So, yesterday was our first full day in El Salvador as a family- wow!
I'm not sure where to start... I guess I can actually start from Wednesday when we left. Saying all of our goodbyes over the past month has been really tough. Wednesday at the airport was no different. I'm going to miss everyone a lot. The flight itself went well, and all of our stuff made it, too. This picture is to prove to Jenna that I followed through on my promise to take Jo Jo on the flight :). We stayed at a hotel near San Salvador when we got there. It was beautiful; the weather was great, there was a pool and palm trees, and we had all sorts of great fresh food for breakfast. But yesterday was the fun part.
Ruth and Angelino picked us up in a van from the hotel and we headed to the beach! It was pretty, and we saw a lot of neat things on the shore- lots of shells, and I even found a starfish. When we left the beach we went for lunch at a place where the seafood we had could easily have been swimming shortly before... here it is:
When we drove through San Sal after lunch, we saw something really funny. A huge tanker truck thing, like the ones that carry oil, was full of molasses. It had apparently leaked and was spilled all over the streets, several inches thick for about a mile! Cars were sliding in it and sticking, and other cars would spray it back onto the ones behind them.
The prettiest part of the day, I thought, was the ride from San Sal to La Palma. The mountains are gorgeous, and we were in such a high elevation that we drove through the clouds! And now that we're are up in the mountains, it's actually pretty cool. From what I'm seeing on facebook, Missouri is pretty hot and humid right now, so this weather is really nice :).
Today we got to see the place we will be living. What is going to be a children's home/ orphanage thing isn't open yet, and we're living in that until it is. It's actually pretty nice, except for our welcoming visitors today: Several big spiders and a couple lizards... :P
We shopped around for our furniture for a little while, and got to visit this really cute little coffee shop with pastries and stuff. Right now we are back relaxing at the hotel we're staying at until our place is ready. Mom took Nathan down to the pool, and Dad and I are sitting outside listening to all the parrots talk, :)
If you noticed by the title, I am going by my middle name, Erin, while we are here. In Spanish, Ruth is just Rut, and I like the way Erin sounds in Spanish better. It's not uncommon here, though, to randomly switch which name you go by; some people use a couple different ones, even.
More to be posted later!
su amiga,
Ruth Erin