Top Ten Things That Rock My World

1. Freebies in the super!!  They’re so desperate to get rid of that mozzarella that only the weird gringo buys, they’ve slapped a free bag of crema on top of it!  (For those of you not in the know, crema is this delicious Salvadoran kind of sour cream, popular with breakfast dishes.  Some people hate it, but I LOOOOOOOVE it!)
2. Gringo privilege.  I get seats on the bus, don’t have to pay for rides on a truck, and people offer to carry stuff for me.  And my personal favorite:  I was sitting in a café for breakfast a few days ago, and they brought me a banana-nut muffin “en la casa”.  It used to make me uncomfortable to get special treatment, but now I just sit back and enjoy the ride.  I’ve got enough discomfort in my life to make up for the privileges.
3. Learning Spanish.  Alright, my Spanish skillz are still pretty pathetic.  The only people I can speak freely with are the 5-year-olds, because we have roughly the same size vocabulary. But I’m getting there!
4. Washing my clothes in the river.  Is it weird that I enjoy this?  It’s such a good leg and glute workout, fighting the river current while you’re balancing on rocks trying to scrub your clothes!  Plus, the river’s super loud, so I can sing off-key at the top of my lungs, and no one will ever know.  It’s even better than singing in the shower.
5. Bus snacks.  While I still don’t trust the sliced fresh fruit that’s sold by the street vendors (that’s a good way to get amoebas), I go weak at the knees when they offer me manì dulces or fried plàtanos with chili sauce.
6. Afternoon showers.  While it annoys me to no end when it rains in the morning (which it has no right to do), I love a good afternoon shower.  It cools everything down.
7. Air conditioning.  Alright, you got me, I don’t get it often.  But that just make it all the more precious.  When I walk into the refrigerator that is the internet café in Chalate, I want to cry just a little.
8. My new phone.  In case some of you have been wondering why I never call people anymore, it’s because I lost my phone a few months back (for the third time), and the crappy, over-priced replacement I bought almost never gets signal and has a wicked echo on the line.  But I finally bought a new, fancy one last week.  I’ve kept my old one as a decoy phone for would-be robbers.
9. The fauna.  Even an over-crowded bus ride is pleasant if you manage to get a window seat.  The rolling hills and mountains are stunning.
10. Everyone knows your name.  It’s like Cheers, but dubbed in Spanish.  Oh, and they call me Lemilie.  It’s cause with women’s names, they stick a La in front of it.  So technically, it’s La Emilie.  (But it always sounds like Lemilie.)  Hmm, The Emilie.  I like it.  Could you guys start calling me that in English?