Only in El Salvador...

1. Could a coconut fall on my car and cause a few hundred dollars worth of damage.

2. Could there be so many huge gaping holes in the road. Manhole covers are big business on the black market it seems...

3. Could I sprain my ankle because I hear my sister calling me...
Ok, I was up the side of a hill in the middle of nowhere, with my friend Jenny from Dimas buying organic vegetables. Polly at the bottom with 3 kids in the car... it's getting dark. She starts calling my name "Topsy", then it gets louder and turns almost into a panicky scream."TOPSY...TOPSY..." Jenny and I leg it down the mountain side. Our hearts in our mouths, our heads full of images of carjack, robbery, kidnap... everyday events in El Salvador.

My foot goes in a hole, ankle twists and crunches. I fall, cut my other leg and hand... Eventually when I get down everything is fine, just a truck needed to get by and Polly didn't have the keys to move the car.

The kids who were picking the veg stare at me and my (almost) broken ankle with their huge dark brown eyes . Their mum comes down the hill holding an amazing bunch of white calla lillies which she gives to me.

They can swim!

Holiday snaps

Glasses and Company

I'm sitting in my classroom with 11 minutes left of my 30 minute lunchbreak. I'm eating my very cosmopolitan pasta, pesto and olives out of my tupperware container looking at the mess around me... Carpet covered in polysterene bits, my desk piled with books to mark, xmas cards to write, poems to display.... It's 86 degrees outside, and only occaisionally a slight breeze floats through the room. My throat hurts and it looks like I'm about to come down with a nasty bug.

End of term on Friday, thank goodness. But before then we've got cards, decorations, reindeers and Christmas crackers to make, plus habitat models to finish, carol singing, xmas show, xmas fair, dinner tonight at Chayo's grandma's, kids party after school on Thursday and drinks out with colleagues, secret santa presents to buy, staff xmas lunch....

But the exciting news is that last night POLLY and ELLY arrived!! They'll be here till New Year and we're going to have a few days at a posh beach place which sounds great.

And yes... I now wear glasses... Strange new experience...

Not bad hey...

A friend's place where we went for a few days...

81 degrees

The xmas decorations seem strange to me in the suffocating heat of San Salvador. Chayo doesn't care and bugs me everyday with "Is it Christmas tomorrow Mum?".

It's Sunday, I'm in my classroom, surrounded by piles of books which need marking. If I get on I might have time for a swim later.

Was woken up early this morning by cockrels crowing and kids shouting. I'd stayed the night in Dimas, the small village about an hour away from the capital, where I used to live and really it's the El Salvador that I love. I've realised that it's 10 years this December since I first went there. It's amazing to see the kids grow up and the community change. There's now running water in every house, a paved plaza, and even internet and flushable toilets!

Soon Marisol will graduate as a teacher, supported by the Eductaion for the Future fund that we set up. When she gets a job she will give a proportion of her salary back to the fund to help other young people in the village go to university.

http://www.educationforthefuture.blogspot.com

Los Angeles!!!!

Can't believe I'm here...
Holiday... yippee!!

First impressions:
big, hilly, lots of cars, good food, sunglasses, tattoos, sunny, cool breeze...
lots to do...