Recently I had a chance to visit one of my volunteers up in his mountain-top community in northern Chalatenango. I remember pausing with him on a ridge and him pointing off into the distance, where a few specks of white poked through the canopy of trees and slowly moving clouds. That's the edge of my community, he said. And we were off.

Hiked for over an hour, almost entirely up. Crossed rivers, ducked under barbed wire, nearly fell off too many cliffs to count. But it was worth it. Clayton's off to a great start and will leave quite the mark on his community when his two years are up.

Early the next day, we hit the trail and hiked through the mountains to Malorie's community, just a hop skip and a jump over the mountains. That's a 30 minute hop, a 45 minute skip, and a 30 minute jump. But her host family is truly amazing and had a feast waiting for us when we arrived. Probably the biggest meal I've eaten in El Salvador. Soup, steak, coffee and quesadillas (sweet bread). I should mention, since it was a special occasion, we weren't eating your average steak. Nope, we were lucky enough to get pelibüey. I'll save you the trip to google translator. Sheep. Don't knock it til you tried it.

Sidenote: there's an unspoken, yet highly respected rule in Peace Corps that when you visit another volunteer's site, you immediately take on strict dietary restrictions, refuse a healthy amount of food you're offered, and speak as much junk spanish as possible. If you haven't picked up yet, this is all to make that volunteer seem like a rockstar, eating everything and dominating the language and culture like Jordan dominated the NBA cerca 1997. Like a jackass, I kind of violated that rule and devoured anything and everything they put in front of me. I did hike through the mountains of Chalate only minutes before! If you're reading this, sorry, chica. The good news is, Malorie is a rockstar volunteer and didn't need much help from me to prove it.

I had some time to kill that night at the hostel, so I put together a quick video of the experience.

Cameraman: Moi

Music: Caetano Veloso - Um Canto de Afoxe Para Bloco do Ile

Ps. Yes I know it's brazilian samba music, but the children's voices in the background reminded me so much of those of kids playing in every dirty, dusty community in this country, I couldn't resist.