It was a surprise to our group to see people living in shacks, pickup trucks driving down the highways filled with people standing in the back, people knocking on the bus windows trying to sell us nuts and fruits, and people walking down the roads carrying goods on their heads - many of them in bare feet. We saw wild horses, cows, and dogs, and guards everywhere with massive guns. We made it to the city of San Vicente, and arrived at our amazing hotel Posada Belen, located in a neighbourhood of some very low-income housing.
We were greeted by the owner, Marisol, and met the 3 foot tall assistant housekeeper Angelica. They were the nicest El Salvadorians you could ever imagine. Later we were met by most of the Habitat for Humanity El Salvador staff, and discussed our plans for the week.
The original plan was to help build a house for a family whose house was destroyed in a landslide in late 2009, but unfortunately they did not have the go-ahead to start building on the new site. Luckily, this did allow our group to work on finishing 2 houses throughout the week that had originally been damaged/destroyed by earthquakes about 10 years ago.
We said farewell to Ronald the translator and to the rest of the Habitat staff, and were met by our translator for the week, Carlos! Since it was reading week, there were 5 groups building in El Salvador at this time, but they only had 3 translators - it was Carlos' first time with Habitat, and he ended up doing an amazing job and definitely added a lot more to the El Salvador experience throughout the week!
Our group was getting along perfectly and we hung out for the night in the amazing house, which was fully open to the outdoors - no front or back doors or screens in the windows, geckos crawling around everywhere, and even birds that laid eggs on a wall ledge!
