"El Salvador always waits for you with open arms."We (Juliann, Tyler, America) got here late last night, and have been enjoying the wonderful hospitality of the awesome people that love HELP International. Estella Salguero, a close friend of Emily Foster, one of last year's Country Directors, was gracious enough to agree to cook for us again this year as she did last year. She also offered up her house for the few days as we look for a suitable place for the rest of the group.
At this point we have several leads on housing, and plan to spend most of the day tomorrow (Thursday) hopefully solidifying somewhere to live, if not we're confident that in the next few days we'll be moving into our new home. Until then, Estella has been taking great care of us.
This morning we were able to meet with Sabrina and Jose Carlos at FUDEM, an amazing organization down here that works really hard to provide dental and vision services at affordable rates. Optometrists, Opthamologists, Dentists, and more spend time away from their own places of employment to provide top-notch service for the entire country. Jose Carlos is head of the Outreach Programs, which we'll be helping with a lot this summer. We'll be taking all of our volunteers to a training with them next week (fresh off the boat aye!) to learn how to test for visual acuity.
We've set up preliminary meetings with LDS English, Habitat for Humanity, BALSAMO, among others, and are waiting on some call backs. We're so excited for this amazing summer that we know we've gotten ourselves into.
Volunteers: Get ready for a blast, seriously. We'll see you soon, and get ready to get to work, 'cause we'll have stuff ready to kick your butts! Also, of course, in a good way.
3 comments:
That's fantastic - great work! ...almost seems like we won't have to worry about anything down there. We're glad you all arrived safely and hope you've enjoyed your time thus far. Thanks so much for all you're doing! ~Peter
Glad to hear of your arrival! I don't know if Mike told you, but I am doing the site visit to El Sal this year and I am SO excited! So I will be following your blog closely and look forward to hearing about everything! Good luck with all the set up - I know you guys will do awesome!
So glad you made it okay! You'll have a blast...and El Salvador will never be the same. Lol. Have you had your fill of papusas yet? Hmmm?
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