More El Salvador pictures

A few more pictures from my time in El Salvador. Sorry I took so long to get them up here. Enjoy!

Relaxing in a hammock by the beach

William and Stephanie

A relaxing day by the pool at DeCameron Resort

On a campaign. Going on campaigns was one of my favourite things to do while at FUDEM. We would go out into businesses and do very basic eye exams for many people. We worked with loose lenses and portable equipment, which is very different than most stuff that I've done in Canada before. But, I loved it - and it helped me to become much more efficient during an exam!

With Noe and Jaime at Planes de Renderos. Both of these guys are techs at FUDEM. On my last full weekend in El Salvador, I spent Friday night hanging out with them. Jaime invited me to come watch his soccer game, and Noe came along to watch too. Afterwards, we went to eat pupusas, and went to the same look-out (see previous pictures) to get a view of San Salvador at night. Jaime became one of my good friends very early on during my time at FUDEM. Aside from Maria & Reynaldo (who I lived with), he is probably the person that I got to know the best. He's so much fun! I didn't really get to know Noe until the last couple weeks, mostly because he was shy, and didn't want to speak English with me, even though he knows a lot! He is so, so nice though, and I'm glad I had an opportunity to get to know him better.

Eating "Elote Loco" (crazy corn) at Puerta del Diablo on the national holiday. The last week I was in El Salvador, there were two national holidays. Those two days off in a row were the most days in a row that I had off the whole time I was there. On the second day, we went to a place close to San Salvador called Puerta del Diablo (Door of the Devil), where there are 3 big rock formations that you can climb to get a good view of the city, the valley, and all the way to the ocean. As it was a holiday, there were so many people there, and because it was foggy, we didn't get much of a view. :( But, it was there that I tried 'elote loco', which is maize covered with mayo, ketchup, mustard, worchestershire and cheese. An interesting assortment of flavours - but actually quite tasty!

My last day of work. :(
We were on a campaign, and saw nearly 100 patients in about 5 hours. Both Maria and I were seeing patients - and it was still pretty exhausting! It was a good way to end things off. These are the people that I would always go on campaign with - I really liked them! From left to right is: Ana Maria, me, Claudia, and Maria, with Amilcar in front.

With Dennis. Dennis has really good English, so I got to know him fairly well. He was so sweet, and gave me a gift on my birthday! I thought it was so cute! Apparently, some of the other guys were giving him the gears for giving me a gift - but I just thought it was sweet!

My farewell meeting. They presented me with a certificate, as well as my own orange FUDEM t-shirt (I was so pumped about this - I had been asking all along if I could have one, so that I could be just like everyone else on Saturdays), and a beautiful towel with a painting by a famous El Salvador artist and FUDEM embroidered at the bottom

Lorena and Karina. The girls were so sweet! I didn't really get to know them as well, but they were so nice! And they didn't make fun of me like the guys did (at least not that I know of anyway!)

With some of my new friends, Gilberto, Noe, Amilcar and Karina. They are all techs at FUDEM. It was the techs that I become good friends with while there, mostly because they are all similar in age to me (moreso than the optometrists and ophthalmologists). I had so much fun working and laughing with all of them, even though the laughter often had to do with my Spanish speaking and pronounciation abilities!