Happy New Year!!!

Wow! So we made it to 2006! I went to the beach on the 30th, then to San Salvador in clubs to celebrate my favorite holiday of the year. It was loads of fun! And the places we went were NICE! It seemed like I was right back in the states again (except, of course, that I couldn´t hang out with you!). Oh, and I got a bit of sun at the beach...so much that these random guys in the hotel where I was staying for New Year´s Eve were like, "Wow! What happened to you?? You look like a lobster!" So that was pretty...awkward. :) No, no, not really. I showed them the photos from the beach and we ended up going out to dinner together. 2 guys from Canada and 1 from Japan that just met each other in Guatemala during separate vacations and decided, "Let´s go to El Salvador!" They were pretty darn fun. So, that was my fun New Year´s stuff.

Then, on the fourth, I had a site visit from a guy that is helping me with our internet project (bringing internet to my site). He came to see how San Isidro is laid out, what the distances are between locations, etc. It was AWESOME and I feel like I'm actually making some progress on something!! But, I was waiting in a central location in the community, and one of the women said to me (right before he arrived), "Michelle, your forehead is peeling pretty badly." Remember that sunburn? Yeah, well it decided to start peeling right before one of my super important meetings! So I said, "Ok, I'll be back in about 5 minutes." I ran home, got out a pumice stone and scrubbed my face like mad! And it HURT, but I was like, "It's only going to hurt for a second, and it will get rid of all of this flaking skin." So I kept it up. Then I washed my face with soap, went into my room, and used my astringent. HUGE mistake! Even though some of you out there (Katie and Kathy Russell) think I ENJOY putting myself through pain, it's NOT TRUE!! And I thought it hurt when I was scrubbing like mad!! Normally, if I put alcohol on an open wound, I might tear up a bit. This caused severe uncontrollable crying! But I just kept thinking, "Ok. It's only going to hurt for a second, and then I'll be fine." Ok. Note to all of you thinking that this might be a good idea...you will feel like someone is stabbing you in the head (or whatever area you do this to) for the ENTIRE day!! Oh my goodness!!!! But, trust me, there was no more flaking, so I guess I completed what I set out to do. :) And that night, we had a going away party for one of the gals in my group that decided to leave early. It was really sad; I´m going to miss her a lot! But...we definitely had a good time saying goodbye (note the tango shot)... :)

The downside (beyond the stabbing pain throughout the day) is that 2 days later (as I found out yesterday), you will develop a huge brownish scar from the alcohol burn that you induced. Now, it won't seem THAT bad to you, but apparently to everyone else that you possibly run into, it will seem like you're on the edge of dying. So, the next day I got up and found that I didn't have a voice (guess we had a REALLY good time). And I needed to meet with one of my counterparts. During this meeting, my dad called and said when he heard my voice, "Man! You sound TERRIBLE!" and told me that he was having problems understanding me. Ok. That didn't bode well. People can't understand me in ENGLISH when I can't talk?? I can't even imagine how my counterpart possibly understood my gringa-spanish without a voice!!

So, skip to the next day. I wake up to find (1) I still don't have a voice, and (2) the huge dark brown scar across my forehead. And on this day, I had a meeting with my OTHER counterpart. :) Yeah. It just always is a good time down here. So I thought, "Ok. No big deal. I'm in a 3rd world country and I know these people. It won't be a problem." So I just threw on some clothes and walked the 0.25 mile to the school. I can't even BEGIN to tell you how many times people, as they passed, stopped and said, "Oh my goodness!! What HAPPENED to your head??" And then, just as I began to explain with my non-existent voice, I got to hear them interrupt me and say, "Oh my goodness!! What's wrong with your voice?? Do you have grepa (cold/flu)?!" Seriously. About 20 times of explaining all of this, each time wearing my non-existent voice down even more! Needless to say, I went STRAIGHT home after that meeting and didn't leave my house for the rest of the day.

And today, my voice seems to be back (sort of), the big brown scar seems to be gone (sort of), and I'm having a jolly 'ole time in the office working on my quarterly report and a presentation on what the heck the internet is. So...that's my drama for now. :)

That´s it for now...more to come...

** Oh, and I need to say that the photos on Snapfish are not all mine! I got in big trouble the other day from a friend that was like, "Hey! I notice that I received no credit for my photos!" So...in the New Year's photos...the ones with names, not numbers, as the titles were taken by my friend Feef. And soon, the same will be true with additional photos that are added in the Christmas albums...my parents took those.