El Salvador

I just recently got back from El Salvador. (Ok, it was 11 days ago, so not that recent in a certain manner, but I'm slow, sue me.) You may wonder why I went to a third world country the size of Connecticut, well, that's where my mother's side of the family, except for one of her sisters, is located. I was there for a week and met for the first time, or saw again after a long while, 7 aunts and uncles, 23 cousins, and about half a dozen of their kids, along with their spouses, and my 90 year old grandmother. At one point, at my grandmother's birthday celebration, I experienced information overload where I knew that I was related to someone there, but not sure who they were, or how. This included my sister and mom!
It was a good trip. We went to the beach, twice (keep in mind I don't like the beach), a small town overlooking a lake that they're trying to make tourist friendly called Suchitoto, my grandma's house in their small town of San Miguel de Mercedes, a section of San Salvador (the capital and largest city) that has an American feel to it (the two malls, Office Max, KFC, Wendy's, and Burger King do that).
Some parts, especially in the capital, are very much like any other city here. Then there's parts that have little tin shacks with people that bathe in a nearby river. Like here, there's the different classes of wealthy, middle, and poor. My family is pretty much all middle class. The family grew up on a farm, but most of the sons work in either financial or political jobs. Some are retired now though. They have decent sized houses, with a maid! Almost everyone has a maid. A lot of the maids live in their own quarters in the house. That's where my room was. We called it the dungeon because it was small and in a corner of the house, past the kitchen, and the open area where the laundry was done. Most houses have an open area without a roof.
Another interesting thing is the Pollo Campero phenomenon. It's a fried chicked place, kind of like KFC, but better (at least I thought so). The phenomenon is that, a) they're everywhere, b) they're usually crowded, c) for whatever reason, people leaving feel the need to bring it with them. On the flight back, there were at least half a dozen people carrying boxes of chicken as their carryon, to the point where you could smell it on the plane. The wierd thing about it is, that there's no Campero anywhere near the airport, which is a good hour outside of the city. So it's an hour old just before they get to the airport, another hour to get on the plane, the flight to Houston is 2 and a half hours, plus the flight to wherever they're going. The flight to Phoenix was another 2 hours. Probably another hour to get off the plane, get the baggage
and get home. By that time, it's like 7 hours old. Yummy!
What else, oh, my Aunt and Uncle had digital cable which offered ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX from New York, that was kind of odd. ESPN for Latin America shows tennis and soccer, and that's about it.
Technically this was my third time there. I was there when I was around 4 or 5, then again at 9 years old. Then 20 years later I went back. I'm glad I went, I'll probably go again. Probably less than 20 years. Now I just have to learn to speak some Spanish. I made everyone ask me yes or no questions with simple language because that's all I could understand.