Jacobito (Jake) speaks his mind

This past Monday marked my first week in El Salvador. I have felt welcome here from the moment I was greeted at the airport but now I am really feeling comfortable and am adjusting to the Salvadoran life style. I want to share some with you several moments that have stood out to me in the past 8 days.

When I first arrived I was so excited to take everything in, I wanted to indulge myself into the culture. After a short walk on the beach we met Cristina at the market and it was time to eat. I couldn’t wait to get my first taste of Salvadoran food, on our walk over we had past market after market of outside vendors and all of the food looked so good. As we talk about where to eat I figure we should leave it to the Salvadoran man, Cristina’s brother, to decide. (After all he should know where the best food is right?) He tells us about this other store in which you can see the hot food right in front of you. Sounds good right? That store turned out to be Walmart. Which is in fact where I ate my first Salvadoran meal.

Lessons have been learned… The first day at the library I had gone outside with a group of kids to play this game with circular frisbee-like disks. After the game was over everyone helped clean up except the oldest kid, Rudy. I went inside to recruit him to help find the last of the disks. Not only was he avoiding me but he was laughing at me. At first I thought he was just having fun and not wanting to help clean up but he was REALLY avoiding me. Later that day I learned why. I had been telling him to acompañarme, which means to accompany me. However, in El Salvador it means to have a committed relationship, live together and probably have kids. Turns out Rudy did not want to acompañarme.

Another day we were traveling with Edinielson to houses in Las Delicias to tell people about an organic food project the community is starting. At one house Claire and I learned to make tamales. When we had finished one woman told us that now we were ready to be married. The very next day, when I was at another family’s house with Larry, I stepped on the tail of a cat. That woman told me that I would never get married. I guess I missed my one day shot when I been ready to wed.

And finally the gym. A neighbor of ours had told us he goes to the gym down the street, the next time I saw him I asked to go with him sometime. As of now I have gone three times already. The culture of this gym could not be more similar to ours. The only real difference is the abundance of heavy metal music blaring from the speakers. The gym is essentially a house with multiple rooms filled with weights. It reminds me of my old high school weight room, minus the awful stench. Everyone there is very friendly and the owner of the gym gave me the “friend discount”.  I am curious to see how long my neighbor will put up with bringing the Gringo foreigner to the gym with him but for now all is well and in case we run into trouble I have a lot of macho metal fans to watch our backs.

This entry has been light and fun, I have tried to portray just how great my time here has begun. There have been serious, humbling moments as well and each day I am learning more Spanish. Already I have felt a major improvement in that department. Thank you all so much for the support from home, this experience would not have been possible without it. Hasta Luego.