Hola from El Salvador

Hola from El Salvador! We're halfway through the trip so I figure it's time for a check in. The trip has been great so far! We departed from Austin painfully early, and arrived in San Salvador via Houston in the early afternoon. It was an overcast day, and when we started driving to Santa Ana it began to pour. We stopped for lunch at a beautiful restaurant and then drove on to the Asaprosar headquarters and moved into our rooms. 

Exploring downtown Santa Ana

We spent the week doing arts and crafts with the kids. There are three different centers and each has a morning and afternoon sessions, so six sessions of arts and crafts in total. We made friendship bracelets, tissue paper flowers, painted rocks and played soccer. It was fun to see some of my friends from last year and make new ones. 

Snack time with the kids

On Saturday we had a day off from working at the centers. In the morning we met with teenagers from the Asaprosar program and talked with them about our lives and our different worlds. We are lunch with them, then said goodbye and headed downtown to do some touristy stuff. We went to the theatre, artisan market, cathedral, and ate paletas (paletas are delicious homemade popsicles that we get everyday, sometimes twice a day). We then went out to a pupusaria, which is a restaurant that serves pupusas. Pupusas are like the national food of El Salvador and are yummy stuffed tortillas, so it was a pretty great day. 

Sunday was a fantastic day. We started off with breakfast at Ban Ban, a delicious bakery. We then drove 45 minutes to the mountain and went zip lining which was a ton of fun. After that, we stopped by a market in a mountain village which was nice but we were all pretty hungry so drove on to the crater lake. It's a gorgeous place, and we ate lunch on a house boat and swam for a little bit. We returned to our home-base to shower, order in more pupusas, and start wrapping gifts for the kids. Unfortunately I have developed a scratchy caught today but hopefully it will clear up tomorrow. 

Day at the lake

So that's a brief summary of the first part of our trip! It's been great so far. Hot and sweaty and tiring, but great! So happy to be here again.

My facepainting masterpiece on Gracie