So things are starting to be more on a schedule here, and the vacation/honeymoon stage is starting to wear off. I'm still completely loving it, but I can see why they say training (these next 2 months) will be crazy. Learning spanish for 8 hours a day straight is not my cup of tea. I see where they are going with this full immersion thing and boy is it difficult. But its something that will completely pay off in the end.

Let me quick do a day in the life:
- 530: wake up with the roosters
- 630: finally get out of bed
- 630-633: work up the courage to do the first pour over my head with my freezing cold bucket bath :)
- 700-730: get ready, eat breakfast; mainly scrambled eggs, bread, beans, and cafe con leche
-800-1200: spanish class - there are only 3 of us in this class with a wonderful, patient teacher. There are 5 volunteers total living in the same community as me, Apastepeque. The 33 people in my training group are now broken down into 7 different villages around the San Vicente area
-1200-1:00: my lunch break- I go back to my house to eat (since our class is at another volunteers house, in which we literally share a backyard) For lunch I've been having some chicken, rice, beans, tuna fish sandwiches, and just recently some fish (the whole fish)
-1:00-400: the 3 of us meet with the other 2 members of our group (who are fluent spanish speakers) and work on our community projects. This week it was just some meetings; Wednesday we went to a school, and had alittle meeting and did some observing. On Thursday, we met with the mayor to discuss possible ideas for our upcoming community projects. I will let you know in an upcoming blog what our projects will be (once I find out more)
- 4:00-4:30: debrief with the group about our day, and other stuff. Its just so nice to have that time chatting with great people and in ENGLISH again. It certainly helps with the headaches (learning many new things at once on top of learning how to speak again can be really hard on the brain) My group is wonderful, and we all seem to get along well together. Not to mention, we live in Apastapeque, which is one of the higher end communities in the area. I mean, I have wireless internet and a maid at my house. This could potentially be a bad thing when its time to go into my new community, with less luxuries and more animals and bugs roaming through my house. (Will worry about that when the time comes)... But for now, I'm enjoying being completely spoiled by my family and how clean and safe this town really is.
- 4:30- 5:00 have a little "me" time and play on my slack line.
- 5:00 - 10:00 : dinner (usually more chicken, rice, beans, and pupusas (the speciality here in El Salvador), read in the hammock, watch a movie in spanish/study spanish (depending on how much motivation I have), or just watch endless episodes of Lost, or another American movie

That's pretty much how things go 4 days a week. 1 day we have off (Sundays), 1 day we go on a field trip (Saturday), and 1 day we go into San Vicente to our training center with our WHOLE group. My commute to work on Tuesday involves standing on the back of a pickup truck with anywhere from 20-40 people, holding on for dear life.

I realize learning spanish is just like a game... How much am I going to understand today? How many times will I have to repeat myself to people? And how frustrated am I going to feel at the end of the day? It's a fun game I play with myself... It's like the saying goes, "when life throws you lemons, make lemonade", right? It's inspiring meeting other PCV who were at the same level as me, and are now completely fluent. Remember in 4th grade when I had that speech impediment and couldn't say my "R's". Well now its back, and learning how to roll my R's is the hardest thing ever. Even words like "Quiero" and "trabajar" have been proven very difficult for me.

I realize it's all about the simple things in life to El Salvadorians (reason number 3,434 why I wanted to join the peace corps.) Like standing on your door step for hours on end just watching the people pass by, sitting with me at dinner even if they already ate and not many words being exchanged, and spending alot of time in the hammock! Mainly, I enjoy how family oriented they are. My house shares a backyard with 3 other houses (all family) so throughout the day, family just passes in and out. It took me a couple days to finally get who actually lives in my house, which is a grandmother, Mila, her daughter Idulia (who is 34), her husband Jorge and their beautiful baby Jose. They all have been really helpful in teaching me spanish, and don't judge no matter how ridicolous I may sound to them.

Today we took a "field trip" to Morazan (which is about 3 hours away from here), just another reminder on how beautiful this country really is. In Morazan we visited a PC volunteer at his site, and then went to the school where he works. We played with all the little kids there, and did many ice breakers. It gave me a small dose of the next 2 years of my life, and I am getting completely stoked.

Unfortunately on the way there, I saw an awful site; a dead dog in the street with its alive puppy lying next to him. It's still very hard for me to see all the dogs roaming the streets in search of food and love. I went to the gym tonight and there was an adorable puppy there in which I couldn't help but sit and pet him, before the owner proceeded to tell me that that dog was a street dog and probably not a good idea to pet him. Oops.

Well thats it for now....
Buenas Noches!