From Metapan

San Sal.

I left San Sal in the exact opposite way that I had arrived - still drunk, exhausted, and in the mood to speak to damn near no one. It was 7 am and I was in a bunk bed that wasn´t supposed to be mine, but after the night´s festivities I returned to my room at sunrise to see that a hermit had found their way to my sheets and left theirs vacant. What seemed like moments later I awoke with a start, fully dressed sin crocs, and about 72 minutes of sleep under this Nautica belt of mine. I fell off the top bunk and landed in a plate of the worst pancakes I´ve ever encountered. I gave appropriate hand gestures to the people who muttered something that resembled a goodbye in either English or Spanish, and collapsed in the cab.

By 9 AM I was back in Molineros consigiendo my dog. By noon I was back where I started: this absurd excuse for a capital they call San Salvador. Long story short, by 4 PM I was finally arriving in Metapan to take the hour and a half ride to La Peña. Exhausted, stressed, and a little looney I heard some words that my recent training helped me decipher roughly into ¨Welcome to your new home!¨

For the sake of carpal tunnel I´ll spare you the day to day details...

BUT I have been speaking with some other volunteers in otros lugares in El Salvador and they tell me what they are lookin at. Some have it bad. They´ve been crying and just can´t help it. Being this far away from home with zero chance of speaking English, less chance of eating peanut butter, no family, no running water, no possiblity to sleep past 5 am, all of it can seriously be a major downer. To those of you who aren´t diggin it right now: remember why you applied. However, there are others that want to compete about whose new canton it better. Some have balconies looking at mountains, others have waterfalls, some even have a TV! To those of you who care to challenge me...step right the hell up.

La Peña can´t possibly be real. Picture 7 Years in Tibet (I´ll play Brad Pitt), a little Spanish charm, more cows than people (just how I like it), and having Sam Sweeney just a stones throw down the mountain. Heaven, right?

The place is beautiful. My cancha, the futbol field, is literally at the very, very top of a mountain. Looking from any angle from the cancha you can see just vast, vast, unbelievable vistas. This cancha is such the real deal that they have to play with three balls because if a shot on net isn´t stopped by the keeper then it flies off the mountain and they have to send cipotes after it. This is how they keep the youth skinny...a sick form of fetch. In all seriousness, though, if you take a wide shot on goal you are the dunce of the town for what seems like weeks. Don´t miss or you´ve got quite a hike ahead of you. I don´t have a camera and I won´t take a picture of it even if I did but just for a minute picture being at the epicenter of a mountain range and to all sides there are green mountains. I don´t think I´ve got the time to describe it... From any point in my town you can see just miles and miles of untouched El Salvador from 7,000 feet. This place is a dream.

I found a reading tree. It´s this enormous, gorgeous tree that had been a siren for me since I got here on Saturday. It was about an hour hike up the mountain from my house but, having Guanaco´s company, I decided to hike it anyway. With the exception of all the cow dung under the enveloping shade of the tree, this place was like heaven. The roots sticking out of the ground were created, I´m convinced, for people to sit on . When it was hot, the tree dripped water down on me, and when it was windy it was wide enough to provide shelter for both me and the dog.

I am too cavalier. I am admitting right now that I don´t let things bother me. I act as if I can handle any situation with some semblance of grace and an almost alien calm. I genuinley believe that I can do anything that needs doing without losing a wink of sleep from worry or stress. La Peña is beautiful, my family couldn´t possibly be more amable (They have a 16 year old that looks like Cristiano Ronaldo and a 4 year old that couldn´t be cuter... They are, I´m sure of it, the perfect family), and the vistas are everything I´ve ever wanted out of my eyes. That said, I still I find that my jaw is clentched during mass, my hands are too busy when I´m having conversations, and my eyes avoid contact with the people who are studying me like a lecture. There isn´t a doubt in my mind about anything that I am doing here, but for the first time yesterday I realized that I am a little more tense than I let on. There are days when I orate like a Salvadoran Martin Luther King Jr. and then there are days that I resent myself for not wathcing more Dora back home. This place, all joking aside, is a roller coaster; each day a Russian Roulette. Will I be able to speak Spanish tomorrow morning? Will I remember what the name of that tree in Spanish or the exact process of feeding and milking these cows? Will I actually call home tomorrow? How long is it going to take me to walk this mule up to the pump to get water? Is it rude to tell him that I´m actually really hungry right now? Will I remember the name of the third kid from the left wearing blue sandals and a red Manchester United jersey who always twirls his cross around in his left hand? How, exactly, do I say ´no I cannot give you my dog. it´s mine and I actually want to keep him around.¨ when the next drunk guy finally resorts to asking me for things other than money. This place is a trip...

And I couldn´t be happier.