Saturday was another entertaining border crossing day. It went pretty smoothly (and only took 3.5 hours in total) until we drove over the bridge (from Guatemala to El Salvador) to hear that Ben was having problems at immigration as he apparently only had a 1 day visa (the rest of us have 90 day visas). Summary of the story is he went back to Guatemala, avoided paying a $140 fine by paying less for a 5 day visa. Now in San Salvador he's been to immigration a few times trying to get it fixed... The 90 day visa is needed for the 4 countries Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. We're not sure why he only got a 1 day visa, the immigration official into Guatemala must just being uncool by doing it.
We arrived safely in San Salvador (the capital) in the evening where we're staying at a YWAM base. San Salvador is like America but in Spanish. There's Burger King and other famous American restaurants and stores everywhere. It's because a third of El Salvadorians are in America and when they come back to El Salvador they want the American things they've grown accustomed to in the US. I have a bunch of other interesting facts about El Salvador which I'll put in a separate blog entry.
The YWAM base is so nice, such luxury. Actually not really, but our standards are pretty low so even very small things impress us. Like having our own beds (even though we're in a dorm that sleeps 8), showers (even though the room I'm in is the only room that only has cold water showers), lights in our bedroom and bathroom, a toilet seat (even though the shower, hand basins and toilet are only separated by curtains so not much privacy), plus our meals are prepared for us so no food shopping for me (I go nearly every day usually and it's a long tiring experience). Pretty good for $20 a day. Oh, and they even have a swimming pool, that's pretty cool. Plus having benches to sit on for meals definitely beats eating (from generally dirty plates) standing up while being bitten by bugs which is usually the case for us as we don't have chairs and are usually camping in random places.
We've split into teams to do ministry every day. It's been so great, having them organize stuff for us to do, plus I've experienced few different ministries which I've never done before so that's been great.
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