No, it didn't get the best of me, I just have been a slacker. I was only in the hospital 2 days and then I was kept for shots 4 days in the capital, and then they let me go! But man, do I have a TON of pictures to get around, and they are almost all from other people! I really havent carried my camera around much lately. These rechargeable batteries have really lost their usefulness and I've yet to buy new ones.
Man, where to start... get ready for a random succession of picture stories. Starting with SOFTBALL. Enough said. We went out to a friends community on the West side of the country to play in a tourney with some of the National team players, not too shabby!
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| Looks whos catching. |
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| oops. |
Yep, next is the trip to Nicaragua that I went on with two fellow volunteers. It was my first time in Nicaragua... we left here at 530am and got to Managua at 4pm. From there we grabbed a micro down to Granada and stayed the night. Granada was cool, lots of history and people bouncing around. It is one of the oldest cities in Central America and boasts one of the oldest Christian churches in America as well. I didn't know that America was so intertwined in Nica's history. Apparently some rogue military guys even took it over for a while (William Walker... google him sometime). From there we went to check out San Juan del Sur. Its a coastal surfer town thats got a nice little nightlife as well. We met some pretty cool Salvadorans there, go figure, and hung out with them. The worst part about it was that it was pretty bad rain the whole time we were there so we couldn't get out much after Granada. Overall, we were there 4 days, and it was a good time.
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| San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.... its a cool little town |
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| smelling the tobacco in Granada, Nicaragua |
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| This cracked me up because its a grinding stone that they have in the museum in Granada. Yet, we still use it in the countryside here! |
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| My travel mates....in front of one of the oldest churches in America. |
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| The third travel companion. |
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| Welcome. |
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| Our bus! |
Next, we had our Fruit Festival here in our main town not too long ago. Each year they name it after somebody and invite that person to speak, and this year it was named after Mr. Robert Blau, the Deputy Chief of Mission and right now Charge d' affair of the US Embassy. So, he came out to San Pedro and we met with him, and he passed through the special fruit market that comes out that day, and then there was a ceremony in the main "square". It was actually kind of nice because it was basically him and our mayor talking about the accomplishments of Peace Corps in the municipality in the past 10 years. Good stuff.
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| There's actually lots of people in this photo. Me, 3 other volunteers, my boss, my mayor, my kind of ambassador, and the guy that is awesome with his little wooden flute. |
The "Charge" rocking his awesome US National Soccer Team jersey for the Fruit Festival in San Pedro.
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| The customary fight between the Christian and Moorish kings.... :) |
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| The festival sign. |
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| The table of honor. |
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| Folkdance! |
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| These guys were really great, honestly. It was a great surprise. |
Next were our Patron Festivals in my community that we celebrated in August. Matt and Helen, the neighboring volunteers, came by and stayed for the few days to see what it was all about. It wasn't as big as the past few years, but it was good fun.
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| Bicycle contests!!! Thats my neighbor there reffin' |
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| The youngins after catching the greased pig. If you can catch it, you can keep it! |
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| The twins next door are getting so big! |
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| A lovely dame I found on the street. |
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| And then she found Matt. |
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| And then we laughed about it. |
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| Looks whos on bottom. I'm pretty sure my back has been thrown out of wack permanently from that day. |
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| Thats not a booger. |
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| We definitely never made it to the top, some kid had to climb to the top of the greased pole with a lasso to grab the prize. It was too tall this year! |
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| Hug anyone? |
Next we have some pics from a birthday part that we had for a fellow volunteer. Her parents came in town and rented a really awesome beach house place and she declared the entry fee a costume that began with the letter "R." I was Raiden :)
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| I hadn't slept in 48 hours. |
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| Me shooting electricity through the Riddler. |
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| Flawless Victory. |
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| Hiyah! |
Needless to say, I didn't win ANY of the prizes that the volunteer's parents gave out, but I blame that on the fact that they had never heard of Raiden :)
What else What else.....hmmmm. Well we did finish the murals and I have them saved here. But I'll save that for another post so as not to make this one too long. But before I finish, here is an onslaught of random pictures.
I definitely don't fit on these covered trucks. The wee one there is Liliana, and she's on the equivalent of Dancing with the Stars here in El Salvador right now.
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| Me fat. |
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| I invited Matt and Helen over to give a talk on how to take soil samples. |
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| Playing soccer on the steepest ridge ever. |
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| Thank you Wendy's. |
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| AWESOMEST picture EVER.... this was the antwar on my window. These large leaf cutter ants chased the smaller ants all over the house until they caught them here on the window. It got ugly. |
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| I take it back, this is the best picture. This is one of the cutest babies I've seen around. Don Raul's newest grandchild Mayra. |
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| Random pic of us dancing it up somewhere. That was definitely a borrowed shirt. |
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| My program at the July 4th soccer tournament. |
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| I was hungry....but too cheap to buy something else at Wendy's. |
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| Be afraid. Be very afraid. |
So thats the short story. This week we have the new group of volunteers swearing in so I will going out to support them. Also, this Saturday is my 3 year mark in this country!!! Wahoo. The next post I'll put up pics of the finished murals and fill yall in some on the current craziness in country right now with the gangs.
"Be not afraid"
First message as Pope......John Paul II
