here in El Salvador, I have plenty of reminders of the United States. They use the US dollar, and despite the poverty, prices are the same, if not more expensive. The cheapest gallon of gas I´ve seen was $4.52. The terrain, minus the volcanoes, looks a lot like the Hill Country, and the kids here all wear clothes donated from the U.S.

Over the weekend, most of the girls go home, but a few, for multiple reasons (their families live far away, their families don´t have space for them, etc) stay here. This is the time when they´re allowed to watch TV or movies. Their favorite is the Disney Channel. So I watched Hannah Montana en español with them, and some Disney Channel movie I´d never heard of but I´m sure my sister has seen it a thousand times already. They´re really obsessed with High School Musical, too. In fact, I asked one of the girls what her favorite song was of all time, and she said ¨You are the Music in Me¨, only it took a few tries for me to get it because I didn´t understand with her accent (and I wasn´t really expecting it). She had no idea what it was about but she loves it anyway. The girls´admiration of the US is really bizarre to me, but I guess it makes sense, since Disney Channel is the only TV channel for kids here. We also watched Beethoven´s 5th and the 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean movie, both new for me.

However, despite the presence of the US, I was quickly brought back to El Salvador yesterday around lunchtime. So far, I couldn´t complain about Salvadoran food, in fact, I´ve loved almost everything I´ve tried... Anyway, I walked into the kitchen to see that lunch was an entire fish, yes, head, fins, tail, everything but the scales, simmering in a pan. Now, I´m not really a big fan of fish in general, so this was just unreal. Sister Marta Julia (or Sor Che, as she´s known, since she spent her childhood in Argentina) hates fish, so she offered me an alternative: Spam. Hmm, decisions decisions. In the end, I decided to give the fish a try anyway, since they were using spices I´d never tried. It actually didn´t taste too bad, but it´s not really the taste that drives me away. It´s the tiny bones, and this fish was full of them. DEFINTELY not of US influence, or at least not what I´ve ever experienced. I choked it down and prayed that there wouldn´t be any leftovers, which there weren´t.

Today is my free day, so I´m meeting with all the VIDES volunteers in El Salvador in the town of Santa Tecla. It´s just outside of San Salvador and apparently the local volunteers plan on taking us on field trips every weekend to check out the country. I´ll let yáll know how everything goes. In the meantime, have a wonderful Sunday!