Day 15

Sunday January 18, 2009

Today is the last day of our journey, thank goodness. We were up and out of the resort by 4:30 AM and back on our bus for the final time. After arriving at the airport, we smoothly made it through the check-in procedures and sat in the terminal watching as the sun rose over the airport.

As we took off, I was flooded with a sense of mixed emotions. I was very happy to be on my way home, but I was sad to leave this place as well. The Salvadoran people are a kind, warm and beautiful people, and I am going to miss them. And perhaps, a part of me is sad to leave these beautiful 85 degree temperatures, I can only imagine what the weather is doing back home.

As we traveled across the Gulf, I kept straining to catch my first glimpse of the coast of Texas. When it finally came into view, it was almost overwhelming, I am so happy to be back in the United States. We may have our problems, but there is still no where else in the world that I would rather live.

Customs went very smoothly, although we had to walk for what seemed like miles. One thing that I noticed was how rude and pushy our baggage inspection people were as compared to their counterparts in El Salvador. There was one place where the woman was literally yelling at people for not responding quickly enough to her demands. The people, who weren’t responding, probably didn’t speak English, and I certainly know what it’s like to be in a foreign country and not understand what someone is trying to tell me to do. I should have probably told the woman that yelling her point at these people doesn’t in anyway help them to understand any better. Maybe she was just having a bad day, or maybe she has a bad day everyday!

While we were “enjoying” our 5 hour layover in Houston, I had an opportunity to talk to my family, and this time without it costing $1.50 per minute. I was greeted with the news that Karen and Terri were hatching a plan to pick me up in Ohio tonight, and after a little discussion about whether they should come to the airport or the school, the decision was made for them to pick me up at the school. Imagine my surprise when the whole crew was waiting for me at the airport. I have no idea how they were able to find the airport and find me, but they did and I was very happy to see everyone.

The four hour trip home went both quickly and slowly. We talked quite a bit about the trip, but there were many parts of the journey that I wasn’t really ready to talk about, plus everyone was tired and they started dropping off quickly after midnight, except Ben, since he was driving. Although I stayed awake all the way home, it didn’t take long to fall asleep once my head hit the pillow. It sure is good to be home!

As a postscript, I have to say how exhausted that I was following the trip. All that I did was sleep it seems like for the first week. I was really grateful and fortunate that we were essentially snowed in all week. Bible Study, Choir Practice and our Wednesday Church dinner were all cancelled due to weather. I think that God knew that I needed rest and that’s why it snowed:) Well, maybe not, but it could be! In reality it took about a week and a half before I started feeling back to normal, and now it is time to get back to work.

Day 14

Saturday January 17, 2009

We were up and going fairly early this morning on our way to the ocean. As we traveled, I realized that it had been 37 years since I have seen the Pacific Ocean, so I am very much looking forward to it. Maybe even more importantly, I am looking forward to just simply relaxing and spending the day at the Beach without any meetings or agendas. In reality, however, I think that I would be just as happy if we were on our way to the airport. But, I will try to force myself to enjoy the beach :)

It took about an hour to get to the resort that we are staying at, and I must say that it is very beautiful. It is quite a stark contrast to the humble dwelling that we have just been staying in. After a quick walk through, I knew exactly what I wanted to do first. I got on my swim suit and headed to the beach. How warm and wonderful the water was, and how great it was to just sit down and let the wave’s crash into me. After a short break for lunch, it was back to the beach for round two and then to the pool to soak for an hour or so. I think that I have finally washed the imbedded dust of El Salvador off me and my body temperature has finally lowered back down to normal.

After dinner we all sat together and watched the Sun set over the ocean. How beautiful that was to see. Some of the group then went back to the beach and watched the big bonfire, but I must admit that I was just about El Salvadored out and I went back to my room, reorganized all of my things, packed my suitcase, got all of the souvenirs ready to travel and then relaxed in the big rocking chairs in the outdoor plaza of the resort. I am really ready to go home!

Day 13

Friday January 16, 2009

Today was a fairly uneventful day. We began by listening to a presentation on the work of organizing the people to be more effective, and the advantages of working cooperatively for the best interests of the community. We then traveled to the Lempa River to see the Levee system that was built to help stop the flooding during the rainy season. Essentially, in El Salvador they have two seasons, the dry season which we are in now, and the rainy season where it rains almost everyday.

Our guides described for us how the levee system was not built properly and after Hurricane Mitch and the deluge of tropical rains from the storm, the levees breached flooding the lower Lempa River Valley which our community of Nueva Esperanza is a part. It was interesting to see where the water level is during the dry season and then to imagine how much the river raises during the rainy season to reach up to where we were standing on the levee. Our guides also described to us how the River Authority tries to maintain the river level through release of water through the dams, which after living along the Mississippi River for a good part of my life, I understand this very well. Unfortunately, the poor people who live along the lower Lempa River don’t have much (read any) say in how much and when the water is released.

We then had the opportunity to visit a “garden” which really appeared to me to be a good sized farm with coconut trees, sugar cane, mangoes, corn and tomatoes.

One thing that I have begun to understand is that these people are 1. Very self sufficient, which is probably because they have to be. and 2. They seem to count on the government or expect the government to solve or do everything. I have listened as person after person has complained because the government privatized the banking system. Apparently, all of the banks used to be run by the government. They are also very angry because the government is seeking to privatize the water company as well.

I am sure that I don’t totally understand all of the ramifications of privatization, but when I simply compare our water system in the United States to theirs here; I have to think that most anything would be better. I mean, let’s face it, you can’t even drink the water here. The main thing is that when something like the water system is privatized, there must be sufficient oversight to assure that it is accountable to the people, and also there is a necessity that the government function in a fair an uncorrupt manner.

I couldn’t imagine if the government ran the banks, water, sewage, electricity and other utilities. From my perspective, the less that the government is involved in day to day life, the better we are. Honestly, I am not sure that I have ever seen much in my lifetime that I would say that the government does well, except spend money. So, for my money, I would have to question this attitude of wanting the government to solve all of life’s problems. (And I am also aware that this is another area that I am in the minority opinion with my traveling colleagues) The people both here in El Salvador and back home are calling for change, but I think that we all need to be careful what we ask for, not all change is for the good.

Ok, I am stopping today’s journal entry here. In reality I have two more pages. In those two pages, I essentially wrote about the political concerns that I have for El Salvador and compare and contrast them to the similar concerns that I have about our country. I talked about socialism and my views as they relate to the situation of the people of El Salvador as well as in our own country. I wrote in depth about the reaction of people to our new President Barrack Obama that I witnessed on our trip, both within our traveling group and the reaction of the people of El Salvador. And, I talked about how unwilling most people seem to be to look outside of their own world view and perspective to try to view the world with new eyes. (Of which I am equally guilty)

As I read through those two pages, and even though I stand personally by every word, nothing good could come from airing those views in this forum, so if you want to know my thoughts, I would be happy to share them with anyone on a one to one, personal basis where I am not as likely to be misunderstood.

I can assure you that at this point of the journey I was pretty much physically and emotionally exhausted, so that may have also jaded my opinions. I could have probably been less confrontational and more charitable in my writing. It looks like only two more entries in my journal after today, almost there!

Blessings

Day 12

Thursday January 15, 2009

I must admit that I am beginning to get anxious to be home. As much as I have been enjoying the trip, I think that I am just about on overload at this point and I am starting to think a lot more about home than I am what we are doing here. Last night I hardly slept at all, it was so hot and my room felt a little bit like a tomb, I think that I am a bit claustrophobic in here, so that doesn’t bode well for getting much sleep tonight either. I also think that maybe since I am in this room by myself, I must be missing my friends Soon Won and Dong. LOL But, I think I can make it 4 more days.

Today we had an interesting tour of the agricultural area. We first went to the coconut grove where they have over 1000 trees with each tree producing around 150 coconuts per year. We then walked to the sugar cane field. It was very cool (actually it was very hot) to learn how sugar ends up on our tables and it was also fun to eat sugar cane right out of the field. It certainly was sweet, and I will also say, that the sugar here is much better than our sugar at home. I’m not sure if it has to do with different processing, or it being fresher, but as someone who is definitely a connoisseur of sugar, I can tell the difference.

One of the neatest things that we learned about, was the cashew. Cashews actually come from a tree. The cashew fruit is kind of pear shaped and is about the size of your fist. Then imagine for a moment a small node at the bottom of the pear, This is the cashew nut. The fruit itself is thrown away. I’m not sure that there is any use for it at all, it doesn’t even seem to be used to feed the livestock. Only the small nut is harvested. It must take a whole bunch of trees to produce one can of nuts. No wonder they cost so much!

After lunch, we had a presentation of some of the health issues being faced by the cooperative and we were treated to frozen, chocolate covered bananas. Oh my goodness, I may have discovered a new favorite food. The funny thing was that we only paid 10 cents apiece for them, I guess that’s the advantage of walking into your back yard and picking the bananas. When I got home, I saw that bananas were 59 cents per pound, I don’t think that we could buy many bananas for 10 cents.

The highlight of the day was a group of young kids who came and entertained us this evening with music and dancing. They played a few of the same songs that the group played back in Perquin, and once again, I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful handmade dresses that the girls were wearing. These kids seem to have quite a local following. All during the concert, you could see the faces of the young kids outside who were watching and cheering. I think that our band must be some kind of local heroes. The two regrets that I had about the evening were that we didn’t invite the community to come in and listen and watch with us, and also that we didn’t get a chance to talk to these kids about their lives. We offered that as a suggestion for future groups. We leave in 3 days, and I will be home in 4. I’m ready!

Day 11

Wednesday January 14, 2009

Today was a travel day for us. We left the cool mountains of El Salvador and traveled South, down out of the mountains, into the heart of the land. The road, even though it was nicely paved, was extremely dusty. At one point we followed a sugar cane truck for some distance before we could pass, and the dust was so intense you could hardly see out the window.

One of the most memorable moments on our entire journey occurred when we stopped for lunch at a mall in the City of San Miguel. We were each give $10.00 and told to get lunch and meet back at the bus in 1 ½ hours. Since I didn’t have any real plans I decided to follow along with a group and make use of the signal that I was finally getting on my cell phone to touch base with home. There is no telling when or if I will get a signal again while here in El Salvador, so I thought that I had better take advantage of the opportunity while I had it.

We went upstairs to the food court and after wandering around trying to decide not necessarily what I wanted the most, but instead, what might be the easiest to order, even after all of these days, my Spanish is pretty limited. I finally decided on a place that had a picture of a hamburger and French fries with the word Hamburgesa $ 4.00. Whoohooo I thought, this looks easy. All I have to do is say Hamburgesa, and point at the picture and then I noticed that they had Coke in a refrigerated glass case and I know how to ask for a coke in Spanish, you say coka-cola and the problem is solved.

So after I ordered, they immediately pulled out a picture type menu from under the counter, flipped through a few pages and pointed to an $11.00 chicken dinner and the only word I recognized was pollo which means chicken. I politely said no and pointed a little more explicitly at their picture, to which they pointed equally as explicitly to their picture of the chicken dinner for $11.00. What I had thought was going to be so easy, seemed to have turned into a potential international incident.

Thank goodness that our professor John showed up at that moment to see if everything was ok. He was able to interpret and he told me that they wanted me to know that actually the hamburgesa was a chicken sandwich and they didn’t want me to be confused when my order came out. Apparently they don’t actually have hamburgers regardless of what their sign showed. Ohhhhhhh I thought, chicken is good, so I said Si un coka-cola and pointed to the one in the case. You can’t order just a coke from the fountain because not only are the fountain cokes made from their tap water, but so is the ice, so all soft drinks and water have to come from bottles or cans.

With my ordering complete, I pulled out a $5.00 bill, I figured the meal was 4.00 and the coke was 75 cents, $5.00 should cover it. They reached into the cooler, pulled out my coke, and handed it to me, but they didn’t ask for money. Hmmm, Back home, you don’t get anything until they have the money first. They just pointed to a nearby seat and said Quattro something which I took to mean that it would take about 4 minutes. I didn’t even open my coke, they have me trained so well back in the states that I felt guilty drinking any of it without paying for it first. (Which might be weird since I do it in sit down restaurants all the time LOL)

A few minutes later they handed me a humongous chicken sandwich with a plate full of French fries and I pulled my $5.00 bill back out and the young man said Quattro something, which I think was $4.75. He took it and opened the cash drawer and I think that he was looking for change so I just motioned for him to keep it and said Lo siento, mi espaniol es No Bueno, which I either said, I’m sorry, my Spanish stinks (is no good,) or your mother wears army boots, either way, he laughed and said gracias (Thank-you, I understood that one) and I took my tray to the opposite side of the food court to meet up with the rest of the group.

About one minute later, one of the employees from the place where I ordered my food from came and gave me a large saucer full of catsup for my French fries. All I could think of was how incredibly thoughtful that was. She certainly didn’t have to do that, and I can assure you that no one in our malls would have made the effort to walk clear across the food court to give someone who was a foreigner a plate full of catsup. So not only did I overt an international incident, but I made friends as well.

( OH NO! I just figured it out while I was typing this up. As we were leaving the food court, I dumped my tray in the trash and heard a loud thunk. I asked John, "Was our food on glass?" to which he said no, yours was on Styrofoam just like mine. So I didn't think anymore about it, until just now. I think that maybe the saucer that she brought the catsup in may have been glass. No good deed goes unpunished and I bet that's the last time they help out a confused gringo)

This experience really brought home to me how difficult our Hispanic population has it. It is VERY difficult to shop and order from a menu when you don’t speak the language. No one in El Salvador has been short with me, because I couldn’t understand what they were saying, No one has said to me “Go Home, and don’t come back until you have learned our language.” Perhaps we should learn to be more patient, kind and understanding to those that we come into contact with that don’t speak our language as well.

We then reached our final destination, Nueva Esperanza which is a cooperative living farm and homestead community. There are about 101 families all living cooperatively. Each family has a small, very humble dwelling and a small amount of land of their own. They have a school, daycare and medical facility, and they cooperatively work a large farm. These people live together in community, work together and play together in order to make life easier for everyone.

When we got to our accommodations, I guess that the word that would best describe them would be humble . I have a very small room with 2 very low small beds, one small table and a fan all in a room slightly larger than a prison cell. The walls are unpainted concrete block, and there is one window, but there are no screens so I am hesitant to open it because of the bugs. There is one bare light bulb that seems to add to the starkness of the room. I mentioned that it was similar in size to a prison cell, but size isn’t the only similarity, the door itself is a large steel door that when it bangs shut, you pray that it will open again. One of the members of our group refused to close her door the entire time we were there, she chose instead to put a mattress in the door frame.

Our dinner tonight consisted of beans, rice and potato pancakes. We then sat around, played cards and talked until bedtime. Oh and by the way, the bathroom is an outhouse, and the shower is a room that you go in and fill a trough with water and take a bucket and dunk the water on your head. Oh my, this could be a long couple of days. The other bad news is that I seem not to have a cell phone signal here and there also seems to be no Internet, at least not that I have seen yet.

Pardon the Interuption...

I interrupt my journal of El Salvador to bring you this word from your sponsor: AHHHHHHHHHHH This has been a very long difficult day. When I woke up this morning and looked out the window I could see that it had been snowing, so I got up quickly got ready and then left home at around 7:00AM for Ohio. The roads were awful. I decided that the last weather forecast I saw showed the snow mostly in the Southern part of the state so I decided to go north through Indianapolis. Let me assure you that this was a big mistake. It took me 3 hours to get through Indianapolis and my normal 4 hour journey to school was looking to be very long indeed. I called my professor at 11, knowing that at best I was going to be late to class. After leaving Indy, the road conditions continued to deteriorate. From the time that I left home until I reached the Ohio line, I never got above 35 mph and a lot of the time was spent between 0 and 5 mph.

Once I got to Ohio, things gradually started clearing and by the time I got to Dayton the roads were pretty clear. I finally got to school at 2:25, a 7 ½ hour trip, 25 minutes late to class. Actually this may be the first time in 4 years that I have been late to class.

The bad thing is that my trip over might not have been the worse part of the day. The class that I was late for is about the work of Michael Foucault. Who is that you ask? You mean that you never heard of him? Me either!!!! And now that I have had the first class, I’m not sure that I want to get to know who he was. This class is going to be a major stretch for me, I would say that I will keep you posted, but to be honest, most of the folks that I know who read my blog would have absolutely NO interest in anything he has ever written or done. Perhaps I am being too judgmental, probably, but I will just keep telling myself that all I need to do is to pass this class and I can graduate.

I will tell you that most everyone in this class are the real smart people. How did they let me in to this one? This is one of those classes that I don’t even understand the questions that these people were asking, let alone the answers. You think I’m kidding don’t you? I am serious! This is the first class that I have taken that I have serious doubts about passing. Maybe it will look brighter tomorrow after I have picked up the books and started to read. Then again the professor said that it was difficult to read, (not good for Jim) and that there will be a lot to read for each class. (Oh noooo I am such a slow reader)

Since I didn’t stop on the way over here today, I didn’t have anything to eat since last night, so I guess I have had a 24 hour fast. But, after a dinner of Bob Evans, and some cookies and cream pie to take back to my room, I feel better and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. I sure hope it isn’t worse, tomorrow I attend the other class that I need to pass. It couldn’t be as bad as the Foucault class could it? Naaaaaaa

Blessings

Day 10

Tuesday January 13, 2009

Today has been a beautiful day here in the mountains. Once again I was up and going very early. I had about an hour to relax and listen to the beehive of activity around here in the mornings. The air is cool and the clouds hang over the mountains like a soft blanket.

After breakfast we traveled down the mountain to visit the Segundo Montes community and to experience a few of the local points of interest. I believe that our original plan for this morning was to take a hike in the mountains. I think that I would have enjoyed that greatly, but I also believe that the decision not to go was the best for our group overall. The first stop was a textile cooperative run exclusively by a group of local women. These women operate a clothing business where the clothing is primarily produced from cloth dyed with Indigo.

Indigo was the primary export of El Salvador for many centuries after the Spanish discovered that El Salvador was the perfect climate to produce it. Indigo remained the primary export until Germany invented an artificial dye that could be produced and sold much cheaper. I think that I should note here that the production of Indigo essentially deforested the lowlands of El Salvador, a condition which they have not recovered from to this day. After the Indigo production essentially ceased, the primary export changed to coffee, and once again, the deforestation process was repeated in the mountain regions where the coffee grew best.

The clothing that these women made was quite beautiful and several of our women took advantage of the opportunity to purchase these hand made garments.

We then went to a small museum which was essentially only one small room. This museum was demonstrating the struggle of the people during the armed conflict as well as the hope that El Salvador had for the future. We then went to a small radio station that I believe was possibly the child of Radio Venceremos which broadcast during the war. It has been in existence for 19 years. I was fascinated to listen as the manager of the station described how in the beginning they could only afford to broadcast with loud speakers hanging from the roof of their building because they couldn’t afford to purchase the necessary transmitters and antennas. They next advanced to broadcasting with only 20 watts of power. They now broadcast at 1000 watts, which is pretty good for a small station even in the United States.

We then went to another cooperative where several groups were working together to produce hand made wood and craft items. These included everything from furniture to jewelry. Their work was quite extraordinary. One of the highlights of the day was when we visited the house of a man who made hammocks. Hammocks can be found everywhere in El Salvador, and they are very beautiful. It was a real treat to watch as he worked on one, and to learn that it could take a week or longer to make one hammock. He sold them for around $45.00 so even working at 100% capacity he could only produce about $180.00 per month which is essentially the minimum wage in El Salvador. Kate bought one to take home, and I was glad that someone in our group did that, I Don't have $45.00 left or I would have bought one, I would have looked pretty good this summer out relaxing beneath the trees.

Just down the street from his house was the local library. It was sad for me to hear that because they have so few books, the children can only use the books in the library, they aren’t allowed to take them home. It was also noted that many members of our group (including me) have more books in our own personal library than this library does for the entire community. This was especially sad for me to see. My first thought would be to just donate a bunch of books to the library, I think back to our church’s last garage sale, we ended up taking boxes and boxes of books to the Good Will Store. The problem is, that all of these books were in English and although the kids here could benefit from some English books to practice working on English skills, the library really needs books in Spanish. The other challenge would be shipping them down to El Salvador. The cost for shipping even a small box of books could be almost prohibitive. I love books, and it was sad for me to see that these children are so limited in their access.

We ended the morning in conversation with Miguel Ventura who I believe is a priest, sometimes the names and their rolls get a little jumbled in my mind. He talked to us about the role of Liberation Theology, his work, as well as their relationship with the Vatican. I have to admit that perhaps it was because the room was so warm, maybe it’s because I haven’t been sleeping all that well, but it took every ounce of the strength that I had available not to close my eyes during the presentation. (Actually I did close them, and I wasn’t the only one) I think that many of us are beginning to grow weary.

After lunch, Cesar brought a wonderful group of young people to meet with us. These kids, at least I would call them kids, were all between the ages of 14 and 23. They were part of a dance group and a band who specialized in playing music from their El Salvadorian heritage and dancing traditional El Salvadorian dances. This was truly one of the highlights of the trip for me. These kids were awesome and it gave me such a joy to see their passion for their culture and their appreciation for their heritage. I think what I appreciated even more, was the opportunity to sit down with them before the concert and learn as much as we could about them.

I asked several questions, but the one that I most enjoyed the answer to was, “Tell me what you do for fun.” I had to chuckle a little bit, when some of my colleagues were asking questions such as, “What do you feel will change in your country if the FMLN takes control of the government in the upcoming elections?” Oh please, these are kids, I want to know about them, about what they like, what they do for fun, do they enjoy sports or just music, tell me about your school! Do you get the sense that I can get a little frustrated with some of my traveling companions from time to time? (I know that they get frustrated with me too, they told me so, so I guess were even)

The music was quite exceptional and the dances were awesome. I have to admit that I think what I enjoyed the most was the detail and intricate handiwork represented in the dresses that the girls wore. After years of dress shopping, buying formals and having them made for my daughter, I grew to appreciate the work that goes into making a dress. These dresses were beautiful and I could tell that they were made with love. Especially when you consider that these kids come from families who have next to nothing materially as compared to our families.

The evening consisted pretty much of eating dinner and getting beaten by Dong at ping pong. (nice rhyme:) We haven’t had any computer access for a couple of days and my phone hasn’t worked since we have been in the mountains. I will have to talk to the Verizon guy about that. Tomorrow we leave for the Nueva Esperanza community. Now, Cesar says that this is his favorite place in El Salvador, but they are talking about it being very hot, out houses for bathrooms, and showers taken with a bucket. This has me a bit concerned :)