A New Day, New Things

Guess what came in the post today via in the infamous Deutsche Post. My dental file! The thing I've been waiting for for the past 6 weeks! I was just about to head over to the dentist to reschedule my appointment for next week. I figured by then I'd have received the "special" form from the medical screening office, which was meant to allow me to be reimbursed for having to replace my panoramic and bitewing x-rays. Instead, I showed up at the dentist and said to not cancel my appointment and that I had my x-rays.

Turns out I'll need more than Peace Corps asked because the dentist in Thailand "overlooked" something. Darn. I hate dentists and I hate novacaine. I've only just now regained full feeling of the left side of my face.

When you get invited to your assignment, Peace Corps sends you a package that contains a CD with information about the country you're going to. I ran into Will on the way back to the dentist and he was on his way to the copy place to print and bind the huge PDF file on the CD. It's much easier to read it on paper than having to sit in front of your computer for hours--I do that anyways, but it was nice to read it on paper.

Things we learnt:

1. Apparently eating vegetables is a huge process because they must be properly cleaned to get rid of any microbes you don't want to be eating. You have to wash your vegetables in soapy water or soak them in water treated with clorox or iodine tablets. Water isn't drinkable in El Salvador and washing your edibles with contaminated water defeats the purpose of cleaning them in the first place.
   
2. Magazine subsriptions must be sent to the main Peace Corps office because they need to be delivered to a street address. Depending on how often we are able to get to the Peace Corps office, we will always have a bundle of magazines to pick up.
3. Volunteers get free copies of Newsweek, which are available for pickup at the main Peace Corps office.
4. After you've completed training and are ready to move into your own accomodation, be it with a host family or alone, you recieve a moving-in allowance. Couples are counted as individuals, so we basically get two moving in allowances. Plus!
5. When packing, they recommend you pack most of your clothes ins one bag and enough for four days to be used upon arrival in El Salvador. I read somewhere that you stay in a hotel for a few days before moving in with your host family.