Hola a todos,
On Saturday we finally had a chance to sleep in past 8, although the sounds of the streets made it hard to sleep in much longer. Honking cars, barking dogs and people yelling do not quite have the same soothing quality of a lullabuy. After crawling out of our mosquito netted beds, we had a lazy breakfast which probably included some form of beans. The education team (Karissa and I) spent the morning finalizing our workshops for Education Day which was to be held later that day, while others lounged around the hostel. Karissa and I headed downtown to buy a few supplies for our workshop where we were suprised to see the local market open. The market is open from about 6am to 6pm, and it is where the locals go to buy most of there grocerie (no Copps, Piggly Wiggly, Woodmans, ClubFoods or Trader Joes here). At the market we saw anything and everything being sold for fairly low prices (even saw an interesting looking bottle labled vodka, which held a golden syrupy substance---which we later found out was really honey).
Later that afternoon we piled into the bed of our Kia pick up truck and our driver Don Carlos took us to the Nuevo Ferrocarril (one of the communities where we work). As Karissa and I set up for our education day, others took water samples from around the community testing for fecal matter. The children trickled in little by little (even though the workshop was scheduled to start at 2, latin hour had most of the kids arriving at least 30 minutes late). We kept the kids busy by singing and attempting to teach them songs like If Your Happy and You Know It, and The Wheels on the Bus. The found it quite intertaining and seemed to like hearing us sing....not sure if they were amused at our lack of musical talent, or the fact that we were singing in a language foregin to them.
Finally, after we had about 70 kids there, we started the workshops. Karissa, along with help from Andy, Ian, Chris and Bryan and some locals, headed up workshops on Saftey near the Construction site, Water Conservation and pH testing, and a handed out coloring books and crayons. In the meantime, Nikki, Erin and I taught workshops on Proper Hand Wahing and Proper Dental Hygine. We also taught the kids some songs on these topics and did an experiment. We had some volunteers brush their teeth then we had them chew these special tablets which dyed the leftover plaque on their teeth purple. They found it quite amusing, and soon everyone was demanding that they be able to try too. After the workshop ended we haded out bars of soap to the kids, and I was soon attacked by what was no longer an organized line of children, but a crazy mob of children saying ¨Deme unooo, deme unooo¨(Give me one, give me one).
After arriving safely back at our hostel, we all showered and traded in our jeans, Tshirts, and work boots for a more fancy attire as we had planned to up to hit the big citayyy of San Salvador for dinner. After feasting on various typical dishes, we proceeded to dance the night away to a live band playing salsa, cumbia and bachata music!
Saludos,
Elizabeth ¨Ellie¨ Purcell
(writing from Ian´s account)
