April miseries, April beauties

For me, "April is the cruelest month" here in El Salvador - not because of the lilacs that T.S. Eliot wrote about, but because the combination of heat, dust and the smoke from burning cane fields makes moving and breathing heavy, hard. 

April is the month before the rains start.  Everything is dry: the big trees still keep their green, but the fields and sides of the road are dust-colored.  It's the sixth month without rain.  Besides the burning cane fields (they are burned to clear away the tough out leaves and leave the juicy interior stalk to be cut and carried off for processing into cane sugar), trash is burned and spontaneous fires start on hillsides and volcano slopes.  They never seem to turn into wild fires: I suppose there must still be  deep moisture under the dry surfaces that keep them from exploding.

One of the pleasures, then, in this cruelest heat, is getting into the air-conditioned car and driving down the road to San Martin and San Salvador, encased in a bubble of cool.  And one of the great pleasures along that drive is the new face of San Bartolomé Perulapía, the town just before San Martin.  When I first moved to Suchitoto, Perulapía was no fun to drive through.  Lots of gang graffiti, signs that suggested deep quarrels between political and religious sectors.  But since a new mayor was elected in 2012, a beautiful change has come upon Perulapía.  All along the main street, house fronts have been turned into vivid, lively murals, like this one honoring San Romero of the Americas:

Or this one, where I caught the painter in the act:

And Perulapía, which once seemed dangerous and drab now invites visitors and makes a high point for my escapes from the heat of April.

Feliz dia de San José

Happy St. Joseph's Day!  I've had a great double celebration of our community's patron saint.  Yesterday I took Kathy Garcia and Mitch Costin (they flew in Saturday night) out to San José Villanueva where we handed over twelve special prescription eyeglasses that were organized  by our February mission optician, Heather Downes, and made and donated by an optical lab.  Lots of happy eyeglass-wearing faces!  Then we helped out, a little, while Iris Chacon of San Rafael Cedros did a first workshop for the families who will be receiving one of the water filters we're donating, and we got a chance to exchange hugs with our San José friends.

Today was an even more special Dia de San José because I've had the great pleasure of watching while Mitch Costin of Eugene - a great stand-in for the saint - did an amazing lot of plumbing, carpentry, and electrical work to a) stabilize our operating microscope, b) fasten the handwashing sink firmly to the wall, c) install a toilet paper holder, d) put up a new lamp above the dishwashing sink, e) put up the new paper towel holder Donna gave me, f) re-hang all the mirrors at the right height and g) unstick my sticky kitchen table drawer.  This afternoon Mitch and Kathy and I went in and had a two-hour gambol through EPA, the new fancy hardware store here, that will lead to a few more things being done tomorrow.  We also bought a new super-sized toolbox to hold all the new and wonderful tools that Mitch has found for us so that our PazSalud toolbox is no longer a wussy and pathetic sight, full of curtain rods and odd lots of tape, but a proper manly St. Joseph sort of toolbox.  It was great fun!

On top of all that, Mitch took some wonderful photos - the two in this post are his.  Oh yes, and I began the day by teaching a computer class at the Centro Arte para la Paz with the help of Patti Moore and her Spanish teacher Beatriz, where the kids - ranging in age from about 11 to 18 - tore through the material I thought would take up two classes in the first hour.  St. Joseph come to my aid as I try to figure out what we'll do on Wednesday and oh yes, St. Joseph, a special blessing please for Mitch Costin who does your kind of work with such joy.

Travelogue with complications

Today began and ended splendidly.  The middle was questionable.

Rose Young and Donna Quaife, (that's Donna in the rocking chair and Patti Moore and Rose with me in the dining room)  both of them sterling members of our 2011 medical mission in San Rafael Cedros, are visiting our Base House here in Suchitoto for a couple of days, and we began the morning happily with pancakes, bacon, and a good long walk down to Lago Suchitlan - about 2 miles, but all downhill.  Had a coke, enjoyed the breezes, took the little shuttle bus back UP to Suchitoto Centro.  Back at the house, we connected with Patti Moore, who'd been studying Spanish while we larked, and made lunch from last night's arroz con pollo - a Rose and Susan joint project - with avocado, tomato and watermelon on the side.

Then we all hopped in the car for a visit to Ilobasco and San Sebastian, two towns famous for their crafts.  I decided it would be fun to go via Cinquera, the next town to the east of Suchitoto, knowing that it would be a slow, but scenic, dirt road.  Slow it was, scenic it was (especially watching cattle crossing this river), and somewhere after Cinquera a bug announced that it had gotten into my digestive tract and wanted to get out PRONTO.  Never before have I had to find a pooping place along the side of the road, but alas, that was necessary.  I don't think too many cars passed and I hope none of them were from Suchitoto.  Ten minutes later, another urgent call - this time we were in a small town, and I pulled over and dashed into a little government office, which - thank you, God - had a very helpful guard and the cleanest bathroom I've ever seen.  Ten minutes later we pulled into Ilobasco and my final port of call in a Pollo Compero (another kindly guard - I must have looked as desperate as I felt).  And then the bug was gone.  I did hobble over to the nearest pharmacy for a Cipro, but I'm pretty sure I didn't really need it. 

And so we all went on - my three most understanding and helpful friends who were only laughing a little and my recovered self - to the Moje shop where we had a great time (Moje is an organization that gives crafts training and employment to youth who would otherwise be likely candidates for gang membership - they sell beautiful crafts in clay and wood).  And we went on to San Sebastian, famous for its weavers, where we visited Nohemy's shop and watched one of the weavers at his hard and demanding and beautiful work.

We drove happily back to Suchitoto (all on paved highway this time) with purchases and photos, headed to La Balanza for pupusas and Salvadoran enchiladas - a great, full day, and somehow even catastrophes are not so bad when you share them with friends.

Photos by Rose Young

The view from my window

Here's the view from my window in Cusack Hall lately:

The new Gaffney Hall - it will be our home health center for Sisters who need some assistance in their daily living - is going up right across from my room, and it's been illuminating and fun to watch the men at work.  An astonishing level of planning and coordination and complex ordering are required for even a simple building like this one: for us, watching the assurance with which the tasks are done and the pieces come together is a joy.  I think our workers are having a good time, too.  Aside from having a first class view of Lake Washington while they work, they're being treated to coffee and Joan Holiday's cookies - and, of course and most important, earning a good wage. 

By now, as I prepare to head to the airport and to El Salvador, the building has progressed quite a bit: almost all the siding is up, the roofing is being completed, and interior walls are beginning to be formed.  The promise is that when I return in June, it'll be almost ready for the move-in. 

Whitewash

San Salvador's Cathedral is a national gathering place, the site of massacres in the 1980s during the Salvadoran Civil War, the grave of murdered Archbishop Oscar Romero, the center for the Catholic community of El Salvador.  And until recently it was graced with a tile mural by Salvadoran artist Fernando Llort, with vivid and striking images of the people and the country.

In December, right after Christmas, this famous mural was demolished by order of the Cathedral authorities, without notice to the artist or to the people.  The reason given was that pieces of the mosaic were falling off, that tiles had become discolored in the sun and could not be replaced because new pieces would not match the existing ones.  The Archbishop said that an engineering and architectural firm working with the Archdiocese had recommended removing the mural.

To me it is a great sorrow that the church authorities destroyed this mural so quickly, so lightly.  Where Llort's bright tiles once brought life to the cathedral's facade, there's now a blank, whitewashed wall. 

Whitewashing the past, covering up history and art, has been too much the way of life in El Salvador.  The wounds from the Civil War still bleed - you will hear about them early in any conversation with a Salvadoran over 30 - because there has never been the kind of national process of memory and reconciliation that could bring healing.  Now the San Salvador Cathedral has lost its historical memory and imagery: another wound, another whitewashing.

Quilt makers and indigo dyers

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.

Grace note

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.

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.

Fuente Ovejuna

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!

The work of our hands

Korla and I were talking the other day about work we've done and work we've loved. She said that when she was writing her college thesis and working she spent whole long and tiring days in front of a computer screen, but what she really loved was making theater sets, making something you could touch and see at the end of the day's work. It's the same for me: I do a lot of my work in front of the computer, but I feel more engaged, more complete, more myself when I'm cooking or gardening.

That conversation tugged at me, and I remembered the visible joy our PazSalud doctors have in doing hands-on medicine - touching, looking, listening, asking questions - old-fashioned physical medicine without the computers and machines and tests available that are so much a part of their life as doctors in the United States (that's Dr. Anne Welch in the photo from our 2010 medical mission). Those machines and tests are amazing tools, and so is my computer, but there's a hunger we begin to feel when we've spent too much time in front of the screen and away from real bodies, real substances, real work. That's the kind of medicine Dr. Abraham Verghese, author of the astonishing novel Cutting for Stone and chair for the theory and practice of medicine at Stanford teaches: the old-fashioned and necessary arts of the physical exam and hands-on medicine.

Handwork - building theater sets, making quilts, practicing yoga, gardening, making music, drawing, tending patients - seems to me essential to our sense of well-being, of being human. The work of our hands is real work - messy, essential and holy.

Up and Down I-5

This week and next, Kathy Garcia and I are selling artesania from El Salvador at our PeaceHealth regions - yesterday at St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham, today at St. John Hospital in Longview, tomorrow at the System Office in Bellevue, next week at the Riverbend and University District campuses of Sacred Heart Hospital, Eugene. It's been great to see many friends from mission teams, meet some folk who are eager to travel to El Salvador, and sell a few Christmas ornaments. We've been delighted as well to have many contributions to the fund for water filters and to our Support-a-Tub program that pays the cost of shipping our tubs of medications to El Salvador.

It's been fun, too, to travel up and down the I-5 corridor - especially with Kathy in the car, so we could sail along in the HOV lane. But after El Salvador travel, it's almost too peaceful - I've had to drink vast quantities of coffee to stay awake, which has never been a problem in El Salvador, where the many interruptions and potential catastrophes breed hyper-alertness. Not complaining, you understand!

Bits of this and that

I'm almost off to the airport to pick up Kathy and Victor Garcia, here on a car-buying and mission planning trip, but first I want to introduce a new housemate, Korla Masters. Korla, who's just graduated from college, is here volunteering at the Centro Arte para la Paz until May, 2011, teaching English in El Sitio Cenizero and helping out at the Centro. She loves oranges, and was lamenting today, while squeezing oranges, that her attempts to eat locally in Minnesota will rule out oranges in her future diet. We agreed that this was a good reason to be here and now and revel in every Salvadoran orange that comes her way over the next nine months.

Korla told us about last night's concert at the Centro Arte, a combination of the Pop Ensemble of the El Salvador Youth Orchestra and the Coro de Manos, Choir of Hands, performing a combination of pop music and songs signed in Salvadoran Sign Language. Korla was especially delighted because her mother is the Pastor for a deaf community in Minnesota, and she grew up speaking ASL. SSL is different, she told us, but some of the sign interpreters also spoke ASL, so she was able to communicate, and was taped for a sign blog. It was an absolutely wonderful and uplifting evening, both because of the beauty of sign and because of the great stage presence and joyfulness of orchestra director Martin Jorge.

We also had the joy of greeting Pat Farrell, OSF, the newly elected vice-president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, here to visit her old stomping grounds in Suchitoto (Pat lived here for 15 or more years, working with Peggy O'Neill to start the Centro Arte) with a group of Franciscans and Franciscan Associates. Pat will be an inspirational leader for LCWR, and I'm sure her many years in El Salvador will come in handy, perhaps in surprising ways.

A little night music

Recently the ex-theater behind our house has turned into a sports bar, with very loud music sometimes playing long into the night (though, happily, not most nights). We're contemplating purchasing some ear protectors to help us get through those nights. I thought at one point, "this is what comes of having no zoning." But then I had to admit that if Suchitoto was zoned, our house - across the street from the market, around the corner from the ex-theater - would be in the commercial zone.

It was all the more delightful last night to go to a concert of Latino music at the Centro Arte para la Paz, where five generous and talented performers, Fabiola, Osiris, Diana, Anna and Eduardo - from Peru, El Salvador, the U.S., Germany and El Salvador - held us enthralled with tender ballads and a beautiful blending of Osiris' guitar with Ana's cello improvisations. Part of the delight was walking the five blocks to the Centro by lamplight and walking home again in the tropical dark, humming. A little night music.

The church floor

I've been admiring the tiled floor of Santa Lucia, our parish church in Suchitoto, for a long time. The tiling makes a carpet of color down the central aisle, and - what's most surprising - it's not a single pattern, but a slightly different pattern in each row. All the rows use the same set of tile colors: dark red, gold, green, brown, white, but each row is unique in its design. The tiles are chipped and worn, but they still make a beautiful carpet. (I wish the photo was better - my camera doesn't do its best in the low light of the church interior).

It's good to think of the tile setters who could have just chosen one pattern and kept repeating it - so much easier that way - but instead must have looked at their tiles and said, each time, now what can we do with this row? What would look good here? And they made a carpet of tiles to glorify God.

Baptism

Alejandro Emanuel was duly baptized today - and as the madrina (godmother) I got to hold him and name him as the padre baptized him en nombre de Padre, y de Hijo, y de Espiritu Santo. As you can see from this photo, he was looking so angelic that it's no surprise to find a halo in the picture.

It was only on Friday that a friend told me it was my responsibility as godmother to come up with the white garment that those to be baptized must wear. Happily, I remembered the seamstresses at the Concertación de Mujeres workshop here in Suchitoto, and asked if someone would make me a white garment for a 6 month old boy. A day later, Irma handed over a beautiful little suit in white cotton, embroidered in yellow. A bit big for Alejandrito at present, but he will grow into it.

The baptism took place at the Cathedral, where babies are baptized every Sunday after the parents and godparents go through a two-hour charla, or lesson about the meaning of baptism and our responsibilities. I have always loved the part of the ritual where the priest says "You have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ. See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven." What a perfect image of the deep integrity of being that lives within each of us, how ever rumpled and confused our lives may become! And it's good that I knew the words well, because between the traffic around the cathedral, the crying of some babies (not Alejandro) and hearing the rite in Spanish for the first time, I probably would have missed the point.

It's a wonderful honor to be a madrina, to be comadre with Ani, and to be now a part of the family. Ani's brother, Jose Antonio, is the padrino, and Alex' mother, Pancita, was there to witness the event. And we will all take seriously our responsibility to help this little boy grow in his Christian dignity.

New voices in Suchitoto

Last night Margaret Jane (newly back from New Jersey) and I went to the Centro Arte para la Paz for the presentation of Voces de los Cerros, Voices of the Hills, a collective theatrical work created by Suchitoto youth working with a group of theatre professionals from the Shakespeare Festival of Stratford, Ontario.

It was a glorious presentation. Using every angle of a simple wooden stage, the actors leapt, danced, talked and sang a saga involving the gods, hunters, tricksters and villagers. Beautifully staged, it showed off the talents and abilities of Suchitoto's young people, polished to production level in only six weeks.

We're promised more to come: Suchitoto Stratford: ESARTES is a new school of theatrical arts here, and will be adding its luster to Suchitoto's reputation as an arts center.

A Quilting Party

Kathy Garcia came to El Salvador with some wonderful gifts in her baggage: a big stack of children's books, in Spanish or bilingual Spanish and English, and a big stack of beautiful quilts, made by Sharon Serena and Joanne Clemmer, two sisters of Cindy Hellerstedt, a long time volunteer with PazSalud.

We delivered two of these gorgeous quilts to Comasagua on a very cold day (for El Salvador), where Nubia and her mother Maria Esther were delighted to receive them (the second quilt is for Nubia's sister Veronica: the photo also shows Nubia's friend and ours, Doctora de Larios). Two are set aside for Rosita's daughters, and my godson Alejandrito will be wrapped up in one. We've donated the rest, 25 quilts of various sizes, to the parteras (midwives) of Suchitoto, a long-organized group of women who deliver babies in rural areas. The second photo shows Higinia Hernandez receiving the quilts on behalf of the parteras . Thanks, Sharon and Joanne, for these beautiful and practical gifts to the children of El Salvador.

A la playa, a las montañas

Pat and I spent the weekend exploring some of El Salvador's vacation spots - first the beaches, where we found the Roca Sunzal, a rock oddly formed of composite materials that looks as though it should be demolished in about a day of battering by the tides, but has apparently been a landmark on its playa for a long, long time. This is not the beach season for Salvadorans (that's summer, which begins in another month), so most of the folk hanging around were surfers from Europe and the U.S.

The ocean is warm here - perhaps 80 degrees fahrenheit - very unlike the cold waters I've waded in on the coasts of Washington and Oregon. And it's hot and humid on the beach, especially at this very wet end of the rainy season. But who can resist a beach, especially one with black sand? it was great fun.

Then we headed for the mountains, not very far away, enjoying the cooler air and a string of charming towns called the Ruta de los Flores - the photo is from Concepcion de Ataco, a town famous for weaving and artesania, and for its beautiful Franciscan church.

Pizzelles and tangos

I took Margaret Jane to the airport today, where she's heading toward a few weeks in New Jersey. When I got back to the house, I thought of a number of useful things I could do - practice Spanish verbs, write letters, iron clothes. Instead, I decided it was time to make pizzelles. In case you don't know, pizzelles are crisp cookies like very thin waffles, made on a special pizzelle iron. Thanks to Sister Grace Didomenicantonio, we have a pizzelle iron that she bought here back in 2002, and thanks to Sister Grace and Sister Angie Picardo, I have quite a collection of pizzelle recipes, but I've never tried to actually make them. Today I tried. The first pizzelle was a disaster: I had to scrape it off the pizzelle iron and then spend a lot of time washing the iron to get rid of the little bits of pizzelle. So then I went on line and read pizzelle instructions and decided I had put too much on the iron and hadn't given the pizzelle enough time. Sure enough, the pizzelles that followed came out just as they should, crisp and beautifully patterned, and I felt almost, well, Italian. Thanks, Grace and Angie!

With a stash of pizzelles tucked away, I walked over to the Teatro de las Ruinas where the program for the evening was glorious Latin dance. The heat of the evening didn't slow the dancers, who gave us everything from sensuous tangos to slow rumbas and quick cha-chas. Hard to imagine how anyone can dance like that in 90 degree heat, but they were a joy to watch. Living in a small city is something new for me, and I like so much that when there's a special event everyone goes to it. I missed things all the time as a city dweller, but here - getting to an event just involves walking a few blocks, and everyone is there. And tonight we'll all be dancing in our dreams.

Las Azulinas

Peggy, Margaret Jane and I headed to Santa Ana yesterday, where Peggy was picking up some 600 embroidered bookmarks from Las Azulinas, a small company founded and run by women that works with indigo dyeing. Indigo dye played a big role in El Salvador's history: indigo (the blue of blue jeans), known here as anil, was the big crop before coffee and sugar cane. In the 20th century chemical dyes replaced natural indigo, but -following the lead of Las Azulinas - there's been an indigo renaissance among Salvadoran artisans.

In the Las Azulinas workshop the women work with white cotton garments that have already been sewn, adding intricate knots and folds to create tie-dyed effects or they appliqué designs on dyed cloths. Their work is beautiful, well-designed and durable, a great contribution to the artisan traditions of El Salvador. It's a good example of a small business here, one run by and employing women.