Oh Houston

First I should tell you all that I have made it safely to El Salvador and all is well!

Now to start at the beginning. Felicia (one of my travel mates) and I flew from DCA to Houston together yesterday afternoon. Upon arriving at George Bush Intercontinental Airport I have decided that I may have a future in Houston. For all you single ladies out there, I am here to tell you Houston is the place to go! (Felicia will attest to this)

So we met up with Kayla (our other travel mate) and Dr. Colon and boarded our plane to El Salvador. Immediately upon exiting the plane at 8:25pm (40 min early) we enter a completely shut down airport with policemen carrying big guns throughout. Welcome to San Salvador. (Sing Will Smith's "Bienvenidos a Miami..") Immigration was great. The people were so nice and I finally was able to speak some Spanish!! None of us got stopped at customs and we were off to our hotel by taxi. The airport is actually about a 40 min drive outside of the city so we piled into a pickup truck and completely filled the bed with our luggage and off we went. The temperature was beautiful, high 70's and the wind felt great.

Out hotel was the only one not booked in the entire city and we are on the outskirts. What is going on in San Salvador? To get here we drove along this long 4 lane highway and eventually we began to see mountains and city lights. Now these are not the city lights you would expect. San Salvador (at night from a truck) looks like flat bowl of city lights that recedes into the mountains.  (bad analogy sorry but I kept thinking of it as a bowl) It is set between several mountains, low into the valley and goes on forever..and I thought metro ATL was big! The hotel is quaint and beautiful. It has the feel of a bed and breakfast (A El Canario by the Lagoon aura). After a long day of travel, we crashed in the A/C(whoo hoo!)

This morning after breakfast at the hotel, we headed into the city to explore and purchase cell phones. The city is full of movement, people, smog, and vendors. It felt like a consistent flea market with people trying to sell us their products and with the random moments of hearing Black Eyed Peas and Guetta blaring from speakers somewhere amidst the people. Oh and some Rhianna which I loved! Now there are traffic lights which the motorists typically follow, however 2 lanes means at least 3 at all times and as a pedestrian you need to watch where you are going. Stopping may not happen! We went into the national palace which was beautiful and full of people in line for confession and others praying together on one wing. We had lunch in another part of the city and I had my first Salvadorian PAPUSA! YUM The queso here is sooo good!

Last paragraph I promise! This is where I nerd out on my Public Health stuff. So we had a meeting at the US embassy this afternoon with a USAID foreign service officer to discuss potential relationships for future fellows in El Salvador. I have never been to an embassy before and it was really beautiful! Sharlene at USAID was great and she is providing us with an opportunity to travel to a site here in the western part of the country to visit a town where a local NGO is implementing a nutrition program funded by USAID and CITI bank. I am so excited...this is a global health nerd's love in life! AND on the way out we ran into (by complete fate) the health administrator for the same NGO's nutrition program. AND she offered us not only a 1 day tour but the opportunity to come and volunteer for a few weeks if we are interested. They work on nutrition in women and children under 5(again nerding out here...just what I am interested in!) So today has been really good! We are off to meet the Pastor of San Rafael Oriente (where we will work) tonight and will head to the farm tomorrow.

Will try to keep this shorter next time!
Nicoley
PS Starbucks world tour check off city!