San Salvador

After the last classes on Friday, we boarded a bus at noon on Saturday and arrived at our guesthouse in San Salvador about 3:45.

We've never stayed here before but it's been very nice and the housekeeper has taken good care of us.  She fixes us fresh squeezed orange juice each day.  There is an interesting mix of young people from around the world who stay here...often in the midst of months of youthful traveling around Central America. They have hostel beds in dormitories for $7 a night but we are in a large private room just off the reception area.
We have spent our days here walking the streets and riding the buses to see the city and some friends that we have made through the years. 

Colorful graffiti around the national University.

Many trees are in bloom and it makes for lovely neighborhood walks.

Marlys...Warren thinks you have a potential new career in bicycle vending.  You are the only one he can think of who would be able to pedal these rolling carts up and down the hills of San Salvador!

On Sunday mornings they close off a major street...Constitution Blvd...and it is devoted to walking, biking, skateboarding, and vending almost anything.  We have made friends with Rafael, a coconut vendor, and his daughter.  They like to practice their English and they tolerate our Spanish.

Of course, we've spent some time with Carlos and Yolanda, Warren's host family on several occasions...and my hosts for one week a few years ago.  They have become our Salvadoran family.

We always enjoy a trip to Pollo Campero with Monsey, Ricky and Diego.  Both Monsey and Ricky's mothers were there, too, but had to stay home to watch a movie...not enough room in the car!

Ricky's mother, Elsie, (center) is visiting from Iowa where she has lived for several years with Ricky's brother, Oscar. 
We had a lovely visit to the bi-lingual school where Monsey used to teach and visited in English with students from kindergarten to high school.  The high school students are studying four languages...Spanish, English, Chinese, and sign language.  What an opportunity for those young people...very different from the educational experiences of the students in Munoces!
Tonight we have one last dinner with our friend, Steve, and, hopefully, with Leslie, the director of CIS.  That will be a fine way to bring our travels here to a close for this year...as always with mixed emotions.  We will hold the dear people of Munoces close in our thoughts as we return to life in Newton, Iowa.

Visiting in the Community

Although we were not an "official" delegation we wanted to make an effort to visit all the families in the community while we were working in Munoces.  Our days at the school were completely full and left no time to walk up the hill into the community so we arranged for the Pastoral Team to meet us in Munoces for two afternoons after school so we could walk house to house and visit.  The two afternoons allowed us to visit all but the last 5 families so we finished visiting those families as we walked up the hill to the shortcut to El Tablon on Friday morning for the soccer tournament.  The following are some images from those visits.

One of four new babies in the community.








We saw the water tanks all over the community and everyone expressed gratitude saying they were saving many long trips to the spring carrying heavy canteroes of water.

One of the afternoons we were served a lovely lunch in this dirt-floor home.  A chicken had been killed for us and a tablecloth, plates, and chairs were rounded up from around the community.  We were touched and humbled by the way they cared for us.

Renee and Hayde are leaders in the community.  Their older daughter is in the kindergarten class and they are very supportive of the school. 

Hayde even made this little desk out of sticks and a board for Yajaira to encourage her school work.

Adorable children are everywhere you look!





We saw the husband of Paulina Evangelina who passed away last year and Warren gave him a picture of her.  He was so thrilled that he cried and kissed her picture several times.  By the time we moved on down the road we were all crying!

This proud mother is displaying the graduation picture (from 8th grade) and the quince anos picture of her daughter, Esperanza.  Esperanza is one of five scholarship students this year from Munoces.  All five are beginning their first year at the instituto....high school....in Berlin.

The baby in this young family was about 15 days old.  You can't help but wonder what the future holds for that little one.

Through the years we have become friends and we're always glad to greet one another.  Many asked about Warren's heart issue and extended greetings to all the friends at First Presbyterian in Newton.  A caring connection has been formed over the last few years that warms hearts in both El Salvador and Newton, Iowa.

Last Afternoon Class

Suddenly it seems that our purpose here has ended.  With the celebration on Wednesday, the videos on Thursday and the soccer day on Friday in Munoces, all that remained was our last class in the afternoon at the Pastoral House.  Our class had settled down to about 15-16 students ranging from about 8 to 15 with occasional visits from an adult or university student.  So Friday we were prepared with certificates for our faithful 15, a fun review game, and ice cream sodas for all.  Here are a few scenes from the review game....

And the winner is......

A three-way tie for first place.  The class answered every question in the bag successfully!  Yeah!!!

The last days of school

After the grand celebration on Wednesday we coasted through the last two days of school.  On Thursday we showed videos and photos to each class.

They love to see photos of themselves and they were fascinated by the students at Aurora Heights and snow!













Today...Friday...was a soccer play day with students from three schools...Munoces, El Tablon, and Santa Cruz...playing 11 games throughout the morning.  We began in Munoces and, after visiting a few families and delivering some medicine to Juana Fuentes, we made the trek to El Tablon using the shortcut by Conception's house and by the water pila on the River Colorado.
From little tykes to 15-18 year-olds, they kept the soccer field at El Tablon humming.  The new ball from Aurora Heights saw lots of action and was fiercely protected by the Munoces students.  

Students on the sidelines cheered loudly for their teams.

When the morning was over Joaquin piled the Santa Cruz students in the Green Hornet and later came back to bring us back to Berlin.

What a fun way to end our 3 weeks of teaching here.  We will miss the students and the community as we make our way back to "normal" life in Newton.

Celebration!

What a full, exhausting, triumphant, dismal day (Wednesday)!  I'm so tired I can hardly write this blog.  The teachers planned a celebration for the students and their parents today to honor the completion of the English classes this week.  Our first clue that it was going to be a grand event was when they started hauling out big speakers and a sound system when we arrived in the morning. Chairs and a few desks were hauled outside for all the students, the parents, and the honored guests...Kimberly, Warren and I and leaders in the community who offered prayers and speeches. 

They played the El Salvador national anthem and cued up Pomp and Circumstance for the students to receive their little certificates of completion that we had made up. 

We also led them in English songs and had a drawing for the hats that Jane Repp had made and the giant pencils that Nancy Mott bought.

 The grand finale was the presentation of a soccer ball from the students in Doug Smith's class at Aurora Heights in Newton to the students in Munoces. 












The ball was immediately put to good use! 

The event went on for two and a half hours and when it was over we had the 4 hour ride home written about in the previous post.  You never know what will happen next!

PS.  The Green Hornet had a new fuel filter and buzzed along to school the next day...although it has some interesting new noises that have potential to lead to further break-downs. 

The Green Hornet Bites the Dust

On another occasion I will tell you all about the grand celebration we had at school today...but, for now, I'm going to write about the adventure of getting back home from school.  We walked the 25 minute walk down hill and back up again to catch the Green Hornet, as usual...but a little way into the trip we had to stop for engine repairs.

It seems the fuel filter was completely clogged...not surprising considering the massive amount of dust we drive through each day!  They would get it going for a little bit and then it would break down again.

We spent a lot of time at the side of the road.  Sometimes we would walk up a big hill to give the truck a break.

People would stop to help and sometimes there were 4 or 5 guys consulting on the engine at a time. We spent a little time at someone's casa where we were able to buy a little bag of frozen coconut milk for a nickle. You bite off a corner of the plastic bag and work the frozen food out of the bag with your teeth.

Eventually the old truck with the painted-on fake license plates...La Tortuga...came to our rescue.  After towing the Green Hornet up some hills and trying another time to get it going, we left Joaquin at the side of the road...

and La Tortuga delivered us to town.  The whole trip took about four hours and we barely made it back for our 4:15 class.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring???

Beach!

This weekend our friend Steve, who is teaching English in San Salvador for three months for CIS, came to visit us.  He rented a car and drove to Berlin on Friday and we enjoyed a delicious dinner together at Alegria on Friday night.

He spent the night at Casa Mia and in the morning we left for the beach.  We decided to visit El Cuco just over the boundary from the department of Usulutan into the department of San Miguel....about an hour and a half drive down the volcano to the ocean. We looked for a place to stay and found a good place on the second try.  This busy hotel had direct access to the beach, two functioning swimming pools, and a restaurant.  The mirrored headboard and lights that changed color from blue to green to pink to red and to orange in our room, as well as the baby scorpion in Kimberly's room just added a little local color.  The hammocks right outside the door were definitely a plus!

The beach is shared by tourists and fisherman who pull their boat up onto the sand amid the sunbathers.

The beach is also shared by acres of fish drying in the sun on racks of sticks.

We spent about 24 hours eating, playing in the surf, drinking, eating again, sleeping, walking on the beach, and playing in the surf some more. 

Then it was time to drive back up the volcano to the cooler air of Berlin and our last week of teaching.  Thanks to Steve for our mini-vacation to the beach.

Take a Ride in the Green Hornet

How would you like to take a ride in the Green Hornet?  Warren managed to get some video of part of the ride back to Berlin one day this week.  It was the only time that Kimberly has ridden in the cab...because the teacher that usually rides there was gone that day.  That left a little more room at the rail in the front for Warren, Mario, and me.  Usually all four of us are trying to crowd into the only standing positions in the front of the truck bed.  Everyone else has to sit on the wheel well or the edge of the sides...very uncomfortable positions.  Most people let us "gringos" get the prime standing positions but Mario will fight for a prime place of this own...he is a very big guy and I'm sure the riding is much harder on him than on most.

First you have to climb on board.  Sometimes the truck doesn't stop for long and you have to hang on as best you can.  (Not for us, though.  They always give us plenty of time to climb into the truck!)

  Then you just enjoy the ride.  (The bandanas are for filtering out the constant dust.)

Commuting to and from school is an adventure all it's own!

Water

Water is a precious commodity around here.  In the caserio de Munoces where we teach the water may run for a couple hours every 5 to 8 days...and then only to people who are in the lower part of the community...the pump can't get water up the hill to the upper half.  There are no such things as bathrooms...think outhouse...or showers or bathtubs.  Water, if they get any, is collected in a cement basin called a pila.  Most people in Munoces walk a mile down the mountain to a stream to bathe or wash their clothes. 
Things are better in the city of Berlin where we are living.  At the pastoral house we get water for a couple of hours every other morning so we can take an actual shower every other day...and they even have an electrical gadget on the shower head that allows for hot water!!  At least that was true for our first week here.  But....we have received no water since last Wednesday and the rumor is that this may go on for some time.  At first we thought it was caused by some road construction taking place in front of the house...and then we heard that it was caused by a huge water line break and that the whole city is without running water. 

The team has been hauling in water from a nearby community that has it's own water system so our pilas have adequate water.  They brought in an additional barrel of dirtier water for us to use for flushing so we won't go through the water in our pila so quickly.  So we can stay clean...but no more hot showers.  Bucket showers are okay...the first bucket of cold water over the head is the hardest...it gets easier from there.

The big pila outside where we wash our dishes and our clothes was completely empty last night but they have been hauling water today so the pila is now half full and most of the big buckets are full as well. 

Of course, we can't drink any of that water...I don't even use it for my toothbrush or my contact lens.  So we go through lots of bottled water in the house. 

The pastoral team is taking good care of us under difficult circumstances.  All that water they are hauling is HEAVY!  At least they don't have to haul it on their heads or on their shoulders for miles like the people of the caserios.  We don't realize how lucky we are to live where we can take water for granted.