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Living in San Salvador: no car, no Spanish, but good friends
Before coming to El Salvador, I had never taken even one day of Spanish classes. I didn’t even know that I was coming here until spring break. I had always studied French in preparation for conservation work in a place like Cameroon or Rwanda. But as life has its many twists and turns, I ended up here (and I’m very glad I did).
Entrance to the Cinquera Forest near the river.
Because of my language problem I was very shy when I first arrived here; mostly because I didn’t want people to know that I was that annoying gringa who had the nerve to come to their country not even speaking the language. Slowly but surely I got over that, and managed to make friends with those in the office that did speak English, even if it was only a little bit. And some people have even appreciated my ignorance because it has forced them to improve their English. I now, surprisingly, can follow most conversations, and can say enough in Spanish to get me in or out of trouble depending on how you look at it. And when I do manage to get something out that is understandable, I usually get some chuckles and “awww’s” from my colleagues who for some reason think it’s cute.
Ive been very lucky that a lot of my coworkers are around my age, and that they like to go out and travel and have fun. I am also lucky that two of them have a car because even with the public bus system; it’s sometimes too dangerous for me to use the buses when I have my laptop, or if it is late at night. I’ve made good friends and fast: a Dutch Couple, two Salvadoran couples, and my house mates……just to name a handful. We’ve gone out dancing, bowling, and playing pool. I even got to meet the adopted orphan deer, Julien, which was taken in by my friends Melissa and Luis after he was found abandoned in a burned field. We’ve travelled Suchitoto, a beautiful small town about 40 minutes out of the city to have lunch and then continue on to Cinquera Park looking for snakes (we didn’t find any), but we did make it back to town to have dinner in a fantastic restaurant. And just to put this in perspective……..all of these things were in one weekend! We really know how to pack in the good stuff in a short amount of time, so we can get back to work on Monday ;) It’s the people that you are with, not necessarily the place, that really make or break this kind of experience.
Housing is another element that can be a bit tricky when doing an international internship. In this case it was left up to me to find my own housing. Some of the other interns are still living out of a hotel at $15/night (and that’s a volunteer discount)! I have been fortunate once again thanks to Ian Varley, who got me in touch with a young woman named Lavinia Jura. She had been working with the Crisis Corps in El Salvador for some time, and was looking for someone to replace her in a house of 3 other young professional women, as she was returning to the states in the beginning of June. What a lucky break for me! I moved in and have enjoyed living with my diverse and wonderful roommates ever since. If you decide to do an international internship I suggest making finding housing a priority. It can save you a lot of time and, money, and headache, and I know I would hate to be living out of a hotel for three months.
My work on my project is still limited at the moment to data cleaning, organizing, and literature searching, but I am getting closer to doing some actual statistical crunching. Until then I’ll keep staring at excel with my favorite tunes blaring away.
