a little busy?!

Monday = crepe party… and man was it a huge success. I was a little bad and only invited people I actually talk to and not everyone in the alcaldia. What can I say, I just didn’t have enough for everyone and my house isn’t that big. Pretty much everyone who was invited, showed up. I had the crepes and chocolate from Belgium and I brought ice cream, whip cream, sugar, and strawberry jam (couldn’t find real strawberries in the store). I served coffee and everything. Surprisingly, they all loved the crepes. I say this because they usually don’t like any of the food I bring/make. In fact, Melina told me she was surprised she like the food, I told her I was too. The chocolate was an amazing success…I had to fight to keep some for myself. It was nice to have everyone over and having a good time, even if I couldn’t understand everything they were saying. They seemed to laugh a lot. I laughed every once and a while.

Tuesday wasn’t so bad, softball was fun. They all loved the new softball (thanks mom and dad) and it is now promptly filthy. When you play in a pasture, washing your hands afterward is a much…a big must. When we were done warming up, we played a small game against a bunch of boys that were nearby.

Wednesday, I had a wonderful opportunity….even though I had to wake up at 3:40 am to take advantage of it, it was well worth it. I went and visited Sam up at his site. In case you are wondering, he’s located up in a larger pueblo near Santa Anna. He has some engineers visiting from Engineers without Borders. I think the name is self-explanatory, but if not, they are like Doctors without Borders, but they design plans and sometime help construct. So, if your town needs a well, for instance, they come down, survey the land, determine the best spot to find water, to put a water tower and test the water once it is pumped. This group helped pay for the digging of the well, but not the system to pump or deliver the water…they will just design that. Anyway, they needed translators…so off I went. For most of the day, we went door to door doing a survey of the town. We asked things such as; how many people live there, the amount of water you use, what water you are drinking, where do you get your water, and how much would you be willing to pay for water to your house every month…those types of things. Sometimes it took me a few tries to get the message across, but overall, I don’t think I did half bad for my first attempt. Later that night, three of us took turns translating for the engineers during a town meeting. They were, basically, explaining what they were doing, why and what more to expect. I think the most humorous part came at the end. The engineers wanted to express their gratitude for all the community had done for them…such as providing housing and food for them. So, the engineer said, “I want to thank you for everything. It had been a life changing experiencing and your kindness had been overwhelming.” Now, Danielle (who was translating) could say all of that except none of us know the translation of overwhelming….so she when she got to that part she said, “no hay palabras para describirlo” = there aren’t words to describe it. Get it…funny right. Maybe you just had to be there. Anyway, anyone who could speak the two languages started laughing…those who knew only one were silent. Anyhow, after we all grabbed dinner and chilled for a little while. It was nice to talk to the engineers and get their opinions on El Salvador. I crashed hard that night.

Finally, that brings us to Friday (I know I skipped a day, nothing much happened). I had a meeting with the directors of schools about a computer project. It was a little confusing in the beginning because people were also coming from FISDEL for a meeting…so somehow, some of them wound up in my meeting and then people came late…but it all worked out in the end. In fact, it was a great meeting. I ran it by myself and was able to explain everything. Some even seem genuinely interested in participating.