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.

Welcome Alejandro Emanuel

I am very happy to say that Ani Paula yesterday gave birth to her and Alex's son, Alejandro Emanuel, via a Caesarian section. Since Ani Paula's pregnancy was high-risk (she has kidney disease) she has been in the hospital for about a month, and it's been a hard wait for Alex and all their family. Today the news is wonderful: Alejandro Emanuel weighs 6.5 pounds and is whole and healthy. Ani Paula is recovering well from the C-section and will be released once her doctors determine that her vital functions are all good.

Thanks to all of you who have been holding Alex and Ani Paula in prayer!

Critters

Living with your garden in the middle of your house, as most do here, means living with a few more critters than most North Americans are used to. Tonight Pat and I came back to the house and found a toad sitting in the dining room. How he got here is a mystery - I can't imagine a toad climbing the roofs to get into the garden, and the drain openings seem a little small for this good sized amphibian - but here he undoubtedly was. Pat turns out to have experience in toad removal, fortunately, and trapped him under a yogurt container before decanting him onto the street.

Last night our visitor was a gray and white cat - and she, I know for sure, came and left via the roof tiles. Meanwhile, there are a good number of permanent residents. Among them, when I first moved in, were black bats - and they liked to find a quiet, dark bedroom at about 4 AM and take up residence. We found a little machine that puts out noises that are said to repel bats, and plugged it in. It's worked like a charm, but now a cricket has taken up residence next to the bat repeller - it's probably attracted to the noise, perhaps it's an interspecies romance - and chirps there all through the night.

There are always ants and bees and small bugs (including some that look exactly like green leaves with legs) and no-see-ums around, and because of them we're happy whenever we see or hear one of the family of geckos who live here and snack on them. Birds and butterflies come and go, to my delight.

And then there are the critters who are only heard: the dogs who enter into huge barking contests at night - last night they were howling, the cats who sometimes stage battles on the roofs, the cocks who start calling for sunrise at 2 AM. I'm more conscious here than I ever was in Bellevue of being part of a shared world, one among the creatures who use this tropical space.

Reading Monseñor

A while back, I bought one volume of the six-volume set of Monseñor Romero's homilies, the volume that holds his reflections (in Spanish) on the liturgical readings for Cycle B, from June to November, 1979. Thirty years later, we're hearing those same readings proclaimed on Sundays.

Reading Monseñor's 1979 homilies is a multilayered experience. I'm aware of the passion and power of his reflections, of his deep love for scripture and for the church. He also comments every week on what is going on, the increasing repression and reprisals that would lead to his own assassination only a few months later. Reading what he said over the radio to the people of El Salvador (and everybody sat by their radio to listen, I'm told) I feel a great sorrow for the loss that is still to come, the loss of this great and clear and loving voice.

It's powerful to hold these homilies and the terrible times in El Salvador 30 years ago in mind and heart as I look at today's world. Better here, yes, but tonight there's another tense situation in Honduras, and there are places of loss and agony all over the world. I've also just finished The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn, a book that took me back 70 years to see and know some of the ordinary lives that were wasted in the Holocaust. Reading Monseñor and Daniel Mendelsohn, one sees the horrible, repetitive, banal quality of evil, of what can be unleashed when the restraints are off, when some humans have become prey, have been seen as less than human because they're Jewish or Tutsi or thought to be communists. The supposedly civilized times of my life have known too much of evil unleashed.

Thanks to the Lions!

Yesterday, after a great deal of tramites (official business) had been managed by members of the Lions Club of El Salvador, the donations brought in August by Kathy Garcia and Ken Henderson were finally released from the Customs Office. An official from the Department of Health brought the three boxes and the wheelchair to the Lions Club in Santa Tecla, everything was there and in great shape, and the Lions happily presented the A-Scan Ultrasound Probe to Dra. Ana de Burgos, ophthalmologist, and Dra. Soraya Benavidez who accepted it on behalf of San Rafael Hospital (the A-Scan is the machine with a screen that's between the two Doctoras).

Many thanks to the Lions Club for their hard work on this! The experience has certainly taught us that even with small amounts of donated items, in the future we'll be going through the process to obtain a franquisia well in advance of arriving at the airport!

Goings and Comings

Yesterday I took Peggy O'Neill and three teachers from El Sitio Cenizero, Rosa, Selena and Eva to the airport for their flight to New Jersey. Rosa, Selena and Eva are Associates of Peggy's Sisters of Charity community, and they are joining her in NJ for the celebration of the Sisters' 150th anniversary. The level of excitement in the car was pretty high, as none of the three had ever been in an airplane before. Because of the Independence Day parades, we gave ourselves extra time, a good thing, because a parade in Apopa had us stopped for a good (or bad) half hour. But they're off, and by now they're soaking in the experience of the eastern U.S.

Later in the day, I picked up my friend Pat, standing under the Centro de Atención Turística - Suchitoto sign. Pat, who lives in Santa Fe, is going to be here for a couple of months, and I'm looking forward to exploring more of El Salvador with her.

Independence Day

Yesterday was El Salvador's Independence Day, a celebration of the break from Spain in 1821. The day is marked everywhere in the country by processions of school kids. I didn't get to see Suchitoto's Tuesday procession, but on Monday night the high school students had their own procession, and just about everyone in town turned out to see it. There were bands, there were many different kinds of dancers, there were flaming torches and flag bearers and costumed mummies and pharaohs - it was glorious, and the central square was packed with families enjoying the party.