Letter, April 4, 1976

Dear Mom, Dad & all,

Thanks a whole bunch for sending the pictures. There’s going to be some very happy folks in Costa Rica when they see them. I already showed them to Jim Olson (the husky guy with the mustache in a couple of the pictures) and he liked them a lot. Got a couple real good ones of he and Pilar, his fiancé (as you’ve already seen of course).

<I guess you figured out which one is Sofia with no trouble!> I love the picture of her & her grandparents, with the unpainted house, the flowers & the corn stalk. And she’s a head taller than either of them!

<I’m leaving for Costa Rica this Friday to spend the week before Easter with Sofia and the Castillo Murillo family.> It’ll be a good time to be away from Metalio. Easter week is the time when every Salvadoran who possibly can goes to the beach & Metalio is one of the popular ones. Also, April is the hottest month of the year in El Salvador (because it’s when the sun passes directly overhead on its way up to the Tropic of Cancer, Tom), and nowhere is it any hotter than here at sea level.

Did Jan bring you the “Tico Times” to look at? The “Tico Times” is one of 2 English language newspapers published in San Jose, the capital {of Costa Rica}. There are a lot of North Americans living in Costa Rica, especially retired people. They are even supposed to be getting a T.V. station in English for them now. Costa Rica likes the income from those pension checks being spent there & they have made it convenient for many pensioners to make their homes there.

Jay {Hasheider, the other Volunteer at my site} and I killed, skinned and spit fried a rabbit the other day. We got sick of telling the folks at El Maizal it was time to start eating or selling the excess rabbits & took matters into our own hands! Neither of us had ever skinned a rabbit before, but it came out just fine – we even ate the liver, heart & kidneys. Two friends of Jay’s were over & between the 4 of us it was all we could do to eat it. Big rabbit! With salad & beer it was a feast!

I spent today tattooing rabbits with a tattooing jobber I borrowed from the Ministry of Agriculture office in Sonsonate. At last I think we’re going to be able to keep track of which bunny is which! Too bad they don’t have the Peter Rabbit legend here; we could make a fortune selling “Easter Bunnies”.

Well I hope you had a good time in Baltimore.

Take care,

Dean