Day 1: Saturday, February 19 (for real this time!)

Our flight left from DCA at 5:45, so it was a very early morning at the airport! But we all showed up in good time and made it through security in good order. When wearrived in San Salvador, we were greeted by throngs of people waiting to welcome their loved ones home.

We were met by Alex, who would be our guide and help for the week. He has been with Habitat for El Salvador for about a year, and he spends weeks at a time with teams of volunteers, working with them on the build site, translating, and generally acting as community relations for anyone that drops by the site.

From the airport we drove the 45 minutes or so to San Salvador, where we checked into ourhotel for the night, an extremely beautiful hotel called the Hotel Villa Terra. We settled in for a bit, and then a group of us went on a short walk around the neighborhood, just to check things out. We were too far to really get into the heart of downtown, but we enjoyed the ramble just the same.

One of the things we have noticed are the ever-present armed guards, at pretty much every store, and definitely at every hotel. We asked, and Alex told us that it was to guard against thieves and other forms of crime; we speculated that it was a case of a store having to hire a guard so as not to be more vulnerable than its neighbors. We kept being reassured that there wasn’t that much crime, but these pistol-grip shotguns didn’t really ease our minds. Still, every guard we met was super nice!

It’s also incredible to note all the flowers and trees in bloom. It’s mind-boggling to think that it’s the middle of February, and there are things blooming all over, even though this is the “dry season,” so the open areas are not as green as they are in the wetter times. Still, it is beautiful!

After the walk, most of the group found a small taco stand, where they had some drinks andlight food (we didn’t have any food on the planes, so we were quite hungry!).

For dinner, Alex took the group to a (very popular) restaurant, one of his favorites, which specializes in “typico” food—pupusas (stuffed corn tortillas—practically the national food of El Salvador), plantains, beans, tamales, fried yucca, and lots of other delicious food and drink! We also ate with another group in El Salvador at the same time. They were from Canada, and they will be building in a completely different area of the country.

While everything was so delicious, it had been a very long day, and it is time for bed!