So on the plane ride from Houston to San Salvador I had the privilege of sitting next to a father and son from San Salvador. They moved to Texas two years ago and have not been back since then. The father could not speak English but I could understand what he was saying and the son would translate anyways. The son was about ten years old, very nice and spoke very good English. I taught him how to play the "Go Fish" card game and father taught us how to play "trienta y uno" or "31". It was basically blackjack.

Anyways, as we flew into San Salvador we went over the ocean coast which was surrounded by mountains; everything was so lush green and beautiful. We landed and the airport looked like a cheaper version of a small American airport. We waited to purchase our ten dollar tourist card (we waited forever because we got stuck behind a high school church group from Ohio), got our luggage, went through "customs" haha and exited. It was like 95 degrees, beating sun, and so humid. I thought I was going to die. We then met with the other Casa students, staff and buses. We drove about 30 minutes to our houses which are in the area called Antiguo Cuscatlan. The rural area was so pretty but the civilians lived in horrible conditions. Our house is about an 8 to 10 minute walk from the UCA or University of Central America. That is where we will be starting our Spanish class on monday. These next few days are orientation and tours of the area. I am living in Casa Silvia and a few photos of it are on Santa Clara's website.
When we arrived at the Casas, we ate lunch, moved into our rooms and met the cooks and other staff. Both houses, Romero and Silvia, are very nice for the area that we are in. We have eaten all of our meals in Romero so far and it is literally two houses away from Silvia. The food is good, lots of rice, beans and tortillas. We have had these like potato omelet-like things, these fried rolled up green beans with cheese, fried chicken and fish. For breakfast we just serve ourselves cereal or bread with peanut butter. For the remainder of Tuesday we took a tour of the town, ate some awesome popsicles and played Apples to Apples. That night I took my first ICE COLD shower...it was horrible!
On wednesday we started our orientation. We did an ice-breaker and talked about rules, safety, health and the culture. We then ate lunch, heard our Community Coordinators  suggestions/experiences, and watched a film on the Salvadoran Civil War from 1980 to 1992.

I will write more a little later...sorry !!!