La Despedida Extendida

(By John)

As the last blog entry made clear, Amber terminated her service with the Peace Corps to take a great job stateside in San Diego, California. Before Amber left, we did a serious of fun things that amounted to a "long goodbye" (despedida extendida).

On March 31, we went to the World Cup qualifying match between the USA and El Salvador. The Cuscatlán Stadium was wall-to-wall blue, the color of the Salvadoran national team. The Salvadoran team played their hearts out to a 2-2 tie. None of my Salvadoran friends here thought their team would get so close, 0-5 one predicted in favor of the US, 1-3 another predicted, a bit optimistically.

It was truly one of the best sporting events I have been too. The energy in the stadium was palpable.



El Salvador got out to an unbelievable 2-0 lead until well into the 2nd half, when the Salvadoran team lost 3 of their key players, one being their goalie. The US stormed back with 2 quick goals, and there the score stood, “empatada” or tied.

From the soccer match, we went to the beach. Normally, we are not big beach people, but we wanted a chance to see the famous black sand beaches of El Salvador.



Also, we wanted to have a chance to get away from all the official goodbyes and have some time to ourselves. The trip and the beaches did not disappoint. We particularly enjoyed eating a couple dinners in this restaurant “muy humilde” (very humble) where we were served our dinners by the barefoot waitress/cook. We will miss readily finding such treasures that are absent of pomp, attitude and perceptions.



Upon returning to Suchitoto, we had the actual despedida party scheduled at a local bar on the plaza central. It was a great time connecting, but nonetheless bittersweat to have to be saying goodbye to our precious time here together.