New site, new opportunities

Citalá as viewed from the hill overlooking it, with
my new friend Ale in the foreground.

Having left Toreras last Friday after ten months there, I'm now living and working in the charming town of Citalá, Chalatenango, El Salvador, located in the country's northwest. If my first six days in Citalá are any indication of what's to come, I think I'm going to be quite happy during my fourteen-or-so months here. People here are sociable and inviting, and hearteningly display great pride in their hometown, and my host family here is helpful and fun to be around. The contrasts between my new and old sites are enormous. While despair and hopelessness lamentably consumed Toreras, vibrancy prevails here. Having WiFi at home and reliable cell signal also don't hurt...

I realize that in time I am sure to encounter some sources of frustration as I begin work projects here (this is inevitable in any country), and that I am in the thick of my site "honeymoon" (as Peace Corps parlance would have it), but for now I am content to enjoy said honeymoon and be grateful for all that Citalá offers that I was not able to count on in my previous location.

That's all for now. Feel free to contact me directly with any questions.

Heading Out West

I have some exciting news to announce: Next week I'm moving to a new site, where I'll serve out the remaining fourteen months of my time as a volunteer in El Salvador.

I hope to bring to a close the days of lamenting Toreras' inadequacies as a Peace Corps site, so it will suffice to say that a community without aspirations for its future cannot make productive use of a Peace Corps Volunteer. I have learned and grown a great deal over the course of my nine months in Toreras, and do not regret having been sent there, but I would be lying if I said that I am not very happy to have an opportunity to spend the duration of my Peace Corps service in a place that has some capacity to make use of me and offers reasons to feel hopeful about its future and the future of El Salvador.

That place is Citalá, Chalatenango, a small city on the western side of the country. I visited there last week with my Project Manager to meet a few community leaders and my future host family, and left with a favorable first impression. I am reticent to provide many details, having only visited my new community briefly, so I'll leave those to future posts. 

I leave Toreras on Thursday, July 24, and my first day in Citalá will be Friday, July 25.