I feel pretty settled in now. I have most of my routines figured out. I work from 7am to 530pm. At first I was coming home completely exhausted and now I usually go for a run whenever I get back to the house. My favorite part of the day is my walk after work. I have to take 2 buses to get back to my house, but I figured out that I could omit the 1st bus and walk to the bus stop for my 2nd bus in pretty much the same amount of time.
The work has been really amazing lately. I hosted a photo exhibition for a week at my program's campus. These photos had been on display throughout all of the American Embassy and so I had some Peace Corps Volunteers come and speak (in english) to the students at Superate. We talked about the Peace Corps' three goals, the reason each of us became volunteers, why it is good to volunteer, and then we took questions. There were about 3 or 4 students from each grade that asked us questions (again in english).
Later that same weekend I gave a speech at the Sonsonate City Hall on the 11th of September about the National Day of Service and Remembrance. I spoke of my personal memories, the violence, the images. I congratulated the 100s of students that came to volunteer and asked them to remember that we truly honor victims of violence through service to our community, and not with more violence.
The 15th of September is Independence Day and so Carmen and I woke up early and were the first ones at the stadium Magico Gonzalez. We saw over 130 bands, the Armed Forces band, and also a military demonstration. And also we got to see and hear President Funes speak. It was really amazing. And free!
A few days later we went to this really cool waterpark called Termal Del Rio. They had this huge slide that had a 4 story drop which felt like it was straight down. We charged right for it, but Carmen was a little worried. I just said, don't think about it, just come up with me and then we will go down and you will have done it and it will be fun. So we got up, and she said, no, I can't do it. I said, you cannot go down through the stairs, you have to go down the slide, and if you keep thinking about it you are not going to do it. She took about 30 seconds, sat down, and DID IT! When I got down, I said, how was it, and she said, I feel like my heart is in my throat!
Later that day we checked out this thermal pool in the park, one side heated and the other side cool. It was so nice. At night we talked about her big accomplishment and we both realized that we never saw any other girls doing the big slide. She was the only girl who did it!
Finally, I just finished a week of HIV/AIDS and Sex education talks. I feel like there were a lot of myths that we got to discuss and clarify and it was really cool to see the students go from "not really knowing anything" to "very knowledgeable". Right now we are working on an English camp, a leadership workshop, and enjoying the nightly rains.
