La Paz de Susan

Villanueva, Wednesday, more photos, a few words

2012-02-08T12:34:00.000-08:00

Today we're sharing the work with a travelling clinic - dentistry and general medicine - from Fosalud, the national health program. And we've been glad to see them, even though it complicates the logistics a bit, because yesterday we stretched to see all the patients who'd come and didn't get away until after 7 PM. We've seen many people with common complaint - stress, trouble sleeping, muscular aches, headaches - and a few special and difficult cases. Sister Amalia and I talked with a woman troubled and depressed from childhood sexual abuse - we'll try to connect her with the Cuidad Mujer (woman city) project where psychotherapy is available. We met some children with very special needs who'll we try to connect with programs in San Salvador.

Ah but here are the pictures - not the greatest, but still worth many words:

Villanueva, Tuesday

2012-02-07T18:46:00.000-08:00

I'd love to give you some of those worth-1000-words pictures, but Í'm using Ayagualo's computer, and can't get to my photos. Yesterday and today have been full and overflowing - we´ve seen some 650 patients so far, with lots and lots of them needing special attention or a reference into the national health care system. Our hearts are overflowing with the stories we´ve heard and shared. And then there´ve been a few cases of just overflowing, as some Salvadoran bacteria tangled with our gringo systems. It´s been very hot in Villanueva, which makes the return to Ayagualo (not until 7:30 tonight) and the cooler breezes on this hilltop a great joy.

For another view of our mission week, go to http://wwwpeacehealthorgpaz-salud.blogspot.com/ to read about the experience from the point of view of Barbara, our photo-journalist.

In San José Villanueva

2012-02-05T18:31:00.000-08:00

Our mission team arrived right on schedule Saturday night, at 9 pm, and our only problem in Customs was that one of our tubs had gone missing (it arrived today after spending the night in Houston). We were on our way to the beautiful Salesian retreat house, Ayagualo, by 11 pm, and arrived at about midnight, still with a little energy available for getting to know each other and talking about the week ahead.
Today we've been getting to know Villanueva and the church/school at the center of the town where we'll be working all week. Many of us went to Mass and discovered that our host, Padre Mario Adin, is a wonderful homilist and a man deeply committed to the life of his community. All day there were masses, meetings, study groups, catechism sessions, literacy training taking place in all the corners of the complex.
Our major tasks were setting up the various clinics and the pharmacy, counting out vitamins and bagging them (everyone who comes to our clinics gets a month's supply of vitamins), and having some training sessions with our team and with the local volunteers.
We know from plentiful experience that tomorrow will be a little crazy as everyone tries to figure out her or his job and as the patients flock in to see us. We also know we're blessed to be here, that we'll be well fed, both at the retreat house (we had pupusas tonight!) and at the parish, where we had a grand lunch today, and that we'll get to return to the beautiful grounds and comfortable rooms (and hot showers) at Ayagualo each night to restock for the work of tomorrow.
And now it's time for me to catch up on sleep after two very short nights!

Ready

2012-02-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

That time of year again...

Our medical mission team arrives tomorrow, and at the last possible minute today (4:50 pm, to be exact) I got our franquicia (permission to import our medications and supplies without paying customs duties). The franquicia is always a nail-biter, the essential part of our process that's pretty much out of our control once the papers have been handed over. And I have to say that, like the good gringa I am, I really hate having to depend on something that's out of my control. Illuminating, that. As if my life or anyone else's was in my control! But I do love the illusion.

And now, at last, the franquicia is in my hands, I've ironed the necessary shirts and slacks, I've checked my way through the long to-do list, I'm ready to meet the team at the airport tomorrow, and to introduce them to San José Villanueva on Sunday.

Meanwhile I'm enjoying the company of Margaret Gaffney, an Associate of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, who's going to be part of the mission team. Margie's been brushing up her medical Spanish in Guatemala for a few weeks, in preparation for helping with interpretation and came here on Thursday to help with the packing. I've heard from Pat Clausen, who'll join us tomorrow at our retreat house lodgings and from Silvia Pleitez, who'll meet us at the airport, and from Hernan, our beloved motorist, who will be driving his new beige microbus to the airport tomorrow.

We're ready.

Quilt makers and indigo dyers

2012-01-29T16:40:00.000-08:00

I've been having a good visit with Cathy McKay. Cathy's an obstetrics and delivery nurse at PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center, Bellingham. A couple of years ago she was the nurse on our mission team at San Juan Opico, staying after the mission to spend a couple of months learning Spanish on the island of Tasajera, where Dr. Lauren Herbert, a pediatrician at PeaceHealth Riverbend, has helped to build a clinic.

During Cathy's time on the island, she taught several of the women living there to sew, and started them creating beautiful bags, made from Salvadoran fabric, that are now being sold as Bolsas de Cati. But, Cathy found it hard to learn as much Spanish as she wanted without formal instruction, so she's come back this year for another stay of several months, taking Spanish classes at the CIS.

She's also interested in learning about indigo dying - for future Bolsas de Cati possibilities - and indigo is a Suchitoto specialty, so she's up here for the weekend. It was one of those serendipitous moments - the day before she came, I met Marilyn, a Canadian woman who's living for a couple of months to study Spanish, and who also wanted to learn how to dye with indigo. And even more serendipity: on Saturday, Cathy and I stopped in at the Concertacion de Mujeres, and learned that they were having an indigo-dying workshop on Sunday, and that Cathy and Marilyn would be welcomed. So they had a great time, learned a lot about indigo, and probably picked up quite a few new words in Spanish along the way.

It's a short hop from indigo dying to quilt making - well, maybe a long hop - but I want to share this photo of a group of women in San Rafael Cedros receiving new quilts for their babies. Each year, we get a wonderful collection of quilts and baby blankets made by Cindy Hellerstedt's sisters in Minnesota (a good thing to do during the long winters, I'm told), and these become gifts for poor mothers in the towns we visit. Here's Iris Chacon, our San Rafael Cedros coordinator, in the middle, with the group of women delighting in their new quilts.

I'm not at all "handy" in the sense of being good with needles or cloth - never quite got over rebelling against my mother, an expert with a sewing machine - but I'm glad for the women who are, who make quilts or start other women making bags, whose handiwork makes the world a better place.

The more things change...

2012-01-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I wouldn't generally agree with that somewhat cynical proverb, but, alas, it's proving true of the disco next door.

We've had a lovely stretch of peaceful, quiet nights, even on the weekends. The disco's owner was in San Salvador with his mother for a long time as she recovered from being shot in early December, and then the word came that the whole family had decided to emigrate, I suppose to the United States. And the disco stayed dark and blessedly quiet.

But today I walked past the door and there was a big sign advertising a Saturday night discoteque, to begin at 9 PM en adelante - from 9 PM on. Sure enough, it's different music and different voices, but the disco is going again, and I'm about to put on headphones and listen to the next installment of West Wing.

I will just hope it's only going to be Saturday nights, and than en adelante will end before 2 AM.

On the other hand, if I'd been in Seattle, I'd have been spending the week buried in snowdrifts, en adelante.

Chickens, eggs, and the Guacotecti women

2012-01-19T20:15:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting for quite a while for the Guacotecti women to get their chicken farm up and running - and so have they! They found a great property and were able to purchase it with help from some Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace (you know who you are!), but then they had to wait to get the paperwork completed, and wait to negotiate electricity, and wait to be approved by the appropriate government agency. It's been a long slog, but today I visited them with Leslie Schuld and Iris Alas of CIS, and there's a real chicken farm rising up from the dirt, soon to be home to some 600 cackling hens. The foundation and walls of the henhouse are in place; a man is coming today to erect the metal framework and roof that completes the structure. A new well is being dug for the community just a short distance away, and piping will bring water to the farm.

The women were all there working hard as we bumped up the road - working with pick and shovel and wheelbarrow in the blazing sun, with a couple of guys helping out. The guys are being paid. The women have to wait until the chickens come and start laying and the eggs get sold, and they'll keep working hard together every day to make their dream a reality.

We had a short meeting - in the shade by the side of the road - to go over progress and next steps. They'll be purchasing the hens next week. It's going to be a real chicken farm. And I promise to go back for more photos with actual hens involved. Meanwhile, here's the whole gang, including Leslie and Iris and me and a few kids -

Grace note

2012-01-15T19:49:00.000-08:00

The little bathroom that I use - really a toilet and shower enclosure, about 3 by 4 feet - was getting grubbier and grubbier last year, so I asked my landlord about the possibility of tiling it. The work was done in November, and I've been enjoying the results ever since.

I never met the man who did the tile work, but he left behind something I cherish. Along with a couple of broken tiles and a small group of unused tiles, there was this tile, which he'd cut and shaped:

It's a bird or a palm tree, a few minutes of relaxation, a gift, a grace note. It comes from a culture where the work of hands is still valued and honored. Gracias.

The Nenzel Sisters

2012-01-11T19:23:00.000-08:00

Andrea and Judith (Knight), the two Nenzel sisters, are safely back home in the Northwest - Andrea in Vancouver, WA or somewhere up or down the highways from there on the way to many PeaceHealth meetings, Judith in Nanaimo sorting through photos and memories to share with other family members.

It was a joy to have them both here, and it was fun to get to know them as sisters. After working for six good years with Andrea, I know her pretty well, but it's always a new light to see the family connections, the shared jokes, the pauses, the likenesses and differences.

As you can see, it's not at all difficult to guess that these two are sisters, and since they're both tall and blond women, I had a rather nice two weeks of being short - not my usual experience in El Salvador. We also got to hear, from Lita Calderon, Dina Dubon and John Guiliano, some good stories about Andrea's time here at the Calle Real Refugee camp from 1985-87. My favorite was about Andrea using every one of her inches of height to insist peacefully and with great determination that an unhelpful local priest send a water truck up to Calle Real. He did.

It's always a moving experience for me to hear the Calle Real stories as I continue living my part of our Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace history in this country, which now stretches back more than 25 years. And it's wonderful to see the love and gratitude that greet Andrea and Margaret Jane in this country. The people remember who was there with them in a dark and uncertain time.

Permacultura

2012-01-10T19:51:00.000-08:00

I've been a fan of permaculture since the late 1970s when I learned about the concept from the work of Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. It's a concept that calls for designing with, not against, the natural condition of the land; for agriculture based on trees and perennial shrubs instead of cleared land; for respecting and incorporating biodiversity into farmland design. I've always wanted to see permaculture in action, and at last I have, not more than 10 miles away from my Suchitoto house.

I'd seen the sign about a permaculture site on the highway, but had just been hoping that somehow I'd connect up. The time for connecting came when one of the volunteers for our health mission in San José Villanueva, Tomás Chavarria, turned out to work there and visited me to tell me about the farm. Through Tomás I met Reina Mejia, the coordinator, and arranged a tour for Andrea, Judith and me. In the photo above, Reina is introducing us to the farm's rabbits, whose pellets become fertilizer for the crops, a typical permaculture natural recyling.

The permacultura farm is on a very steep hillside, which I'd have thought almost impossible to adapt for organic permaculture. I would have been wrong. The entire site has been designed very carefully with dikes and catchponds and tree rings to hold rainwater and allow it to soak in, so the ground can continue to be moist even during the dry season (now). When the NGO acquired the farm, it had been used for a monoculture of citrus trees. The citrus are still there, but now other trees are planted among them that will eventually create the high canopy that is the natural condition of land here. The land is further enriched by compost, mulches of dry leaves and plant materials, and the contributions of rabbits, poultry, and composting toilets. They've been working on it for only five years, and already it looks amazingly fertile by comparison with nearby lands. The group of men and women who work with this land - I think about 12 people - have all been through a year-long course in design, and are all committed to teaching others how to use the permaculture principles in El Salvador.

The planting areas, around and under trees, included corn during the rainy season, and now includes beans, but there are a myriad other plants, medicinal or nutritive, planted in small patches, with butterflies dancing among them. When the group has built structures, they've been simple and ingenious, like this shelter for seedlings, shaded with a thatch of grass.

Here's work that brings the hope for all our futures, and for three years I've been driving by and saying "I've got to visit someday." Thank God that day came at last. I know I'll be back.

Feliz Año and all that jazz

2012-01-06T16:56:00.000-08:00

It's a bit of a shock to find I haven't posted since New Year's Eve. But mind you, the silence has only been on the blog channel. Andrea and Judith and I have been having a wonderful time, first in Antigua, and then in El Salvador, where we visited our February medical mission site in San José Villanueva and last year's site, San Rafael Cedros. There we had lunch with Mari and her family and enjoyed Richard Stanley looking healthy and happy with his new heart valve working just as it should - and Judith got to see one of our water filters in use. This was especially nice, because she's donated quite a few of them to PazSalud.

But yesterday was the best, though not at all what we had planned. We had planned going to visit Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos, a home for orphaned and abandoned children that's north of Santa Ana, a fairly long drive from Suchitoto. We set out, and five minutes later the car announced that it was shutting down - check engine light on, engine coughing, and - we quickly discovered - the temperature up at the ceiling. We called Peggy, who sent out her friend and car doctor Chamba; Chamba arrived in a pickup, put some water in the radiator which promptly began dripping out again which led to a diagnosis. He refilled the radiator and drove the X-Trail back into a taller (repair shop) in Suchi, and we followed behind in his pickup, driven by a young friend. Riding in the back of the pickup was a great treat for Judith, after she'd seen so many Salvadorans in one.

There we were at home when Peggy called to say she had a special friend of Andrea's who'd just popped in for a visit. She sent him over, and it was the famous John Guiliano, who'd worked as a volunteer at Calle Real with Andrea and Margaret Jane during the Civil War, decided to stay in El Salvador, married, settled in Guajila, Chalatenango, and is working to engage the young folk of that community in sports. I'd heard so much about him, and he lived up to billing: joyful, dramatic, very Italian, determined and great fun. We also got to meet his beautiful 15-year-old daughter Rose, and we all went out to lunch at the Café Guazapa and listened to the stories. Imagine, if the car hadn't had a breakdown, John would have missed seeing Andrea for the first time in about 25 years.

I was glad, too, because the day at home gave me time to assemble all the materials that I needed to present today for our customs approval - there were three separate packets, lots of paper, lots of details to worry about, and I needed the time. And today, oh joy, I got each packet into the right office with the right people there to receive it. Primero Dios, we'll get our franquicia in plenty of time this time... And in any case, gracias a Dios for getting to meet John and share a memorable lunch. Oh, and the car repair was well done, we've driven all day today with no trouble. Gracias tambien a Chamba.

Feliz Año Nuevo

2011-12-31T10:46:00.001-08:00

Andrea and Judith and I have spent the morning wandering happily through the streets and markets of Antigua Guatemala, delighting in the cool weather and getting ready to join the crowd in wishing everyone a Feliz Año Nuevo. And now I'm sitting somewhat less happily in the beautiful courtyard of the Hotel Aurora, where we're staying, trying to figure out how to upload a photo of the courtyard into the post via the iPad. It's right here in front of me, and I can't get to it. Grrr! Ah well - this may have to wait until I'm back in El Salvador, but just let me tell you: this is a beautiful city - full of tourists, catering to us, and in that sense a bit artificial like all good tourist cities, but a place full of history, color, delights.I'm posting this mostly to say that as we celebrate the New Year with the Antigüeños I will be praying for the peace that we long for in 2012, peace in our hearts and in our world. May we be blessed with the desire to work for peace.

And here's the photo at last:

Feliz Navidad a tod@s

2011-12-27T17:57:00.001-08:00

Christmas this year was a quiet retreat time for me - as quiet as a retreat can be when all of the boyz in town are setting off firecrackers until 3 AM! Very different and very valuable to have this as a time for meditation and prayer - with a fair bit of church interspersed. I wouldn't want to celebrate this way every year, but I'm glad I did find that solitude of spirit amidst the firecrackers.Speaking of the firecrackers: my wonderful landlady said that yes, she would get the front of the house painted before my guests arrived on the 26th, and yes, her husband and a helper showed up on the 23rd to put a bright and fresh blue coat of paint on the house. I rejoiced until I got up on Christmas day and discovered that the kids setting off the firecrackers on Christmas eve had been unable to resist the lovely fresh blue canvas my house represented, and had put a fair bit of inoffensive graffiti on the wall. Happily, it all washed off fairly easily, leaving the paint job just smudged enough to (maybe) make it less interesting on New Year's Eve. Quiet time is now officially over: I met Andrea Nenzel and her sister Judith Knight at the airport on Monday. They're here for a couple of weeks of sightseeing and relaxation and - in Andrea's case - time to see a few old friends from her days here in 1985-87 at the Calle Real Refugee Center. Today we visited with Dina Duvon, one of the wisest women I'll ever know, and explored Suchitoto. Tomorrow, another visit, more exploration, all at a quiet pace with great companions - what more could one ask?

Reading the signs

2011-12-21T22:01:00.000-08:00

This morning I was peacefully praying in the patio, sitting under the lemon tree. I came to a moment of clarity and peace in an area that's been a challenge to me and my moment was punctuated by a kind of thump - ah, I thought, a falling lemon, a greeting from Spirit, how wonderful - and continued my prayer.

A little later, as I was sweeping leaves, I saw that what had fallen was indeed a lemon - but a rotten lemon, and it had fallen squishily right in front of the chair I'd been sitting in. Punctuation indeed! Perhaps it was fortunate that by this time I couldn't remember exactly what brilliant insight or spiritual awakening had been greeted by a rotten lemon.

It reminds me, though, to read signs lightly. I do believe we are all connected, the lemon tree and my prayer and the Spirit and the drunk man having a loud conversation in the street outside - but I also believe those connections are deep and strange and subtle, beyond my reading. Taking that falling lemon as applause - or as disapprobation - is harmless as long as I take it lightly and remember to rejoice in the unimaginable life of the lemon tree which has nothing and everything to do with me.

Delivery

2011-12-19T21:01:00.000-08:00

I had a couple of missions today. The first and easiest was delivering a Christmas basket to Rosita and her daughters and taking them to El Paraiso, the nearest town, for a little shopping. Then came the serious mission. When I was in the Northwest in November I sat down for coffee with Theresa Edwards, daughter of my friends Lisa Dennison and Karl Edwards. Theresa was with the youth delegation from Seattle's St. Patrick Church that visited Nueva Trinidad in July, When she returned, full of energy for continuing to study Spanish and planning for her next visits to Central America, she painted a picture of St. Patrick's as a gift for the people she'd met and loved in Nueva Trinidad. And would I take the picture to them? Oh yes, I said, nothing to it.

And that was today's second mission. I headed toward the town of Chalatenango from El Paraiso, thinking that it wouldn't take me long to get to Nueva Trinidad, perhaps 30 kilometers further up the road from Chalatenango. Sounded simple. Wasn't. The map shows the road proceeding smoothly through Chalatenango, but Chalatenango is a frustrating grid of very neatly laid out narrow streets that somehow do not get you where you want to go. On my first try, I followed a bus that said "Chalatenango - San José" knowing that San José las Flores was on the same road as Nueva Trinidad. I followed the bus as it twisted and turned through the streets, and I almost followed it into - alas - its parking area. And then I returned, sheepishly, to the Texaco at the entrance to the town, filled up on gas (this was a brilliant move) and asked them how to get to Nueva Trinidad. Clearly the guy at the gas pump had never heard of it. "Arcatao?" I asked, knowing Arcatao is the last town on that very same road. Oh, he said, you mean Arcatao? - giving it, I swear, almost the identical pronunciation - yes, yes, Arcatao. Well, you just go up this street and keep going up.....

I've learned to ask women for directions, and so when I thought I might be headed for the road out of Chalatenango (deeply desired after about 1/2 hour of threading through narrow streets full of trucks unloading and Christmas shoppers) I asked a woman selling fruit. Ah, she said, you're on the right road, but just give a ride to this woman, she wants to go to las Flores (it's the first of the three towns), and she'll show you the way. Great idea! So I invited Roxana into my car and she asked if she could take a few minutes to get some lunch. A few minutes later she came back with lunch and three other women who needed rides to San José las Flores, and we were off.

Shortly after we left Chalatenango the road got pretty bad - big potholes and crumbled pavement. I remarked on how "feo" - ugly - the road was. Wish I'd listened more carefully, because I'm sure I could have learned the Salvadoran version of "You ain't seen nothing yet." Soon I was shifting into 4-wheel drive and negotiating a road in the process of being built. I'd heard about the new highway that was being constructed in Chalatenango, but it hadn't occurred to me that it went through Arcatao, Nueva Trinidad and San José las Flores and that it was being constructed under us. We bumped through gravel, dirt, dirt interspersed with big rocks, work sites with flagwomen directing traffic, patches of pavement, patches of wandering trail, surrounded on all sides by steep hills and steep slopes. It seemed to take forever, but we did arrive at San José las Flores, where I left my helpful guides (who told me to take the left at the first Y and the right at the second, or was it the other way around?). The next stretch of road was finished highway, smooth and new and beautiful, but still a mountain road with impressive curves. And then, abruptly, I was on dirt again, and then on a semi-paved road, and then - milagro - at Nueva Trinidad.

Theresa told me to ask for Julio Rivera, so I stopped at the Alcaldia and asked a young woman where I could find him. Oh yes, she said, he's over there at the biblioteca (library), and there he was, blessedly, delighted to receive Theresa's painting, which he said will be placed in just the right spot. Meanwhile the young woman, Karina, and her cousin Kenia (or that might be spelled Carina and Quenia) asked if they could have a ride back to Chalatenango with me, and I said of course. We had a grand conversation going back - I learned how much they appreciated the help that St. Pat's has sent over the years - and they saved me from a couple of wrong turns.

When I finally got back on the familiar road to the Troncal, the northern trunk road, I felt as if I'd been gone for a couple of weeks, but the journey only took about 3 hours, and it was great fun. And now Nueva Trinidad has a picture of St. Pat's and I have a picture of the path to Nueva Trinidad.

Amig@s

2011-12-17T19:21:00.001-08:00

The title can be Amigos/as, but I like the use of the @ (called the aroba here) to indicate both masculine and feminine. I visited amig@s today and had the delight of meeting a very brand new friend, Sofia, the tiny (4 day old) granddaughter of Rosa Aguiar in Comasagua. Sofia came almost four weeks early, but she's healthy and beautiful, delighting Vanessa, her mom, and Rosa and her daddy, who I haven't met yet, but who is reported to be head over heels in love with both Sofi and her mama.

Then I drove over to Panchimalco, where I brought a gift basket of foods (a very good custom here) to Walther (one of our scholarship students) and his family. I got there just before Walther and his band were about to go play for a quinceañera (celebration of a girl's 15th birthday, a very big deal), so the photo includes Walther's family, and some of the band members. I had the honor of transporting all the drums (and they have quite a set!) to the party location - it wasn't far from Walther's house, but would have seemed a long way if you had the drums on your back.

Viva Santa Lucia! Viva Suchitoto!

2011-12-12T20:41:00.000-08:00

First and most important, I'm happy to say that my neighbor made it through surgery after being shot, and is now out of danger. I don't know much more, but that is good news.

And then today is the vigil of the feastday of Santa Lucia, Suchitoto's patron saint, and it has been wildly full of events. The Barrio Santa Lucia started the day with loud firecrackers and their morning procession to church. In the afternoon I went to the Mass honoring Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (her procession, with all the children dressed in traditional outfits, happened yesterday). Today's Mass was followed by another procession - yes, it does get a bit confusing - this one honoring Santa Lucia. Down my street they came, first the altar boys with cross and candle, then the brass band, then the priest and a fiesta princess, then a statue of Santa Lucia (not the one in the church which is very old and very beautiful) carried by women, then about 75 people in the procession and finally, bringing up the rear, the Barrio Santa Lucia float, with its waving princess.

What could be better than that? Fireworks, that's what. After the procession and Santa Lucia make their way back into the church, it's time for the fiesta to begin. They'd been set up in advance, both ranks of rockets and a number of figures (there's a representative one here) lavishly dressed in fireworks. I found what seemed like a great place in the crowded plaza to watch, trying to avoid the hot pupusa stands and not stand too near to the works (it's a scene that would give U.S. fire marshalls instant anxiety attacks). I hadn't paid enough attention to the wind, though, and the first barrage of fireworks came right in my direction - and CLOSE, so I was brushing cinders off my shirt and out of my eyes. Then came the toros - men who put on "bull" frames that have been wired with firecrackers and run through the center of the plaza in an explosion of flames and small rockets. They lit up various figures - a butterfly, a woman, a campesino - each of which had its own drama of sparks and flames and rockets. And finally, they touched a match to the stage center and it went in a whoosh of colors. More rockets. And now there's a big dance going on next to the Alcaldia (City Hall) - just far enough away so I probably can get to sleep.

¡Que viva la fiesta! ¡Que viva Santa Lucia! ¡Que viva Suchitoto!

The best of times, the worst of times

2011-12-10T09:37:00.001-08:00

Today began so beautifully, with the firecrackers at 4 AM giving notice that it was time for our neighborhood, el Barrio Calvario, to gather for our procession to the church to make our "ofrenda" to Santa Lucia. We gathered outside the home of my next-door neighbor, Dinora, and drank coffee and ate pan dulce while we waited to begin. I talked with Martha about how beautiful these celebrations are, how I wish we had such fiestas in my own country. We walked and sang and carried our candles into the church, where we placed them below one of the santos or at the entrance to the santísimo (the sanctuary). We participated in the Mass that began at 5:45, and afterwards I walked home, thinking about the possibility of a nap.

Just as I was about to turn the corner onto my street, the peaceful scene was shattered. I didn't hear a bullet, but I saw my neighbor Dinora come running, crying out that "they killed the Niña Julia." (Niña is in this case a respectful way to name an older woman). Julia runs a little restaurant on the corner that's part of the mercado building; her son owns the disco behind our house. We quickly learned that she wasn't dead, but was seriously wounded; the police arrived to carry her to the local hospital, where her wounds were beyond their capabilities; she was sent on to Hospital Rosales, an hour away in the capital. I am praying for her to live.

How could such a horror happen in the middle of our fiesta, in the middle of this little town that's usually an oasis from the violence that seems worse every day in El Salvador? No one knows exactly; there's speculation that she didn't pay the renta (protection money). It's said that the shooter was an adolescent boy. I don't know if the bystanders knew who he was, and if they did know, I don't know whether they'll tell the police.

With little trust in the police and even less in the courts, ordinary Salvadorans have no solution to the violence that has become so everyday here. And they have reason not to trust the police and the courts: just this past week, a judge refused to let a witness appear in a facial mask and refused to have him use voice distorting equipment. The next day two of the witness' relatives were killed.

My Salvadoran friends will go on, living their lives as best they can in as much peace as they can find, fearing for the future of their sons and daughters, and I will go on accompanying them. And praying for the life of the Niña Julia. And praying for peace.

Fiesta!

2011-12-09T20:53:00.001-08:00

It's fiesta time in Suchitoto, 12 days of daily processions, celebrations, parades, floats, bands, fireworks, dances that lead up to the grand patronal feast of Santa Lucia on December 13th (though I suppose it really should be a matronal feast). Each neighborhood has its day to get up at 4 in the morning and process to church by candlelight for the 5:45 am mass - ours is tomorrow, and I won't need to set my alarm clock- the firecrackers will let me know it's time. Each neighborhood also creates a carroza - we'd call it a float - that circulates throughout Suchitoto, visiting each of the neighborhoods, in the evening. Here's yesterday's offering, from Barrio Concepción - they outdid themselves by creating TWO carrozas. During the day there are special activities - today Barrio San José offered a celebration for the old folk, which I missed, and a kid's fiesta, and later fireworks and finally a dance. Their carroza was preceded by Alcides who carried the long forked stick used to hold up the electricity lines so they wouldn't topple the display and followed by a small but marvellous brass band (clarinet, horn, trombone, tuba and a couple of drums).

I especially enjoyed today's festivities because today we heard one of my favorite Gospel passages, where Jesus says that John the Baptist came fasting and we called him crazy, while the Son of Man came eating and drinking and we called him a glutton and drunkard....(Mt.11, 16-19). I'm pretty sure that Jesus would love the way people celebrate here in Suchitoto. I surely do.

Getting around

2011-12-04T19:22:00.001-08:00

After almost three years here I'm almost used to the wild and various means of transportation in El Salvador. Any truck comes with at least two muchachos riding - and often sleeping - on top of the load. Sometimes the muchachos really have to work, as in the bottom photo of a refrigerator being perilously delivered. Pickups fill in all the holes in the transportation system, packing in crowds of standing-room-only passengers. And the buses are many and various, often dangerous - bus drivers and cobradores (the guys who cram yet two more people into overcrowded buses) are often the targets of shootings when the owners of a bus line are late in paying the renta. Still, they are inescapable, the only way most people here have to get to work or to school or to the doctor.

I love the names and mottos and icons on our buses. There's one called "Love and Jope" which doesn't quite work in Spanish or English, but you get the idea. I recently drove behind a bus that proclaimed in big type, No es culpa mia, it's not my fault. Decided to pass him quickly before he could live up to the slogan. And my all-time favorite is a bus with Jesus on the back mirror, in his crown of thorns, like the 2nd photo here. Underneath a motto: Salí con tu mujer, I went out with your woman. That reverence and cheeky irreverence, cheerfully combined - muy Salvadoreño.

La Vida Llena, La Casa Llena

2011-11-30T16:48:00.001-08:00

My life here is full of comings and goings. Margaret Jane goes home to New Jersey this Saturday, a week earlier than she had planned, to help her sister Roberta recover from hip surgery. Walther arrived today, a guest for a few weeks as he finishes his classes. Life in his home community got too dangerous, and we're happy to offer him a safe place here. Hilda will arrive tomorrow for a few days - she has been to Suchitoto often, working with La Concertación de Mujeres in her development work with Mary's Pence. She usually stays with Peggy, but Peggy's house is full, so we get to enjoy her. Andrea Nenzel and her sister Judith will be coming at the end of December.

There's something wonderful about having all the bedrooms full, about giving this house a little more company - we surely have the room! La vida llena, a full life, a full house.

And one more wonderful thing: it was actually cold, well chilly, this morning - probably about 65. Everyone's wearing sweaters and caps to protect them from that dangerous cold air. And the norteamericanas are enjoying it thoroughly.

Getting to Know You

2011-11-27T18:01:00.001-08:00

This Sunday and last Sunday I traveled to San José Villanueva, the site of our February Medical Mission, to meet with the volunteers who will be inviting patients to our mission. Sunday turns out to be the best meeting time, after the early morning mass. Today there were about 30 people gathered in a big classroom, lots of questions about the mission and about who should be invited. If only we could see everyone in the community! But our limit, we've found out over the years, is about 325 people per day, many of them going to two or more clinics.

Today they did the hard work of deciding which communities would come to the clinic on each day. This is always the point where it begins to seem real and possible to me, so I rejoiced to watch these community leaders at work. Already we have enough volunteers signed up to work with us throughout the week, which is amazing at this early point.

We're going to be using one wing of the parish school, which includes the meeting room shown in the photo. It's great space, with a covered area when patients can wait, separate rooms for each clinic, a good pharmacy space and even a break room. For all the great space, our work will not be easy; this week a report from the World Food Program shows San José Villanueva as having one of the highest levels of malnutrition in the country among children under five years - an estimated 38% of the youngest children in this rural town are small for their age. What we can do to help in a week of clinics is really limited; our vitamins will do some good, but don't change the poverty that leads to such hunger among children. And yet, we will be there as witnesses, and witnessing has value.

Giving Thanks

2011-11-24T19:39:00.001-08:00

So much to give thanks for! Friends and family and community, work that I love, health that lets me do it, God's daily gifts and blessings.

Today we shared Thanksgiving dinner with Peggy O'Neill, four delightful norteamericanas (Diana, Laura, Molly and Millie) who volunteer at the Centro Arte para la Paz, and Xiomara, a young Salvadoran staying with Peggy while she goes to high school. Thanks to a store that knows about gringo necessities, I was able to find a frozen turkey and cranberries; my favorite bakery provided pumpkin pie; and I spent a glorious day cooking (Margaret Jane spent a day perhaps somewhat less gloriously, but infinitely more usefully, cleaning up after me).

We ate and talked and remembered our families in the United States and prayed together the beautiful Thanksgiving prayer that Carmel Little sent out for all the Sisters and Associates of St. Joseph of Peace. I sent everyone home with bags of turkey and there's still more leftover turkey (and roast vegetables, mashed potates, etc.) than I can imagine using. Thank goodness for freezers! I can't imagine cooking like this on any other day - and I can't imagine not creating a Thanksgiving feast.

Gracias, Hermana Paquita

2011-11-20T19:09:00.001-08:00

It's been a very long week - I've been restocking groceries, getting the car serviced, working on arrangements for our February health mission, and visiting people who get scholarships or family support from PeaceHealth staff. Every errand means a couple of hours of driving time, so the days have been long.

Today the driving time was even longer, but for a couple of very good reasons. In the morning I went to San José Villanueva - our February mission site - with Clelia Estrada from the Caritas office in the Archdiocese. We had a good meeting with Padre Mario Adin, parish staff and volunteers, then stood in the back of the church, standing room only, while lots of beautiful girls and boys made their first communion.

Then I went on to the Bajo Lempa area where a very special Despedida (farewell) was in progress. Providence Sister Fran Stacey, known to her community in the Bajo Lempa as Hermana Paquita, was getting a full-hearted Salvadoran thank you and farewell. Fran retired to Seattle about six months ago, but has returned for a few weeks to visit her many friends, and they - being Salvadoran - decided to put on a full-scale despedida. There were speeches and proclamations and thanks for the remarkable work Fran did during her 16 years in El Salvador, which included founding the Fundación Tierra y Esperanza para el Campesino (Earth and Hope for the Farmer Foundation), working to provide scholarships for local students, and helping raise funds for health emergencies. It seems like she's been a key part of much that's happened in the coastal zone for all those years, and now it was time to say "thank you!"

I had to leave while the thanks were still being spoken, so just got a chance to talk briefly with Fran and tell her thanks also from the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. I didn't manage to get a photo of her, but here's one of the dancers getting ready to delight everybody.

Just for the enlightenment of you norteamericanos who may be reading this: the despedida began at 1 PM (more or less, I think it was really just getting under way when I arrived at 2) and was scheduled to go on until 4 PM, with pretty much all that time filled by speeches and presentations. Now that's a serious thank you! Gracias, Hermana Paquita!

2011-11-15T19:25:00.000-08:00

I woke up in Suchitoto this morning and it felt natural. The only things that kept waking me from time to time during the night were lemons dropping from the lemon tree onto the tin roof over my tiny bathroom (sounds VERY alarming) and a cricket that sounds all too much like my alarm clock - by tonight, I'll be tuning him? her? out. Didn't hear the cocks crowing or the morning buses going by, woke up to the sounds of the doves (and roosters).

I talked to a lot of friends this morning, and so far have found only one, our friend Armando, whose home and crops were seriously damaged in the torrential rains and floods of October. Suchitoto was spared the worst of these rains, though I'm sure all the roofs were leaking after ten days of rainfall. The damage is very visible in the roads here, and I would expect that they are far worse in parts of the country where the rains were heavier.

I also learned that one friend from this area is on her way to the United States, and I am praying that she will get safely through the grave dangers that migrants face in Guatemala and Mexico and will make it through the border, though I'm also very sad to think of the damage and loss her going causes for the family she left here. I wonder if people who get angry about illegal immigration into the United States ever think about how desperate people become because of lack of money and lack of opportunity in their own countries. I wonder what they would do in similar circumstances?

Celebrations

2011-11-12T21:03:00.000-08:00

My days in the north are drawing to a close with memorable celebrations and life-giving conversations. After several trips when my timing was just wrong, I was able to join the monthly lunch with other women from Queen Anne High School's class of 1959, and, bless their hearts, they brought me lots of vitamins which we'll be giving out to people in San José Villanueva in February. Here's a photo of Marlene and Sue, looking good, looking lively, as aren't we all, even though the class of 1959 is busily turning 70...

Then yesterday, 11/11/11, we celebrated five birthdays with brunch at Prospect House on Capitol Hill in Seattle, where I used to live and am still part of a group that meets for dinner on Wednesday evenings (on those rare Wednesday evenings when I'm in the Seattle area). Eight women celebrating five birthdays meant lots of presents and lots of laughter and an elegant fritatta and three of us taking photos at the same time, which meant that I have lots of photos of folk taking photos (see the bottom photo).

Along the way, I've had time for some wonderful, long, heart-to-heart talks with old and new friends (you know who you are) that replenish me and fill me with joy. I have friends I cherish in El Salvador, but my Spanish, while workable, doesn't have the subtlety and flexibility and shared reference points you need for a great heart-to-heart talk.

Finally, last night was the best celebration of all, as Susan Francois made her final vows as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace. What a joy to celebrate this friend and sister who has been walking with us for seven years now! It was a beautiful eucharistic celebration - Father Terry Moran, CSSR and CSJP Associate, was our presider; Margaret Byrne, our Congregation Leader, received Susan's vows; and I was very honored by being asked to give a reflection on the readings. Our chapel at St. Mary on the Lake was filled with Susan's family and many friends, and the celebration continued into the evening with cookies, wine and dancing. Check out our CSJP website for photos and story to come.

So tomorrow I head back to El Salvador, with the memory of all those feasts and conversations going with me, very concerned to learn how my Salvadoran friends have come through the floods.

2011-11-04T20:35:00.000-07:00

For the past three weeks I've been selling crafts from El Salvador with Kathy Garcia and Cindy Hellerstedt. It's our annual fall round that takes us to the PeaceHealth hospitals and to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace Fall Assembly with 2012 calendars, Christmas ornaments, crosses and bookmarks and small purses and - for each place - a raffle item. It's not just a chance to raise some money for our program, though that's certainly an aim: what matters more is the opportunity to connect with people who've been on one of our health missions or are interested in signing up or are just interested in what we do. We get to talk about El Salvador and the people who've had their lives so damaged by the recent floods, about the water filters we hope to provide for each community we visit and about the essential extras - a replacement heart valve, medications, scholarships, even travel to schools - that are made possible by our donors' generosity. We get to advertise our new website, where, at long last, we can accept donations on-line.

This photo comes from St. John Hospital in Longview, Washington: Kathy is at right, Cindy next to her.

An Unnatural Disaster

2011-10-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

There's a superb post on Tim's El Salvador Blog about the human role in the disastrous rains and floods El Salvador has experienced this month. I don't think I've seen a better analysis of the complex ties between ecological damage and economic violence to the poor.

He quotes a fierce and superb statement by San Salvador Auxiliary Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez: the disaster caused by the rains demonstrated "the economic vulnerability, that is to say the poverty so many of our countrymen live immersed within, the social vulnerability, characterized by the structural injustice and the ecological vulnerability, for which the great fault lies in the wild ambition that rages against God's creation, this house of all of us which is deteriorating more each day."

I remember that in the 2008 Chapter of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, we struggled to articulate the connection between climate change and the needs of the poor. Well, here it is, in the suffering of thousands of poor people displaced by rain and floods, an unnatural disaster that hardly touches the lives of the middle and upper classes in El Salvador. As Tim says, there are no photos of flooded mansions, no videos of Land Rovers swirling in the overflowing rivers. The land is "the house of all of us," and only the rich can hide from its devastation.

A letter from Comasagua

2011-10-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

I got an e-mail today from Alex Hernandez, a friend and a great volunteer in our 2009 medical mission in Comasagua. Alex writes (and I translate, loosely) -

I want to tell you about the week of rains and the chaos in Comasagua because of the tropical storm. Twelve shelters have been opened for people in our municipality [municipalities in El Salvador include all the smaller communities around a central town] and I have been in one of them, caring for 50 people day and night, watching over the women, children and old people sleeping and making sure they get their three meals in the day. This has been a beautiful experience for me because you know that one becomes fond of the people and I feel a love for them as if they were my family. I don't know if you understand me, Sister Susan, it's something that it's not possible to explain.

I'm also working in the church with our priest, helping to organize the assistance that arrives for the people in shelters, and then sharing it out with them. I can tell you it was good to be helping my neighbors because they needed the help, but at the same time sad to see so much suffering, to see the faces of each of them, far from their lands, their houses lost, their crops ruined, exhausted after days of suffering. I'm glad, though, for all the work we have been able to do for them. Comasagua begins a new life.

I do understand, Alex, and I know that the help you're giving your neighbors, your new family, returns as a blessing to you. I thank God that you and so many others are working all over El Salvador to help the people first to survive, and now to begin to return to their homes and start the long hard work of digging out and starting again.

Occupy Seattle

2011-10-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

I've been back in the northwest U.S. for a busy week, mostly spent in Eugene, OR selling Salvadoran crafts in the PeaceHealth hospitals and talking to former and potential members of our mission teams. This weekend I'm back in the Seattle area, just in time to join CSJP Sisters and Associates at Occupy Seattle in the Westlake Park. I've read so much about Occupy Wall Street and the companion Occupy movements that it felt very good to be able to be part of one, though briefly.

We found a lively and cheerful group - people of all ages and several races - occupying Westlake Park. No tents in evidence - I think these may have moved to City Hall Park. A group of drummers made the time vibrant and some wildly assorted dancers kept the beat. We were enough of a distinctive group, with our Community Seeking Justice and Peace placards, to get noticed and photographed a fair bit - one man was quite surprised to hear that nuns still existed. And we do: seeking justice and peace.

Dean Brackley, October 16, 2011

2011-10-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

I learned today via an e-mail from Gene Palumbo that Dean Brackley, S.J. - priest, writer, tireless worker for justice, and great friend of the people of El Salvador - died in Santa Tecla today.

Dean has been a great friend to our El Salvador Health Mission as he has been to every peace and justice-based program that connects people from the U.S. with the people of El Salvador. This photo is from Eleanor Gilmore's farewell party in 2009: Eleanor is on Dean's right and Guadalupe Montalvo Palumbo on his left.

I last saw Dean after our eye surgery mission in May of this year; Kathy Garcia and I talked with him while our group was touring the Romero Center at the UCA (University of Central America). He'd been talking to a delegation - one of the hundreds he met with - and came out to talk about getting some medications for the people he worked with in Jayaque. He was thin and worn looking, and told us that he'd had a colonoscopy that morning and was tired. Soon after that, we learned that he'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had metastasized.

Gene says:
As you know, Dean came to El Salvador to help replace the six Jesuits murdered in 1989. Today, his life as a Jesuit ended in the place where their lives as Jesuits began: the Santa Tecla residence, where they did their two-year novitiate.
and he quotes an e-mail from Dean's brother Jesuit, Rafael de Sivatte:
I write to give you the painful and joyful news that God, Father and Mother, has taken to his side our brother, friend, father, and companion in solidarity, Dean. I can tell you that he died so peacefully that those of us who were with him at that moment felt filled with peace ourselves. I send you a fraternal embrace, united with you in prayer and in the commitment to the Kingdom for which he worked and continues to work.

A long and terrible day of rain

2011-10-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

Sixteen inches of rain - that's what's fallen in Sonsonate, in the west close to the border with Guatemala, in one long and terrible day. Three deaths have been reported, many homes have been damaged or destroyed, and 4,000 people have been evacuated. This disaster doesn't even get a name, unlike hurricanes: it's registered as Tropical Depression 12 E.

In addition to the communities in the west, all the coastal areas have endured huge downpours and are also endangered by flooding rivers. Here's a recent update from Voices from El Salvador on the current situation in the Baja Lempa area (where the Lempa, El Salvador's biggest river, rolls through flat coast lands on its way to the sea):

The Lempa River is currently flowing over the levee in the northern top of the Namcuchaname Forest and the levee in the community of El Marillo. The levee breech has sent a large current of water through the community and completely flooded the main road cutting off access to the communities downstream. As we reported earlier, the Lempa River has also breeched the levee in the Lotes and Babilonia communities. As of this afternoon, the focus of the evacuations is on the Lotes and Babilonia communities, which have been flooded since yesterday. However, the Civil Protection Agency and other government officials have called on ALL communities in the Lower Lempa, from San Marcos on down, to evacuate. Their plan is to move all residents to a shelter in San Marcos. When that is full they will take people to Tierra Blanca and then on to Jiquilisco. Civil Protection has set up a command post in Ciudad Romero where they are coordinating evacuation and relief efforts. According to our field staff, many government and international agencies are present, including the police, military, Red Cross, Comandos de Salvamento, the mayor’s office, and many, many others. The good news is that they are coordinating better than in past emergencies.

I'm worried about our friend Armando, a hard-working and ambitious farmer, whose farm lies in the area affected by these floods. I pray these floods will spare his house and family, his orchard and chickens and pigs. It's hard to be leaving for the United States tomorrow morning, before I can find out much about what's happened.

Here in Suchitoto, it's seemed like constant rain, but it's nothing in comparison - we had a little under three inches fall between October 11th and 12th. Still, all my friends have leaking roofs and sagging walls. In El Salvador, and in Central America, the people are so very vulnerable to disasters, and the disasters - storms, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions - happen all too often. If you'd like to help people caught in Tropical Depression 12 E, the Red Cross and Catholic Relief Services are excellent places to send a donation.

photo from La Prensa Grafica

Roof work

2011-10-10T09:09:00.000-07:00

Recently I told our landlady, Higinia, that the walls in one of our bedrooms were damp and that I thought it might have something to do with the little lemon trees that were trying to grow up from the tile roof. Time for roof cleaning! On Sunday Augustin appeared at my door and spent most of the day cleaning and repairing the roof. It's a two-layer roof, with a layer of lamina (the tin or plastic ridged material used everywhere here for roof coverings or house sidings) on the bottom and a layer of clay tiles above. Augustin looked under the clay tiles and found lamina with holes in it, replaced that, and cleaned out all the tiles and gutters filled with dead leaves. He also cut back the lemon tree, so today there's more sun in the patio.

With all that work to do, I thought Augustin might need some good tools, and brought out our "manly" tool box - reformed from its previous status as a wussy toolbox with additions found by Mitch Costin - a regular on our eye surgery mission. But all he needed, it turned out, was a big spoon (a trowel, actually) and a broom. The tile roofs are labor intensive but technologically very simple - and in this climate, very efficient.

I was away in the afternoon and came back afraid I'd find a total mess. Instead, Augustin had carefully swept the dead leaves and soil into one heap and the pruned leaves into another. There was a third pile of many, many lemons - but the lemon tree is still full and seems to respond joyfully to pruning.

This morning I was cramming dead leaves and soil into our compost bucket for the Monday organic pickup, and realized I had far more than I could put out. And then I looked at the pile again and saw....compost. That combination of leaves and ashes and dust has been sitting in sun and rain every day, ideal conditions for composting. So right now Martha is putting this lovely compost into our garden and bundling up the pruned branches. I know that before she leaves the patio will once more shine with cleanliness.

Misdirections

2011-10-08T20:07:00.000-07:00

On Thursday I began the day by providing transportation for a small delegation from Guacotecti, Cabañas, where the women who are hoping to start an egg farm have found the perfect piece of land. They need to raise more money to complete the land purchase and put together the hen house and buy the hens and their feed, and a second grant request is in process. This particular grant requires the approval and signature and seal of the bishop for their diocese, which is San Vicente. So I drove to San Rafael Cedros, picked up Iris Alas and Leslie Schuld of CIS and Elmira and Rosa from Guacotecti, and we drove off to San Vicente where we had an appointment with the Vicar (the Bishop was out of town).

It was a pleasant drive and we were soon in San Vicente where we found that the Vicar, too, was out of town, having been called out on an emergency, so we explained ourselves to his secretary and a helpful young man who had been engaged in plastering the walls of the historic church where the Vicar has his office. The only challenge was the seal: they showed us a seal of the rubber-stamp variety, but this grant required an embossed seal, and we all collaborated together to figure out what that was in Spanish: sello en relieve turned out to be the answer.

My day went on to include a lengthy rumble through the streets near the church everyone knows as Don Rua, though in fact its name is Maria Auxiliadora (photo above). A classic Salvadoran rebranding: it will do you no good to look for Don Rua on a map, but everyone knows where it is. I asked who Don Rua was and someone told me he was the Italian priest who'd built the church - but a bit of web research convinces me that he was the successor to Don Bosco, the founder of the Salesians. I was scouting around Don Rua's neighborhood to find a house I'd visited just a couple of days before that seemed to be in a perfectly obvious location. Unfortunately, it had relocated, or I had. I was trying to drive west in an area near the historic centro where the major streets ran north-south, where one-ways existed with no markings, and where you had to cross the major streets (with no traffic lights helping you) by gunning the motor at the first sign of opportunity. I almost became another traffic statistic, but my guardian angel, my brakes and my reflexes were working overtime, and I finally found the house only a block away.

And then I drove very meekly and properly to Anne and Rafael's new townhouse in Escalon. We walked to a sweet restaurant around the corner located in a vivero, a plant nursery, and had dinner while a video of ABBA (who knows why) played on the restaurant's two big screens. And then I drove home to Suchitoto to find that a huge storm had passed by while I was away, leaving a small lake in the living room and 42 lemons in the patio.

I can't think of a more satisfactory way to spend your 70th birthday. Mission, misdirection, friends and ABBA. Mamma Mia!

Sitting in Starbucks and remembering Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in Starbucks in Santa Elena, and I've got mixed feelings about this. Starbucks is such a familiar sight for a Seattleite, and everything here looks just right, the cups, the Starbucks mermaid, the comfy couches, the internet access and (sigh) the prices. So I'm pleased to find this comforting combination. (Here's a photo of Kathy Garcia in front of the Starbucks in the Galeria - another northwestern tickled to find this familiar place.) But - on the other hand - I do wonder if Starbucks is chasing out some of the local coffee places - Viva Espresso, the Coffee Cup, Ben's - where you can get great espresso and buy a variety of Salvadoran coffees, among the best in the world.

I remember what a great hangout Starbucks was for the women who lived in Rose of Lima House, transitional living in Seattle, when I worked there. They'd go around the block to 1st, buy a cup of the coffee of the day, and sit and talk for two hours. It was the closest thing they could afford to being in a nice restaurant, and I always loved Starbucks for being a place where you could just be, even if you were homeless. It doesn't feel at all like that here, of course - clearly the folk who go to any coffee house in El Salvador are doing pretty well. They tend to be the folk who dress up in suits, if just so everyone will know that they work in air-conditioned splendor.

So my feelings on Starbucks here are mixed. But it's a good place to remember and give thanks for Steve Jobs, who's put such liveliness and fun into people's hands. I bought the first Macintosh in the spring after it was introduced; it cost an outrageous amount, you had to swap disks to go from the operating system to the writing and drawing programs, and I loved it. I remember those great fonts - imagine, being able to have fonts on a computer - New York, Chicago and quirky San Francisco - it was such fun for someone who'd been using a very dull word processor. And that, of course, was only the begionning, and now I sit here typing on my iPad on a the wireless keyboard, still having lots and lots of fun (and getting a bit of work done too) thanks to Steve's singular genius and vision. Gracias.

How the beans grow

2011-09-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

Visiting Sonia and her family a few days ago, I noticed that the milpa next to their house had changed dramatically. Half the corn had been harvested, and the rest was doblado, turned over so that the remaining ears of corn can dry on the stalk (this happens in the midst of the rainy season, and I can't understand why the corn dries rather than mildews, but the Salvadorans and their forebears have been at this for hundreds of generations, and they know). In between the drying stalks, the recently planted bean vines were popping out of the earth. In a few more weeks it'll be time for the bean harvest, for the vines to be uprooted and dried and threshed so that the small, beautiful red silk beans can emerge. And those beans, in their growing, will have fixed nitrogen in the soil for next year's corn crop. It's a beautiful and valuable cycle.

Alejandrito at 2

2011-09-28T19:20:00.000-07:00

My godson Alejandro Emanuel Alvarenga - aka Alejandrito or Junior - turned two last week, and like two-year-olds the world over he has joyfully discovered the word NO, and when Alex, Ani, Alejandrito and I went for a walk he was very determined to walk ahead of us, on his own if you please, until we got close to the busy streets and the parents took over.

Other than issuing the necessary NO from time to time, he seems to be an entirely happy boy. Here he is with his birthday truck, which makes lots of noises - quite satisfactory. What fun to watch this little guy grow up.

La vida política

2011-09-25T20:19:00.000-07:00

I drove back to Suchitoto in the late afternoon yesterday to find a couple of policemen directing me away from my usual route to the Centro Arte para la Paz where I park the car. I turned the corner and found a few more policemen at the next corner. Several corners and several policemen later I was finally able to get to the Centro Arte by making a wide swing around the center of town, noticing on the way several FMLN buses parked. Of course I had to find out what was going on, so I walked back via the Parque Central and noticed that the street that goes past the Alcaldia (City Hall) was set up with a stage, lots and lots of FMLN flags, and a covered area for dancing. A normal enough sight in this city that for the past 24 years has been voting FMLN (this is the party of the left, formed by an alliance of five smaller political parties in 1981, in the early years of the civil war). But the event wasn't normal, and that's why the police were out in force. The FMLN 's central committee has named Pedrina Rivera as the candidate for Mayor in the elections coming in March, 2012, and many in Suchitoto were upset that they had not been consulted and that the current and very popular FMLN Mayor, Javier Martinez, would not be up for re-election. The flags and banners and stage were set up for Pedrina Rivera's opening speech in the campaign, and supporters had been bused in to make the event look festive and popular.

I didn't stay around to witness the event - it seemed like one of those fights in the family where you'd just as soon the guest didn't witness it - but I learned from the paper today that there had been protests and a scuffle, plastic bottles and pop cans had been thrown, and there was enough shouting to drown out the official words. And then, perhaps to everyone's relief, the sky broke open with thunder and lightning and torrential rains and the rally was at an end.

This morning when I walked over to church, the banners and flags were torn and tattered. It had been a hard night in Suchitoto.

On the road

2011-09-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

Just for the fun of it, I made a list today of what I encountered on the road between Suchitoto and San Martin, the nearest town. In the 18 miles of this pretty good two-lane highway I encountered:

kids, families, men, men on horseback, women, women carrying large bundles on their heads, people gathered at bus stops, people sitting on the edge of the road (this last I find unnerving since there's no shoulder, but it makes a good seat when the ground slopes away from the road)

dogs, chickens, goats, horses, oxen, cattle (I sometimes see iguanas, but none today), all of them occasionally moved to cross the road without reference to my car coming down it

cars, bicycles, motorcycles, trucks, buses, micro-buses, trucks carrying people, road work machinery, moto-taxis (the 3-wheel vehicles called 'tuk-tuks' in Guatemala)

a man with a vending cart - he seemed to be selling cold drinks of some kind

many houses, many milpas (corn and bean fields), cattle fields, orchards, several pupuserias (roadside eatery selling pupusas, the Salvadoran comfort food), a collection of small brick-making businesses, Catholic and Evangelical churches

many tumulos (traffic-slowing bumps - whatever do we call them in English? - which in El Salvador are essentially a pipe half buried in the roadway, and you'd better slow waaaay down or your shocks will be shocked.)

many baches - aka potholes. They multiply with the rainy season and may get fixed when the dry weather comes.

It's crowded, it's lively, and driving it is always an adventure. I sometimes have to pull off the highway in the U.S. because I get drowsy. Not here.

Dia de Independencia

2011-09-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

September 15, last Thursday, Suchitoto and towns all over Central America celebrated the Dia de la Independencia - Independence Day, celebrating the day in 1821 when Central America declared its freedom from Spain. It was, of course, cause for a good fiesta! The party began Wednesday evening with the traditional procession of the students at InSu, the Instituto de Suchitoto, equivalent to high school, complete with floats and wild costumes. My favorite float, created at the Centro Arte para la Paz, was a version of the famous San Salvador statue of Jesus standing atop the globe, and it had to progress very slowly and carefully so that the wires could be lifted with a long pronged stick as it passed every house. There was an angel (photo above) followed by a corps of dancing angels, a 19th century cart and horse, followed by students in Victorian dress, and the Carreta de la Chillona - Martha tells me that a kind of rattle lets you know when la Chillona is hunting down the living, and her carreta was appropriately decorated with skulls.

The next morning all the school kids in town and many from the colonias marched through the town. We hung out the door and a window as they passed, almost every school with some students in costumes and a marching band. And then there was La Ciguanaba, the old witch who dangles her sausage breasts in vain attempts to catch a lover. And there were these little girls dancing up the street.

I've lived in cities most of my life where parades are very organized rituals with professional floats, and I can't tell you how much fun it is to be part of the crowd hanging out on the edges of these two happy parades. ¡Viva la Independencia!

Remembering

2011-09-14T20:13:00.000-07:00

I'm back in El Salvador, but my heart keeps turning to Albuquerque in the 1970s, when Helen Cooperstein and Patricia Clark Smith were among my best friends. Helen, a beautiful, intense artist, wove beautiful wall hangings and capes. Pat, a fellow Assistant Professor in the English Department at UNM, wrote her discovery of New Mexico's vast spaces and human histories into moving poetry.

I learned before my recent trip to New Mexico that Helen had died a year and a half after being diagnosed with cancer (this photo of her was taken last December). She and I had talked several times during those months - about her son and grandchildren, about our lives, about God. She came into a place of peace in those last months, and it was both joyful and sorrowful to visit with her son Noah, his wife Marta and their two young boys in Albuquerque.

It wasn't until my last day in New Mexico, visiting with my longtime friends Mary and Paul Davis, that I learned of Pat Smith's death in July, 2010. I have so many memories of times with Pat, parties and food and talks and exchanging poems, memories of visiting her when she was teaching on the Navajo reservation or in various Albuquerque homes. I'm sad that I fell out of touch with her.

I grieve the loss of these two friends, these two lights in my life. And I know that Helen and Pat live now not only in my memories and those of other friends, but in the wideness of God's mercy.

Raindrops

2011-09-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

Labor Day in New York City was clear and beautiful, but then it began raining in New York and New Jersey. I looked forward to escaping to New Mexico, where afternoon rains sometimes happen in summer, but where gray days are practically unheard of.

It must be Seattleite karma, but it has been raining in Santa Fe ever since I arrived on Thursday evening. Now this is grand for New Mexicans - everything greens up, forest fires are no longer a major worry, the rivers are running full - but a little discouraging for visitors, especially since this is the Fiesta weekend in Santa Fe.

All the same, I had a wonderful day yesterday with my friends Pat D'Andrea and Mary Lou Carson, visiting Chimayo, up north from Santa Fe (there we are in the photo). One of my fondest memories is of visiting the Sanctuario de Chimayo with my parents on Holy Saturday, 1969 when I was new to New Mexico. It was a simple adobe chapel then, with the room off to one side where you could find the healing dirt that made Chimayo a pilgrimage site. A tiny old woman asked me to help her in the chapel while my mom and dad were still up in a shop on the main road. When they came in to the Santuario, they were horrified to see me up on a chair doing something to one of the statues, and I had to quickly explain that I was helping out by taking the veils off the statues in preparation for the Easter Vigil (though I wouldn't have known about the Easter Vigil at the time, then being mostly an agnostic).

Yesterday, 42 years and a few months later, it was hard to recognize the Santuario, now surrounded by plazas and car parks, gift shops, and some heavy and unattractive stone crosses within archways (in the background of the photo) that will probably become Stations of the Cross. When we got to the end of the long entry ramp, we found the old chapel of the Sanctuario looking simple and New Mexican, much the same as ever, but it was hard to see it surrounded by all the trappings of a tourist destination. Thankfully, we escaped to the Rancho de Chimayo, where the rain had forced everyone inside from the terraces. We almost didn't get a table, but then were invited to have lunch at the bar, where we feasted on tamales, carne adovada, flautas, posole, frijoles and sopapillas, the very best of New Mexico's wonderful food, and talked as only old friends can talk. The rain couldn't dampen that pleasure!

Later in the day, Pat and I walked down her block to pick up some tamales from her neighbor, Jenny Martinez, who also showed us her lovely collection of images of the Virgin - or the Lady, as Jenny called her. Jenny, who has been praying for me during my breathing crisis and return to health (along with the members of Pat's sangha), shared her memories of Chimayo and sadness at its tourist transformation. And she gave me a little cross to carry back to El Salvador with me. I'll remember Jenny when I hold it, and I'll remember my time in Santa Fe as filled with sunshine of the spirit.

A week in New....

2011-09-06T04:48:00.001-07:00

I'm away from El Salvador for a long week - four days in New Jersey for an editor's meeting to plan the next issues of Living Peace, our Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace magazine, followed by four days in New Mexico to visit with my friend Pat D'Andrea and some other dear friends from my 20 years in that state.

Yesterday Corky Muzzy and I crossed under the Hudson on a long bus ride through New Jersey communities and spent Labor Day walking in Central Park - which was gloriously full of New Yorkers of all sizes, ages, and sorts enjoying a grand vacation day. So I'm visiting New Jersey, New York and New Mexico - if only I could get to New Hampshire, I'd have been in all the News. Have to leave that to presidential candidates, I suppose.

On the way to NYC, we passed a number of pupuserias and stores with names like "Sonsonateco." Alicia runs a bakery and pupuseria and a mile or so further on the bus line is the bakery and pupuseria of Las Hijas de Alicia. El Salvador is not so very far away, and Salvadorans are as enterprising - and as fond of pupusas - in New Jersey as at home. Perhaps one of those Salvadorans away from home was the woman who cleans restrooms in the Newark airport, the woman who was singing softly to herself "Pescador de los Hombres," my favorite hymn. It was so grand to hear her that I joined in - even though I have the voice of a crow with laryngitis - and we sang the refrain together happily, and I said "Gracias." And felt at home.

Free

2011-08-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

I've been meeting this mare and foal in various places in Suchitoto, running freely through the streets - for me, a city-bred gringa who loves horses, an amazing sight. The other day I saw them as I was driving in to Suchi, and for once I had my camera with me. Then last night I heard hooves passing our house and looked out to see a mounted horseman herding the mare and foal down the street. So apparently they do belong to someone, and their days of mooching around in town are over. I'll miss them!

Gloribel hits the books

2011-08-26T19:11:00.000-07:00

Last week I had a great visit with Gloribel and her mother. Gloribel and her mother Hortensia have been going to a school for deaf children in Santa Ana since March, and they were delighted to show off Gloribel's learning in a heap of carefully written and beautifully illustrated notebooks - one can be seen in this photo. She's been learning a lot of Salvadoran Sign Language as well, and it was great to watch her signing with her mother and sister (and she taught me a few signs, too). Gloribel's intelligence and ability were so clear, even before she got the opportunity to go to school, that it's no surprise that she's blossoming now.

The trip to school, four days a week, demands a lot from both Gloribel and Hortensia - they have to take three different buses to get there, and it takes about 2 hours each way. But Hortensia is glad to give this time, because she is so eager for her daughter to have the learning and skills she'll need to survive as a deaf woman in El Salvador. And Gloribel: she's just glad to be learning, to be communicating, to be in touch with the world.

Fiesta de Maiz

2011-08-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

Corn was king today, and queen too, as Suchitoto celebrated the annual Fiesta de Maiz. Truckloads of corn came in from the campo and colonias of Suchi, the church was decorated with corn stalks, and this morning a procession with corn princes and princesses made its way from the Capilla de la Cruz to the church. It's one of the days when the church is crammed with all the side aisles full of folk who stand patiently through the Mass.

Then we all went out into the plaza where food was waiting - elote (corn on the cob) and atol (hot corn drink) and tamales de elote and - my favorite, the thing I wait for all year - riguas, the best fresh corn pancakes imaginable, grilled in banana leaves. They're una cora (a quarter) each, and I restrained myself and bought only two. Wish they were sold every day!

The celebration felt especially good this year because the corn harvest has been excellent - this after two years when the weather interrupted harvests. There's a threat of bad weather coming from hurricanes in the Atlantic, but so far, at least, we've only had the normal pattern of sunny mornings with a downpour in the afternoon or evening. So we celebrated the harvest in bright sunshine.

Home again

2011-08-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

Geovany made quick progress once the rods and pins were supplied - his surgery was Thursday, August 11th, and by Sunday he was ready to come home. I volunteered to provide the transportation, and drove into the capital with Geovany's dad, José, and his brother Juan Carlos. At this stage of his journey back from the auto accident Geovany is very thin, with quite a collections of scars, bandages and casts, but he was clearly glad to be going home where he'll get his mama's home cooking and begin to learn to use his legs again. Here he is with his parents on the porch of the family home - getting him there required bouncing down a long dirt road and crossing a rushing brook - fortunately not during a rainstorm. It probably was more than a bit painful for Geovany, but I didn't hear even a squeak.

Richard at home

2011-08-16T20:06:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been full of wonderful events and meetings, material for more blog posts than I've had time to write (they'll come along later this week). One of the best times was visiting young Richard Stanley and his mom Mari in their home in San Rafael Cedros. I went with Iris Alas, our San Rafael coordinator, her daughter, and Sergio, one of the community volunteers and Mari's uncle. Richard's new heart valve seems to be behaving well, though getting the medications right has been a challenge. He looks good - more color and more energy than before - and he continues to be a truly squiggly 3-year-old with no interest in having his picture taken. I sneaked in this one when he wasn't looking at me. Mari told me that when all the kids in the hospital were having their pictures taken, Richard was the only one who would have none of it.

Richard and Mari live in the midst of a big Salvadoran family, with Mari's mother and three sisters and a brother and a big bunch of cousins, mostly boys. The family put together the classic almuerzo (luncheon): sopa de gallina india (country hen soup) with a bit of the grilled gallina and salad on the side, with fresh tortillas. It was glorious, and we ate until we could hardly waddle. A great way to celebrate Richard's new life!

Instructions from a master teacher

2011-08-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

When we finished our week of clinics in San Rafael Cedros last February, we gave 80 Sawyer Point One water filters to the community, in care of Iris Alas. Last week Iris invited me to a meeting at which she was handing over about 15 of the filters to women who had completed the necessary steps - they'd come to a first meeting where they had learned about the importance of clean water, and about how much it would save the family in medical costs, someone in the family had been tested for parasites and bacteria at the local health center, and they were ready to spend $5 or $10 (depending on means) to defray the cost of the buckets, which the municipality had purchased.

We met at Iris' house, and for the next hour I had the pleasure of watching a master teacher at work. First, Iris went over the details: starting the treatment for parasites once everyone in the family is using the clean water; using the clean water to wash hands and food; keeping the bucket of clean water covered and off the floor; sending the kids to school with bottles of clean water; making refrescos with clean water; backwashing the filter regularly to keep it clean. That's Iris at right in the top photo, and also in that photo, because I couldn't resist, is the family cat, occupying, like every good cat, the exact center of the space. Everyone, I'm here to tell you, carefully walked around the cat, who took this as her due.

Then three CIS volunteers showed how to put the filter and buckets together, and we watched the tap water flow into the bottom bucket, and then each of the women handed over her family member's lab test and the money, and each received two buckets and the filter kit.

It was a joy to see this being done so carefully because, as Iris says, otherwise the filters wouldn't be well used, or they might be sold or be forgotten. These women had to go through some work and pay some money to get their filters, and because of that they're much likelier to use them for the health of their families - and Iris and the local youth who get scholarships from CIS will be checking up in six months.

Buying pins

2011-08-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

Last week José knocked on my door and introduced himself. He's a farmer in one of the small communities that are part of the Suchitoto municipality, a former guerrillero and a man with eight children. One of those children, his son Geovany, had been hit by a car in June, and was in Zacamil hospital in San Salvador after being concussed and breaking both legs and an arm. José came to see me, on Sister Peggy's suggestion, because his son's legs needed to be pinned surgically and that could only happen if the family came up with $800 for the pins and rods.

This is a story I've become all too familiar with here: good hospital care and surgery is available without cost, but if healing requires any kind of medical equipment - a heart valve, interocular lenses, surgical pins, special tests, medication the hospital doesn't stock - the family will have to try to find the resources to buy what's needed. For poor families in El Salvador, like José's family, that's often completely impossible.

We were able to help José and Geovany, thanks to some generous donors, so yesterday José and I drove into the capital to make the purchase from Sistemas Biomedicas. We found the address without too much difficulty, but no one answered the doorbell in an office building that was far from the city center. Finally a man came along and explained that the company had moved down into the San Salvador medical center. He called for the address and gave us excellent and clear directions to 124 Boulevard Dr. Hector Silva. Following his directions, we found a likely street, but the street proclaimed that its name was Avenida Maria Elena. And we didn't see #124 anywhere. I drove to the Archdiocese of San Salvador office, not far away, to ask my friends there for some help. They looked up the street on the internet and gave me directions to, yes, the street apparently named Avenida Maria Elena. So we tried again, and this time we rang the bell at the building that seemed most likely to be #124, though it lacked a number, and yes, it was the new home of Sistemas Biomedicas, and yes, they could sell us the rods and pins.

Then we went to visit Geovany in the hospital, and I hoped to take a photo, but that turned out to be against hospital rules. I'll hope to include his photo when he's out of the hospital, working through his physical therapy to get back on his feet. Meanwhile, I'm glad we can help make his recovery possible, and I'm glad to know that Avenida Maria Elena really is Boulevard Dr. Hector Silva.

Dog days

2011-08-08T19:53:00.001-07:00

In winter, the rainy season (going on right now), we rely on the rain to cut the heat and bring in some natural air cooling, like the swamp coolers I remember from my Albuquerque days. But for the past couple of days, it hasn't rained here in Suchitoto - thunderstorms all around us, but only heat and more heat, humidity and higher humidity here. Over at the Centro Arte para la Paz, Peggy's Luna did what any sensible dog would do in this heat - found the coolest spot on the tile floor and put as much of herself in contact with it as possible. Don't think I haven't considered it!

But I found a better antidote to the heat and humidity of these dog days in the harp music floating out into the courtyard. Wendy is here on one of her regular visits from Ontario, and she was teaching her students a few new songs and techniques. It must be the power of music, but they all look radiant and cooler than cucumbers. A concert's planned for next weekend - Margaret Jane and I will surely be there. Meanwhile, we hope for some rain.

Fiesta del Salvador del Mundo

2011-08-05T20:20:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the feast of the Transfiguration, but here it's celebrated with extra passion and delight as the feast of El Salvador del Mundo, the savior of the world - El Salvador's patronal feast. This is one of three week-long celebrations in El Salvador during which people with government or office jobs get holidays: Christmas/New Year's; Holy Week; and the August vacations on the week that includes August 6th. These are all Christian celebrations, but there's not the separation between church and state here that exists in the U.S.

These three weeks are beautifully scattered through the year, so that every 4th month there's a week-long vacation. Salvadorans take off to other countries, to the beach, to the mountains, and some come to Suchitoto, so we always have extra folk roaming our streets during the vacations. The big celebration, with procession and parades and carnival rides and fireworks is in San Salvador - it's the patronal feast of the city as well as the country, of course.

We had our Suchitoto celebration of the Transfiguration tonight, because Padre Carlos Elias will be concelebrating with the Archbishop in San Salvador tomorrow. Before Margaret Jane and I went out for pupusas, we connected with Ana outside the church, and were happy to see her wearing the gloriously pink shoes Margaret Jane had brought back for her. A great feastday look!

Families

2011-08-03T20:57:00.000-07:00

Getting back into connection here in El Salvador, I made a bunch of visits yesterday. I went to Soyapango to see my almost-two-year-old Godson, Alejandro, who has definitely made the move from baby to boy. He's also gotten less shy in the two months I've been away, so I got plenty of smiles, one of them captured here. In the capital I visited with Armando, our Bajo Lempa friend with the fruit orchard and pig farm (he's now added chickens to his mix).

Then I drove to San Juan Opico to visit Sonia and her children. I translated, as best I could, a letter from Dr. Dale Heisinger expressing his sorrow at the death of her daughter Gema, and she gave me a letter she had written for Dr. Dale. You can feel the loss and sadness in the family, especially in Sonia and Julia, now the oldest child, but they've also moved back into the daily rhythms of work and play. Sonia and Julia were working together on making jewelry when I came in; Jarrison was playing in a doctor outfit that Sonia had found in a 2nd hand store, and Kelly was a tiny charmer, as always. The milpa that surrounds their house is full of high-as-an-elephant's-eye corn, the pila is full of water from the rains, and the fruit trees are bearing. Life ongoing.

Harvest

2011-07-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

For the past two years the harvests of corn and beans, the staple foods of Central America, have been terrible because drought came at the wrong time or because the rains were too heavy. This year we seem to be hitting the "just right" that Goldilocks longed for. The rains started late, but they've been consistent and not too heavy (relatively speaking: a not-too-heavy downpour in the tropics looks like a deluge in the north). The harvests are already beginning to come in, and should continue through the month of August. Yesterday on a walk around Suchitoto I found evidence at this house where the beans have been laid out to dry on the sidewalk, hung over the open door, and draped all over the frame of the family pickup. It's a good reminder that Suchitoto is very much a rural community center as well as a tourist destination.

Gracias a Dios por la cosecha - Thanks be to God for the good harvest, for the tortillas and frijoles that are daily bread for the people. Thanks for the rain.

The path she chose

2011-07-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

Things don't always work out the way you'd planned them, as we all know. On Thursday, I got up at 3 AM and drove to Ciudad Arce to pick up Sandra and her grandmother. Sandra was going to enter Hospital Bloom, the national pediatric hospital, for cataract surgery (she has congenital cataracts). Sandra and la abuela were on time at our meeting place, smiling happily at me. We got into San Salvador in time to be among the first entering Bloom, and after waiting an hour and a half for the doctors to arrive, were among the first in to see Dr. Dominguez, Sandra's surgeon, who said that yes, she would have her surgery the next day.

All seemed to be going well, and we had a little break to get breakfast in one of the busy comedors across from el Bloom. We came back in and waited for four hours for a pediatrician who would examine Sandra and other children waiting for admission. Then a nurse showed up with a hospital identification bracelet for Sandra, and we were suddenly in a very difficult situation. She refused the bracelet, ran to the hospital entrance and collapsed into a chair, very distressed. Two understanding nurses talked to her, and so did grandma and I, but she couldn't respond in words until finally she was able to say NO to the surgery. And, we all agreed, at 14 she had the right to say no.

And so I bought us some lunch and then took Sandra and grandma home. Sandra recovered on the way back and was chatting comfortably with her grandmother by the time we reached Ciudad Arce.

For me and for the donors who had generously purchased the interocular lens for her surgery (we'll ask Dr. Dominguez to find another child who needs it) it was a disappointment. But, as so often happens, someone had sent me the right thoughts for dealing with this situation. The someone is Cheryl Sesnon, the new Executive Director of Jubilee Women's Center in Seattle, where I once worked and once served on the Board of this great housing program for homeless women. I'd stopped by to get to know her while I was back in the States, and we'd talked a bit about our times of discouragement as well as our joy in the work. She recently e-mailed me, "Each time I feel despair I just have to remember that I am not in control of others. They each have their own path to follow. and I have my own path, as well."

So as I drove back to Suchitoto, more than 12 hours after leaving, I blessed Sandra on her path, and gave thanks that she was able to express her will so unmistakably. I don't know if I can say this clearly, but it's good for me, a gringa with access to much that's unavailable to most Salvadorans, to be reminded that the path I and my fellow norteamericanos might want to help someone choose isn't always their path.

In Suchitoto

2011-07-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

I took the red-eye to Houston just before midnight on Monday, and the morning flight to El Salvador today. Roberto met me at the airport, and soon I was back in Suchitoto - and it feels wonderful to be here.

My two months in the northwest were a blessing of regained health; joyful and renewing time with my Sisters, family and friends; and summer days in the great beauty of western Washington. I realized, though, in the last few days there that the rich, clean, orderly, luxurious and beautiful environment of Bellevue had begun to feel somewhat unreal to me, and I knew I was called back to El Salvador.

On the way back to Suchitoto I noticed the roads crowded with people walking, the pickups overflowing with passengers, broken-down abandoned cars, heaps of rubbish, trees and shrubs and grasses green with the daily rains, dogs and kids and sidewalk restaurants, a poor, messy, chaotic, lively and vital environment. Real. My ankles swelled instantly in the heat and the mosquitoes located me (gringa alert) and went to work. I'm itching. I'm glad to be back.

July in the woods

2011-07-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

Next Monday I return, joyfully, to El Salvador. But these two months at home have been wonderful, both in recovered health and also in a chance to spend time with friends and family and in the beauty of western Washington in July. I've been celebrating my improved breathing with long walks - these photos are from a walk with Patti Moore on a river trail near Orting. We'd thought of going to Mt. Rainier, but even though it's July, the snow is reported to be still high there (the northwest has had an extra cool spring and early summer). So we walked the river instead, ate salmon berries, watched a crow kill a garter snake, rejoiced in foxgloves in full bloom, and listened to the river, white with glacier runoff, sing its song. One of many lovely days in this beautiful country before I return to that other beautiful country, so different in every way.

Noise and silence

2011-07-08T20:25:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the blog silence...it's only because I've been in the United States - in Bellevue, Washington - since early June, so I haven't had much fresh info about El Salvador to post. Strange things have been happening there: a big constitutional crisis has heated up with the legislature passing a law to require the judges of the country's Constitutional Court to be unanimous in any decision about the constitutionality of a law (many recent votes of this five person court have been 4-1 decisions), and there's been a strong popular protest. The court, perhaps predictably, declared the law unconstitutional. You can read about it in Tim's El Salvador blog, but it's pretty hard to understand the dynamics at a distance (like someone in El Salvador trying to understand the current dynamics around the debt ceiling crisis in the United States).

Meanwhile, blessedly, my own health crisis has been resolved with great medical skill and lots of prayer. I am able to enjoy long walks for the first time in six months - what a joy! - and I will be heading back to El Salvador on July 25th, most thankfully. Perhaps I will find someone there who can help me understand the constitutional crisis.

And also, meanwhile: I've been assembling photos from the last year for our PazSalud calendar selection, and here's a favorite from the May eye surgery mission - left to right, Dr. George Sesson, our optometrist; a happy patient; Dr. Tony Pisacano, our ophthalmologist, and Dra. Silvia Pleitez, our circulator.

Little Richard

2011-06-28T05:12:00.000-07:00

Little Richard Martinez came through a six-hour heart surgery very well yesterday at Hospital Bloom, San Salvador. I talked to Maria, his mother, yesterday; she said that the surgeon was pleased with how things had gone. This next 24-hour period is very crucial, so please continue to keep Richard in your prayers.

Maria was very relieved, and sent thanks to all who fulfilled her dream by making this surgery possible.

Patience

2011-06-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted to this blog for a couple of weeks, mostly because I am in medical never-never land, waiting for a diagnosis of the inflammation in my bronchi. I long to get to the treatment phase, but, of course, only with the right diagnosis - so I'm practicing patience, which has been a major learning from my time in El Salvador. God making use, as usual, of everything in a life.

Meanwhile, I called El Salvador this morning to learn how little Richard Stanley was doing after his heart valve replacement surgery, only to learn that the surgery was postponed because they didn't have a bed available for him in Intensive Care. He is now rescheduled for next Monday, and I'm praying that all will be well then. Maria, Richard's mother, was nearly frantic with worry, as you can imagine. Please pray for them both. Here's a photo of this very loving mother and son.

rhodys and rabbits

2011-06-09T21:43:00.000-07:00

A little rabbit colony has found St. Mary-on-the-Lake - a very natural locale for them, except for the bald eagles that often sit at the tops of our trees and warble their strange cries while - no doubt - looking around for the odd rabbit. I hear there's a coyote in the park that's almost next door. But meanwhile the rabbits are roaming around, the rhododendrons are in glorious bloom, and it's OK if the sun is not shining that often - it's still a paradise here!

Strange to think that this is equally a blooming time in El Salvador, though now that the daily rains are well established most of the blooms will be swept down the drains.

Home time

2011-06-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Bellevue for the month of June and for (again) some medical attention. I have an unexplained and - so far - undiagnosable chunk of gunk in my bronchia that shows up in coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, and general discomobulation. There's a bronchoscopy scheduled Friday - following up on two of those in March. I hope for diagnosis and a treatment plan!

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the glories of late spring at St. Mary-on-the-Lake. The rhododendrons are in full bloom, along with azaleas, strawberries, dogwoods, salal and a Chilean Fire Tree. The view from anywhere, but especially from our chapel where you look out onto a 30 foot tall red rhody in full bloom, is spectacular. All the evergreens, the western red cedar and douglas fir and spruce and yew, have fresh new light green tips. I haven't been back at this time for two years, and I'd almost forgotten what it's like!

The special joy of this time has been celebrating our six Jubilarians - I was very honored to be asked to reflect on the readings for the Jubilee Mass, and very glad that Sr. Carmel Little kindly read the reflections for me, as I didn't want to cough my way through them. You can read a bit of them on our Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace website.

The special sorrow of these days was the death of our Sister Rita Mary Lyons. I knew that she was receiving hospice care and was quietly taking her leave of us, but really wanted to be able to tell her how much I loved and honored her. I was able to do that the night I came home; she died the next day. Sister Rita Mary was a nurse and nursing teacher and supervisor for most of her active years as a sister; in Ketchikan in the 1970s (I think), she became a chaplain and offered her understanding heart and wisdom to staff and patients. When health forced her to retire to St. Mary-on-the-Lake in the 1990s, she saw the opportunity to do all the reading that she didn't have time for in her very active life. She must have read her way through almost every book in our fairly large library of spirituality and theology, as well as a few entertaining novels. She was a woman of few words and deep wisdom, a wisdom worn with great humility. I will miss her greatly.

Winter

2011-05-31T19:22:00.000-07:00

Winter is officially here. We had a gully-washer of a thunderstorm a few days back, and since then nightly rains. The rains are late this year, and the heat had become almost unbearable, but the regular rainfalls help keep temperatures reasonable.

It's hard for someone from the Pacific Northwest (where it is still 50 degrees and raining on June 1st) to think of El Salvador's rainy season as winter - but this is the season when travel gets difficult because of mud and floods, when you have to look at the sky before leaving the house, when the mosquitoes and flies and toads come out to play, when - a little further on - absolutely everything gets damp, mildewy, soggy. So it's reasonable enough to call it winter, the more challenging of the two seasons.

Meanwhile, we are in the transition period, which is the classic time for catching a cold in El Salvador...plenty of sniffles all around. Farmers have started their corn crop, and have been waiting anxiously for the rains to catch up with them. Now they have: primero Dios, this year's crop of corn and beans will be big and healthy, unlike those of the last two years when dry weather came at the wrong time.

A source of comedy indeed

2011-05-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

During our surgical mission, I spent time in the afternoons with our volunteers from San Rafael Cedros, Yanci and Victoria (in the photo with Iris Alas, our Cedros coordinator). Yanci and Victoria were gigglers, and they found my Spanish pretty hilarious from time to time (as it is from time to time). So I tried to explain to them that one of my goals was to be a source of comedy for Salvadorans - only instead of saying that I wanted to be a fuente de comedia, I heard myself saying that I wanted to be a fuente de comida, a source of food. And, strangely enough, they thought that was really pretty funny.

Onward to further adventures in mangling the beautiful Spanish language!

Sweet retreat

2011-05-24T18:05:00.000-07:00

Lately our mission groups have stayed in retreat houses during the week, a choice that gives us an unbeatable combination of good food, quiet (except for the critters, see below), beautiful surroundings, and simple lodgings. Our eye surgery group, like the February General Medical Mission volunteers, stayed at the Casa de Retiro Santisima Trinidad - the Holy Trinity Retreat House - in Candelaria, about 20 minutes away from our work place, the Hospital Nacional de Cojutepeque.

Santisima Trinidad is run by the Carmelite Sisters of Saint Teresa, the same community that runs the Hospital Divina Providencia, the cancer hospice in San Salvador where Monseñor Romero lived and died. They're a lively and friendly group of Sisters and we've enjoyed getting to know Sisters Mari, Paty, Francesca and Amparo.

Santisima Trinidad is set on the hills above Lake Ilopango, and the chapel and dining room look out on the lake. The gardens are full of flowers, especially at this season-changing time of the year. And the beautiful fountain - it's the trinitarian fountain of St. John of the Cross - is home to toads with some of the deepest, loudest, and most demanding calls I've ever heard. There was also a nightly dog chorus...but after the first night, we mostly slept through it all.

Indeed, a sweet retreat, and a perfect home for our mission team.

A week well spent

2011-05-21T19:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in the last few weeks it looked as if our cataract surgery week would never happen. We hadn't registered as many patients as usual in San Rafael Cedros in February and half of the patients we registered didn't go to Hospital Cojutepeque for the required pre-surgery tests. One of our surgeons was unable to get the required Apostille (look it up on the internet!) for his license and curriculum vitae in time, and he couldn't come. The other surgeon mistakenly sent in last year's license, duly Apostilled, and I didn't even notice until the Medical Board called me. The paperwork for our franquisia (permission to import medications and supplies) was delayed in the Archdiocese because of a staffing change until too late. In the last couple of days before the mission team arrived on May 14th, it felt like a recipe for disaster.

Instead, it's been a wonderful and inspiring week, and a reminder to me that trust and patience are such necessary elements in this work. The hospital found us enough additional patients to keep our team busy each day of the week. The customs officers at the airport very kindly helped us find a way around the franquisia problem. And while we brought only one ophthalmologist, the amazing Dr. Tony Piscano (the Medical Board kindly said he could work as long as he had his current license with him), Dra. Ana Vilma de Burgos, a local ophthalmologist and our sponsor for SEE, International, worked with him for three of our five days. Our team performed 40 surgeries on 33 patients (we had a number who required more than one surgery). Our patients came away smiling, delighted with their new vision.

Our mission team had three Salvadoran members this time: Silvia Pleitez, a Salvadoran doctor now studying for a medical license in the U.S., has been on most of our mission trips; Rosy Melara, a recently retired scrub nurse, volunteered her time for the week; and Rosa Aguiar, a community organizer from Comasagua, joined us as patient coordinator for the third time. Here's Rosa wheeling a patient in for his post-op check.

I'm grateful to the Sisters and friends who responded to my urgent calls for prayer for this mission: as you can tell, they were abundantly answered. Thanks be to God!

Yesterday, Tomorrow

2011-05-13T19:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday... I almost forgot to post a photo of my friends from Agua Escondida (hidden water - it's the name of a colonia of San Juan Opico) who came for lunch on Sunday and treated me to an amazing concert. I met this great group in 2010, when we had our general medical mission in San Juan Opico. Carmen and Chita, the two singers (their friend Toño is singing with them in the photo), were volunteers during the mission, and the group sang to welcome us and bid us farewell. They've been singing together for 25 years, and sing many of their own songs - Chita has quite a collection of lyrics for any occasion. The instruments and music are traditionally Salvadoran with a lot of punch - I hope to post a video someday when I don't have a mission group coming tomorrow. The three instruments in this photo are, left to right, the requinto, which is tuned higher than a guitar and plays melody; the bijuela, a small guitar, and the bajo, or bass; the two guitars are out of the photo on the right.

Tomorrow, well tomorrow the surgery mission team arrives at the airport at 7:45pm. I didn't iron 10 shirts this time, it's too hot; instead I chose all my iron-free tops, and ironed 3. But still, I'm ready. Primero Dios, may this coming week be a blessing for many.

Ojala que llueve

2011-05-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

¡Ojalá que llueve! - if only it would rain! That's how we're all feeling now at the end of the dry season as it gets hotter and hotter and hotter, with no rains to provide a bit of divine air-conditioning. The water around is coming out of our bodies instead: it's hard to drink enough to replenish what I'm sweating out. I'll confess that these temperatures have made it really pleasant to get into the project car (air-conditioned) and drive to the city to make those last-minute preparations for our surgery group, arriving on Saturday for a week of cataract surgeries at the almost-new and very welcoming Hospital Nacional de Cojutepeque. That's the national hospital for Cuscatlán, the departamento we live in.

¡Ojalá que llueve! I love this phrase because it recalls the time, centuries ago, when Spain was a Moslem country. Ojalá was a petition to God, O Allah, and is one of many Arabic words that are inextricably woven into the Spanish language. I'd also want to say tonight "¡Ojalá que todo vaya bien con nuestra misión!" - may all go well with our mission, with the group and their work next week for the people of Cuscatlán.

2011-05-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a long blog silence, for a couple of reasons. I've been really, really busy this past week, getting ready (I hope) for our cataract surgery brigade, and that process has been more complicated than usual. But the real reason is that I've been shocked and deeply saddened by Gema Rodriguez' death. My usual reaction in such times is to go inside - which may be helpful to me, but doesn't do much for anyone else.

So I'm breaking silence to tell you a little bit about how Gema was lovingly waked and buried. It's hugely different from death in the U.S. where an undertaker shows up in a black suit and whisks the body away. Here the undertaker - not sure if there's a comparable term in español - showed up at Hospital Bloom in a pickup truck, wearing jeans and a tight shirt. She and the pickup and Sonia, Gema's mother, went in together to reclaim the body and put it in the coffin - which must have been, like everything that day, a nightmare for Sonia.

Meanwhile, other family members had come to Bloom to be with Sonia. They and the pretty white coffin rode together in the back of the pickup, while I drove Sonia and a couple more folk back toward San Juan Opico. Thanks to the great generosity of one of the donors who has been helping Gema and the family, we were able to pay for the funeral and burial expenses. It's not much from a U.S. standpoint, but it would have been a crushing and impossible burden for this poor family.

Gema was waked together with an aunt of Sonia's who had died on the same day in Hospital Rosales, the San Salvador national hospital. The two coffins sat in state for a day and two nights in a room in the community where most of Sonia's family lives, and people came to pray and visit and drink coffee and sit in the plastic chairs supplied by the funeral home, while the turkeys and geese and ducks wandered around outside. The larger family, like many here, is a mixture of Catholic and Evangelical, and the prayers and music were various.

When I arrived on Tuesday, the yard and house were packed. All the schoolchildren from Gema's school had come to say goodbye to their friend, all the family and neighbors were there, including Gema's sisters Julia and Kelly and her brother Jarrison. Two pickup trucks had been transformed into hearses by the addition of glass-sided catafalques and holders for flowers. Family members carried out the two coffins, and we processed slowly to the graveyard. Normally, it's a true procession, with the mourners walking behind the coffin, but the distance was a little too great for that, so we - the two pickup hearses, a large number of pickups and trucks full of people, and a couple of cars, including mine - drove, but at a funereal walking pace of about 2 miles an hour.

At the graveyard the coffins were arranged for a final viewing, prayers (Evangelical) were said, the coffins were lowered, and young men took on the work of shoveling as we all stood in silence.
This week Sonia's mother, who represents the Catholic side of the family, has been holding the nightly rosary that will culminate in the ultimado, a night of mourning and celebration, on the 8th day.

These final rites are very direct, very beautiful, and very matter-of-fact in El Salvador, where death is so much more frequently a part of a family's life. The richer folk in this country may be buried in one of the grand new cemetaries with astroturf carpets available to hide the earthiness of the grave, but most Salvadorans will come to country graveyards followed by a procession of those who loved them. To my eyes, these ceremonies are fitting and loving, but nothing takes away the sorrow left by the death of a beloved child.

A sad goodbye to Gema

2011-05-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

Gema Rodriguez, a lovely, bright eleven-year-old girl, died on Sunday from toxic shock syndrome that was most probably a complication of lupus.

Dr. Dale Heisinger met Gema during our 2010 general medical mission in San Juan Opico and loved her bravery under great physical pain, her flashing smile, and her sweet nature. Dale sent Gema some school supplies, which she treasured, and, through Dale, I connected with Gema and her family - her mother, Sonia, sisters Julia and Kelly, and brother Jarrison.

Dale became Gema's honorary godfather, and he, his wife Jane, and Kris Keough Forte joined forces to assist single-mother Sonia and the family with much needed living resources. The friendship with Dr. Dale and Jane and with Sister Kris was a great joy to Gema during a time when she confronted health crisis after health crisis.

In the last two weeks of her life, Gema faced two crises of vomiting and diarrhea; she was treated for the first at Hospital Benjamin Bloom, the children's hospital in San Salvador, and released feeling pretty good. She went back home, took her exams for entry to the 6th grade, and had received grades of 8 (a very good grade here) on the ones she'd done so far. She fell ill again after taking her last exam, and Sonia again took her to Hospital Bloom, but the doctors were unable to stabilize her. In her last hours, she told her mother "ya me voy," - I'm leaving - and told her not to cry.

But we are crying, all of us who knew and loved this beautiful girl. She is free from pain now, she lives with God now - but she's no longer with us, and so we cry.

Some days

2011-04-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

Some days, my mother used to say, "you should have stood in bed." Yesterday was one of those. I went off to the capital to get my one-year visa from the estranjeria office and to take our request for permission to do a week of cataract surgeries (along with the required documentation) to the Junta Vigilancia de la Profesión Médica - the Medical Board. I waited an hour and a half at the estranjeria only to be told that my visa wasn't ready yet, though I'd been assured that it would be there right after the Easter holidays. Then I found out that the Junta Vigilancia had a new President - and my letter was addressed to the former President. Not possible to cross out one name and write the other: had to produce a new letter. I drove over to the Archdiocese to check in with Señor Duran, who is working on our customs approval, and - by that time - was not surprised that he was in a meeting and not available.

Then I went home, looking forward to a good shower and a peaceful night, and found that Suchitoto's water was turned off - apparently a pipe broke and had to be fixed. And we discovered that we had forgotten to fill a couple of jugs that we usually keep filled for just such emergencies, so we had only a small barrel of water to meet our needs. And then the electricity went off for about 2 hours. I should have stood in bed.

Today, I'm happy to say, has been much better: I had several good meetings, got the letters in to the Junta Vigilancia with the right person's name, even did a little cooking. And this evening the water came back on. Life looks possible again.

Feliz pascua

2011-04-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

Christ is risen, Alleluia!

Yesterday Margaret Jane and I decided, with some misgivings, to go to the vigil mass at Santa Lucia. The misgivings came from the time frame: the vigil began at 10 pm and was set to finish at 5 am with a procession. We weren't sure we could make it, but, fortified by afternoon naps, we decided to try.

It was a glorious experience, beginning with the lighting of the pascal fire. We were waiting for someone to light the woodpile in the plaza when we noticed everyone looking back and up, at the roof of the church. A ball of flame appeared on the roof and vaulted down (there must have been a wire, but I didn't see it) to the woodpile, which it set blazing immediately. Padre Carlos Elias lit the pascal candle, and we all lit our candles (una cora, 25 cents, for a candle) and processed untidily into the church, looking for a seat.

Santa Lucia was beautiful with flowers. To one side of the altar was a paper-mache tomb, with the image of the risen Jesus (the same image used in the crucifixion procession of Good Friday, but liberated from the cross). We moved through the beautiful vigil liturgy - readings, psalms, the Gloria, singing Alleluia for the gospel, litany of the saints, baptisms and renewal of baptismal promises, eucharist. By 2:30 am our vigil was complete. "What do we do now?" I asked Martha, who was sitting next to me. "We sing," she said.

Margaret Jane and I decided to opt for bed at this point, but soon after we got back to the house, we heard the procession approaching. The photo shows the faithful with their candles singing and walking down our street at about 3:30 am. Sleepers awake! The Lord is Risen, Christ is Risen Indeed! Feliz pascua, Easter joy and peace to all.

Good Friday, Suchitoto

2011-04-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

Good Friday began with the Stations of the Cross, an elaborate walk through the center of Suchitoto that included not only the image of Jesus carrying the cross, but also images of Mary, Veronica and Simon the Cyrenian - each introduced at the appropriate time. Just about everyone in town turned out for the Stations and poured into church at the end to pray.

A few hours later, the church was crammed again for the Good Friday service. We all went slowly and reverently in line to kiss the cross and then to receive communion.

The final act of the day should be the Santo Entierro, the burial procession: a number of alfombras, carpets, were lovingly prepared for the procession and a couple are pictured above, including the offering created by the youth at the Centro Arte para la Paz, the final photo. Just as everyone was putting final touches on the alfombras, alas! the heavens opened and the rain came down in buckets. So these photos may be the only witness to the intentions of the alfombra makers (they are generally made out of bark and colored salt, not very stable items in a thunderstorm).

A thunderstorm that ruins plans seems very appropriate to Good Friday, to a day that turned the world upside down.

Domingo de los ramos

2011-04-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

Palm Sunday, domingo de los ramos, in Suchitoto: the church is crammed, packed, overflowing, everyone waving palms in the air as the procession comes down the aisle. Margaret Jane and I decided to get to the church and get a seat rather than walking with the procession (I think that's the wisdom of age), so we got to see Jesus carried up the aisle by two men as we all hosanna'ed and waved our palms. Later, in the middle of the homily, Jesus was carefully positioned near the altar from which he blessed us all through the remainder of the Mass. It was a beautiful start to semana santa, the holy week, a time for church and singing and processions and celebration - and, of course, firecrackers, which got started during this morning's Mass. Hosanna!

Bird brains

2011-04-16T16:46:00.001-07:00

We've had quite a few interesting animal visitors to our house in Suchitoto, but nothing quite as strange as the latest. When I came back from time in the U.S. earlier this week, I noticed that poop (of a bird or bat or small animal) was appearing regularly on one side of our hand-washing sink.

Our hand-washing sink is out in the patio, but it's covered by an open high roof to give us protection during the rainy season. Naturally I looked up, but saw nowhere where a bird or bat could be perching. The poop kept appearing, each time in exactly the same corner of the sink.

I began to listen for suspicious sounds, and heard some high-pitched whistles and notes that're familiar to me from the San Salvador airport and the capital, but new in Suchitoto. And then, hearing some noise from the patio, I looked out and discovered a female Great-Tailed Grackle perched on the side of the sink (the photo above is not mine, but it does look like our new friend).

Now who would imagine that a bird would choose a pooping place, and choose one where the resultant mess could easily go down the drain? That may not be her motivation, of course: I can't quite imagine what her motivation may be, but I know that this bird is eating all too well - possibly eating the nance berries that are falling in great quantities right now - and producing extravagant amounts of grackle-poop.

The next question was how we might change this behavior (cleaning bird poop out of your sink repeatedly is not fun). I thought I had a brilliant idea, and put a mosquito net over the sink. Woke up this morning to find a very messed-up mosquito net, some of the mess falling through to the sink. Alas.

Any other good ideas?

Two days at Bloom

2011-04-15T19:50:00.000-07:00

Hospital Benjamin Bloom is the national pediatric hospital of El Salvador, and I've spent a lot of time there over the last two days. Yesterday I brought Sandra and her grandma in, all of us expecting that she would have surgery for one of her congenital cataracts - but, as it turned out, she has an eye infection, and the surgery was rescheduled for two weeks while she uses antibiotic drops.

Today I gave Richard and his mother Maria a ride to their appointment with the Bloom cardiologist who will perform his valve replacement surgery (that's Maria and Richard in the photo). We met Richard during our General Medical Mission in San Rafael Cedros, and people from our mission team are contributing to a fund to purchase his heart valve. We are what Richard's loving mother has been praying and hoping for: a way for her 3 year old son to be able to run and play and have a normal life.

While I was sitting with Richard and Maria, I got a call from Sonia telling me that she was at the Bloom with her daughter Gema, who was going through a lupus crisis. We connected in the emergency room and spent some time together. And I decided that I would have a hard time working in a pediatric hospital - it's hard to see children in pain, children curled up with no energy, children looking old and worn.

Bloom is an amazing hospital - they do a lot of great work with little money, and the care for kids is visible everywhere. Still, it's hard for someone from the U.S.A. to understand that Richard and Sandra will get their surgeries only because we are able to provide the heart valve and the interocular lens. I thought today about all the children, probably some of them in front of me, who didn't have that kind of help.

April is the hottest month

2011-04-12T20:10:00.000-07:00

No, that's not quite as T.S. Eliot had it ("April is the cruelest month..."), but it is certainly true for El Salvador. On Sunday night I left cold, rainy Seattle-in-April and on Monday morning got off the plane in hotter-than-hot Suchitoto-in-April: a shock to the system, that. Roberto Hernandez picked me up at the airport, and by the time we got back to Suchi my ankles had disappeared into puffs of swollen flesh. They're looking a bit more like familiar body parts now, and the rest of me is remembering how to sweat the way through the afternoons. We will all be glad when the rains come and bring some coolness into the afternoons and evenings. Meanwhile, we swelter.

Coming from the Seattle area where the nights are now longer with daylight saving and twilight is a long, slow dance, I was startled to remember how quickly and fully the dark comes here. At 6 pm the sun goes down, and then it is dark. Suchitoto, with its well-lighted streets, is a safe town to walk around in the dark, and the regularity of sunrise and sunset is comforting. But no long summer nights here - and no short winter days - just 12 hours of blazing sun (in April) and 12 hours of warm darkness. It's good to be back!

Time of blessing, time of mystery

2011-04-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

Our Spring Assembly was a blessed, full and mysterious time. Blessed in the presence of each of us for Fr. Terry Moran's powerful linking of the creation story and spirit with our Christian, Catholic and CSJP story. It's a perspective that makes all things new, knocks a few openings in our vision, and shows us new possibilities. I know, this doesn't explain much: but some slides Terry used will be uploaded to our CSJP website, and that might give you the idea.

Terry, by the way, is a CSJP Associate, and our Associates contributed enormously to the fullness of this weekend, as did our Jubilarians. On Saturday, we had the traditional Jubilee dinner, honoring Sisters Johanna Vogelsang and Ellen Caldwell for their 75 years in religious life; Sister Zitamarie Poelzer, 70 years; Sisters Ede Reif and Mildred Morrissey, 60 years; and Sisters Judy Tralnes and Andrea Nenzel, 50 years, and we sang and danced and partied joyfully, Sister Johanna happily watching the dancing until what was for her a very late hour.

This morning, Sister Johanna died peacefully in her sleep, having been toasted and honored the night before. At 97, she was more than ready to go to God, and she chose her time beautifully and mysteriously. We all gathered in her room to say prayers of farewell and blessing this morning, and there's no doubt that she has been blessing us all day. I felt Johanna's presence in the chapel this afternoon as Jen Cowan made her first covenant as an Associate, Sue Nies and Annie Welch made lifetime covenants as Associates, and seven Associates renewed their commitments. I wasn't the only one to come away from the chapel with a profound sense of having been blessed.

Johanna was one of the first CSJPs I met; she was on the Wilderness Retreat that turned me into a Catholic, in her middle 70s then, still adventurous after years of teaching and administration, clear, upright, living out of her truth, a holy woman. Now she lives in God's light.

Photos: Sr. Johanna; Susan Dewitt and Susan Francois; Jen Cowan and her foster son Michael.

Prayer partner

2011-04-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

When I'm here in the Northwest, I have a room at St. Mary-on-the-Lake, well stocked with my fall-winter-spring clothes and a lot of books and pictures. In the mornings I pray, looking out at my prayer partner, a beautiful western red cedar that sits just outside my room's big window. There's something about the red cedar's combination of strength and gracefulness that makes me rejoice.

I think my prayer partner was watching out for me yesterday. I've been having some tests to figure out the cause for shortness of breath and wheezing I've been experiencing over the past few months, beyond my ordinary level of asthma. Yesterday I was in Swedish Hospital in Seattle for a bronchoscopy under general anesthesia. Came home about 1 pm, had a good afternoon nap, got up still a bit wobbly, and managed to trip, probably over my own feet, and hit my head on the edge of the sink counter, tearing a triangular flap on the top of my head. Like all head wounds it bled dramatically. Luckily Sister Eleanor was just down the hall, and took me down to the ER of Overlake Hospital in Bellevue - where I managed a twofer, getting my head stitched up and a breathing treatment at the same time (lungs feeling tormented, I don't doubt). Could have been much worse. But 10 hours in two hospitals - more than enough for one day!

So this morning I looked out again at my tree waving its gentle green branches in my direction. And I said to the tree, primero Dios, God first. And the tree whispered primero Dios back to me. Glad to have breath and to give breath back.

A delegation

2011-04-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

Today I had the joy of meeting with a group of young people from St. Patrick Parish, Seattle - my church when I'm in the Northwest - who will be the delegation to St. Patrick's sister community, Nueva Trinidad in Chalatenango, this June. They range in age, I'd guess, from 13 to 18 - a few adults will be coming as well - and they had great questions about their journey, ranging from the prosaic worries about getting sick to those questions we all harbor - will people like me even if I can't speak Spanish? What if I do something offensive without meaning to?

I hope I was able to reassure them that the kids in Nueva Trinidad will be nervously asking themselves the same questions - will these cool kids from El Norte like me even if I forget all my English? I know that they will like each other and they will learn so much more than they expect.

I'm hoping to get the group to Suchitoto for a day, and maybe for them to have time to explore Guazapa Mountain on horseback. Mostly I know that whatever they see and do, their curiosity, intelligence, and commitment to justice will make this trip a memorable time in their lives.

iPad bliss

2011-03-31T18:57:00.000-07:00

I have to start this post with a confession. For months I've been lusting after an iPad, and I've been having serious discussions with myself and God about how that's not what I should be lusting after, spending money on, even thinking hard about. I was doing pretty well with that, or so I thought, disguising all those side glances at friends' iPads, only checking out the Apple website once in a great while.

And then, to my great astonishment and greater delight, some dear friends gave me an iPad, thus short-circuiting the me-and-God-and-I-shouldn't-want-this conversation. Here's a photo of me in iPad bliss, fresh from the Mac store. I am, I have to tell you, having a wonderful time discovering its charms, linking up to this and that, playing Scrabble, checking the web, and hoping that God is OK with all this fun.

Four generations

2011-03-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

Last November my great-niece Amy gave birth to Addyson Kayanne Skalisky, the first of her generation in my family, and on Saturday we had a family gathering to meet this 4-month-old charmer and take a photo of four generations: in the group photo, Grandma Joanne, Great-great-aunt Kathy (my sister), Amy, Addy, and Great-great-aunt Susan. Shocking though it is to become a great-great-aunt, it sure was fun to meet the newest and to think about all that lies ahead in her life! May she have many joys and many adventures.

We also got to visit with Addy's Aunt Cara (above with Addy) and Uncle Jacob, with Great-Aunt Sally and Great-Uncle Gary and first cousins once removed Corina and Katie... And we had the fun of revisiting family baby songs and games, of catching up with each others' doings, of applauding Corina in her gorgeous prom dress and seeing Katie's drawings, of being family. I'm grateful, always, to belong to a family that loves and enjoys each other. What a blessing, and what a blessing for Miss Addyson.

Excess

2011-03-26T19:43:00.000-07:00

The first day after coming home to Bellevue, I needed to make a trip to Bellevue Square, our local mall, to get a new battery compartment for my Macbook laptop. Now Bell Square is not just any mall - it's full of high-end luxury stores, and I've heard that it makes more money per square foot than any other mall in America. So you can imagine.

The first thing I saw as I walked in was a store called "Free People." "Free People" - I'm not even going to look up the URL - features fluffy dresses for teenage girls. The next thing I saw was a giant poster at a store called Oakley: "Join the Rebellion!" said the poster. "Join the Rebellion" was surrounded by photos of a guy in swim trunks and sunglasses (sunglasses being what they sell: Join the Rebellion, wear expensive sunglasses).

What would Libyans and Tunisians and Egyptians think of those notions of freedom and rebellion?

After I got my new battery, I walked over to the nearby QFC supermarket and marvelled at the sheer excess of offerings in any category. In El Salvador, I can find three kinds of flour in the supermarkets: white wheat flour, corn flour, rice flour. Period. In QFC, there must be 65 different kinds of flour - rye, barley, amaranth, quinoa, teff, red winter wheat, and so on and on. There was a display case with 23 different varieties of gourmet chocolate bars. Mind you, it's grand fun to shop there: you can find anything and everything. But for someone who's been living in Central America, it's beyond excessive.

I know I could find grocery stores in the Seattle area that would look a lot more like my Salvadoran supermarkets, and I'd feel more at home there. The flashy wealthiness of Bellevue, apparently untouched by three years of economic collapse, imagines a world full of people who think they should have anything they could possibly want. I hope and believe that is not the truth of my Bellevue neighbors - but it is the truth of the merchandizing that surrounds us.

Barack Obama in El Salvador

2011-03-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm sad not to be in El Salvador today while President Barack Obama visits - not that I'd have been asked to the state dinner, but the television channels will have been full of images of every moment. The moment that will mean the most to many Salvadorans is captured here: Obama paying his respects at the tomb of Monseñor Oscar Romero in the crypt of the Cathedral in San Salvador. La Prensa Grafica, source for this photo, noted that a few days ago Obama had said that Romero is a point of social reference not just for El Salvador, but for all the world.

I'm sad not to be there today, but I'm proud and happy to be a U.S. citizen who lives and works in El Salvador on this day.

Feast of St. Joseph

2011-03-19T20:26:00.001-07:00

Our western community of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace had a very special Feast of St. Joseph today - we were all invited by Father Paul Magnano, pastor of the new downtown Catholic Church, Christ our Hope, to celebrate the Solemnity of St. Joseph. Father Paul invited the CSJPs because our history is so entwined with this new church, and with its home, the Josephinum, an elegant former hotel on 2nd and Stewart in downtown Seattle.

Back in the 1970s-1980s (before I entered the community, so I don't have the precise dates), the Catholic Church bought the hotel, which Elvis Presley once slept in, and turned it into senior housing, administered by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. We called it the Josephinum, in honor of our patron saint, and put a chapel in the former ballroom. The Josephinum has since become low-income housing, serving many formerly homeless people in downtown Seattle, and about six months ago, the chapel - beautifully remodeled - was transformed into the Christ our Hope Parish. A statue of St. Joseph which used to stand in the chapel now is placed in the Josephinum lobby.

We were invited to join in the Mass and to bless and rededicate the statue of St. Joseph - we all got to take turns sprinkling Joseph with holy water (that's Sister Noreen Linane at work in the photo). And we were honored by Fr. Paul's homily, which concluded:

The example of Joseph is precious to each of us. His Sisters of Peace who ministered in this building for 23 years are also precious to each of us. These sisters continue in their ministries today the commitment of Joseph to right relationships, justice and peace. This Solemnity of St. Joseph triggers our own response to care for each Jesus and each Mary in our lives, given us to cherish, to protect, to help grow. We pray for joy in discouraging days, for confidence in hopeless situations, for joy in our heartbreaking service to all God’s holy people

Novel without End

2011-03-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

About a year and a half ago, I bought a copy en español of Ken Follett's World without End, or in this case Un Mundo Sin Fin. All 1178 pages of it.....and I don't read very fast in Spanish. I dithered along with it for a year and more, got to about page 300, and didn't have much energy to continue. Then Sister Kristin Funari came on a Christmas visit, and she spent every possible moment reading the English version of World without End. I decided that if she was having that much fun with it, I owed it to myself to persevere through the remaining 878 pages.

And now, three months later, I have actually read page 1178, the novel without end has ended, and I feel very pleased to have arrived there. I am also reminding myself that the next book I pick up in Spanish could well be something a little, er, shorter....say 250 pages, max? But Ken Follett is always fun, and I now have a vocabulary that includes some unusual architectural terms - who knows when I can ever use it?

Tomorrow I fly back to Seattle for three weeks of combined meetings, vacation, family time and friend time - at least I won't need to carry a three-pound book along!

Parsing a Lenten Fast

2011-03-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

My Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace have suggested a Lenten Carbon Fast for 2011 and sent out a calendar (created by the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center - you can find it here) with 40 carbon-fast options - one, you'll notice, for each day of Lent. I could happily incorporate most of the suggested actions or changes, but reading the calendar in the context of Suchitoto, El Salvador, Central America I saw that some changes had to be made.

So here are my Central American alternatives to some Carbon Fast ideas:

Turn down your thermostat. We don't have a thermostat or a heating system. Alternative: be sure to turn off the fan when leaving the room.

Check for drafts and seal leaks. Houses in El Salvador are built full of openings so the hot air can escape. Alternative: take a morning walk in the cool of the day.

Beware of hot water use today. Like most Salvadorans, we don't have a water heater. Water comes out of the tap at room temperature - which is sometimes quite toasty! Alternative: water plants by hand, not by hose, and use a jacal (tub) to do dishes.

Try travel without flying. Not a possibility for my trip back to Seattle in a couple of days - I can't even get from here to Seattle non-stop. Alternative: donate to a carbon bank organization to offset the heat I'll be adding to the planet.

Hang clothes to dry on a rack or clothesline. This one's no problem: that's the only way we have of drying clothes here (and they generally dry in 2 hours). Alternative: mark it done, and move on.

Turn down your hot water heater. See above: no hot water heater. Alternative: pay more attention to turning off the lights when I leave a room.

As you can see, there's only a few of the 40 that needed to be rephrased for Central America. Most of the Carbon Fast ideas will work anywhere - check tire pressure, pick up litter, unplug appliances, recycle, learn about climate change. My greatest challenge is to cut back on driving - especially now that gas has reached $4/gallon here. There's a certain amount of necessary driving that goes with my mission, but my goal this Lenten season and hereafter is to combine trips and get in that car much less often.

And climate change has certainly reached us here in Central America. The weather patterns over the two years I've been here have been more violent and less predictable than the norm. This year, we've had several big rainstorms already, though the seasonal rains aren't supposed to start until May. I can't do enough to hold back the changes, but I will do what I can.

The chicken or the egg?

2011-03-11T20:55:00.000-08:00

That old and worn-out question, - Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? - got new meaning for me on Thursday when I accompanied Leslie Schuld and Iris Alas of CIS (Centro por Intercambio and Solidaridad) to meet a group of women in Guacotecti, in the Departamento of Cabañas, who are about to start their own chicken-and-egg business, with the help of a grant from the Hilton Fund for Sisters. CIS asked me if I would be involved - the presence of a Sister in the program is a requirement - and I jumped at the chance to experience the beginnings and growth of a community micro-enterprise.

I surely wasn't there as a poultry expert! I learned a lot in a few hours: the women will be buying about 1000 young hens (they cost about $9 each) and those young hens will lay like crazy - an egg a day is the expectation - for about a year. Then they start slowing down (understandably) and it begins to cost more to feed them than than be recouped in egg production: then it's time to sell the hens for the cooking pot, get new youngsters, and start the cycle again. This is NOT a romantic business!

But it seems to be a very possible good business for the eight women who are the initial group. There are no egg producers nearby, so they should have a good chance to become the main egg source for their area. According to the women, Cabañas is a fairly poor district, with little economic opportunity. They hope that their enterprise will lead to others and to more at-home possibilities for women and families. They've taken courses in poultry raising, they've found land they can lease for minimal cost, and they're ready to go.

Meanwhile, they fed us lunch: would we like an avocado and a tortilla? they said, but what came out to the table was sopa de gallina india, (country hen soup) the afterlife of one of the local chickens that pecks around the yard - not one of their special laying hens, those haven't yet been purchased. Sopa de gallina india should be the national dish of El Salvador, next to the pupusas. It's delicious, full of fresh vegetables, and always served with the grilled gallina on the side. A true gallina india doesn't have a lot of flesh, and that flesh is tough - but delicious. This sopa was a good promise of futures to come from this venture and from these women.

Fuente Ovejuna

2011-03-08T19:02:00.000-08:00

For about a year now ES Artes, a collaboration between the Stratford, Ontario Shakespeare Festival and Suchitoto, has been training young Salvadorans in theater arts with workshops in acting, directing, stage management, costume design, scene design, dance, music, sound and light. In the last two weeks, they triumphantly presented the Lope de Vega play, Fuente Ovejuna, in which a poor village unites to defeat a brutal commandant.

The play was presented in the patio of ES Artes' traditional Suchitoto house, with the audience sitting on one side, a couple of raised wooden stages, and an intricate piece of carpentry that transformed from a well or pila into a throne for Queen Isabella. The fluid staging used the doors all around the patio - Shakespeare would have loved the effect.

What was most amazing and impressive was to see these young Suchitotense - many of them people I've seen often around the town - performing with enormous talent, great presence and obvious joy. Lope de Vega's story is a powerful one for Salvadorans, who've had their own experience of military brutality and know first hand the need for communities to unite - it was easy to hear the echoes.

It's been too long since I've been in a live theater production, and it was a joy to feel the energy created, channeled and expressed by the cast. Thanks, ES Artes, for a memorable evening!

Hospital Bloom

2011-03-04T18:50:00.000-08:00

Last week I drove Sandra, her grandmother and her uncle to a 6 AM appointment at Hospital Bloom, El Salvador's public pediatric hospital. In order to do that, I had to get up at 3:30 AM, meet Sandra and family at 5:00 in Ciudad Arce (they live in the municipality of San Juan Opico, but Ciudad Arce is closer to their very remote home in the hills). They were probably up even earlier to walk down long rough roads in the dark, but they were there on time, and we set off for the capital.

I'd already discovered that invariably appointments at Bloom are set for 6 AM, but I couldn't figure it out - surely the doctors didn't start their clinics that early? By 6 AM I'd found a parking place and we lined up outside the hospital, a commanding multi-story building, with a lot of other parents and children, a woman selling atole (a hot corn drink) and a clown selling balloons. The guard checked Sandra's appointment and let us in. We went down the hall, found the ophthalmology clinic, and sat down. And after quite a while we noticed that a long line was forming in front of the desk outside the clinic - ah yes, no one told us about that part of the ritual. I have to confess that we jumped the line - we really had been among the very first to enter the hospital, and it didn't seem fair to have to go to the very end. It may have helped that I was a gringa, because the secretary let us turn over Sandra's hospital card and appointment. And then we waited some more and after another time that seemed longer than it really was, the clinic secretary got us all lined up in chairs according to arrival time. An orderly procession had been created. This not-very-good photo gives some sense of the feeling of the corridor, full of mothers and some fathers, each tenderly carrying or watching over their child.

It was about 7:30 when we finally got in to see Dr. Dominguez, who checked Sandra's eyes (she has congenital cataracts), scheduled her for pre-tests and surgery, and told me the size of the interocular lens she will need. But those lenses won't be provided by Hospital Bloom, nor will the heart valve needed by Richard, a little boy we met in San Rafael Cedros. Unless the families can raise the money to buy the lenses, or heart valves, or tests that the hospital doesn't perform, or medications that the hospital pharmacy doesn't have in stock, health care gets stopped in its tracks.

This isn't the fault of the staff at Hospital Bloom or at any of the other hospitals. It happens because El Salvador is a poor country and in a poor country's health care system the extras - interocular lenses, heart valve replacements, expensive medications - just don't happen unless someone steps in to help. The children who can profit from ordinary care do well in this system - El Salvador has a good record of pre-natal care, vaccinations, and treatment of normal childhood diseases. And if the lenses or heart valves or medications can be purchased, all the surgery and hospital care and follow-up appointments are completely free. In El Salvador, the cost of health care is relatively inexpensive - doctors and nurses are not paid much at all by U.S. standards - but the cost of 1st world technology is prohibitive.

Children with costly or complicated illnesses are often, in effect, triaged out. Sandra and Richard who needs a heart valve replacement and Gema who needs medication Bloom doesn't carry are lucky to have encountered one of our PeaceHealth mission teams and found sponsors. But for too many children here and in every poor country in the world, the miracles of health care that we take for granted and see as any child's right in the United States are simply too costly and not available.

Celebrating la tercera edad

2011-02-27T19:18:00.000-08:00

La tercera edad, the third age, is what they call being a senior citizen here in El Salvador - and come to think of it, it makes a lot more sense and poetry than "senior citizen." Last week we had a fiesta for people in la tercera edad at the Centro Arte para la Paz, complete with a band that knew how to play the old Salvadoran standbys for dancing - though when we got into rock tunes, a little later, could see that these are my contemporaries. We all danced to the Beatles back in the 60s, and we all could keep that beat going. Some segunda edad folk even snuck in to enjoy the dancing with us - Arielle on the left in the photo above is one of Peggy O'Neill's full-time volunteers this year. Great fun - there were prizes for all, including the oldest person there, a man of 99 who I often greet on the corner of my street, and the woman with most children - someone claimed she had 14, though when she stood up she only mentioned 10. Other prizes were raffled, even the two piñatas. We were served coffee and a refrigerio (a snack, the first time I met this word I had a terrible time disentangling it from refrigerator, refrigerador) and had a good time.

I knew some of the folk there by name, others by sight, and many were new to me, but it was fun to be among my contemporaries in la tercera edad.

Terror on the roads

2011-02-25T12:26:00.001-08:00

In the last three days, a rash of bus accidents have left more than 20 people dead, more than 100 injured in El Salvador. This is a story at least as familiar and as terrifying as the stories of extortion and intimidation by gang members.

In each case some of the bus drivers were going far faster than the speed limit, and in some cases the buses were jockeying with each other for the lead. The result - not surprising given the age and mechanical condition of many buses here - was a disaster for the people on the buses and for the overworked hospital system, but not for the owners of the bus lines. (photo from La Prensa Grafica)

I'm told that the owners of bus lines have no requirement to buy insurance or to indemnify people when they are injured by wild drivers or bad equipment. In other words, they have no serious financial interest in making sure that their buses are well maintained and driven by competent motorists.

Since most Salvadorans have no choice but to take a bus or one of the many pickups that provide para-transit around the country, it's a matter of justice to give the bus route owners some self-interest in safety. There's been a call to require owners to have insurance, which seems like an obvious next step, but that seems to be mired in a tug-of-war between those who favor a public insurance provider and the private insurance market. Meanwhile, the crashes continue.

Gloribel

2011-02-22T16:46:00.000-08:00

Today I visited a girl who just might be the cutest 9-year-old on the planet (I know, I know, there are many contestants!). Her name is Gloribel, and our November mission team met her during our eye clinic in San Juan Opico. She is deaf - though apparently she has some level of hearing as I'm told fireworks startle her - and our November team wanted to see how we can help her. We will soon be making an appointment to bring her to San Salvador for hearing tests and fitting with a hearing aid, if that will be helpful. I had missed meeting her in November, so invited myself to a visit today, with help from her neighbor, Carmen Aviles de Mariona who had been one of our grand San Juan Opico volunteers.

On the way to Carmen's I got lost (of course), and with help from local folk, who all know the Marionas, got more or less on the right track again. Stopped to ask for more help, and who was there but Toño, who'd driven all our San Juan Opico surgery patients to Hospital San Rafael - an old friend and neighbor of Carmen's. He hopped in the car and showed me just where to go, and soon I was chatting with Carmen and Chita - they are, by the way, an incredible singing duo, as our March and November, 2010 mission groups can testify. They took me to meet Gloribel, who's a neighbor, and we had a fine time. She's a very bright girl who communicates very well non-verbally - she'll take to sign language like a pro if she gets the opportunity.

Gloribel's mother told me that she had taken Gloribel to FUNTER, a Salvadoran non-profit, for hearing tests and a possible hearing aid. They would have provided a hearing aid, but asked for a payment of $40, which was too much for the very limited resources of this family. I am trusting that we will be able to help Gloribel have a better outcome this time.

I traveled home with Carmen's gift, a sack of beautiful red beans, waved at Toño along the way, and promised to come back soon to visit my new and old Opico friends.

Music, full moon, night in Suchitoto

2011-02-18T21:31:00.000-08:00

Tonight began wonderfully with a light supper at our favorite restaurant, la Villa Balanza, followed by a moving and beautiful cello concert by Götz Teutsch (here's a recent photo), part of the annual International Festival of Art and Culture in Suchitoto. In addition to the concert - two Bach Suites for solo cello sandwiching briefer and wilder contemporary music by Dieter Acker and Bernd Alois Zimmerman - we enjoyed a wine reception hosted by the German Embassy.

A magical evening, and the beauty of it continued as Margaret Jane and I walked home under the full moon, stopping at a local hall to pray with Tina, a woman who's one of the leaders of our local church, at the vigil for her mother, who died at 92.

But when we got home the disco next door started up, and the contrast between the beauty of the cello and the angry, relentless rhythms our neighbor fancies was hard to bear. It's still going on, but I'm listening to music I like better on my iPod, remembering the earlier magic of the night, and staying peaceful.

God be with you

2011-02-14T19:02:00.000-08:00

Do you know that "goodbye" is a shortening of "God be with you"? This morning Kathy and I hugged our wonderful medical team goodbye and sent them into the airport, knowing that God was with them. By now, they're home and telling their stories to family and friends, as they remember the people and the days of our mission.

We saw 1305 of San Rafael Cedros' citizens during our five days with a total of 2185 clinic visits. A number of our patients had serious illnesses that needed referrals to the local clinic or hospital for follow-up care. I'll be keeping connected to some of those follow-ups, and to our 50 patients for the cataract surgery week in May.

We will all remember different things from the week, different faces - surely this lovely woman in pink will be well remembered by Kathy and Sister Amalia - but we know we've been blessed by the people of San Rafael. And we've been deeply blessed by getting to know each other. By the end of this intense week, the 28 of us had worked together, laughed together, shared stories, wept a little, danced, played cards, enjoyed Salvadoran food, loved the sunshine in February. It was as smooth a week as Kathy and I have experienced, and for this we're grateful both to our great team and to the super-organized local volunteers of San Rafael Cedros. May God be with all those returning home with memories of a week well spent.

San Rafael Cedros

2011-02-12T04:20:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful week of clinics in San Rafael Cedros, and since a photo is definitely worth a thousand words in this case, I'll let a few photos tell the story. We were in the municipal kindergarten, a small building to hold our group of 28 plus our local volunteers and the patients we were seeing, but it worked beautifully - and coming up on the bus every morning we delighted in seeing Micky and Minnie and the crew.

The first photo shows Dr. Dale Heisinger, a great pediatrician, with Jen Cowan, his interpreter, and one of the many families they saw. While many of our providers needed interpreters, Trevor Moerkerke, a 4th year medical student working under the direction of Dr. Ron Stock, used his excellent Spanish to talk with this mother. Our pharmacists dispensed medications through the elaborate framed window - Moises Lucero, an ER nurse in his day job, patiently explained dosing instructions to each person. The last photo shows Iris Alas, our local coordinator (on right) with some of the great group of local volunteers who organized our patients and kept the lines moving smoothly every day.

We worked hard all day, and each night returned to the Santisima Trinidad Casa de Retiro, a retreat center (not retirement!) overlooking Lake Ilopango, where we enjoyed excellent and traditional Salvadoran food, followed by cribbage, bananagrams, dancing, and a good night's sleep. Today we're at the luxurious Hotel Novo in San Salvador, and I've been listening to our team talking about how important this week has been for them, and how it has recharged them for the work they'll soon be returning to. And that is the idea.

The week ahead

2011-02-05T08:20:00.000-08:00

I just talked to Kathy Garcia in Seattle, where the mission team has gathered at the airport. Everything is going well, weather looks OK, and - primero Dios - we will soon be greeting each other in San Salvador.

I will not be posting this week, as we won't have internet access during our clinics, so I'll take this chance to look ahead at what we'll be doing.

Tonight, if we're lucky, we'll get to our retreat house about midnight, and everyone will be more than ready for sleep. On Sunday we head for San Rafael Cedros and begin setting up the clinics in the morning. We'll have lunch in a local restaurant and meet the community volunteers who'll be working with us all week. In the afternoon we train the local volunteers, review the clinics with the mission team, and bag vitamins.

Monday through Thursday, we leave the retreat house at 7 AM, in time to start clinics at 8. We're offering four clinics - General Medicine, Pediatrics, Gynecology and Eyes. Our patients can choose as many as three clinics, and when they've completed their clinics they head to our pharmacy for any medications the doctors have prescribed, as well as vitamins, toothbrushes, and lotion. On Friday we have a half-day of clinics, finishing at noon, pack up, and celebrate with a despedida to thank our local volunteers and the community of San Rafael Cedros. We expect to see about 350 patients each day, between 1500 and 1600 in the course of the week.

Friday night we move to the Hotel Novo in San Salvador and celebrate our week with pupusas. On Saturday the mission team visits the Hospital Divina Providencia where Monseñor Romero lived and where he was assassinated in 1980 and the University of Central America (UCA) where six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter were killed in 1989. Shopping time is also included in this day, and we finish up with pizza and coconut ice cream at the CIS (Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad), getting a perspective on contemporary life in El Salvador from CIS Director Leslie Schuld.

Sunday, the team's last day in El Salvador, we'll come to Suchitoto, visit Sr. Peggy O'Neill at the Centro Arte para la Paz, have lunch at our Base House, do a bit more shopping, and return to the Novo to pack. On Monday, everyone's on the bus at 4am, headed for the airport and the long trip home.

That's primero Dios, of course, God willing. There will be surprises, there always are, and laughter and heartbreaking moments - that I know for sure. And in a week, I'll let you know how it's been.

Ironing

2011-02-03T18:30:00.000-08:00

My favorite get-ready-for-the-mission ritual is ironing: 10 shirts, a few pairs of pants. Korla, who's 23, told me she's maybe used an iron 5 times in her life. This is definitely one of those generational things, but I love the ritual and the smug satisfaction of having a clean shirt ready for every day of the team's visit. I have the additional advantage of not having to pack my ironed shirts - I can just take them over to the retreat house we're staying in on Saturday. Tonight the perfect accompaniment for ironing was a good episode of Law and Order, which runs just as often here as it does in the U.S.

But the best part of today was taking a copy of our franquisia to the customs office at the airport. This is the first time I've ever had it early enough to give them a head start, and we were all pleased. I don't know if this will mean less time standing around on Saturday night, but I'm hoping so.

Meanwhile, up in Oregon, Washington and Alaska, folk are packing up, ironing (or not), Kathy is checking over the tubs and duffel bags, car pools are assembling for the trip to Seattle. Tomorrow night (Friday) is packing night, when everything gets put together at the SeaTac hotel, and on Saturday our team will begin a very long day before the crack of dawn - a day that will end in Candelaria, El Salvador, probably close to midnight. We're all ready!

Ready

2011-02-01T17:54:00.000-08:00

It's only Tuesday, the PazSalud volunteers don't arrive until late Saturday evening, and I am in a most uncharacteristic state of having almost everything ready. Our franquisia, customs permission, is in hand and copied. Snacks and soft drinks and coffee and water are sitting in our bodega (storeroom). I've met with our local volunteers and with the women who'll be cooking our lunches, I've talked to the retreat house where we'll be staying the first six nights and the hotel where we'll spend the weekend. I've checked in with the San Rafael Cedros health clinic and with the police and with the Mayor's office.

My to-do list, impressive last week, just has a couple of things left for each day this week. I still do have to print some forms, iron shirts, pack my bag.

I was so delighted to be this close to ready that I celebrated this afternoon with a cooking orgy - made a bean soup with roasted vegetables, roasted red pepper salsa, and a ginger/garlic/honey tea I've been brewing to keep my throat and lungs happy. The house smells amazing. And I'm ready for a week of the best hard work in the best company possible.

Amazing Amate

2011-01-31T18:31:00.001-08:00

Today I drove early in the morning to the port of La Libertad, where some of our November patients from San Juan Opico were going through an eye clinic to see if they would qualify for surgery. There in the courtyard of the Casa Emiliani retreat house was this most amazing tree, an amate, that had put down a secondary trunk and flung up a main limb in midair. It's a tree with the lines of a dancer, a tree with circles and arches and great flowing lines of timber, a tree that hardly seems possible, and is surely unforgettable.

Alas, our three patients did not qualify for this surgery, but all did receive glasses and thorough eye checks. And I am glad to have made the acquaintance of this ancient and glorious tree.