What I do....

I'm often asked by people in our mission teams just what I do when they're not around. There's no predictable pattern to my days, but this week is a good example of the mix.

Monday Peggy O'Neill picked me up at the airport. I went home and unpacked and slept long and late.

Tuesday I made up a depressingly long to-do list for the week and wrote a formal report about our mission in San Juan Opico for the Medical Board (Junta Vigilancia de la Profesión Médica) and a formal request for permission to hold our cataract surgery week at San Rafael Hospital in May. Sounds simple, but because it all had to be written in Spanish - and, it's to be hoped, in proper Spanish - it took all the morning. In the afternoon I drove to the little community of Huisisilapa, about an hour east from Suchitoto, to give a pass-through donation to Ylda and her family, and then drove west and north to El Paraiso, where I talked with Rosita, who receives a regular donation from friends in PeaceHealth.

Wednesday I got up early to get to the Mass for Archbishop Romero in San Salvador, which was supposed to start at 7 AM. I took a wrong turn on the way and got outrageously lost, didn't arrive until almost 8 AM, but the liturgical readings were just beginning, so I was there for most of the Mass and part of the march. After that I went to the Loyola Center, a Jesuit retreat house, to make reservations for our May eye surgery group during the week, and to the Hotel Novo to make reservations for the weekend. I drove out to Santa Tecla to visit with Doctora Ana Vilma de Burgos, an ophthalmologist and our sponsor for the eye surgery group. Asked her to write the formal sponsorship letter for SEE, International, the group that provides the inter-ocular lenses and all the surgery materials for us. I also showed her our cataract surgery video, in which she stars. Somewhere in there, I managed to eat lunch, pay the internet/phone/cable bill and get a haircut.

Thursday I worked at our office at the Centro Arte para la Paz in the morning, catching up on e-mails and on everyone's goings-on. In the afternoon I had a visit from Maira, who was our major coordinator for a mission three years ago in Tamanique, and Mercedes who coordinated our Comasagua mission last year. Maira had asked me if PazSalud could help a man in her community who had lost his leg in an accident and needed a prosthesis to keep on working. Half of the cost will be carried by FUNTER, La Fundación Teletón Pro Rehabilitación, but he had to find the other half, and that was difficult, because he was out of work. We agreed to contribute a part of his cost, and he was able to put together the rest. Maira and Mercedes were here to get our check for FUNTER. Next week I'll be able to meet Alex and his new leg - I'm looking forward to it.

Thursday was the Feast of the Annunciation - and in addition to attending Mass at Santa Lucia at 5 PM, I watched the video of Oscar Alvaro's ordination as a priest, which his sister Martha left for me. Both were beautiful celebrations.

Today I drove up to Comasagua, almost two hours from Suchitoto, where I met with Nubia to deliver some assistance to her very poor family and then with Rosa, our great local volunteer during our missions in Comasagua and San Juan Opico (Rosa is now our best expert on organizing the eyes clinic). Rosa had asked me to bring back a wheelchair for a woman in the small Comasagua community of El Rosario, and thanks to the Bellingham Lions Club, it was part of my baggage on the flight to El Salvador. Rosa and two helpers from the Alcaldia in Comasagua and I bumped very slowly down about 10 kilometers of rocky road to El Rosario and delivered the wheelchair to Rosa Anelida, who has been bed bound for some time. The chair is going to allow her to get around in her small house and to sit on on the veranda where she can watch what's going on in her world. Then we bounced slowly back to Comasagua, giving Daniel and his mother a ride (that's a story for another post...tomorrow). I drove back down the gorgeous mountain road from Comasagua to Santa Tecla, where I had an errand in Hospital San Rafael. The Director's secretary was supposed to have Dra. de Burgos' sponsorship letter ready for me - but she hadn't been able to find last year's letter, and I hadn't thought to bring a copy. That letter is a key part of the application to the Medical Board for the cataract surgery mission. So instead of taking them the report on the medical mission and the application, I just took the report. Since the Medical Board is located on one of the most impossibly complicated corners in San Salvador, that took a bit of time. And the office was filled with doctors getting or renewing their licenses, which took a bit more time. Finally I was free to head over to the Archdiocese, where I returned an ice chest that had gotten mixed up with our bins and boxes to Dina, who will get it to its proper owner. And I headed for home.

That will teach you all to ask me what I do when mission groups aren't around! I admit, this week was extra heavy, crunched in between my getting home and Holy Week, when every office that can possibly be closed is closed. But it's not unusual. There's a lot of travel to offices, a lot of meetings, frequent times of waiting around or coming back the next day - but most important, there are many people whose lives I'm able to help a bit because of the generosity of our donors. Thank you!

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.

Seashores

My sister Kathy and I returned from Eugene to Seattle the long and beautiful way, driving along the Oregon coast from Florence to Astoria, stopping to visit the sea lion caves (full of large lounging sea lions), to climb up to the Heceta Head lighthouse, and to walk the beach. It's my second long day by the Pacific within the past month: the other was at the beach pictured at top, in El Zonte, El Salvador. Thanks to Patti Moore for the El Zonte photo, which shows the grass-thatched huts and palm trees of a tropical Pacific fantasy. Heceta Head lies close to 44 degrees of latitude; El Zonte at 13 degrees, 30 minutes and the same ocean pushes and pulls at the shore in each place, the same gray whales go swimming by.

Thanks be to God for oceans and ocean shores, for the intimate connections of salty blood and salty ocean, heartbeat and wavebeat, water and ground.

Up the MacKenzie River

On Thursday afternoon we were treated to a memorable trip up the MacKenzie River with the Garcia family - Kathy, our PazSalud program manager, her husband Victor and their daughter Andrea. It was raining, but after all, this is the Northwest, and the rain felt familiar, gentle and cool - wholly unlike rain in El Salvador. We stopped at a fish hatchery to see a pond full of lucky rainbow trout - the ones who got chosen to live their lives in this pond free from anglers - and enormous sturgeon. Then the road wound up through forests of Douglas fir, hemlock and cedar until we reached the beautiful Sahalie falls, where the MacKenzie crashes over rock. And on the way back, we stopped at a roadside inn for pizza. I should probably mention that Kathy Garcia and I did spend the morning working hard on our program, but I know that this afternoon in the mountains was a special treat for the other Kathy - my sister - and me.

It's a hard life

Thanks to Jen Cowan for this photo from our trip to the ocean at El Zonte. I don't get to loll in a hammock every day (though we do have one in the house, and it's an elegant place for naps on hot afternoons), but this photo tells you something that's probably already obvious to anyone reading my blog: I'm having a great time here. Yes, my Spanish still stumbles, it's hot, there are bugs, and last night I shared my room with a small black bat, but these, too, are adventures. There's always a new person to meet around the corner and a hammock waiting somewhere. I'm thankful.

Gratitude

Grace flew home Saturday, and I'm finding finishing up the last ends of packing dreary on my own. I'm surely grateful for two weeks of help in this process, and for Grace's cheerful presence. And I'm glad we had a bit of fun along the way.

Now it's time to undo the electronics - a complicated lot, most of which will not be used in the Suchitoto house as we've found a simpler way to connect me up to the PeaceHealth network. I'll be offline for a while - not too long, I hope!

Working together

Grace and I went up to Suchitoto yesterday to see the new house and it is looking delightful. We took up the potted plants from the garden here and set them in the patio underneath the nance tree and limon. The nance fruits are falling right now, and here's a bag full of them, about the size of large cherries - you eat them after they've fallen, when they're dark red/maroon; they're sweet and a little chewy, and they're one of the many fruits here you won't find in a U.S. supermarket.

Then we headed back to the city and got to work on sorting and packing.

One of the great, and greatly undervalued, joys of life is working together with someone. I've been delighting in working with Grace these past few days as we search the depths of the cupboards, decide on the right destination for obscure objects (an exercise ball that can't be blown up because the stopper is missing; a can of dried and hardened spackle; the top to an electric fry pan - but not the bottom). Sorting and packing/discarding this by myself would be tedious and dusty and a little gloomy. Sorting and packing with Grace is fun and dusty and cheerful. It is so good to be part of a community of friends!

The discarding part is easy: you put things out on the sidewalk, and if they are of any interest to anyone they disappear. If they don't disappear, they'll be picked up by the trash collection tomorrow. Recycling is more a way of life here than a government program.

Grace

I'm so happy to say that Sister Grace arrived safely on Continental this evening - carrying with her gifts of coffee liqueur, ginger and very sharp cheddar cheese! We will feast! I think it must be because she's doing such a good deed, coming down here to help me pack and move (and bringing yummy gifts as well), but Grace, travelling on miles, got put in first class seats for both flights. A just reward! It's been great to hear the news of St. Mary's and the Sisters - like getting to take a quick trip back there where the rhododendrons are blossoming.

Tomorrow is a celebration of the Province Leadership - Andrea and Beth and Barb Haase. I had my thank-you party in December, before I came down here, and I hope theirs is just as much fun - and full of just as much love.

Seeing with new eyes

Over the last two days I've had the joy of seeing the cataract surgery patients as they came in for a post-op examination with Dra. de Burgos (shown above in her office). I got a multitude of hugs and thanks, and some mangos and avocados, but - as I kept trying to say - the joy was ours, to be part of a group giving back to these strong and beautiful people the gift of their sight. I think of Jesus, making mud with spittle to open the eyes of the blind, and our doctors with their drapes and gloves and sterilized instruments, and it's all healing, restoration.

It was a joy to see Mercedes and Rosa, our peerless organizers again (Mercedes is on the left end of the group photo above, Rosa was still out escorting one last patient) - they had managed to get every last surgery patient from Comasagua on to the bus and down to Dra. de Burgos' office, and they were there with them through all the waiting and examinations.

In Luke, Jesus begins his public ministry by saying:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has annointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free.

(Luke 4:18)

That's the work of liberation and recovery that Mercedes and Rosa have given their lives to. Those of us fortunate enough to be part of the PazSalud eye surgery brigade were able to share in a bit of their work. What a privilege for us over-privileged ones!

Abundance and scarcity

I seem to be accumulating an abundance of things to take back - eyeglasses for 24 Comasagua folk who needed special prescriptions (mostly myopic kids from the school), a laptop for Walther who's going to University in San Salvador, vitamins for Nubia and her family, a set of soccer jerseys from my dental hygienist. Will this all fit inside the small suitcase and backpack I brought back with me? Seems unlikely. I'll have to borrow a big bag.

I'm also noticing the signs of scarcity all around me. Office space for lease, houses for sale everywhere. My friends are planning to work longer, worried about losing their jobs. People are practicing not buying, not consuming. Everyone's wondering how long the recession's going to go on. With all those signs of scarcity, the abundance of gifts I'm bringing back for people in El Salvador is especially meaningful.

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!

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.

Trámites

Trámites means procedures, paperwork, going through official channels and today - after Eleanor and I put Andrea and Beth on the plane back to Seattle - was dedicated to trámites. I need to get a driver's license, transfer the title to our project car (a sturdy and faithful 1996 Toyota Forerunner) into my name, get my name on our bank statements, order new checks....and this was just the beginning. Thanks to our lawyer, Doctora Consuelo, our banker, Señor Paz, and the young woman who issued me an N.I.T. (No. de Identificacion Tributaria, which I think means something like Tax Identification Number) for the astonishing sum of 23 cents, I am well on the way to becoming a real person in the eyes of the Salvadoran government. What was best, and most astonishing to a Norteamericana, was the generosity and helpfulness of almost everyone we talked to. No one seemed to be rushing to the next task or project. Each person I met took account of my limited Spanish and made sure I understood what I needed to do.

And that's what I'm learning to love about El Salvador: relationships matter more than efficiency.

Catching happiness like the flu

"Happiness is contagious, spreading among friends, neighbors, siblings and spouses like the flu, according to a large study that for the first time shows how emotion can ripple through clusters of people who may not even know each other."

For the rest of this story by Rob Stein, go to the Washington Post. But what a joy to think that your joy can spill over and get me smiling, that my grin could spark your grin, and so on and on.

And even better: the same study, rigorous and scientific, found that misery, while it's catchable, is much less catchable than happiness.

Maybe we're built for joy.

23 days to El Salvador!

Giving Thanks

Yesterday, as in the past six years, I enjoyed two family Thanksgiving feasts - one with the Sisters at St. Mary's at noon, and one with my sister and her family in the evening. I'm filled with gratitude for both my families and overfilled with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, pie. And I'm filled with gratitude to God for all these blessings of loving and being loved, being part of such good families.

Today there are 30 days left until I move to El Salvador, and today - filled with all that good turkey and the need to work some of it off - I cleared out a basement space where I'd stored camping gear, Christmas decorations, and old paperwork. Turned out to be surprisingly easy..... and I give thanks for that!