Tied up in traffic

Ana Lazar and I set off for the Ruta de las Flores this morning, and found ourselves in a mammoth traffic jam. For some reason - politics, perhaps? the elections are two weeks away, and the tension is mounting - Boulevard de los Heroes, the major street I was planning to use to get out of town was completely blocked. And so, as a result, was pretty much everything else. I wormed my way through, found a way to get to Santa Tecla, and headed west among a stream of grumpy Salvadorans. So it felt great to finally emerge from the city into the countryside, better to climb up into the high hills of the Ruta, and best of all to spend a few hours in beautiful Ataco and to have coffee in this charming cafe.

Speaking of elections, the papers and TV have been full of dueling claims about the polls, illustrated by the poll of choice for the paper or the party advertising. Tim's El Salvador blog has a good summary of the polls, which are all over the map. It seems likely that El Salvador will break with its long history of ARENA (right wing) victories and elect Mauricio Funes, the candidate of the FMLN, the coalition of left wing parties. But it also seems possible that ARENA, which runs TV ads characterizing the FMLN as terrorists and communists, will frighten enough people to win again. At this point, people on both sides are anxious. March 15th, election day, is coming soon.

Garbage and flowers

For gringos, maybe especially for those of us from the west coast where clean streets are the norm, the amount of garbage found on the streets and sidewalks and by-ways of El Salvador and Latin America is an initial shock. When you've been here a while, even a little while, you begin to see a little more. First of all, you see that Salvadorans must be just about the cleanest people in the world when it comes to their persons and their homes. Clothes are washed and hung out to dry daily; people present themselves in the very best attire they can manage for an occasion. Houses are swept and mopped and picked up daily. People may be very poor and have only torn clothes, but those clothes will be clean.

So why all the garbage in the streets? Here's what I've noticed -

• There are almost no public garbage containers.
• Garbage, like graffiti, piles up in areas that don't seem to "belong" to anyone.
• The structure of houses, with walls enclosing all the private space, makes it easy to ignore the sidewalk and planting strip outside, which can easily begin to collect throw-aways.
• Almost everything anyone buys - including soft drinks - comes wrapped in plastic.
  
• I'm guessing there's an attitude among some that the public spaces, streets and sidewalks, are fair game for dumping rubbish.
  

Garbage collection now is much better than it was in 20o1, when I first visited El Salvador, and you do now see men collecting rubbish from the streets and public places. El Centro is much cleaner than it used to be - that's not to say it's clean!

But if there's more garbage to be seen here (particularly in the dry season - in the wet months, the rain does a great job of street sweeping) than in Seattle, there are also the flowers, amazing flowers. Just down the block from me on the other side of the street are two trees and a vine - yellow and lavender and fuschia flowers. And in the other direction, just a few houses away from ours, this house with its gorgeous clusters of vines: what could be more beautiful?

Adios

This morning very early I took Eleanor to the plane. Rather Don Francisco and I took Eleanor to the plane. He wanted to accompany us, and it seems to me so very appropriate that her last "official" trip to the airport at Comalapa was in the company of a Salvadoran friend and a St. Joseph of Peace Sister.

Then I settled down to an ordinary day - laundry, a little housecleaning, e-mails and letter writing. And I tested myself by driving out to find a couple of places I want to be able to locate - the Artesania on Manuel Araujo where we usually take visitors and Basilea, a charming collection of shops that includes - ah, yes - a bookstore with books and cards in English. I found them both, I'm happy to say, with some interesting misdirections along the way, mostly involving the Zona Rosa, where it's altogether too easy to drive around in widening concentric circles.

Back in Bellevue, in that other life, I worried a bit that I might feel afraid or lonely when Eleanor left. I certainly miss her, but I'm feeling fine. And I'm not even alone in the house - happily, a few days ago Joe Connelly arrived. Joe coordinates a program from the Center for Global Education that brings college students to Central America for a three-month immersion in language, history, environment, politics and culture. The group travels from Guatemala to El Salvador to Nicaragua, and when he's in El Salvador Joe has been staying at our base house. Tonight he came back with pupusas to share. Gracias!

Ash Wednesday

A day of turning, a day of ashes...

Today was Eleanor's last El Salvador day as a long-term resident (I'm surely planning on her being back for next year's medical mission), and it felt completely appropriate that it is also Ash Wednesday, when we're asked to turn from sin and turn toward God's companionship.

We went to Mass at the Chapel of the UCA, University of Central America, the Chapel that memorializes the martyred Jesuits - and the 20th anniversary of their martyrdom is this year. Padre Dean Brackley gave a fine homily - especially fine for me, as I understood almost every word - in which he asked us all to accept this opportunity for new life and to lay down some of the things (like television, perhaps) that get in the way of God's companionship.

We were dramatically marked with ashes and came home to an omelet and the last bits of packing and the opportunity for new life that's right here to hand for Eleanor and for me.

Here's what T.S, Eliot has to say about this new life that keeps dancing in us (from Ash Wednesday):

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

Neighborhood meeting

Last week there was a neighborhood meeting for the 24 houses on our street, and I went. The meeting started at 8:30, and when I gave up and went home at 10:30, it was still going, but jerkily. I've facilitated neighborhood meetings and organized neighborhood meetings, so it was very odd to sit, struck dumb, in a neighborhood meeting where, if I opened my mouth, I would sound like someone's four-year-old who just happened to look like a gray-haired grandmother.

We all sat or stood around the guard house on a variety of plastic chairs. The circle of neighbors extended out into the street, so whenever a car entered half of the meeting had to pick up their chairs and move.

I followed the general thread of the meeting, met some neighbors, and heard some familiar attitudes - the man who valued his time at home and didn't want to go to meetings, the woman who could always think of one more possibility. But there was much I didn't follow, so I listened for language and attitudes. The formality was a surprise: the neighbors carefully addressed each other as Don, Doña or Licenciada (an all purpose title indicating a college graduate). They addressed our guards as Don Alex and Don Francisco.

I've already learned that Salvadorans like wearing uniforms and dressing carefully. This was another indication that the rules of courtesy - rules we've mostly discarded in the United States, where almost everyone is on a first-name basis - are important here. It hadn't occurred to me to say "Don Alex" or "Don Francisco" to our guards: now it does. And I'm getting to like being called "Hermana Susana," though I have never been entirely comfortable with Sister Susan.

Gratitude notes

Eleanor's party had some interesting moments that I didn't mention yesterday. First of all, the refrigerator part of our refrigerator stopped working the night before the Saturday party (the freezer was going full blast) so we called the repairmen Saturday morning. Be right over, they said, or the Spanish equivalent. They did make it at noon - the party due to start at 1 PM - and fixed the refrigerator (blocked by ice) in half an hour. Charged $18. Meanwhile James Boyle, who came back from the beach with us on Friday, was hauling in bag after bag of ice to cool down the gaseosas, beer, water and wine. And I was trying to cook the pasta and sauce for lunch.

A little bit into the party, I saw first one Salvadoran guest and then another and then another come into the kitchen, wash the dishes that had accumulated, and quietly leave - Gloria, Oscar, Guadalupe - and with no fuss the dishes were done. It's very Salvadoran, this willingness to turn to and do the work that needs to be done. In much the same way, our volunteers at the Comasagua clinic helped clean up the clinic every morning before we opened - not because they were asked, but because it needed doing, and the one man whose job it was couldn't possibly get it all cleaned and fill the water barrels before we opened.

I can't quite imagine either the refrigerator repair or the dishwashing happening with so little fuss in my homeland. I'm grateful - and I'm challenged to try to live up to this standard of hospitality and helpfulness.

Una despedida dulce y triste

A sweet and sad farewell - Peggy O'Neill and I hosted a luncheon for Eleanor's many Salvadoran friends today - we had about 40 people somehow fitting in to our house, and all of them had something special to say about Eleanor. Some, like Doctor Jorge Cabezas and Estela Garcia, remembered the days during the war at Jesuit Refugee Service, when Eleanor (first with Margaret Jane Kling and then with Margaret Byrne) got up long before dawn to get patients to the hospitals, when she faced being twice arrested with courage. Others, like Margarita, Gloria and Clelia from the Pastoral de Salud of the Archdiocese, talked about what she has done for the people of El Salvador by bringing PazSalud and the medical missions here. Peggy talked about how important it was to have a Sister-friend, and how important it is in the United States that this mission and presence continues.

A note from Guadalupe says beautifully what all were saying: Para mi es un regalo de Dios conocerle. Siempre estara dentro de mi corazon - For me it is a gift of God to know you. You will always be in my heart.

Thank you, Eleanor, for the way you have kept faith with the people of El Salvador these many years. You will always be in their hearts.