The more things change...

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.

Roof work

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.

In Suchitoto

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

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.

Home time

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.

One rough day

I put Kathy Garcia on the plane this morning after what has to have been just about her worst day ever in El Salvador. It began with digestive upset & stomach cramps, which left her drinking Gator-Aid and eating toast for the day. Then, when she was lying down in the afternoon, she heard a scrabbling, and looked up to see a couple of rats running along one of the ceiling beams. The usual furor ensued: Kathy yelped, the rats fled, we moved her into a different bedroom. This was a little discouraging for us, as we hadn't seen rats for months and were happily convinced that they'd gone to live elsewhere.

This would have been more than enough, but then at 8 PM our neighbor started up the disco music at top volume, playing until after midnight. Not unreasonable on a Friday night, and usually I would just curl up with year one of The West Wing, which Korla has kindly loaned me - but Kathy and I had to get up at 3 AM to get her to the plane on time. We each got perhaps two hours sleep, but luckily there's no one on the roads at 3 AM, and after dropping her off I dozed for a couple of hours in the airport parking lot, in a blissful quiet interrupted only by the squacking of the grackles that live there.

At about this time, Kathy should be reaching home in Oregon, very, very tired and very, very glad to see her husband and daughter and quiet bed. I hope tomorrow will be perfect enough to make up for Friday.

A new home

A few weeks ago, I told about finding a sewing machine for Sonia, a mother with four young children, a couple of whom have major health problems. At that time she was squatting with her family in a shack made out of lamina, thin metal sheets propped together, on the edge of a district badly contaminated by lead from a former battery company, and was making her living selling used clothes.

A couple of days ago, I went to visit Sonia and her family in a new home. While I was in the United States, Dina Duvon - the great community organizer who made our San Juan Opico mission possible - had found a house that Sonia could rent for a very small monthly amount. It's a small, sturdy brick house with two rooms, and a big yard with space to grow vegetables and flowers. The family now lives away from the lead contamination zone. They have good neighbors, including Reyna, one of the health promoters who worked with us last year.

Sonia was happy to show me the clothes she's been sewing on her beautiful sewing machine - pants and skirts for children that looked pretty professional to me. I was happy to see them in a healthier and more hopeful situation, and deeply grateful to Dina and Reyna who made it all possible.

Flo among the grasses

Last night, during halftime in the El Salvador - Honduras futbol (soccer) game, I went back to my room and startled a visitor who flew about while I shrieked. First I thought it was a bat, but she settled down, and I could see that I was entertaining the largest grasshopper I had ever seen. She (ah yes, an assumption, that) was about 6 inches long, brown, peaceable, and apparently very contented in my room. She settled on the edge of my night-table and Korla and I took photos. Then we suggested a move to her, and she flew around the room again while we both shrieked. Finally I enticed her into climbing on to a newspaper, which I put on the other side of the patio. And I closed the door.

After El Salvador's loss on overtime penalty kicks (the game itself was a lively 2-2 tie), I found our visitor lurking in the patio outside the bathroom door. "Goodnight," I said, "and go home." But when I woke up this morning to a shriek from Margaret Jane, it was clear that Flo, as we'd named her for her Flojo leaping legs, was still around. She'd tried an assault on Margaret Jane's room that led to upset coffee and Flo sitting peacefully at the foot of our stairs.

After such long acquaintance, we wanted to find her a safe home, far from our house. Korla trapped her in a box and took her to the Centro Arte para la Paz, where there will be actual grasses for her to lurk in. Or if that doesn't entice Flo, there are all the hostel rooms to visit...

Home again

Four good days of meetings concluded - we managed a strategic overview of communications for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, and set out a plan for a new bi-annual journal that will begin this fall - it's time to get on the plane and head south. It feels, somehow, a bit stranger to be going home to Suchitoto from Englewood Cliffs than from my familiar room at St. Mary-on-the-Lake in Bellevue.

I've been sneezing, honking and dripping my way through a cold, probably caught on my way up, that I hope is past the transmissable stage. Sympathy to all those who will be sitting anywhere near me on the plane - though I'm going to take a strong antihistamine in hopes of reducing the drip.

I return with many envelopes for Margaret Jane, carrying the love of her sisters and a few donations to her teaching ministry. It's been great to see how valued our missions in El Salvador and Haiti are to our community here at home.

Sweet home

It's a joy and a small miracle that I can feel so at home in two such very different places. Very early this morning (I missed my planned connection in Houston and had to take the late plane) I finally reached my room at St. Mary-on-the-Lake in Bellevue. This morning quite a bit later it was great to be welcomed home by the Sisters, to participate in the Mass in English, and then to watch a bit of the extraordinary US/Canada hockey game and a bit of the closing ceremonies. As you might imagine, Winter Olympics don't have much appeal in El Salvador, and besides we were pretty busy with the medical mission. But here they're just around the corner in Vancouver, so I was glad to catch the tag end and hear some of the stories. Sweet home, sweet homes.

Rats, begone!

This morning Higinia - my landlord's sister and stand-in - arrived with Rene and Francisco and her son Jonathan in tow to tackle the back door. This has been a door in name only, at the back of the kitchen, locked on our side and up against a plywood wall on the other side. There was a little opening at the top, and we've seen rats escaping through it. I asked Higinia if the opening could be closed up, thinking of something simple like another plywood covering.

Instead they took down the door and the plywood wall on the other side - revealing the rat's nest, which looked just like a rat's nest should, messy. Three rats escaped, but Francisco got one. I hope they're moving to another neighborhood altogether, though that's perhaps just wishful thinking on my part. Meanwhile, I got to see what's on the other side - a long, narrowing corridor that's been usefully converted into two long, narrowing bathrooms. On the other side of the bathrooms is a little restaurant and a beauty salon, and a family lives there as well.

Rene and Francisco and Jonathan built a new wall of concrete block filled with concrete (mixed in the patio), closed up the wall, leveled the floor which used to have a 8-inch dropoff in front of the door, cleaned up and left, promising to return to give the new wall a finish coat and paint in January.

While all this was going on, two of Rene's daughters and an almost-a-year-old grandson came by and talked and checked out the work - like everything else here, building this wall was a family affair. It's one of the things I love about El Salvador.

Leaving home and going home

Time to go home! I leave on the red-eye special tonight, get in to the Comalapa airport tomorrow morning, where Roberto will pick me up (he'll be holding a sign saying "Hermana Susana, Suchitoto"). Peggy, who usually gives me a ride home, is flying to the U.S. today for three weeks of talks and fundraising for the Centro Arte para la Paz. I'm looking forward to seeing Margaret Jane and Pat and Martha and Berty and Yanira, to the heat and the end of the rainy season, to the time when the toads go underground until next May when the rains begin again.

Time to leave home. It's raining furiously right now and the days are getting shorter and shorter. I won't miss the winter rains, but I'll miss my Sisters and my sister, my friends and family here. And Thai food, kale, red leaves, neighborhood coffee shops. And being able to open my mouth and talk without having to think about how to say what I want to say.

Time to go home and continue the Spanish studies!

Home from Home

When I came into the El Salvador airport today, the immigration officer - after checking my residency permit - welcomed me to my second home. I'm delighted to have two places - my room at St. Mary-on-the-Lake in Bellevue and the house here in Suchitoto - which feel like home to me. It was good to be home for a couple of weeks to see family, friends and community, and it was good to be welcomed to my second home by Margaret Jane and Peggy.

Corpus Cristi

Yesterday began the celebration of Corpus Cristi in Antigua and I began the day feeling a worried and lonely. I think it will always be that way when I want to be part of what's happening with Sisters and friends at home and realize how far away I am. I'd learned that Chero Chuma, a young CSJP Sister from Kenya who is very dear to me, had to travel home because of a mixup with her Visa, and I was worried about her.

But Corpus Cristi shook the worry out of me. I went to the celebration in the Cathedral with Rosi, my teacher, where incense did battle with the gunpowder from the fireworks exploding outside. After Mass we joined the procession, following the host through the streets of Antigua, walking over carpets of pine needles and flowers, listening to the band and admiring the little angelitos. Corpus Cristi, like most festive events in Antigua, involves special food: talluyos, a tamale made with corn and red beans, and tamalitos de combray, a sweet tamale flavored with cinnamon. We enjoyed both, along with a short vacation from the imperfect and preterit tenses. What a perfect way to celebrate the Body and Blood of Christ, with a procession, with a banquet!

So, Chero, I hope you get home in time to celebrate Corpus Cristi with your family, and I hope your new Visa will soon be arranged. And I wish I had been home to give you a hug before you got on the plane, but I wouldn't have wanted to miss yesterday in Antigua.

Hidden things

The key to the filing cabinet is somewhere - I very carefully put it somewhere so I could be sure to find it. And then forgot where the somewhere is. Unpacking is a chaotic experience. Yesterday I hunted all over the house for a bandaid for the Amnet technician who'd cut his finger while putting in the internet and cable and telephone. Ended up with gauze pads and tape. Today I knew exactly where the bandaids were.

The house is beginning to emerge - here are photos of the sala (living room), comedor (dining room), the chapel, which will double as an extra bedroom, and the patio. The house is big, welcoming, and very Salvadoran and I love it. The biggest challenge is having no closets, but today, walking down the street, I saw an excellent contraption of plastic covered wire for sale that will offer somewhere to hang clothes. Armando did a great job of connecting the fans today, so the air is moving. And the accumulated tiredness of three weeks of moving has caught up with me. I'm headed for bed.

Following up

Today was dedicated to follow-ups of various kinds. Kathy Garcia and I drove up to Suchitoto to take a look at the new house and discovered that LOTS remained to be done before a move in would be possible. I sent the landlord a list and we had a good conversation about it all via Skype (he lives in San Diego) and I'm expecting a lot of action in the next two weeks.

Writing a follow-up report on our work for the year to date was a lot easier, except that it's April, the hottest month of the year here, and I kept dripping sweat onto the keyboard. We had a brief, intense rainstorm this evening without much cooling. I'm eager for the real rains to begin. I'm a bit homesick for the tulips and rhododendrons that should be blooming around St. Mary's now - but a strange and beautiful flower, a lily relative, has poked its head out of the earth bed in the patio of my soon-to-be-home, and a handsome lime tree shades the patio. New things to learn to love.

A house in Suchitoto

I have been thinking about moving away from San Salvador, the capitol city, for a while, because I'd prefer living in a smaller community where it's easier to meet people, and where I don't have to live with razor wire and vigilantes (guards). Last week, while Margaret Jane and I were visiting in Suchitoto, which is a good sized community about an hour north of San Salvador, we looked around for possible houses to rent, toured three, and found one that seems perfect! It's about the same size as the present house in San Salvador (that's pretty big, but we hope to have lots of guests), but all on one level, and it's a classic Salvadoran style of house: adobe, fronting directly on the street, with an internal patio, and the rooms arranged around the patio. No razor wire, no vigilantes (though I'm going to miss Don Francisco and Don Alex). There are homes on either side, the market is just on the other side of the block, I'm about two blocks from the church and central plaza, and across the street is a doctor's office, dentist's office and funeral home: one stop shopping!

Of course, this means I will have to move.... But, happily, Sister Grace DiDomenicantonio has agreed to come help me with the packing and organizing. Grace lived here, at the present Base House, for a couple of years, so she has many friends to visit in San Salvador - and she knows the ins and outs of what's hidden in the cupboards. Around mid-May a couple of guys from Suchitoto will bring their trucks down, and we'll pile everything in, and then comes the fun of unpacking.

Meanwhile the surgical mission arrives Saturday for a week of cataract surgeries at Hospital San Rafael, and I am more than busy getting ready for them. Felices pascuas a todos - Happy Easter to everyone!

One day

During my two weeks in Seattle/Bellevue, a lot of people asked me what my typical day would be like. I generally responded to this question by looking confused and a bit stupid: there's no such thing as a typical day here. But I can tell you about today, which was normal and undramatic and busy.

I got up at 6 (it's pretty hard to do anything else, with the sun up and the traffic going and the pigeons cooing), brewed a big pot of coffee and prayed (I have a small prayer table at my bedroom window; I look out onto trees and rooftops and sunshine). During breakfast, I read the paper, La Prensa Grafica - I'm trying to read at least an hour each day in Spanish, mostly reading aloud to work on pronunciation. But not when I'm eating toast.

I made plans to visit Hospital San Rafael tomorrow, in hopes of finally getting a tour of the surgery suite we'll be using. I made plans to visit Comasagua Thursday, taking with me the 24 pairs of prescription glasses, mostly for children, and some food and assistance for Nubia and her family. These arrangements involved a few phone calls, which are my personal bugaboo (imagine listening to a fast talker in the language you're learning when you can't see her face or body language - confusion!)

Then it was time to pay bills at the bank (you can pay utility bills at the company offices or at the bank, but not by mail) and deposit some money. The bank's close by, so I walked (one way to get a bit of exercise) only to discover that I'd brought the wrong account number for the deposit. I walked on to the Archdiocese of San Salvador offices to see Licenciada Vazquez, who is getting the permits for the medications we'll bring in for the eye surgery. She wasn't in, but I managed to find the Spanish to tell Lilian, who keeps that office running, what I needed, and she promised to have the Lda. call me.

I've been wanting to talk with the Caritas staff at the Archdiocese about possible places for next year's mission, so I walked up four flights of stairs to find that only the secretary was in. She took a note and gave me a cell phone number for Margarita, the woman I should talk to.

I walked home and it was time for lunch (and more Spanish reading, this time a novel). Made some additions to our surgery list and sent it out by e-mail. Called Leslie Schuld at CIS to ask for a doctor's name (to go through immigration for El Salvador, I have to have a Salvadoran doctor certify that I'm free of infectious diseases). She knows a great clinic by the Tres Torres - and where are the Tres Torres, said I? Really close to your house, said she. This will mean another of my many expeditions to find something in San Salvador.

Drove to our landlady's house to pay rent and voice a complaint about the portón, the big iron gate in back that is so hard to open. She will send someone to work on it. Maybe. Then I set off to find a police station, because the immigration is also going to require that the local police run a records check on me. But I turned off on the wrong street, and ended up somewhere quite different (this also happens all the time). By the time I relocated myself, I decided to just go to the bank, this time with the right account number, and make my deposit. But by now it was 4 PM, and everyone else was in line with me, so I said the rosary (in Spanish) and practiced the Salvadoran art of waiting patiently. Stopped in PriceSmart, the local version of Costco, to get some staples for Nubia's family (beans, rice, cornmeal, oil). Licenciada Vazquez called me on the cell phone in the middle of aisle 10 to tell me she needed the airline number and date and number of people in our surgery group to complete getting our franchise for the medications.

Rushed back home to e-mail Kathy Garcia for that information and to cook dinner (a Panamanian chicken stew, good recipe). And as the evening continued, I set up a meeting with our lawyer for Thursday afternoon, and promised to meet Carlos, who will be having laser eye surgery, at the doctor's office on Saturday. Got the information from Kathy and wrote up a memo. Gave the monthly money for our guard service to two neighborhood boys who called at the house with the receipt all made out. Somewhere in there I ate dinner and watched a little CNN. And now it's time for bed.

So that's as close to a typical day as I can get, for all those who asked, and for any who've had the patience to follow this long post to the end.

Home

I'm a fortunate woman to have two homes - though not in the real estate sense. I've spent the last two weeks in Bellevue and Seattle, seeing friends and family and community What a feast of friendships! And what feasts - Thai food, Indian food, glorious gourmet home cooking.

When I'm in Bellevue, I live in a room in Cusack Hall at St. Mary-on-the-Lake. It's been great to have a little room I can call my own when I come home, with my books and my winter clothes and my bed all set up. I left it with some empty drawers and closet space so a visitor or retreatant can use it when I'm not around. And yesterday I got up very early to go to the airport to leave home and to come home. All my motley collection of suitcases arrived in good order with the computer for Walther and the prescription eyeglasses for Comasagua and the vitamins for Nubia's family and the camera/printer for El Centro Arte para la Paz and assorted finger puppets and balls for children and a few more books for me. Fortunately the soccer jerseys didn't arrive, because both of the bags being checked were stuffed to the gills and close to the weight limit.

The immigration forms ask what your country of residence is, and this time, for the first time, I said "El Salvador," which led to a long conversation with the man at the immigration desk. Yes, I live here. And here, as I came back to the San Salvador house, to my summer clothes and more books, to the mail Francisco and Alex saved for me, to my bed all set up, here feels like home.