Cultural differences, my new friend, and a laugh...

So...After having a complete breakdown in the middle of a mall in Sonsonate, the big city in my state, I decided to come directly to San Salvador for a break. Nothing huge happened to cause this complete breakdown; just small things adding up, I think. But now I'm sitting here at the computer surfing like mad. Something I haven't done in quite sometime. And it's very fun. And I'm eating chocolate and peanut butter. Nothing could be better.

But a friend signed onto instant messenger as I surfed and we started a conversation. He asked me to give him more information about the culture here, so I figure that I haven't done a good job of explaning differences. So, here is what I told him:

1. You can't wear shorts or flip flops here.
2. The girls can wear practically NOTHING for tops and it's acceptable but if your legs are showing...woah mama...you're a whore.
3. They clean everything everyday so they're used to just throwing stuff on the floors because they know it will be cleaned. But that flows into trash EVERYWHERE. Littering is OUT OF CONTROL! People on the bus will just throw their stuff out the windows; it's what they teach their kids. It irritates me to death!
4. Drinking and smoking are severly frowned upon. It's more acceptable for guys to drink, but still not like it is in the states. And women usually have to have a guy buy them drinks if they want them, and then drink in private. Basically, if you're drinking at all, you're considered a drunk and lose all respect in the community. (I think it's because there are so many alcoholics here that anyone drinking anything is linked to that.) But the smoking thing is AWESOME!
5. When you're eating, you always have to say "Buen provecho!" like...enjoy your food.
6. When leaving the table, or a meeting, or any type of gathering, you have to say "Con permiso".
7. When you walk into a meeting late, you HAVE to stop the meeting and greet everyone.
8. Of course, no meeting ever starts when it says it's going to start.
9. If you leave in the middle of a meeting, you have to stop the meeting again and say "con permiso".
10. You have to greet every single person that you see in a day and usually need to talk for quite sometime to each person.
11. Women are in supporting roles normally: secretaries, gofers, servers, etc.
12. You have to drink from cans and bottles using a straw. I'm not sure how sticking a foreign object into a plastic or glass bottle makes it more sanitary, but that's the thing to do here.
13. Many drinks are served in plastic baggies.
14. Beacuse the plumbing system is bad, you have to throw your toilet paper in a trashcan next to a toilet instead of inside the toilet.

That's about it. Oh...and I have a new friend in my house (my house that I own but have not yet moved into). During one of my fun-filled cleaning days this week, I noticed that a lizard was on one of the walls in the living room. So I got this big stick and prodded it's backside until it went outside. Well, it crawled up into this area between the ceiling and wall (there are openings between the ceilings and walls in all of the houses here) and just stared at me cleaning. It watched me for about an hour; its red head popping out above one of the bricks. Then, it attempted to crawl onto the wall again. I dropped the brush I was using to clean, got down from the ladder, and walked over to where it was on the wall. I stood about 3 feet away from it and we just stared at each other for about 10 seconds. Then, it scurried back up to its lookout for another hour. Then, it attempted to come down again, and I again walked over and stared at it. It became a little game between us. And the next day, when I walked into the house, it crawled right up to the lookout and watched me on and off during the entire day. It was pretty funny! But, I did see another lizard that was bigger outside later in the week, and this one scurried around FAST!! If that one gets in my house, I'm done. There is no way I'm going to be able to catch it! So I'm going to have to do some research on lizard control, I think. The only thing I've found so far is this website: http://www.bugspray.com/article/reptiles.html. So we'll see.

But don't worry if you're thinking about coming to visit...I have the mosquito net. It protects you from everything! :)

And...Jeff, my friend, sent me a website that cracked me up. I found some of it to be a bit offensive, but after bawling my eyes out, it was good to laugh a little. And even if you're somewhat offended, you will probably laugh a bit! Visit http://www.ebaumsworld.com/flash/endofworld.html.