The Dirty Central: Ahem

So...staging is finally over. I won't say that it was entirely interesting, but come on. How interesting can is it ever when one is getting briefed about the policies and regulations of one's new employer? Hardly ever. The staging coordinators were quite helpful and good presenters. It took a particular fancy towards the APCD for Municipal Development - he was a brilliant speaker and I reckon he did a really good job of getting everyone motivated to take this next big step into the unknown. It's not Burkino Faso, but it's a different world enough because I nor Will have never been there.

Travelling to a developing country and spending 2 months in the second largest urban area is one thing, but living in the middle of "all the drama" is another thing. I hoping that my travels around southeast Asia really DID help prepare me for living in El Salvador. I'd never been to Asia before and even though I was going with Will I was freaking out once we had gotten off the plane and were being transported to the terminal on the shuttle. I've been to Latin America heaps of times. I've even lived there - for 7 years to be exact. But I lived either on a military base on in the posh expat neighbourhoods.

Today we were told that San Vicente, the town where the training centre is located, will either be a punch in the face or we'll ease into it. Apparently for someone coming from the Western developed world, the training town is dirty, stinky and ugly. And strewn with rubbish. Phnom Penh wasn't exactly smelling like flowers, beautiful and spotless. The poverty was really apparent there and there was rubbish strewn all over the country side. But, like I said, I spent a week in Cambodia. Not 27 months.

A punch in the face or easing into it. What'll it be? Either way, I welcome the challenge with a $20 bill the elastic of my skirt.

Our "last meal"? We went to a Siamese restaurant called Busara, I got a heaping plate of vegetables and tofu and Will got pad thai. Yum.