Peace Corps Journal (El Salvador & Costa Rica): About

This blog consists of letters home, journal entries, and pictures and other images from my 3+ years (almost 41 months) as a Peace Corps Volunteer in El Salvador and Costa Rica. All opinions expressed are my own, and not those of any other party, including the U.S. Peace Corps and the governments of Costa Rica, El Salvador and the United States of America. Because its a blog, the entries appear in reverse chronological order, with the first entries (from Peace Corps training) at the bottom, and my "latest" postings from my Peace Corps service years at the top.

So to read the story in chronological order (which is what I recommend) you need to navigate to the blog archive and start with the earliest entries. Read the posts in the order of the dates contained in their titles. The first entry is the one titled "Letter, August 3, 1974."

The original letters and journal entries were written long-hand without the benefit of the spell checking and grammar checking we are now accustomed to. Because I believe it detracts from the message of the text, I've chosen to correct obvious spelling and grammatical errors.

Any additions to the original text are enclosed in curly brackets { }. These are mostly English translations of Spanish words, expansions of acronyms not defined in the original text, additional specification of places and institutions referred to, and explanations of terms for general readers that I did not believe was necessary for the target audience (my family members and myself) originally.

Anywhere you see this message: {some text not transcribed}, I have chosen not to share text from the original letter, card or journal entry in this blog. The omissions are either to avoid publishing identifying information such as birth dates, or due to a specific request from an individual that I not share information about that person and their family in this blog.

My spouse has requested that I not publish any references to her or her family in this blog. I have chosen to "fictionalize" any references to her which have not been completely removed by calling her Sofia (not her real name) and enclosing the sentence in angle brackets < >.