Cooler Days and Bills Paid

It's been amazingly cool the last two days; I think the high temperature has been in the upper 70's or low 80's. We actually slept with the window closed and ceiling fan off last night. We've seen some people wearing jackets--give us a year or so and I'm sure we'll be doing the same.

I promised to tell the story of how bills are paid, so here it goes. Bills arrive in the "mail," which means that the company delivers it to your house and slides under your front door. (Yes, there's a gap between the door and the floor which would allow "delivery" of a variety of junk mail, catalogs and magazines, if we actually received mail.) The first bill we received was an electric bill which happened to belong to the tenant who moved out before we got here. Since it was only $3.17, Jeff and Paula suggested that we pay it as our "trial run" of the process. First step is to take the bill and the appropriate amount of cash to your favorite bank. We walked to Banco Agricola at Plaza Merliot (about 15 minutes.) Second step--take a number (reminded me of the local license bureau.) Third step is to wait in line with 40 or more of your closest friends until your number is called. Our number was 56 which of itself isn't a problem until you realize that they just called number 18. It was a bit tricky listening for our turn and it was a good thing we practiced numbers with our tutor last week. There were 6 cashiers open so it only took 35 minutes to be called up. Luckily, laying the bill and the cash on the counter was all that was necessary--no talking required. Several moments later we're exiting the bank with our receipt!

We decided that it makes sense to try to find a date when all/most of the bills can be paid and make one trip to the bank. By the way, this method is also used to pay rent; the only difference being that you must go to the bank where your landlord has an account. Our landlord has an account at Banco Agricola so we can use the same place, thus making our successful trial run a confidence builder. We will pay our rent in cash as we cannot open a checking account here until we have our residency. If we don't have a vehicle by the time our rent is due July 9, we will probably have Jeff and Paula drive us to the bank. It doesn't seem like a great idea to be walking to the bank with $500+ in our backpacks.

Well, that's the cultural difference story for today. Stay tuned for more details as we learn the ropes here in El Salvador. Thanks for your prayers for our transition--they mean alot to us.