Tuesday, February 21, 2012

This and That

A Sad Event
We received word this week of the death of a dear friend of Kimberly Schnell's whom she had gotten to know during several years of coming to Berlin...on delegations, teaching English, and helping in a physical therapy clinic. The latter is where Kimberly met Ana and, sadly, it was the location of a rosary being said for Ana on Sunday night. Ana was twenty-five and crippled by arthritis which left her in a wheel chair. She contracted pneumonia and died last week. We learned of the rosary from a colleague in a tienda in the market and were able to attend on Sunday night. We brought sympathies on behalf of Kimberly to the family and they allowed us to take a picture of the alter that had been set up for the rosary. Our sympathies to Ana's family and her special friend from Iowa, Kimberly Schnell.
The Bathroom
Because the water only runs for a few hours every other day, every bathroom is equipped with a pila...a large vat for the storage of water. This water is used for washing and flushing the toilet. The sewage system cannot handle toilet paper so all toilet paper goes into a small wastebasket next to the toilet. Last weekend the sink fell off the wall twice..once with Warren and once with me. We were able to catch it and put it back on the wall. But....while I was (thankfully) in the shower the sink fell again and this time crashed to the floor and shattered! As of Monday there is a lovely new sink in it's place. Unfortunately, when the water isn't running there is no way to test the new connections to make sure they are not leaking so.......at 2:30 this morning we noticed that we "splashed" when we walked into the bathroom. We got the whole household up to turn off the water out in the street to stop the flood. We hope it is now repaired....we'll find out the next time the water is running!

Learning the Computer!
Yesterday we found out that the school day would be shortened for a meeting at the school about 10:30. The school has been given a solar electrical system, 5 computers, a refrigerator, and a copier by the European Union and some Salvadoran NGO's (non-governmental organizations). A representative of the organizations was there to instruct a few of the older children as well as representatives of the community. It was the first time most had used a computer! They placed an adult at each computer with two students and they went through an exercise of opening and writing a document and then saving it. It brought back memories of teacher inservices in the 80's when we were introduced to computers! What fun to see the adults and students working hard together.
Luis Ernesto Cruz gets a computer lesson with the help of Marlene and Gerson.
The instructor checks in on each table.

No comments:

Post a Comment