La Esquina Caliente

In San Marcos i try to be pretty social, meeting and hanging out with random people and eventually getting to know their names… usually I know a lot about people before I know their names, it’s kind of a problem I have. Most days if I don’t have any work to do and it’s not raining (which really limits my time) I can just walk from my house in any direction and within about a minute I’ll run into someone I already know or someone who waves me over to talk to the gringo. It’s a great way to meet new people, but it can be tiring constantly having so many acquaintances but no real friends. Fortunately I have become part of a group of guys that has taken me in as more or less one of their own. They call themselves the “esquina caliente” or the “hot corner”, if they weren’t all in high school, part of the church, and very friendly it would be like I was part of a gang. The reason they are called the esquina caliente is because, after hanging out in the park every evening till about 8:30 playing soccer, we walk to the corner store, buy a 2 liter of soda or juice and drink it and hang out talking to whoever passes by. This is how I pass my nights…super exciting. One of my first days in site we went to the rio and had a BBQ and hung out, and yesterday we traveled to Petoa to play soccer against another group from there. I scored a nice goal from 25 yards out, but we lost 3-2, I am now referred to as “Gringo Donavan”. We couldn’t finish the game because we had to leave early because the last bus home was leaving without us…they don’t really think these things through ahead of time, but we managed to make it back safely to San Marcos. Although sometimes I get tired of hanging out with highschool kids because I feel super old around them I really do appreciate the way they have taken me in and provided me with some fun times.