Just now I was out on my porch/balcony and a lady walked by with her dog. Lots of people walk through our condo association and I usually ignore them. I greeted her and after that I realized that I'm still in El Salvador mode. The people there are so much more friendly than we are up north. I really enjoyed that.
We flew down on Saturday, Nov 1. Most of us were on the same flight, but a few others were on a flights which was delayed. I'm so reliant on my smart phone now days that it was very frustrating to not be able to text or email them right away. We had not designated a place to meet so we were not sure if we should wait before going through Customs, and meet them inside, or just go through and wait for them outside. The airport had a service that offered a free 30 minute trial of their WiFi. My phone couldn't connect to any cellular service so I decided to try do the free trial. It worked well but later I found out the other people were still in the air so they couldn't receive my message. Once I went outside my phone picked up a local tower. T-Mobile sent me a message to say the data and text service was free, but there was a charge for making calls while roaming there. I could pay more for faster data, and phone calls would be 20 cents per minute. The free service was sufficient for me to get emails and such. So I was happy.
The other people arrived about an hour late and we all piled into a van to head to the hotel. There was dinner waiting for us and we all enjoyed some spaghetti. That night we were staying at a hotel that was very American.
Sunday morning started with breakfast and then we met the people who work for Enlace that would be working with us. Or I should say, we would be working with them. Karen was our translator, Eva and Zulema were medics who helped in the clinic, and Germán, Isidro, Alex, and Marvin were some of the men who worked with us. Enlace is a fantastic organization and they really know how to do development the right way. They don't give handouts to people. They work with people who are willing to put in their own effort to make things better. They also work exclusively through local churches and pastors. After breakfast we checked out of the hotel in San Salvador and drove out to the community where we did most of our work, Nuevo Eden. We went to the church service of the local pastor named Isidro. At least I think that's his name. I'm not sure how to spell it. We were there early enough to eat lunch and chat with the pastor about what he is doing. He is very focused on serving the community, and he is progressive in his opinions. For example he told the women they don't have to wear skirts in church because "skirts don't get you to heaven." During the service he had us each introduce ourselves to the congregation. I was able to say something in Spanish and was very pleased with myself. One of the things I wanted to do this week was speak a lot of Spanish and improve my abilities. After church we talked with people for a little while and then headed to Ciudad Barrios to check in to that hotel. Then we went to dinner and after that we settled in and went to bed.
On Monday they sent three of us to a town called La Estancia . The school there had a new classroom that Enlace built with the help of two churches in Texas. They had already build the room, it needed to be painted. Before we got to work, we were greeted with warmth and enthusiasm by the director, principal, and teachers of the school, as well as a pastor and other community leaders. We sat in a large circle and each of them shared a little bit with us. Several of them commended us for being Christians who don't just sit in and church, but actually go out and serve others. When it was my turn to talk, I was able to say in Spanish that I respected teachers a lot and that there job is important, and that I agreed with them that Christians need to get out and serve people. I wanted to say, "We are blessed to be a blessing," but I had to ask Karen to translate that last part for me. Then they gave us some coconuts so we could drink the milk. After that we got to work on the school. It went pretty well and we got it all painted. The highlight of the day was definitely speaking Spanish to the group. Later I confirmed with Karen that everything I said made sense. So I was pretty pleased with myself. The low light was actually unrelated. I had data out there and I learned through Facebook that one of my fraternity brothers had committed suicide over the weekend. We weren't close, but we lived together in the same house. So that was sad news.
Tuesday was a harder day. Four of us, Daniel, Alison, Faith, and I, went with Eva to help build latrines in Nuevo Eden. Latrines are important for the health of the community because otherwise people do there business in the rivers, and that's not good for the people downstream, obviously. My best friend that day was my new pair of Salomon hiking boots. I bought them at the REI garage sale last month for $50, and that was money well spent. I need to add some photos of the terrain over which I was carrying a bucket of concrete. I'm pretty sure I would have sprained my ankle if I'd been wearing tennis shoes. It was all on the side of a large hill so I was carrying fairly heavy loads down the hill. I made the mistake of over-dressing. I was wearing heavy jeans and a hat that was too warm. I chose the hat because it had a large brim on it which would be good for the sun, but it trapped in too much heat, as did the jeans. In the morning we made concrete. The girls sifted sand, while Daniel and I hauled gravel, sand, and water down to the place where the concrete was mixed. Then I used a 5 gallon pail to haul concrete down to the place where the bricks were being laid for the foundation of the new latrine. It was only filled about half way each time, and that was plenty of weight. I wanted to do that job because I felt useful, but my legs got pretty tired and I was overheating a bit. I really should have let someone else take a turn carrying the concrete. So by the time we stopped for lunch, I was pretty tired and hot. After lunch we drove out to Cucurucho to help another man with his latrine. I was already hot and tired before we started. The people there thought it would be fun for us to help them fill their water barrel. They have a deep well with a winch that brings up a five gallon pail. I loaded a YouTube video and it is shown above. It's harder work than it looks. I did this for over half an hour because it took several loads to fill their water barrel. After that I was pretty much done for the day. I found a chair and sat down. I drank water the rest of the day while I watched the others help build the foundation of the latrine. I did help a little bit with the mixing of the concrete, but mostly I just sat and watched. I felt bad about that at first, but it's also good to know one's limits. It's also import to remember that we weren't there to do everything for them. Just showing up was like a pat on the back to encourage them to keep up the good work. For dinner on Tuesday night we had pupusas, and I was stoked about that. They were really good too. We had them again for lunch another day, so it's nice to have my fix of pupusas for a while. They are so good though! After dinner we had prayer time. I could hardly stand, but we all gathered around and prayed for each other. That was probably the highlight of the day. At the end of the day a couple of the guys who were working the clinic said they wanted to do manual labor the next day, and I was happy to work in the clinic because my legs needed the rest. Another positive that I forget to mention previously is that my knees and ankles never had any problems. The good hiking books helped, but it also shows that my knee injury from a few years ago seems to be completely healed now. My legs were tired but I mostly felt that in my quads. I wasn't in any pain, just fatigue. That's really exciting!
So on Wednesday, I put on some XXL scrubs and went to work in the clinic. It ended up being my favorite day of the entire week. The mayor in Nuevo Eden was kind enough to give us his office to use for the clinic, and it is air conditioned. But that wasn't even the best part. The best part was the chance to speak Spanish with dozens of people. My job was "intake" or something like that. I would ask the people basic questions like their name and age, and then take their blood pressure and pulse (with a machine), ask them for a short description of their medical need(s), and then weigh them. I wrote everything down on a paper that I gave to them to give to the medic. I think our medics are both doctors, but I don't remember for certain. I was pretty much saying the same things over and over again all day long, but the chance to listen to people when they answered my questions was a great practice for me and my Spanish skills. The clinic was sort of a "doing it for them" thing, but the treatments they needed were not something they could do for themselves. So it was a great feeling to be part of helping these people get the treatments they needed. It was also a great feeling to have a bunch of hand sanitizer handy! When we got back to the hotel we packed our things because we were checking out in the morning.
Thursday morning I went back to "Team Latrine" and we drove out to another spot near Nuevo Eden. I helped with a few things but I still wasn't very energetic. I did manage to get a blister on my finger, so I know I did some work. But again, it's not about how much we could do for them, but about acknowledging the work they are doing for themselves. We went back to town for lunch and then in the afternoon there was a small ceremony for us. Germán puts on a show dressed as a mariachi sometimes. He had done it on Sunday and he did it again on Thursday. I have the video of him from Sunday. He had Andy Barringer and I join him on stage on Thursday. That was really fun and probably the highlight of my day! If I can get the video from Daniel, I will add it to the blog later. The people from the town also gave us some gifts that they had made. One gift was a mount of a deer skull with antlers on it. Our group decided to call it "Juan Jose," which was distracting for me because Juan Jose is one of the names I go by in Spanish. So I kept looking whenever someone would say the deer's name. After the ceremony lots of people wanted photos with us. Once we had satisfied their desire for pictures we got in the van and headed by to San Salvador.
Friday was our fun day. We went zip lining in the morning, which was pretty darn awesome, and then we went shopping for souvenirs in the afternoon. We did all of this in a town named Ataco. So now I can say I went zip lining in a taco!
Saturday was a full day of traveling. Once again we were blessed to go through customs without any trouble.
Last night I slept for 10 hours. It was great. I'm still exhausted and probably still dehydrated. I'm sure I've missed some important details so I will be updating this blog post as I recall more things. There were so many cool things about this trip. Such as the way I thought I'd have a final in my grad school class this week, but we didn't even meet for class because we did the final on our own time. Another cool thing was the confidence I had in speaking Spanish even though I still have a lot to learn. I must be getting over my perfectionism! Working with Enlace was a pleasure. The people and the general program are just awesome. What an amazing organization! I want to go back next year, so we'll see if God makes a way for it to happen again in the middle of my MBA capstone class. Maybe I can make it a field trip or something!
