The CFS trip to La Isla is off to a great start. We have worked the past 6 days and are in Metapan as a group tonight to watch a big soccer game. Should be great. Here are some thoughts from a few of the students...
I know we have only been gone a little more than a week but in that short amount of time I have already made strong relationships with people that I would never have met if I had not gone on this trip. Although it is sometimes very difficult to understand one another because of the language barrier, I still feel like I have made valuable connections with the family I stay with and it is because despite our language difference we still have so many things in common. We play basketball and soccer nearly every afternoon. We play card games every chance we get. Today, my little sister Jaquelin sat down next to me with a bottle of nail polish and started painting my finger nails. I do not think we are always aware of just how alike people can be. In a sense the U.S. is a world apart from La Isla but at the same time we are so similar and that is what I love about this trip... We make connections to people we would not have met otherwise which is invaluabe.
HOLLAND
So far im really enjoying my stay in La Isla. The people are really nice and welcoming. The food is great, the kids are cool and always want to play. Eventhough I am having fun now i didnt always like it here, at first i really just wanted to go home the moment I got here, but these three ladies (Holland, Allison, and Eliza) took me under “their wings”. Eliza and Allison act like mi madres y Holland like a big hermana. We even have a cool name “H.E.A.T.” Eventhough im having alot of fun here there is still a part of me that wants to come home. I already know what i want to do when i come home (have an Cookout Oreo milkshake…oh yeah)
Tony Durham
This is the end of my first week here in El Salvador. I do not know exactly what is was, that I was expecting when I first signed up for this adventure but heres one thing I can promise I didn't expect to see; a herd of vaca (cows) walking down the street every morning when I get up. Being in El Salvador is the biggest culture shock I have ever received. Before this trip I thought of El Salvador as being a "third-world, developing nation", where I thought they would have minimal electricity, no clean water, and basically live sort of prehistorically in the electronics department. I couldn't have been more wrong. My host family, a group that consist of a mother, and her four children have a TV with a DVD player and two cellphones, a nice shower, toilet, and for the most part clean water. (But I definitely appreciate the bottles Rob gives us.) The people of La Isla are perfectly content living the way that they do, they have a tienda (store), church, community center, soccer fields, basketball courts, and houses for all (There is one homeless man, and our first project was to work on building a house for him.) When I'm here I don't think of them as "third-world", and I know they don't think of themselves that way. I think the phrase "third-world" or "developing nation" is used in the wrong context so often. Yes La Isla is constantly developing, with their plans for the future but I think most Americans (and yes, I'm generalizing here) do not realize the extent of the advancements that La Isla has made, and where its going. So while I am really excited to be here and I love waking up to see what the day will bring, I think realizing that we are not here to fix things, or be the gringos (white folks) that change La Isla, is really important. And once I step back and realize that, I feel like we turn more into part of the La Isla community, instead of being some Americans that come for a few weeks to help.
Allison Nalley