In El Salvador, we burn our trash.

Today I burned my trash for the first time. And it was a little heartbreaking.

I never had to burn my trash at my old site because whenever my trash was full the bichos would go through it, take what they wanted out of it, and then it would disappear somewhere behind my host family's house. I never had the courage to go back there and see what the deal was...

So anyway, I had been putting off burning my trash since I've been here because I could never build up the guts to actually do it, but today I bit the bullet and burned three full grocery bags full of trash.

Here's what I learned:

1. When it's sunny, you can't see the flame after you strike a matche, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I wasted so many matches today thinking they didn't sirve, but then came to find out I just couldn't see the flame because of the sun (of course, I burned my trash during the 1 hour of sunlight we had today). Needless to say, I wasted about half a box of matches before I actually got the damn thing going.

2. Don't burn aluminum?

3. When burning plastic bottles, make sure the tops are off before you start. Otherwise, they blow up at you! Learned that the hard way today, twice.

4. Instant soup bakes into bread? That was a weird discovery once it was all over.

5. Burning trash takes forever. After about 45 min of monitoring this whole ordeal, I finally poured a bucket of water on it and walked off. It was too many minutes out of my hammock, let's be real.

Also, while my trash was burning I felt oddly self conscious about it. I was so worried that someone was going to walk down the path to my house and see me. And really, everyone burns their trash, and nobody cares, so I had no reason to feel self conscious about it. It just didn't feel right. God knows I'm no environmentalist or anything, but I will be soliciting my Mayor for a trash service at some point during my service!!

Until next time!