October | 2009 | Kaleena and Andrew's El Salvador Blog

Archive for October, 2009

2 Month Up-date

October 31, 2009

Hey everyone!

Andrew and I have been in El Salvador for almost 2 months now and we are enjoying our time here. Our Spanish is getting much better and I hope we’ll be able to use it in the future. Andrew’s grandmother found monthly language courses at a local university for two hours a day, Monday through Friday. I am still attending classes but Andrew is too advanced to continue. 🙂 Also, we hope to do some traveling around El Salvador and possibly Guatemala. El Salvador is actually quite beautiful. There are many volcanoes, lakes and black sand beaches on the Pacific Ocean.

We have been working with Habitat for Humanity (HFH) for about a month and we love it. The people are amazing and in a country like El Salvador there is a huge demand for adequate housing. Andrew is currently working on their website and I’m working on a Christmas fundraising proposal for US churches and organizations so they are able to help HFH El Salvador even from the states. It is the first year they are trying this so I hope we can make it happen. Tomorrow (Saturday, October 31) we are going to a build site to aid the HFH staff with translating, building, and making people feel welcome.

As for Thunderbird, we just finished our first accounting class last Sunday and I’m relieved to be done. Andrew and I both did well on the final as well as overall. I hope that we can do the same in the next accounting course that begins Monday. I’m glad that we have the opportunity to go to this school together because I love it so far.

Some funny news is that we are borrowing a car from a friend of Andrew’s grandmother that is quite funny. We named it Rocinante after Don Quixote’s barn horse that’s slow and worn out but faithful. It gets us where we need to go and that’s all that matters. The owner of the car jokes that she had a sign in the car that said something to the affect of -steal the car because I get more money from my insurance than what this car is worth. Needless to say the sign was stolen but not the car! We’ll be sure to add a picture later.

We haven’t taken a lot of pictures but below are some that Andrew took in his Grandmother’s back yard and some of an orchid exhibit of El Salvador’s native orchids. Also, there are pictures of the what the homes look like at the HFH model community in San Sebastian and one of a bean field. This complex has 60 finished homes, a child care center and a community center. They are in the process of increasing its size by building, I believe 60 additional homes.