Halloween

It was off to celebrate Halloween this past weekend in San Vicente…home of the trainees (even though no trainee attended). I got going Saturday morning after a quick visit to Rachael’s site…she seemed to need a visit. Some garbage project in need of more help. I was initially supposed to stay and help with a garbage pickup, but she could tell I really didn’t want to be there, so she let me go. Yey!

After about 4 ½ hours of bussing fun, I finally arrived in San Vicente and promptly checked into the wrong hotel. Apparently I never got the memo about the switch. After I found out about the switch I was able to get my money back and move to the proper hotel. It was then time to eat! San Vicente just happened to be having a food festival in the park. So, I met up with two other volunteers that had arrived and chowed down on some local cuisine. I must say, the goat roasting away was disturbing…it still had it's head and eyes. Ewww. But, the food was great (It's kinda funny how I know crave some local food, like the tortillas…but I’m not quite doing the whole beans thing yet.) and we chilled with a Salvadorian friend, he is the owner of the bar where we had the party. After that it was off to walk around town and find an internet place with Stephanie. All of them were closed…but we only found this out after walking in the rain for about ½ an hour. We then walked to the bar in the rain (why not, we were already soaked) in order to help set up for the party. Nobody was at the bar yet to let us in…so we stood there until some nice Salvadorans let us wait in their house…away from the rain. They even gave us towels to dry off with and clean our glasses. Once the other volunteers and the bar owner came, we just talked and carved watermelons! They came out awesome and it was mad fun to do. I might carve one for Halloween. Then it was to the hotel…finally…to get ready for the party. Since I had been carrying my backpack with me during the day, it to was soaked along with pretty much all my stuff. But my costume wasn’t to badly damaged and so I got ready.

After getting ready, we headed back to the bar, finished up the preparations and then went back to the park to hunt down some dinner. I have to remember that down here things with names from taco bell aren’t what is cooked at taco bell. But, again I was please with what I found. We also picked up some snacks and liquor at the local supermarket. The owner of the bar didn’t really have liquor stocked, mostly just beer, so he said we could bring our own. Which was cool of him. Then the party started.

Everyone just started showing up at the bar, though in the end there weren’t too many of us. I was a schoolgirl this Halloween and even got my outfit from a real schoolgirl. Others were a butterfly, a tick, a punker, a muumuu (think homer simpson), black eyed peas (literally, girls with black eyes and P´s taped to their shirts) and just random things. Two of the guys shaved their heads into Mohawks. But, some of the ladies forgot their costumes on the bus and so we had some normally dressed people as well. It was great to see everyone and we just hung around and talked for most of the night. I enjoyed seeing everyone, getting out of my site and speaking English. During the party there were some down points. The first being that the person who was suppose to buy my Shakira ticket either did and gave it away or never bought it…so now I have to hunt one down. The second thing being that along with the volunteers were a bunch of unknown Salvadorans. That sounds so wrong, but it is only because we know the owner and were cool with the owner´s friends, but others showed up that neither us nor the owner knew…so, by the end of the night my little money thing went missing along with the $30 inside of it. I was a little peeved. But, another girl had her digital camera stolen…so I guess I was lucky. I was mostly mad at myself for letting my bag out of my site. But, friends took pity on me and bought me a few beers.

So, after the party we headed back to the hotel at around 1:30ish or earlier. Now, my Irish/German blood lines are wasted on me because no matter how little I drink I always feel ill afterward. So, at about 4am my stomach decided it was time for me to wake up and spend the rest of the night awake. That made me pretty miserable for Sunday’s trip back to my site. Which I had to do in semi wet jeans. I had only brought one pair of jeans and they got soaked the day before in the rain and didn’t have time to fully dry over night. The bright side was I got some reading done.

I did make a quick stop into the main office on my trip back to my site. I was a good little citizen and mailed my absentee ballot from the office on Sunday. The office can send these things via the embassy and their mail is quicker then regular mail…so I’m hopeful it will arrive on time. Though, I must say it looked like hell after spending the weekend in my backpack, but I think it’ll still count.