Hello. I don’t think I’ve written in a while so I thought I’d fill you in on what’s going on in my life. To be honest not much is new or exciting. I’ve just been trying to keep busy working. Right now I am working in the school giving computer classes, English, and my own class in which we are mainly going to focus on health related topics. The school director gave me one class a week with 7th-9th grades so that I could do whatever I want in the class. With two classes we are going to do a letter exchange with students in the States, which should be cool.


Me making the hammock.


I’ve also been working a lot in the restaurant, tourist center project that we have going. There is still a lot of work to be done but we are really short on workers so I like to hang out there and see what I can help with. Also, I have been learning how to make a hammock and I work on it in the shade by the restaurant; another reason I spend a lot of time there. Yesterday I finished making my first hammock. The only part that is missing are what’s called the mangillos – the part with hooks so that you can hang the hammock. It’s a fun, stress-relieving activity.
The hammock almost finished



The pier in La Pirraya with three observation booths.

The women’s group is going well. In the last meeting we called about leadership and voted on forming a board with a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, etc. The women seemed pretty excited about that and we going to start raising money for the group. I have also been working a lot with the youth. We are trying to get them involved in the restaurant/tourist center project by teaching them how to make artisan crafts and selling their products at the local. To motivate the youth, last Saturday we went on a trip to an island in the Bahia, more than an hour boat ride away. It is at the mouth of the bay, where the bay and the ocean meet.


Us on the exchange trip to La Pirraya.

It’s beautiful there. The island is called the Pirraya and we visited a restaurant/tourist center on the island, which is similar to the one we have in Mendez, but thay have been functioning for almost three years. So we walked along, the beautiful, white sand beaches and collected a bunch of shells to make crafts with. The women at the restaurant gave us a information about how they got started, the challenges they faced, etc. It was a really cool experience. We also visited two women on the island that make artisan crafts with shells; to give the youth an idea. Then we went swimming. It was a fun day.


But man that island is way worse off than where I live. They don’t even have water. Since it’s an island they don’t have a water table. And even when rain water collects in the earth, it’s still all salty. They have to go to the nearest port to buy all of their water. And I mean all of their water…to drink, cook, wash, etc. That’s a lot of frigging water. It made me really thankful for having an abundance of water here in Mendez. It may not be the cleanest but at least it’s not salty.

Man skinning an eel.

But the majority of the people on the island are fishermen, of course. But more go fishing in the seam, since it’s really close. Not many people go fishing in the sea from my community because it’s a lot harder and takes longer. But fishermen from the island go out to catch a ton of eel. We went to the production line where they were skinning, cleaning and salting the eel meat. It was really cool.



A few weeks ago we went to liberate one of the last batches of baby turtles that were born in the vivero. They were a rare type that isn’t always found in El Salvador and that the locals call Galapagos but technically they aren’t Galapagos.
I am in love with baby turtles. They are the cutest things ever. And when you take them to the shore, they stic their little necks out to determine where the shore is and then they head off for the waves. It’s so neat to watch them.






Well, that’s about it for me. Hope all is well with everyone.