The New Adventures of Lara: The teams have arrived!

I finally had my true sight-seeing experience of San Salvador during the morning ride back to the airport to meet up with the team. I have to admit, in emails to friends and family, I couldn't help but make a comparison to the movie Slumdog Millionaire. It's a very densely populated city with lots of very aged/weathered/worn down buildings, homes made out of recycled trash and scraps, loads of billboard and poster advertisements, street vendors everywhere, barbed wire fencing around every nice building, and guards with shotguns at every business entrance. The area I had staying in prior to the team's arrival was much nicer and safer than the surrounding parts of the city.

After the teams gathered at the airport, we headed to the hotel then to lunch at an outdoor cafe with a great view of the city. We were all very careful with what we ordered, but some of us still ended up with lettuce and tomato on our sandwiches. Surely I thought to myself that this was going to be the start of some terrible stomach ailments. As it turned out, I was fine.

We returned to the hotel for our orientation with our Habitat representative Luis. He went into a detailed history of El Salvador and the social and economic effects of their civil war. He also explained the breakdown of average income, minimum wage, basic basket, etc. It was a lot to take in all at once. Then, of course, he went into the details of how families apply for and pay for the homes built by Habitat, and explained our roles for the upcoming week.

As if much of the day wasn't already a culture shock to me and some of the members of the team, Luis gives us one piece of very important information: Flushing toilet paper in El Salvador is a "no-no." There were many things I was prepared for on this trip; not drinking the water, preventing malaria, and having an antibiotic ready for the moment my stomach starts to rumble. Not being able to flush toilet paper? All I could think was "But what if I need to... you know...?" Ugh.

We then headed out to enjoy a dinner full of traditional Salvadoran dishes, including the expected pupusas and horchata. We mixed and mingled with the other team after dinner as we sat around in the hotel's courtyard until the long day of traveling finally got to us and we headed to bed.